Oil Exploitation and Constitutional Protection of the Environment in Chad

Abstract

The study on oil exploitation and constitutional protection of the environment in Chad aims to show that despite the constitutional consideration of fundamental rights to the environment, environmental protection remains problematic. This is because the constitutional texts of protections are often ambiguous, incomplete, scattered and derisory. Also, the fact that environmental law is part of the rights-claims which in general are only addressed to the attention of the public authorities, poses a real problem as to its justiciability. Therefore, the right to the environment does not enjoy the same degree of jurisdictional protection as other rights. As a result, they often have no direct effect. Thus, in the oil exploitation framework, the environmental protection offered by the Chadian constitution, could only be insufficient except recourse to the activation of the ordinary ways of right.