An expressly protected environmental right
The Turkish Constitution expressly recognises an environmental fundamental right. Article 56 provides that everyone has the right to live in a healthy and balanced environment. At the same time, it assigns both the State and citizens responsibility for improving the environment, protecting environmental health and preventing environmental pollution.
Environmental protection is therefore more than a political objective or an administrative task. Its constitutional status gives it fundamental-right significance and, in particular, requires the State to establish effective legislative and institutional safeguards.
A third-generation right – or also a positive entitlement?
The right to the environment is predominantly classified among third-generation or solidarity rights. Environmental problems are collective and often transboundary by nature. Neither individuals nor a single State can secure the protection of soil, water, air, flora and fauna alone. Environmental protection requires social and international solidarity and concerns present as well as future generations.
The case law of the Turkish Constitutional Court nevertheless reveals features associated with positive state obligations. The Court emphasises that the State must prevent pollution, preserve and improve environmental assets, and establish effective legal measures and institutional structures. Functionally, therefore, the environmental right cannot be confined neatly to one traditional category of fundamental rights.
The problem of anthropocentric framing
The constitutional wording itself is open to criticism. A “right to live in a healthy and balanced environment” places human life and human health at the centre. Other living beings, ecological systems and the environment as an autonomous object of protection are less visible.
The systematic placement of Article 56 among social and economic rights, together with its joint framing with health protection, may reinforce the impression that the environment is protected primarily for the sake of human health. A distinct constitutional positioning of environmental rights would make their ecological dimension clearer.
Environment means more than untouched nature
The constitutional concept of environment is not limited to untouched nature. The case law encompasses natural media such as soil, water and air, as well as flora and fauna; the broader concept also includes artificial, historical and cultural environments shaped by human activity.
For Article 56, the idea of a “healthy and balanced environment” is particularly important. It points towards ecological harmony, protection and prevention. Economic development, investment and urbanisation cannot justify sacrificing environmental assets without effective limits. Prevention is crucial because restoring destroyed environmental goods after the event may be costly or impossible.
A right extending to future generations
The environmental right is not exhausted by the protection of present living conditions. Environmental assets must also be preserved for future generations. This intergenerational dimension distinguishes environmental protection from many classical individual rights.
Article 56 therefore contains considerable constitutional potential. Its practical strength depends, however, on whether the environment is understood merely as a precondition for human health or taken seriously as an autonomous, intergenerational object of constitutional protection. That tension remains one of the central lines of development in Turkish environmental constitutional law.
This text is based on the lecture “Das Recht auf Umwelt als Grundrecht in der türkischen Verfassung”, delivered by Prof. Dr. Gülsün Ayhan Aygörmez at the University of Kassel.