Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The jurisprudential and meta-jurisprudential foundations for the emerging legal premise of environmental sustainability have evolved from an aspiration within environmental policy into a multidimensional legal and normative principle. The ecological protection, intra- and intergenerational justice, and the importance of accounting for intended timeframes in resource allocation are key premises of sustainability, drawing on natural law, legal positivism, and meta-jurisprudence. Natural law provides the moral and philosophical foundation for sustainability through general ideas of the common good, human dignity, and universal moral duties. Legal positivism then translates these ideas into practice through constitutional environmental rights, international treaties, EU law, and judicial reasoning, particularly the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which increasingly acknowledges enforceable environmental interests and deepens access to justice for environmental NGOs. Meta-jurisprudential theory posits the norm of sustainability as another foundational principle that reconstructs justice and the legitimacy of legal frameworks, and extends the timeframe for legal assessments. These three theoretical perspectives also demonstrate sustainability as both a normative intention and a structural principle of modern law.
Source: Jogelméleti Szemle
Author: László Vértesy
Language: English
Topic: Environmental law and policy
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7128489510