Should Singapore Constitutionalize the Right to Environment? A Comparative Analysis of Approaches to the Right to a Clean and Healthy Environment Elsewhere

Abstract

In 2022, the United Nations General Assembly introduced a resolution recognizing the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment with a recorded vote of 161 in favor and zero against. This right has also been introduced in the constitutions of 156 States. However, Singapore has yet to constitutionalize or recognize the existence of such a right in its judicial decisions; this thus raises the question of whether Singapore should do so to be in step with developments abroad. To answer this question, this paper conducts a comparative analysis across countries that have either expressly or implied recognized the right to environment, and those that have yet to (with a specific focus on South Africa, India, and Japan), and concludes that there is no need for Singapore to constitutionalize the right to environment. Instead, it considers that the effectiveness of a country’s environmental management system ultimately depends on the willpower of the government to implement environmental policies, rather than the existence of a right to environment in a country’s constitution.