The Constitutional Right to Save the Environment?

When
October 13, 2021 12:00 pm — 1:30 pm
Where
Webinar Only

An ELI Public Webinar

More than 50 years ago, Franklin Kury drafted and championed an Environmental Rights Amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution. The amendment was enacted on Earth Day 1970 and ratified by Pennsylvania’s voters a year later. In the half century since then, climate change has become a paramount threat to the future of the planet. With climate change accelerating at an unprecedented rate, one question is pressing to the forefront: what role can constitutional law play in mitigating climate change?

In his book, The Constitutional Question to Save the Planet: The Right to a Healthy Environment, Franklin Kury expands upon the story of his amendment to demonstrate how its principles can be the basis for addressing climate change in the rest of the world. It calls for the federal government’s leadership to seek a national environmental rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution and a treaty to expand its reach to the international community.

Join the Environmental Law Institute, author Franklin Kury, and leading experts for an in-depth exploration of the impact environmental rights amendments can have on stabilizing the climate system through legal channels at the state and federal levels.

Panelists:
Senator Franklin L. Kury
, former Pennsylvania Senate, and Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Moderator
John Dernbach, Director, Environmental Law and Sustainability Center, and Commonwealth Professor of Environmental Law and Sustainability, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
Barry Hill, Adjunct Faculty, Vermont Law School, and Visiting Scholar, Environmental Law Institute
Julia Olson, Executive Director & Chief Legal Counsel, Our Children’s Trust

Materials:
Any materials will be posted as they are received.
ELI members will have subsequent access to any materials/a recording of this session (usually posted w/in 48 hours). If you are not an ELI member but would like to have access to archived sessions like this one, go HERE to see the many benefits of membership and how to join.