GREEN ON PAPER, GREY IN PRACTICE: PAKISTAN’S ENVIRONMENTAL LAW FAILURES IN THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ARENA

Abstract

Recent floods and unbearable summer heat have caused unprecedented devastation across Pakistan. This damage, along with greater public pressure regarding the environment, has called into question the legislative framework that Pakistan currently employs to tackle climate change and environmental destruction. This paper highlights the consistent failure of national legislation, drawing a comparison from the international standard in Western countries as well as international treaties. Recent constitutional and judicial developments, particularly the enactment of Article 9A through the 26th amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, indicate that environmental legislation has made some progress in recent times. However, this paper contends that these changes remain only on paper and not in practice. It is further argued that without meaningful change, not only at a legislative level and in the implementation of said laws, there will continue to be an ever-growing and immeasurable amount of environmental destruction in the country. Without effective changes, the environmental destruction will go further than just damage to the environment we live in but also cause an unacceptable violation of fundamental human rights as well as harming Pakistan’s international law commitments. Ultimately this paper concludes its findings that changes with no real implementation are a fatal plague to any future where the Pakistani people can enjoy the right to a clean and healthy environment that has been safeguarded in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.