The article “Challenges of Invoking Environmental Rights Before The Turkish Constitutional Court: Mehmet Kurt Case” on environmental rights written by Asst. Prof. Feyzan OLGUNSOY, member of the Faculty of Law, Department of Constitutional Law, has been published in the 11th issue of the Journal of Istanbul Medeniyet University Faculty of Law.
In the article, OLGUNSOY examined the difficulties that may arise in bringing the right to live in a healthy environment before the Constitutional Court in the context of the right to life through the example of Mehmet Kurt Case and exemplified factors such as the failure of companies with increasing industrial activity in industrial waste management and increasing amounts of greenhouse gases due to the accompanying environmental destruction, loss of biodiversity in the land, consumption of natural resources and release of harmful substances as the main issues that result in the destruction of the environment.
Given the fact that The Turkish Constitutional Court has jurisdiction to review individual applications regarding the fundamental rights and freedoms and Article 56 of the 1982 Constitution of Turkey recognizes the right to live in a healthy and balanced environment, the study seeks to answer the question as to whether the implementation of individual application allows to invoke Article 56 effectively as an effective legal remedy to be provided for the victims of the exemplified man-made environmental disasters. Thus, it aims to demonstrate the potential and pitfalls of individual application to protect environmental rights in Turkey with specific reference to Mehmet Kurt case.
The study results revealed the problematic aspects of individual application to protect environmental rights in Turkey, highlighting the state’s positive obligations in environmental issues. Based on the positive obligations of public authorities, the results also demonstrated that procedural rights such as right to access to court, right to an effective remedy, and right to access information in environmental matters are used effectively to weigh competing interests; yet, all the assurances result from anthropocentric approach that places human being at the center. As underlined by OLGUNSOY in the article, recent problems such as climate change, forest fires, drought and sea pollution show that a quality environment is only possible with the protection and development of the environment holistically.
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