Read the complete article Demands for green constitution rise as threats to nature, humans increase
As the momentum for Rights on Nature intensifies around the world, Turkey is engaged in a vigorous debate on creating a new, citizen-centered constitution. The debate includes demands for an Ecological Constitution (IEC).
On Sunday 22 May 2011, Today’s Zaman published Demands for green constitution rise as threats to nature, humans increase by YONCA POYRAZ DOĞAN, İSTANBUL:
“We are just starting a campaign calling for an ecological constitution,” said Turkey’s Green Party spokesperson Ümit Şahin, who is among 40 people including politicians, academics, and lawyers involved in the Initiative for an Ecological Constitution (IEC).
“As Turkey has been talking about making a new constitution, which is supposed to value the individual, then we should be talking about an ecological approach to it,” Şahin said, adding that their role models are Bolivia and Ecuador, which understand the value and rights of Mother Earth. The IEC believes in this approach of the Latin American states, he said, because neither the European states nor the United States have been able to fully address the issue even though there are some examples like France, which has a Green Charter, and some states in the US, which have been adopting ecologically sensitive laws.
