CONSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENTAL RELATION

Abstract

Today we are witnessing a true transformation of values and cultural habits of humanity. We are facing one of the greatest environmental crises in human history.  The environmental impacts on a planetary scale point to a probable collapse of the main indicators of the sustainability of life on the planet. The legal response through Environmental Law has allowed the advance from a set of administrative rules to a legal micro-system with a constitutional foundation.  The Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988 elevated the balanced environment to the category of fundamental good. And this approach allowed to break with the individualistic and utilitarian traditions of conventional legal relations on the environment. In addition to the theory of fundamental rights, the understanding of the macro-environmental good prioritizes the fulfillment of fundamental duties by the community, leading to the transformation of several traditional legal institutes, among which, the legal relationship. The present paper presents a bibliographic review using the deductive method to support the emergence of the fundamental legal-environmental relationship, that is, a juridical relationship of a diffuse nature, marked by its updated object, which tends to transform the human relationship with nature and points to innovative and disruptive potentials.