미국의 헌법상 환경권에 대한 고찰- 주 헌법 및 판례를 중심으로 -

This study aims to examine the legal meaning and effectiveness of environmental rights under the U.S. Constitution and to derive implications for the study of environmental rights in Korea. Although the U.S. Federal Constitution does not contain an explicit provision on environmental rights, arguments have been advanced that environmental rights should be recognized as constitutional rights based on the public trust doctrine and the theory of fundamental rights derived from the substantive due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In contrast, the constitutions of several states—such as Montana, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Hawai‘i, and New York—expressly provide for environmental rights and the duty to conserve public natural resources. These provisions function not merely as declaratory norms but as substantive and concrete rights accompanied by affirmative governmental duties and judicial remedies, thereby possessing self-executing force. To understand the meaning of environmental rights in the United States, it is necessary to examine the relevant case law. In the first climate litigation in the United States, Juliana v. United States, the case was dismissed for lack of standing, but it raised, for the first time, legal arguments regarding a right to a stable climate system. In Held v. State of Montana, the Montana Supreme Court incorporated the right to a climate system into the constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. Furthermore, in Robinson Township v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recognized environmental rights as substantive and concrete rights with self-executing effect, while in In re Hawai‘i Electric Light Company, the court acknowledged that air and climate fall within the scope of constitutionally protected environmental rights. These cases demonstrate that a stable climate system and the right to a clean and healthful environment can be protected as specific and substantive constitutional rights, offering important insights for discussions on constitutional environmental rights in Korea.