28 November 2024 - The regional conference of Constitutional Courts organised by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina took place in Tuzla from 26 to 28 November 2024 and brought together judges from the Constitutional Courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia. They discussed the role of constitutional courts in strengthening the protection of human rights in the area of environmental and climate protection. The Croatian Constitutional Court was represented by Dr Miroslav Šeparović, President, and Dr Mato Arlović, Deputy President, who presented the relevant case-law of our Court in his speech on the constitutional right to a healthy life and environment and its protection. He noted that despite the fact that the Croatian Constitution is a "green" Constitution, which guarantees the right to healthy life and environment and their protection from the very beginning, the Constitutional Court has filed relatively few cases on this issue. In the conclusions of the Conference the participants pointed out, among other things, that the constitutions should be interpreted and implemented not only to overcome the past, but also in the manner so as to enable more secure future, and that the constitutional courts and the ordinary courts must have a key role in balancing the needs for a sustainable development and the protection of the environment. In this way they should contribute to achieving the goals of sustainable development, especially in the context of decision-making that takes into account the long-term environmental consequences. They also supported the view that additional efforts should be made to promote the right to a healthy environment as a human right, and that the right to environmental protection must not be a declaratory right, but must be defined by the constitutional jurisprudence.
