Fundamental Rights and Private Law in Europe: A Fundamental Right to Environment

This paper deals briefly with the issue of the horizontal effect of fundamental rights and its illustration in the context of environmental law. The so-called process of 'constitutionalization of private law in Europe' is the main issue behind the analysis of the impact of fundamental rights in private relationships. The analysis has been approached mostly by private lawyers, who more and more are realizing the importance of mooring arguments in the land of the 'European Constitutionalization Process'. The argument shall be integrated in a discourse of a constitutional nature that has not been taken seriously yet. The fundamental right to environment, one of the most controversial social rights (in terms of the delimitation of its contents) emerges as a right of impossible enforcement by a private individual. Still, it is possible to draw some positive conclusions on the impact that the constitutional developments in respect of the protection of the environment have for the protection of private interests. The constitutionalization of private law has broadened the grounds of protection of private interests related to environmental issues. Certain court decrees would be unthinkable under the traditional rules and concepts of a systematic and hermetic system of private law. The analysis of the right to environment brings as a consequence the understanding of what happens to be the conciliation of private and public law.