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n funding and implementing environmentally related development projects.

RIGHT TO PUR ENVIRONMENT— A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT WORLD OVER

Right to pure environment has been adopted by most of the countries as part of their Constitutions and have emphasized on its implementation. By such framework of legislations we can understand how this right has emerged as a necessity and not a luxury. These are some of the Constitutional provision among the different countries of the world which emphasize on the right of pure environment.

Greek Constitution, 1975: Art.24: “The protection of the natural and cultural environment constitutes a duty of the State”

Spanish Constitution, 1978: Art.45: “everyone has the right to enjoy an environment suitable for the development of the person as well as the duty to preserve it.”

Netherlands Constitution: Art.21: “it shall be the concern of the authorities to keep the country habitable and to protect and improve the environment”

Constitution of Federal Republic of Brazil, 1988: Art.225: “everyone is entitled to an ecologically balanced environment”

Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan states that no person shall be deprived of life or liberty save in accordance with the law. The Supreme Court in Shehla Zia v. WAPDA [38] decided that Article 9 includes ‘all such amenities and facilities which a person born in a free country is entitled to enjoy with dignity, legally and constitutionally’. The petitioner questioned whether, under article 9 of the Constitution, citizens were entitled to protection of law from being exposed to hazards of electro-magnetic field or any other such hazards which may be due to installation and construction of any grid station, any factory, power station or such like installations. The Court noted that “under [the Pakistan] Constitution, Article 14 provides that the dignity of man and subject to law, the privacy of home shall be inviolable. The fundamental right to preserve and protect the dignity of man and right to ‘life’ are guaranteed under Article 9. If both are read together, question will arise whether a person can be said to have dignity of man if his right to life is below bare necessity line without proper food, clothing, shelter, education, health care, clean atmosphere and unpolluted environment.”

The Constitution of Bangladesh does not explicitly provide for the right to healthy environment either in the directive principles or as a fundamental right. Article 31 states that every citizen has the right to protection from ‘action detrimental to the life liberty, body, reputation, or property’, unless these are taken in accordance with law. It added that the citizens and the residents of Bangladesh have the inalienable right to be treated in accordance with law. If these rights are taken away, compensation must be paid. In 1994, public interest litigation was initiated before the Supreme Court dealing with air and noise pollution. The Supreme Court agreed with the argument presented by the petitioner that the constitutional ‘right to life’ does extend to include right to a safe and healthy environment. A few years later, the Appellate Division and the High Court Division of the Supreme Court dealt with this question in a positive manner, in the case of Dr. M. Farooque v. Bangladesh [39] , reiterating Bangladesh's commitment in the ‘context of engaging