Document Type

Article

Abstract

New York is embarking on the interpretation and implementation of potentially transformative constitutional reform, the addition of Article I, § 19 to New York’s Bill of Rights, which provides that “Each person shall have the right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” To ensure the fulsome and effective implementation of Article I, § 19, and give effect to the intent of the legislators and voters who adopted it, it will be important to provide substantive guidance to courts, government actors, and litigants in the interpretation and application of the new constitutional text. In Pennsylvania and other states, early crabbed judicial interpretations sapped similar environmental rights provisions of their value for decades. We can avoid this fate in New York by educating courts about the history and meaning of and mechanisms to operationalize Article I, § 19. This Article is the first effort to memorialize the process and sociopolitical context that produced Article I, § 19. As New York courts seek to honor the intent of legislators and voters when interpreting constitutional text, understanding this history will be central to judicial interpretation. The Article also explains how this history, in conjunction with relevant doctrinal analysis, firmly establishes that Article I, § 19 is self-executing and protects fundamental rights, and offers concrete guidance as to how courts, litigants, and government actors can raise and evaluate claims under Article I, § 19. Effective implementation of Article I, § 19 in New York has national significance. In 2023, nine states contemplated adding environmental rights to their constitutions. Many are looking to New York to understand the potential value of rights-based approaches to protecting the environment in state constitutions.

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