헌법 질서 내에서 환경권의 의미와 환경권의 실현구조

The meaning of environmental rights in our constitutional order has a very unique character. The ultimate goal of environmental conservation is to create a minimum environmental foundation that enjoys human dignity and value by protecting the people's healthy quality of life in terms of natural and artificial environments and reducing the threat to life. Therefore, the issue of environmental rights is not limited to the people's rights to the environment as an abstract right, but to the obligation of the nation to preserve the minimum natural and artificial environment so that ultimately the people can enjoy freedom of life and body based on human dignity and values. As a social sphere, a harmonious interpretation of the issue of the realization of environmental protection based on environmental and liberal rights needs to be tried. Starting with this awareness of the issue, the article aims to review the constitutional theory on the meaning and realization structure of environmental rights, and the Constitutional Court's cases and comparative law. In a case involving the installation of safety nets for toilets in the prisoners’ living room, the Constitutional Court of Korea has dealt with the issue of violation of inmates' environmental rights, even though it aims to protect their lives and bodies through self-inflicted and suicide prevention. Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court judges that lighting sleeping lights in the detention room does not harm the human dignity and value of inmates. The section on noise regulation for loudspeakers under the Public Official Election Act was at issue as to whether the nation violated its obligation to protect basic rights against infringement of environmental rights, and changes in the Constitutional Court's ruling on violation of the law on prohibition of the least protection. If the environmental rights have both the nature of social rights and the nature of freedom, in general, the criteria for the review of unconstitutionality of social rights are the rules for the least protection prohibition and the criteria for unconstitutional examination of free rights are the rules for the excessive regulation prohibition. The Constitutional Court sometimes applies the principle of excessive regulation prohibition or proportionality, and it adopts the principle of the least protection prohibition when it comes to setting the standard for noise limits for a definite growth under the Public Official Election Act. In this view, this article first looks at the meaning of environmental rights within our constitutional order, and examines the realization structure of environmental rights.