As the ultimate purpose of environmental law is to regulate the relationship between humans and their environment, it is obligated reflect on the characteristics related to the complexity of this relationship e.g. diversity, interconnectedness, uncertainty and the finite carrying capacity of the earth. Furthermore, humans are connected to ecological interdependencies and should therefore organize their norms accordingly. The challenge for the next generation of environmental law is to progress from a reactive approach towards ensuring positive objectives for social-ecological systems via more adaptive and systemic-sensitive legislation. By using the Finnish constitution as an example, I discuss whether in terms of legal premises, we might already have the potential to justify further environmental responsibilities, while constitutional environmental rights thus hold hope for stimulating calls to tackle environmental degradation.

“In the very early phases of the development of civilization, man’s views were essentially of wholeness rather than of fragmentation”.1

1 D Bohm ‘Wholeness and the implicate order’ (Routledge 2002).