Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Economics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon

Analysis

On the relationship between constitutional environmental human rights

and sustainable development outcomes
Chris Jeffords 1
Department of Economics, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 213B McElhaney Hall, Indiana, PA 15705, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Since the late 1900s, 84 national constitutions have been written anew or amended to include substantive
Environmental rights environmental human rights provisions. The nascent statistical research exploring the relationship between these
Constitutions rights and environmental outcomes is limited to a few studies which generally show a positive correlation be­
Sustainable development
tween the two. Under certain conditions and controlling for confounding factors, having one of these provisions
Panel data
is positively correlated with improved environmental outcomes. The existing research, however, does not
Fixed effects
Treatment effects effectively exploit the characteristics of the underlying countries while accounting for how said countries
Heterogeneity respond to the treatment of having a new provision. This paper expands the current research framework by using
a heterogeneous treatment effects (HTE) model to exploit the country-level characteristics and the treatment
effect of having a substantive environmental human rights provision. The statistical analyses use the newly
developed Sustainable Development Index (SDI) as the outcome variable and panel regression results demon­
strate a positive correlation between SDI and having a substantive environmental human rights provision. The
results of the HTE model demonstrate that SDI is positively impacted by the treatment of having a substantive
environmental human rights provision but in a generally constant way and only over a range of propensity
scores.

1. Introduction
Humans live in the natural environment and humans have rights.
While the former is a fact, the scale and scope of the latter has been the
subject of much debate across time and space where, based on my
reading, the world has slowly recognized a growing number of sub­
stantive and procedural civil, political, economic, and environmental
rights. While some rights have emerged and evolved with greater speed,
and some rights enjoy more of the limelight than others, I do not attempt
in this paper to make profound positive or philosophical arguments for
any one right or set of rights. I instead consider that 84 countries (May,
2021; Gellers, 2020) have constitutionalized a substantive environ­
mental human rights provision or what is known as a substantive
constitutional environmental right (CER) and ask the following ques­
tion: do they matter for environmental outcomes? That is, if humans
have a right to a clean or healthy environment, to what extent do sub­
stantive CER provisions to said right have an impact on environmental
outcomes?
Of course, I am not the first person to ask this question, this is not the
first time I have asked this question, and the question itself has existed in
many case studies, legal analyses, and qualitative works for some time.
So, why attempt to answer the question yet again? There are two rea­
sons. First, I build on the existing quantitative research framework by
using the newly created Sustainable Development Index (SDI, Hickel,
2020) as the environmental outcome variable. This is important because
many CER provisions are written with explicit language related to sus­
tainable development or preserving the environment for future gener­
ations (Boyd, 2012; Jeffords, 2013). The second perhaps more important
reason is that I utilize a heterogeneous treatment effects (HTE) model to
explore how SDI varies with the likelihood that a country constitution­
alizes a substantive environmental human right. This second contribu­
tion provides fertile ground for a discussion about the effect of adding a
substantive CER provision for those countries considering doing so set
within the context of those countries which already have. Across the set
of countries included in this analysis, the HTE framework provides in­
formation about the potential impact on SDI stemming from the

E-mail address: cjeffords@gmail.com.

1
I thank Amy Jeffords, Josh Gellers, Lanse Minkler, and two anomymous referees for many thoughtful comments and suggestions that vastly improved this paper. I
also thank the various colleagues I have collaborated with or had conversations with on this broad topic across time and space, especially my colleagues from The
Global Network for Human Rights and the Environment and the Economic and Social Rights Group of the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107049
Received 3 August 2020; Received in revised form 24 November 2020; Accepted 17 March 2021
Available online 29 April 2021
0921-8009/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
C. Jeffords
likelihood or probability, measured as a propensity score, of having a
CER provision which is the “treatment” that generates the potential ef­
fect on SDI.
Both the use of SDI and the application of the HTE model are novel
extensions of a burgeoning body of quantitative research that arguably
began with Boyd (2012) and has consistently shown a positive corre­
lation between substantive CER provisions and environmental out­
comes. The results of this paper echo these previous findings, with
caveats, and provide further evidence that constitutionalizing environ­
mental human rights is an important consideration for improving
environmental outcomes. That is, in this context, there exists a relatively
robust positive correlation between having a national CER provision and
SDI. Although this relationship persists under different specifications, it
is sensitive to the inclusion of additional control variables, time, and
space. To further expound on these findings, this paper proceeds in the
following way. The next section provides a broad literature review. First,
a brief discussion of the origins of human rights is introduced to set the
background for a quick overview of the transmission mechanisms link­
ing constitutionally protected/enshrined environmental human rights to
outcomes. These transmission mechanisms are then used to inform the
forthcoming quantitative analysis. The next section of the literature
review provides a specific discussion of the qualitative and quantitative
literature linking CER provisions to environmental outcomes. The
literature review is followed by an explanation of SDI and compares it to
the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Environmental Perfor­
mance Index (EPI). Following this is a discussion of the empirical
strategy, variables, and results. The section after that discusses the
practical implications of the primary findings, and the paper concludes
thereafter.
2. Literature review
2.1. Human rights, constitutions, and CER transition mechanisms
Over 100 years have passed since Hohfeld’s (1913) seminal work on
characterizing the breadth of incidents associated with common un­
derstandings of rights. Given the proliferation of research since then,
and perhaps even before then, there are many paths one can take to
arrive at a theory of how rights are created to then consider the trans­
mission mechanisms from recognized human rights to substantive out­
comes. Dembour (2010) offers an explanation of the origin of rights set
within the context of four different schools of thought: (1) natural; (2)
deliberative; (3) protest; and (4) discourse. The natural school envisions
human rights as universal entitlements bestowed upon humans by virtue
of their humanity and independent of the level of recognition granted to
said rights by society. The deliberative school asserts that human rights
are derived from choice. That is, humans are not naturally endowed with
rights but rather societies adopt rights across time and space. Within the
protest school, human rights are formed by attempting to address harm,
injustice, inequality, and the like. Those that are oppressed “fight” for
their human rights to be recognized. The last school of thought – the
discourse school – is based in literal conversation. By talking about
human rights, they exist. Gellers and Jeffords (2021) argue that CER are
grounded in the natural school and potentially supported in scale and
scope by the other three schools and, especially, by complementary
procedural environmental rights (Gellers and Jeffords, 2018). Human
physiology requires certain natural elements of a given quality, like
water for drinking and air for breathing, but the extent to which societies
recognize these requirements as rights across time and space depends on
a variety of cultural, institutional, economic, and political issues.
While constitutions enumerate certain rights and correlative duties,
and state-specific institutions can supplement or complement these
constructs, Epp (1998) argues that constitutional rights are only recog­
nized to a point. After that, constitutional guarantees, cultural processes
and social norms, and an independent but active judiciary act as the
backdrop for “strategic rights advocacy (p. 3).” The primary “support
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Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049
structure for legal mobilization (p. 3)” grows from and relies on these
macro-level institutions through micro-level “rights-advocacy organi­
zations, rights-advocacy lawyers, and sources of financing, particularly
government-supported financing (p. 3).” In this context, recent research
efforts have provided a wealth of tangible evidence demonstrating how
environmental human rights contribute to environmental outcomes.2
Crowdsourced by two different UN Special Rapporteurs on Human
Rights and the Environment (UN General Assembly, 2019; UN General
Assembly, 2015) are two collections (“researchathons”) of “good prac­
tices” related to the transmission mechanisms behind tangible envi­
ronmental human rights outcomes. Boyd’s report, for example, includes
hundreds of submissions from government officials, international
agencies, civil society organizations, academics, students, lawyers, and
judges across more than 175 UN member states. Specifically related to
legal obligations and recognition, Boyd notes that more than 80% of UN
member states legally recognize “the right to a safe, clean, healthy and
sustainable environment” either through constitutional provisions,
legislation, or both. At the same time and as noted above, 84 countries
have national CER provisions as of 2020. Boyd also highlights the fact
that 101 states have incorporated the above right into national
legislation.
Focusing on the implementation of “the right to a safe, clean,
healthy, and sustainable environment,” Boyd organizes the contribu­
tions into three sections: (1) legal recognition; (2) procedural elements;
and (3) substantive elements. This backdrop sets the stage for specific
transmission mechanisms outlined in the third section which is further
broken down into 6 categories: (1) clean air; (2) a safe climate; (3)
healthy and sustainable produced food; (4) access to safe water and
adequate sanitation; (5) non-toxic environments in which to live, work,
and play; and (6) healthy ecosystems and biodiversity. In the following
paragraph, I provide an example from each category demonstrating how
environmental protection and human rights concerns are intertwined,
even if the host country has not explicitly instantiated a national CER
provision. The point of not specifically focusing on examples from
countries with CER provisions is two-fold. First, some countries may
take steps to protect these rights through legislation or policy and not
through constitutional law or constitutionally derived case law. And
second, other fundamental rights such as the right to life, right to dig­
nity, or the right to an adequate standard of living are often argued to
include or encompass the right to a healthy (natural) environment (May,
2021).
Related to clean air, for example, India and Pakistan have made
progress to increase access to clean air via changes in clean cooking
technology by using liquefied petroleum gas, piped natural gas, or
electricity in place of biomass, kerosene, and coal burning stoves.
Related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero carbon emis­
sions, Norway, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom
now have laws with specific timelines for achieving this goal. In Turkey,
between 2010 and 2014, laws and practices related to organic farming
2
It is worth noting here that there have been related efforts to explore how
other types of constitutional provisions and constitutional rights are related to
outcome variables. Persson and Tabellini (2000), for example, demonstrate
how the size of government at the national level varies with the type of
constitutionally mandated political system and election rule. At least four of the
chapters in Hertel and Minkler (2007) provide an applied quantitative approach
to measuring the impact of different types of rights on relevant outcome vari­
ables. Cingranelli and Richards (2007) demonstrate how the Physical Quality of
Life Index (PQLI) varies with implied ability (e.g., gross domestic product) and
willingness (e.g., signatory status to the International Covenant on Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights) to achieve certain levels of rights fulfillment (e.g.,
PQLI). Related to this, the ongoing broad research framework associated with
the Social and Economic Rights Fulfillment Index (Fukuda-Parr et al., 2009,
2015) uses an achievement possibilities frontier to demonstrate how a country
could be doing on economic rights fulfillment given its current level of
resources.
C. Jeffords
have generated more than a 60% increase in organic agricultural pro­
duction. From 2000 to 2017, rural access to basic water services in
Paraguay increased from 53% of the rural population to 99%. The
regulation in the European Union known as REACH (Registration,
Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) has made
important contributions towards reducing toxic chemicals released into
the environment. In Kenya, the Green Belt Movement has been instru­
mental in preserving ecosystem services and diversity by way of planting
more than 51 million trees, sponsoring over 4000 tree nurseries
(generating more than 8 million native seedlings per year), and training
over 30,000 women in forestry, beekeeping, and related trades.
Regardless of whether a country has a specific CER provision or not,
each of these examples clearly highlights how human rights concerns
and the natural environment are related. The wealth of “good practices”
highlighted by Boyd are, in many ways, the pratical embodiment of
Epp’s human rights support structure and thus serve to demonstrate
some of the transmission mechanisms for respecting, protecting, and
fulfilling environmental human rights.
2.2. CER provisions and environmental outcomes
Boyd’s (2012) seminal work on the emergence of environmental
rights, and not just at the constitutional level, provides a thorough
overview of national environmental human rights, and the first attempt
at quantitatively assessing the correlation between constitutional envi­
ronmental rights provisions and environmental outcomes. Not long after
Boyd (2012), May and Daly (2014) provide a sweeping overview of how
constitutional environmental rights have emerged and evolved across
time. Their analysis also outlines how these rights have been adjudicated
in certain contexts and how they are enforced in others. Using an
interdisciplinary approach, Imhof et al. (2016) and Gellers (2015, 2017)
provide interesting historical explanations about the factors that lead a
country to adopt constitutional environmental protections. Gellers also
outlines why other countries do not adopt such provisions. Daly and May
(2018) curate a collection of chapters which analyze the extent to which
CER are implemented across time and space, and where said imple­
mentation falls short. As noted above, perhaps one of the broadest ac­
counts of the conditions where CER can achieve substantive
environmental outcomes is in the two “best practices” reports published
by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and environment (2015,
2019).
At the same time, however, research covering the empirical or
quantitative effects of said rights on environmental outcomes is rather
limited and began, albeit in a limited form, with Boyd (2012) who
analyzed the environmental protections contained within national
constitutions. Boyd’s research revealed many interesting facts about
national constitutions as they pertained to environmental human rights
issues. Perhaps the most surprising fact was that, at the time, at least 92
constitutions included an individual right to a healthy environment (i.e.,
a substantive CER provision), among other rights and language. Boyd
did not stop at just coding however, as he went on to compare envi­
ronmental outcomes across countries based on whether they had
constitutional provisions related to environmental human rights pro­
tections or not. His findings provide foundational evidence, although
based on very simple correlations and a one-way analysis of variance,
that environmental outcomes or performance in those countries with
such constitutional provisions are superior to those without. Following
Boyd, the quantitative research on this same topic uses more sophisti­
cated techniques to attempt to control for variables which may impact
environmental performance or outcomes beyond those found in
constitutional provisions.
Using a technique known as two-stage least squares which is then
applied to cross-sectional data, Jeffords and Minkler (2016) further
explore the links between substantive CER provisions and environ­
mental outcomes as measured by EPI. Using data from Jeffords (2013)
and May and Daly (2014), their results provide a robust link between
3
Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049
having substantive CER provisions and environmental outcomes. In
other words, there is a statistically significant positive effect on a
country’s EPI score of having said provisions compared to those coun­
tries without said provisions. Given that having a substantive CER pro­
vision is generally fixed in time, among other country-specific fixed
effects (i.e., other factors about a country which do not necessarily
change across time), it is difficult to tease out the temporal effects of
static substantive CER provisions on environmental outcomes. To
partially address this issue and to provide some basic evidence of the
temporal effects of substantive CER provisions on environmental out­
comes, Jeffords and Gellers (2018) analyze the results of a repeated
cross-section regression covering 2002–2014 and find a positive and
statistically significant correlation between the two; a relationship
which holds when controlling for higher levels of economic wealth and
heightened perceptions of the effectiveness of the rule of law.
Recognizing the estimation issues associated with including time or
provision/amendment age as a right-hand-side variable in a regression,
Jeffords (2016) provides the first (known) panel-data analysis of the
effects of substantive CER provisions on environmental human rights
outcomes. Using rural and urban access to improved water sources and
improved sanitation facilities as the left-hand-side variables, Jeffords
interacts the presence of a substantive CER provision with the age of said
provision to allow for time-varying estimation of the effects of said
provisions on specific outcomes. Time, of course, is correlated with
many country-level variables and the results of the 22-year, one-period
lagged panel regression framework were relatively weak as a result.
While he finds a positive and statistically significant relationship be­
tween access to improved water sources and ageing substantive CER
provisions, the results are very sensitive to the temporal framework and
included right-hand-side (RHS) variables. Another reason why these
results are relatively weak is that CER provisions are written very
generally and, while some contain specific mentions of the human right
to water, most are written as providing some type of positive right to a
clean or healthy environment. It should not be surprising that the
presence of substantive CER provisions has a relatively tenuous impact
on a very specific outcome. Teasing out the impact of a general provision
must be filtered through the many layers of the legal, economic, and
social systems within a country, and by the time the potential impact
turns into a specific impact it may be obscured by these layers.
Moving away from simply analyzing the effects of substantive CER
provisions on environmental outcomes, Gellers and Jeffords (2018,
2019) include procedural environmental rights provisions as a poten­
tially complementary factor. The logic is straightforward: are the effects
of having a substantive right to a clean or healthy environment poten­
tially heightened by also having procedural environmental rights to
information about the environment, access to justice in environmental
matters, and participation in environmental decisions? Using a lagged
cross-section framework for 2009–2010, Gellers and Jeffords (2018)
apply a dummy-variable interaction approach to attempt to answer this
question. They find a positive and statistically significant correlation
between having a procedural environmental right to information and
environmental justice outcomes (i.e., access to improved water and
sanitation sources), and this relationship is slightly stronger for those
countries which also have a substantive CER provision. The results for
the other two procedural environmental rights (i.e., participation and
access to justice) were statistically insignificant. Gellers and Jeffords
(2019) follow this analysis with a simple framework that relies wholly
on descriptive statistics and is applied to only the countries in the Asia-
Pacific region. By examining the percentage change in EPI (and its
components) across 58 countries from 2014 to 2018, they find im­
provements in EPI for those countries with substantive CER provisions,
procedural environmental rights provisions, and (constitutional) state­
ments of public policy related to the natural environment.
C. Jeffords Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049

3. Discussion of SDI comparisons between the two indices across countries and time. Coun­
tries which tend to have better rankings on SDI tend to have corre­
3.1. Comparison to HDI and EPI spondingly worse scores on EPI. Put differently, countries that have
ranked consistently high on HDI and EPI (e.g., Australia, Singapore, and
The SDI was created by Hickel (2020) as an alternative to HDI (UN the United States) appear to rank consistently low on SDI, and vice versa.
Development Programme, 2020) which, since its development in the Some evidence of this regularity is seen in Fig. 1, which compares, by
1990s, has not taken into consideration the ecological and environ­ index score, the top five and bottom five countries, in 2014, on SDI to
mental impacts of human development. SDI is calculated by taking a their corresponding scores on HDI and EPI. This is likely the case due to
modified HDI – which is comprised of a measure of life expectancy, the methodology behind the SDI compared to HDI and EPI. Recall that
education, and income – and dividing it by an Ecological Impact Index SDI adjusts the income component to account for income that is socially
(EII) comprised of per capita data associated with carbon dioxide unnecessary, and it also accounts for an environmental/ecological
emissions and material footprint. Hickel also modifies HDI to include a footprint. Neither HDI or EPI directly account for these boundary con­
sufficiency threshold on income where income above a given level be­ ditions or constraints in their respective calculations.
comes “socially unnecessary (page 6).” The EII is calculated using an
“average overshoot (page 6)” approach applied to carbon dioxide
3.2. SDI, CER provisions, and endogeneity
emissions per capita and material footprint per capita, both in
consumption-based terms. To account for average overshoot, the EII
Given that the primary thrust of this analysis is to examine the cor­
divides both CO2 emissions per capita and material footprint per capita
relation between having a CER provision or not and SDI, it is important
by their “respective per capita planetary boundary (page 6).” Working
to visualize some of these relationships and to consider the nature of
through the formula for the SDI yields an index that ranges from 0 to 1,
endogeneity between the two. Fig. 2 shows the mean value of SDI from
with scores closer to 1 indicative of more successful sustainable devel­
1990 to 2015 by having a CER provision or not. What is evident from
opment. As of 2015 – the current year of published data – the top five
this figure is that the number of countries with data for SDI and with a
countries are Cuba (0.859), Costa Rica (0.830), Sri Lanka (0.825),
CER provision climbed over this period from 15 to 72. At the same time,
Albania (0.811), and Panama (0.808), and the bottom five countries are
the mean value of the SDI for those countries with a CER provision was,
the United States of America (0.184), Australia (0.153), the United Arab
on average, approximately 7 percentage points higher compared to
Emirates (0.108), Kuwait (0.102), and Singapore (0.081).
those countries without a CER provision. The question remains, how­
EPI is published through the collaborative efforts of the Yale Center
ever, which came first the “chicken or the egg?”.
for Environmental Law and Policy - YCELP - Yale University, Yale Data-
As noted in or implied by many of the previous quantitative studies
Driven Environmental Solutions Group - Yale University, Center for
on the relationship between CER provisions and environmental out­
International Earth Science Information Network - CIESIN - Columbia
comes, there is a selection or endogeneity issue. In part, the HTE
University, and World Economic Forum - WEF, 2016. Dating back to its
approach is meant to account for this issue, at least quantitatively, but it
creation in 2006 and published every two years since, EPI ranges from
is still the case that additional unobservable factors may exist and
0 to 100 and ranks countries based on “meeting” their relative envi­
contribute to a country having an improved SDI score and/or its will­
ronmental policy targets or outcomes across approximately 20–32
ingness to constitutionalize environmental human rights. That is,
(depending on the year) data indicators split between two main cate­
countries with higher SDI scores may be more likely to have CER pro­
gories: Ecosystem Vitality and Environmental Health. The closer the EPI
visions or countries with CER provisions may be more likely to have
score is to 100, the more likely it is that the underlying country is
higher SDI scores, or both, and these potential relationships could be
meeting its environmental policy targets. What is interesting, however,
driven by some unobserved factors like culture, social norms, prefer­
is how EPI compares to SDI. Consider the United States in 2014, for
ences, or other micro-level transmission mechanisms. To attempt to
example, which has an SDI score of 18.4 (160/164) and an EPI score of
account for this selection issue as it relates to SDI, I replaced SDI as the
67.51 (33/178). At the same time, Cuba has an SDI score of 85.9 (1/164)
LHS variable with another index and with measures related to access to
and an EPI score of 55.07 (64/178). These types of disparities persist in
drinking water and sanitation. These results are briefly noted in Section

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

SDI HDI EPI

Fig. 1. Comparing SDI, HDI, and EPI in 2014.

4
C. Jeffords Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049

170 0.65
160 0.6
150 0.55
140
0.5
130
120 0.45
110 0.4
100 0.35
90
0.3
80
70 0.25
60 0.2
50 0.15
40
0.1
30
20 0.05
10 0
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Count Without CER (L. Axis) Count With CER (L. Axis)
Mean SDI Without CER (R. Axis) Mean SDI With CER (R. Axis)
Fig. 2. Average SDI Values for Countries With or Without CER Provisions, 1990–2015.

6 below.
4. Empirical strategy
Each of the studies related to other human, social, economic, and
cultural rights, much like those related to environmental outcomes,
carefully accounts for the effect of country-specific income on the
outcome variable. Given that Hickel (2020) has made an important,
income-based adjustment to the HDI framework in creating SDI, income-
specific variables cannot be included in the set of RHS variables. If in­
come must be a RHS variable then the full SDI cannot be the left-hand-
side (LHS) variable and, as such, the analysis would be akin to
explaining how substantive CER provisions are correlated with what is
essentially HDI. This is not a trivial point as previous studies on this topic
have demonstrated the importance of controlling for country-level in­
come and associated nonlinearities between income and the environ­
mental outcome variable. The large body of research dedicated to the
empirical estimation of the Environmental Kuznets Curve speaks to this
specific concern.
Accounting for this income adjustment, I use SDI as the LHS variable
in a two-part framework of country-level regression analyses to shed
additional light on the relationship between substantive CER provisions
and environmental outcomes. Although SDI is available on a yearly basis
from 1990 to 2015, I will often use 1989–2014 to allow for one-year lags
in the RHS variables (or a one-year lead in the LHS variable). Using
panel-data methods, the first framework compares the results of a
country-specific fixed effects model to that of a region-specific “fixed
effects” model, which itself is not a fixed effects model in the traditional
panel data sense but rather one where the time-invariant geographic
control is the World Bank defined region, not the country. The second
framework is the HTE approach.
stems entirely from the fact that countries add CER provisions at
different dates between 1989 and 2014. In other words, there are time-
varying treatment differences by country. As illustrated in Table 1, 17
countries always have a CER provision, 97 never have a CER provision,
and 61 add (and keep) a CER provision at some point between 1989 and
2014 (it is 62 if the time period is 1990–2015). Going into further detail,
and in consecutive years, 8 countries have a CER for 25 years and 22
countries for 20–24 years. In total, 45 countries have a CER provision for
at least 21 consecutive years. The caution is simple: if the data were
strictly limited to the 114 countries with either full treatment or no
treatment, then it would not be possible to estimate the correlation
between CER and SDI in a country-specific fixed effects framework due
to perfect multicollinearity. This is an important consideration for future
quantitative research, especially if the span of data analyzed is fully
defined by those countries which, in absolute terms, either do or do not
have CER provisions and excludes those countries which add CER pro­
visions within the span of time. Given the trajectory, it is possible that a
saturation point is reached where countries are no longer adding CER
provisions.
Having noted that caution, and to account for the potential issues
associated with multicollinearity in a country-specific fixed effects
framework, the estimation approach is a modification of Aksoy et al.
(2020) for c, the country, r, the World Bank defined region, and t, the
year:
SDI crt+1 = β0 + β1 Xct + β2 CERct + β3 Tt + C + R + ϵcrt (1)
where Xct is a vector of time-varying country-specific characteristics and
Tt represents yearly dummy variables. The variables C and R are
placeholders for variables relevant for the country-specific fixed effects
and region-specific frameworks, respectively. For the country-specific
fixed effects model,

4.1. Panel framework C = β4 Cc + β5 Cc *Trend and R = [∙] (2)

Before jumping into the description of the panel framework, it is and for the region-specific model,
important to express some caution as it relates to the country-specific R = β6 Rr + β7 Rr *Trend and C = [∙] (3)
fixed effects model. Countries differ in many ways but, importantly,
by when they constitutionalize an environmental human right. Identi­ The country and region dummy variables are represented by Cc and
fication of the correlation between having a CER provision and SDI Rr, respectively, and capture time-invariant country- or region-specific

5
C. Jeffords
variation in SDI. The term Trend is a linear time trend which, when
interacted with the country- or region-specific dummy variables, cap­
tures within country or within region temporal variation in SDI. Of
primary interest to the estimation framework is the CER variable. As
noted above, empirical identification of β2 stems from country-specific
treatment dates.
4.2. HTE framework
The HTE model used in this analysis was developed by Xie et al.
(2012) as a statistical method for undertaking quantitative sociological
research.3 While their application is itself not relevant for the current
analysis, the following discussion of their application and data provides
the necessary context for how the HTE model is applied to the main
research question of this paper. Xie et al. (2012) first apply the HTE
model to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to
determine how college attendance affected women’s fertility. By using a
propensity score framework, the authors define a relationship between
the observable characteristics of the population that impact both the
treatment or selection and the outcome. Their findings indicate that the
women who are from backgrounds which have a higher probability of
college attendance are also more likely to have lower fertility outcomes
(e.g., having a child by age 18 or the number of children by age 41). This
implies that some of the women in the data have observable charac­
teristics which predict college attendance but said women have not
necessarily attended college. At the same time, information about their
fertility is also known. The HTE model uses these data to make an
observational inference about how fertility would be impacted by col­
lege attendance, whether a given woman attended college (or not), by
exploiting the observable characteristics of other women with similar
backgrounds who did attend college.
The application of the HTE model to substantive CER provisions and
the effect these have on the SDI is relatively straightforward. The pro­
pensity score framework will help to define a relationship between the
observable characteristics of each included country which impact both
having a CER provision and SDI. For example, the model might predict
that some countries have the observable characteristics which would
lead to the inclusion of a CER provision and yet they do not have said
provision. This information is then used to predict how SDI would be
impacted by having, or being treated with, a substantive CER provision
by making use of the observable characteristics of other countries which
do have substantive CER provisions. Controlling for observable char­
acteristics, the observational inference relevant to this analysis is related
to how SDI might be impacted by the addition of a CER provision. The
HTE analysis is similar to the survival analysis of Imhof et al. (2016) who
find that the “future-oriented preferences” of a set of an unbalanced
panel of 122 countries from 1960 to 2014 are a strong factor in deter­
mining a country’s likelihood for adopting constitutional environmental
protections (which is broader than substantive CER provisions). In the
context of their paper, the term survival analysis is the name given to the
method of analysis describing how long it takes for the countries or a
country to adopt a constitutional environmental protection as a function
of the observable characteristics included in the analysis, if it adopts
these protections at all. The HTE framework first considers something
similar, namely the likelihood that a country adopts a CER provision, but
then it goes a step further in examining how SDI varies with the likeli­
hood of adopting said CER provision.
4.3. Right-hand-side variables
The primary RHS variable of interest is a dummy variable taking on
3
Please see their paper for a full exposition of the various equations required
to generate estimation results within their three primary methods or
approaches.
6
Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049
the value of 1 in period t if a country has a substantive CER provision,
otherwise the variable takes on a value of 0. These data are derived from
May (2021) and Enviro Rights Map (Gellers, 2020). It is expected that
this variable is nonnegatively related to SDI.
Additional RHS variables are included to account for other institu­
tional and natural factors which might impact environmental outcomes
separate from the presence or not of a substantive CER provision. These
variables are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators
Database (World Bank, 2021), Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI,
Kaufmann et al., 2010), Comparative Constitutions Project (CCP) (Elkins
et al., 2020), and the Center for Systemic Peace (CSP) (Marshall, 2019;
Marshall and Gurr, 2020). Summary statistics for the SDI and all RHS
variables are presented in Table 2.
4.3.1. Substantive constitutional environmental rights provisions
From 1989 to 2015 the number of countries with a substantive CER
provision grew to approximately 78 (while there are approximately 84
as of 2020). Upon a closer examination of the data by country and across
time, some interesting descriptive statistics emerge. Based on the
“overall” data in Table 3, for example, 70.9% of the 4725 country-year
observations did not have a CER provision while 29.10% did. The term
overall applies to all the country-year observations in the data, which is
equal to 175 countries times 27 years or 4725 observations. Examining
the “between” reveals that of the 175 countries included in the data,
90.86% did not have a CER provision at least once and 44.57% had a
CER at least once. The “within” data illustrates that 65.29% of the
countries that ever had a CER provision in the data always did during the
length of the panel while 78.03% of the countries that never had a CER
provision also never had one during the length of the panel. To a certain
extent, this speaks to the persistence and inertia of the presence (or
absence) of CER provisions at the national level.
To further examine these trends, Table 4 provides some transition
probabilities across the panel at the country-year level. For example, for
those countries with a CER provision, 100% with a CER provision for at
least one period remain with a CER for the next period. In other words,
there is no removal of a CER provision in this data at the national
constitution level. This includes the special case of Armenia which did
remove/repeal its CER provision but in December 2015. The persistence
is just as strong in the other direction. For those countries that did not
have a CER for at least one period, 98.09% remained without one for the
next period. There are also no instances of a country moving from having
a CER in one period to not having one in the next period while there are
approximately 1.91% of cases where countries that did not have a CER
provision in one period transitioned to having one in the next period.
The use of country-year as the unit of observation for the transition
probabilities might be misleading, however, as it is the case that 61
countries added a CER provision between 1989 and 2014, which is
approximately 35% of the 175 countries in these data. Over this time
period, countries that do not have a CER provision tend to stay that way
and countries that began with one or eventually add one, tend to keep
them.
4.3.2. Controlling for geography
Most of the variables for this category are taken from The World
Bank World Development Indicators Database and include the natural
log of total land area in square kilometers and World Bank Regions,
although the latter are only used in certain specifications.4 The total land
area of a country excludes “area under inland water bodies, national
4
An earlier draft of his paper also included the percentage of the land area in
agriculture and the percentage of land area in forest, but these were dropped
due to directional causality issues with SDI as theorized through the various
transmission mechanisms outlined in the two UN reports on good practices
related to constitutional environmental human rights. These results and others
from the original manuscript are available upon request.
C. Jeffords Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049

Table 1
Countries with or without a CER provision from 1989 to 2014 (N = 175).
Always with Added Always without

Benin Angola Mongolia Afghanistan Gabon New Zealand

Brazil Argentina Montenegro Albania Gambia Nigeria
Cameroon Armenia Morocco Algeria Germany Oman
Cape Verde Azerbaijan Mozambique Andorra Ghana Pakistan
Chile Belarus Nepal Antigua and Barbuda Guatemala Palau
Costa Rica Belgium Niger Australia Haiti Panama
France Bolivia Norway Austria Honduras Papua New Guinea
Greece Bulgaria Paraguay Bahamas Iceland Poland
Guyana Burkina Faso Peru Bahrain India Qatar
Indonesia Colombia Romania Bangladesh Iran Samoa
Mexico Congo Russian Federation Barbados Ireland Saudi Arabia
Nicaragua Czech Republic Rwanda Belize Israel Sierra Leone
Philippines Democratic Republic of the Congo São Tomé and Príncipe Bhutan Italy Singapore
Portugal Dominican Republic Senegal Bosnia and Herzegovina Japan Sri Lanka
South Korea Ecuador Serbia Botswana Jordan Sudan
Spain Egypt Seychelles Brunei Darussalam Kazakhstan Suriname
Turkey Ethiopia Slovakia Burundi Kosovo Swaziland
Fiji Slovenia Cambodia Kuwait Sweden
Georgia Somalia Canada Laos Switzerland
Guinea South Africa Central African Republic Lebanon Syria
Hungary South Sudan Chad Lesotho Tajikistan
Iraq Timor-Leste China Liberia Tanzania
Jamaica Togo Côte d’Ivoire Libya Thailand
Kenya Tunisia Croatia Lithuania Trinidad and Tobago
Kyrgyz Republic Turkmenistan Cuba Madagascar United Arab Emirates
Latvia Uganda Cyprus Malawi United Kingdom
Macedonia Ukraine Denmark Malaysia United States of America
Maldives Venezuela Djibouti Malta Uruguay
Mali Vietnam El Salvador Mauritius Uzbekistan
Mauritania Zimbabwe Equatorial Guinea Myanmar Vanuatu
Moldova Eritrea Namibia Yemen
Estonia Netherlands Zambia
Finland

Table 2
Summary statistics for SDI and all RHS variables.
Variable Mean Std. Dev. Min Max Observations

Sustainable Development Index Overall 0.56 0.16 0.08 0.89 N 3946

Between 0.15 0.13 0.82 n 164
Within 0.07 0.27 0.90 T-bar 24.06
Substantive CER Overall 0.29 0.45 0.00 1.00 N 4725
Between 0.40 0.00 1.00 n 175
Within 0.23 − 0.67 1.25 T-bar 27
Polity index Overall 0.65 0.33 0.00 1.00 N 4149
Between 0.30 0.00 1.00 n 161
Within 0.13 − 0.13 1.28 T-bar 25.77
Rule of law Overall 0.48 0.20 0.01 0.92 N 2877
Between 0.20 0.04 0.89 n 171
Within 0.04 0.27 0.74 T-bar 16.82
Major epidsodes of political violence Overall 0.69 1.67 0.00 13.00 N 4205
Between 1.31 0.00 7.41 n 160
Within 1.02 − 3.71 8.88 T-bar 26.28
Number of bordering states Overall 3.63 2.43 0.00 14.00 N 4205
Between 2.42 0.00 14.00 n 160
Within 0.28 − 4.00 5.40 T-bar 26.28
Amendment count in a given year Overall 5.60 11.39 0.00 78.00 N 4725
Between 11.16 0.00 67.00 n 175
Within 2.42 − 7.40 18.60 T-bar 27
Constitutional age Overall 30.30 37.87 1.00 226.00 N 3383
Between 34.29 1.00 213.00 n 164
Within 6.99 17.30 43.30 T-bar 20.63
CER count in a given year Overall 54.00 12.72 23.00 76.00 N 4375
Between 0.00 54.00 54.00 n 175
Within 12.72 23.00 76.00 T-bar 25
Natural log of land area Overall 11.64 2.40 3.00 16.61 N 4582
Between 2.40 3.20 16.61 n 171
Within 0.02 11.43 11.85 T-bar 26.80

7
C. Jeffords Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049

Table 3 4.3.4. Controlling for political and institutional stability

Cross-tabulations of having substantive CER provisions or not from 1989 to Data from WGI are available through The World Bank World
2015. Development Indicators Database and capture country-level perceptions
Substantive CER Overall Between Within about various political and institutional factors such as the rule of law,
provision
Frequency Percent Frequency Percent Percent
political stability, government effectiveness, control of corruption, reg­
ulatory quality, and voice and accountability. Each of these six variables
No 3350 70.90% 159 90.86% 78.03%
is originally measured on a scale of − 2.5 to 2.5 and is available in 1996,
Yes 1375 29.10% 78 44.57% 65.29%
Total 4725 100.00% 237 (N = 135.43% 73.84% 1998, 2000, and 2002-present. This analysis focuses solely on the rule of
175) law variable from this database given that the correlation between each
of the WGI variables is very high and positive across time and space. The
rule of law variable has been scaled to the unit interval such that 0 ~
Table 4 − 2.5 and 1–2.5. According to WGI, “Rule of Law captures perceptions of
Transition probabilities for having a substantive CER provisions or not from
the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of
1989 to 2014.
society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property
Substantive CER provision rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and
No Yes Total violence.”
No Frequency 3191 62 3253 Two additional variables are included from CSP: Polity 2 and a
Percent 98.09% 1.91% 100% measure of political violence. Polity 2 is taken from the Political Regime
Yes Frequency 0 1297 1297 Characteristics and Transitions (1800–2018) database and originally
Percent 0.00% 100.00% 100% ranges from − 10 to 10, where the higher the score the greater is the
Total Frequency 3191 1359 4550
extent of institutionalized democracy (compared to autocracy). These
Percent 70.13% 29.87% 100%
scores have been converted to the unit interval for estimation purposes.
Taken from the Major Episodes of Political Violence and Conflict Re­
claims to continental shelf, and exclusive economic zones.” The World gions (1946–2018) database, the measure of political violence is
Bank regions include the following: Europe and Central Asia (base calculated as the sum of all societal and interstate episodes of political
control region), South Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan violence. The underlying calculations for these episodes include a scaled
Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia and the Pacific, and value from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) of the episodes of civil violence,
North America. also controls for I also control for the number of coun­ civil warfare, ethnic violence, ethnic war, international violence, and
tries sharing a border with a given country from the Major Episodes of international warfare. The largest value of the measure of political
Political Violence and Conflict Regions (1946–2018) database through violence is a 13 which belongs to Iraq in 1990.
the CSP. This variable is meant to capture the interaction (or lack
thereof) a country may have with the environment and institutional 5. Results
structures of its neighbors and, specifically, to allow for the inter-
country transfer of social norms and policy influence in the face of The results presented in Tables 5 and 6 and discussed below follow
redrawn borders across time.5 In general, each of these variables are the empirical strategy noted above. That is, the primary difference be­
meant to control for unobservable geographic influences on SDI. tween Tables 5 and 6 is the inclusion of rule of law in the latter but the
progression from simple to complex models within each framework is
4.3.3. Controlling for the propensity for constitutional change otherwise identical: six models with country fixed effects and six models
To account for constitutional change or the likelihood of constitu­ with region “fixed effects” or dummy variables.6
tional change, country-level constitutional amendment data are
included from the CCP. This is measured as the cumulative number of
5.1. Panel results with rule of law
amendments to a constitution up to and including period t. Canada, for
example, had 24 amendments as of 1989 and 31 as of 2015, compared to
The results presented in Table 5 highlight the consistently positive
the USA which had 15 and 16, respectively. To further account for the
correlation between CER provisions and SDI, with the exception of
potential impact of norm cascades and the propensity to adopt sub­
model six where there is a lack of a statistically significant relationship.
stantive CER provisions across countries and time, I include the total
In part, this could be due to the estimation strain placed on the model
number of substantive CER provisions in existence each year. The basic
with the inclusion of the additional 175 dummy variable interactions
idea is that countries may become more likely to constitutionalize
with the linear time trend. On the other hand, controlling for unob­
environmental rights if their neighbors and allies are also doing the same
servable time-varying country-specific factors drastically improves the
(or perhaps countries might do the opposite).
fit of the model as measured by the various goodness-of-fit measures and
The constitutional controls also fit with the economic theory of
either eliminates or mitigates the effect of many of the RHS variables
constitutional environmental protection as developed by Imhof et al.
which were statistically significantly related to SDI in models 1–5. That
(2016) and those outlined by Jeffords and Minkler (2016). By amending
is, there may be factors unaccounted for in this estimation framework
the constitution to account for social, economic, cultural, and institu­
which correlate better with movements in SDI.
tional changes, a country is signaling that its legal system has evolved,
As noted above to account for multicollinearity issues and, of course,
for better or worse. These changes will necessarily have an impact on
degrees of freedom, models 7–12 swap the country fixed effects frame­
future policies, statutory laws, and judicially derived case law, all of
work for a region-specific control framework, and include two
which have effects on the institutional trajectory within a country. At
the same time, taking into consideration what other countries are doing
in CER space, some of which are possibly international allies to a certain 6
An earlier draft of this paper included additional results from different
degree, is an important consideration for the evolution of (environ­
estimation frameworks, most of which have been updated to mirror the current
mental) law across time and space.
analysis and are available in the appendix to this paper. The frameworks
highlighted in the appendix include yearly cross-section regressions, pooled
cross-section regressions, and population-averaged panel regressions. The re­
5
See Gellers (2015, 2017) for more on the regional influences impacting the sults provide additional evidence that having a substantive CER provision is
adoption (or not) of CER provisions. positively correlated with SDI.

8
 C. Jeffords
Table 5
Panel regressions including rule of law for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002–2014.
Country fixed effects framework Region “Fixed effects” framework

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)

SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI

CER 0.0527*** 0.0454*** 0.0762*** 0.0480*** 0.0361*** 0.00324 0.0582*** 0.0484** 0.0463** 0.0414* 0.0413* 0.0405*
(0.0128) (0.0100) (0.0114) (0.00966) (0.0109) (0.00461) (0.0173) (0.0189) (0.0211) (0.0219) (0.0220) (0.0221)
Polity index 0.0673*** 0.0762*** 0.0672*** 0.0124 0.129*** 0.165*** 0.167*** 0.163***
(0.0157) (0.0165) (0.0178) (0.00915) (0.0482) (0.0535) (0.0542) (0.0544)
Rule of Law − 0.189** − 0.169** − 0.156* 0.0241 − 0.427*** − 0.455*** − 0.460*** − 0.453***
(0.0864) (0.0850) (0.0932) (0.0421) (0.0784) (0.0920) (0.0932) (0.0930)
Violence − 0.0104*** − 0.0101*** − 0.00944*** − 0.00315* − 0.00997** − 0.00857 − 0.00896 − 0.00879
(0.00271) (0.00306) (0.00310) (0.00166) (0.00491) (0.00657) (0.00664) (0.00681)
Amendment count − 0.00678*** − 0.00601*** − 0.00868*** − 0.00486** 0.000579 0.00171* 0.00173* 0.00178*
(0.00232) (0.00213) (0.00244) (0.00193) (0.00128) (0.00101) (0.00101) (0.00102)
No. bordering states 0.00265 0.00662 − 0.00691 − 0.00262 0.00122 0.00477 0.00486 0.00490
(0.0112) (0.0434) (0.0415) (0.0117) (0.00471) (0.00441) (0.00444) (0.00445)
Land area 0.125 0.0711 0.0649 0.0766 0.0101 0.000256 0.0000335 0.0000447
9

(0.281) (0.215) (0.198) (0.0581) (0.00906) (0.00763) (0.00768) (0.00773)

Constitution age − 0.000927** − 0.000614+ − 0.000599+ − 0.000613+
(0.000447) (0.000373) (0.000376) (0.000380)
CER total − 0.000509 − 0.000808
(0.000544) (0.000586)
Constant 0.548*** 0.597*** − 0.936 − 0.260 − 0.121 − 0.312 0.562*** 0.688*** 0.488*** 0.702*** 0.688*** 0.767***
(0.00383) (0.0429) (3.383) (2.514) (2.305) (0.712) (0.0198) (0.0438) (0.0982) (0.110) (0.107) (0.108)
Observations 3946 2287 3607 2285 2285 2285 3904 2273 2536 1838 1838 1838
R-squared 0.023 0.065 0.089 0.104 0.129 0.767 0.253 0.394 0.300 0.434 0.438 0.452
Adjusted R-squared 0.022 0.063 0.088 0.101 0.121 0.748 0.251 0.392 0.296 0.430 0.429 0.441
AIC − 9713.0 − 7076.7 − 9191.1 − 7172.5 − 7207.3 − 10,219.4 − 4116.7 − 2684.9 − 2706.7 − 2227.3 − 2211.7 − 2246.7
BIC − 9706.7 − 7053.7 − 9166.4 − 7132.4 − 7081.2 − 10,098.9 − 4066.5 − 2621.9 − 2630.8 − 2139.1 − 2046.2 − 2053.6
Time FE No No No No Yes Yes No No No No Yes Yes
Time trend * country No No No No No Yes No No No No No No
Time Trend * region No No No No No No No No No No No Yes

(1) Robust standard errors in parentheses.

Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049

(2) P-values: + p < 0.15, * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, and *** p < 0.01.
(3) RHS-variables lagged by one period.
 C. Jeffords
Table 6
Panel regressions excluding rule of law: 1989–2014.
Country fixed effects framework Region “Fixed effects” framework

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12)

SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI SDI

CER 0.0527*** 0.0468*** 0.0762*** 0.0599*** 0.0503*** 0.00549 0.0582*** 0.0540*** 0.0463** 0.0454** 0.0452** 0.0429**
(0.0128) (0.0130) (0.0114) (0.0108) (0.0129) (0.00449) (0.0173) (0.0181) (0.0211) (0.0217) (0.0215) (0.0216)
Polity index 0.0656*** 0.0799*** 0.0726*** 0.00481 0.0303 0.0716+ 0.0793+ 0.0695
(0.0155) (0.0176) (0.0206) (0.00722) (0.0369) (0.0493) (0.0492) (0.0500)
Violence − 0.00861*** − 0.0101*** − 0.00983*** − 0.00338*** 0.000575 0.000493 − 0.000584 0.000623
(0.00224) (0.00265) (0.00263) (0.00106) (0.00388) (0.00531) (0.00501) (0.00495)
Amendment count − 0.00678*** − 0.00757*** − 0.00940*** − 0.00294 0.000579 0.000346 0.000360 0.000505
(0.00232) (0.00234) (0.00279) (0.00241) (0.00128) (0.00134) (0.00133) (0.00134)
No. bordering states 0.00265 − 0.00160 − 0.00281 0.0218*** 0.00122 0.00374 0.00363 0.00372
(0.0112) (0.0132) (0.0138) (0.00493) (0.00471) (0.00474) (0.00480) (0.00481)
Land area 0.125 0.0836 0.0709 0.0794 0.0101 0.00912 0.00892 0.00874
(0.281) (0.283) (0.270) (0.0632) (0.00906) (0.00877) (0.00877) (0.00892)
10

Constitution age − 0.000927** − 0.000988** − 0.000926** − 0.000968**

(0.000447) (0.000437) (0.000435) (0.000437)
CER total − 0.000509 − 0.000534
(0.000544) (0.000552)
Constant 0.548*** 0.508*** − 0.936 − 0.458 − 0.279 − 0.445 0.562*** 0.539*** 0.488*** 0.429*** 0.444*** 0.558***
(0.00383) (0.00979) (3.383) (3.400) (3.236) (0.762) (0.0198) (0.0366) (0.0982) (0.111) (0.110) (0.114)
Observations 3946 3624 3607 3567 3567 3567 3904 3582 2536 2506 2606 2606
R-squared 0.023 0.058 0.089 0.131 0.144 0.827 0.253 0.276 0.300 0.314 0.311 0.353
Adjusted R-squared 0.022 0.058 0.088 0.129 0.136 0.818 0.251 0.274 0.296 0.310 0.301 0.341
AIC − 9713.0 − 9094.2 − 9191.1 − 9218.9 − 9224.4 − 14,934.9 − 4116.7 − 3824.0 − 2706.7 − 2712.0 − 2795.7 − 2949.1
BIC − 9706.7 − 9075.6 − 9166.4 − 9181.8 − 9032.8 − 14,749.5 − 4066.5 − 3762.2 − 2630.8 − 2624.6 − 2566.9 − 2691.0
Time FE No No No No Yes Yes No No No No Yes Yes
Time trend * country No No No No No Yes No No No No No No
Time trend * region No No No No No No No No No No No Yes

(1) Robust standard errors in parentheses.

(2) P-values: + p < 0.15, * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, and *** p < 0.01.

Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049

(3) RHS-variables lagged by one period.
C. Jeffords
additional variables which are eliminated due to collinearity in the
country fixed-effects framework: Constitution Age and CER Total. In this
case, however, the inclusion of the interaction between the seven World
Bank regions and the linear time trend does not eliminate (though it
attenuates) the positive correlation between CER and SDI. Furthermore,
in model 12, the other statistically significant RHS variables remain
statistically significant.
Other interesting results emerge from these estimations as they relate
to the additional RHS variables. It is perhaps expected that an increasing
level of democracy (Polity) and a decreasing amount of Violence are
correlated with positive movement in SDI, but that Rule of Law and
Amendment Count are negatively correlated with SDI is perhaps unex­
pected. Given the importance of Rule of Law as it relates to SDI, the
discussion of this relationship is expounded upon in the Discussion and
Practical Implications section below. In terms of the negative relation­
ship between SDI and amendment count, it is possible that the more
often a country amends its constitution, the more difficult it is for agents
within the country to effect environmental change as the web of
constitutionally-derived rules and laws evolves across time. While
constitution age is also negatively correlated with SDI and generally at
the 15% significance level, it, like amendment count, was included to
control for the propensity for constitutional change as it relates to the
CER provisions and not necessarily to help explain variation (or lack
thereof) in SDI.
5.2. Panel results without rule of law
Excluding Rule of Law allows for greater flexibility as it relates to the
estimation processes. First, including Rule of Law mitigates the temporal
availability of data as it is only available in 1996, 1998, 2000, and
2002–2014. So, ten years of data are lost when Rule of Law is included.
Second, there are 45 countries in the data with CER provisions during
the period 1989–1995 which are excluded from the analysis when Rule
of Law is included. In short, as the observation counts across corre­
sponding models in Tables 5 and 6 indicate, including Rule of Law
causes the loss of anywhere between 668 and 1337 country-year ob­
servations. Examining the results across the models in Table 6 yields the
same conclusion as the results with Rule of Law: there is a consistent and
positive correlation between having a CER provision and SDI.
5.3. HTE methodology and results
Xie et al. (2012) provide three different methods for estimating the
HTE model: stratification-multilevel (SM), matching-smoothing (MS),
and smoothing-differencing (SD). Each begins with estimating the con­
ditional probability that (in this case) a country will receive the treat­
ment (i.e., have a substantive CER provision). This is also known as the
propensity score and is calculated from a logit or probit regression of the
treatment on the other RHS variables. The SM method proceeds by
constructing strata based on balanced propensity scores where average
treatment effects within each stratum are then estimated via a simple
linear regression. The final step estimates a trend of the treatment effects
(on SDI) across the propensity scores. The second step of the MS method
uses the propensity scores to match those countries with a substantive
CER provision to those without and impute a counterfactual outcome (i.
e., does the country adopt a substantive CER provision or not?). The
effect on the outcome variable (e.g., SDI) is displayed in a “plot” diagram
comparing the observed and potential outcomes against the relevant
propensity score. Finally, a nonparametric regression model is used to
estimate a pattern of the effect of the treatment across propensity scores.
In other words, a model is fit to illustrate how SDI varies with the
likelihood of adopting a substantive CER provision. The SD method uses
nonparametric methods within the treatment and control groups to
generate regressions of SDI on the calculated propensity scores. By
11
Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049
propensity score, a pattern is derived and graphed by considering the
difference between the estimated nonparametric regressions of the
treated and control groups.
Due to issues associated with the estimation process, I exclude the
region controls from the HTE framework and I do not use the SM method
due to collinearity issues within different strata. The HTE model does not
support panel data methodology and I thus use a pooled cross-section
approach with yearly dummy variables for the temporal control.7
Focusing on the MS and SD methods, I implement two primary models
based on the ability of the HTE model to provide results. For the MS and
SD methods to work, there must be at least one RHS variable in addition
to the CER variable. As such, the first model includes the slate of RHS
variables from Table 5 with the exception of the country fixed effects or
regional dummy variables (and corresponding linear time trend inter­
action terms within each framework) and CER Total. The second model is
essentially the same with the exception that it excludes Rule of Law.
Using the MS method, the primary graphical results for the two models
are seen in Figs. 4 and 5. The green line is a graphical representation of the
pattern of the effect of treatment across treatment propensity scores, and
the two grey lines represent the upper and lower confidence bounds (e.g.,
the 95% confidence interval). There are a few things to notice, especially
as the likelihood of adding a substantive CER grows from 0.1 to 0.6. First,
the treatment effect of having a substantive CER provision is generally
above 0 and thus positive for most of the range. When it does fall to zero
and even go negative at around the 0.75 mark, this is near the end of the
range of estimated treatment effects and the confidence interval includes
0 effect for most of the decline. Second, as the propensity score grows, the
positive effect of having a substantive CER provision is generally constant
around the 0.1 level. The graphical results from the model excluding Rule
of Law illustrate a similar pattern as seen in Fig. 5. Over a larger range of
propensity scores, the treatment effect is generally positive despite
declining through the 0–0.2+ range. There is one major difference, how­
ever, where the treatment effect is positive and increasing at the tail end of
the range of propensity scores (where there are less data, of course).8
The results from the SD method are like those from the MS. Figs. 6
and 7 are graphs of the difference between the estimated nonparametric
regressions of the treated and control groups, where the red line is the
estimated treatment effect and the grey lines represent the 95% confi­
dence intervals. Fig. 6 is the graph from the basic model including Rule
of Law and Fig. 7 is from the model excluding Rule of Law. As seen in
Fig. 6, as the likelihood of adding a substantive CER provision grows,
there is a generally positive treatment effect on SDI until around the
0.80+ propensity score mark where the effect becomes statistically no
different from zero and has very large error bounds. Fig. 7 is markedly
different, however. The treatment effect is generally positive and
seemingly constant over a propensity score range of approximately 0.1
to 0.7, at which point the treatment effect turns positive and increases
through a propensity score of 0.9 (noting, of course, that the confidence
7
Using a linear time trends yields results which are substantively the same.
8
The MS method also provides some interesting estimates of the average
effect of the treatment, and these results are illustrated in the Appendix.
C. Jeffords
165
160
155
150
145
140
135
130
1996
1998
2000
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Number of Countries (L. Axis)
Fig. 3. Pairwise Correlation Values between SDI and Rule of Law for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002–2015.
interval includes zero for a small range until this increase occurs).9
Overall, the primary results from the pooled HTE analyses illustrate
that countries which have substantive CER provisions tend to have
higher SDI scores, on average. Based on the four figures, this effect ap­
pears largest for those countries which are less likely to have a sub­
stantive CER provision, however, and the effect diminishes for countries
with observed characteristics which are predictive of having a sub­
stantive CER provision. At the same time, this interpretation should be
taken with extra caution outside of the propensity score ranges of
approximately 0.2–0.7 given the limited observation density relative to
the observation density within 0.2–0.7 as illustrated in Figs. 4 and 5.
Furthermore, the effects are more pronounced and significant in Figs. 5
and 7 which make use of more data given the exclusion of Rule of Law.
Based on these results, as a country is more likely to constitutionalize a
substantive environmental rights provision there exists a generally
positive and somewhat constant treatment effect on SDI over a range of
estimated propensity scores. This could imply that the existing pool of
9
In a previous version of this paper, repeated yearly cross-sectional analyses
using HTE methods revealed a similar pattern of general results, but where the
positive effect of having a CER provision quickly diminished to not having an
effect whatsoever and where the 95% confidence intervals surrounded the zero
line in treatment space for a greater range of propensity scores. That is, as a
country was more likely to add a CER provision, the positive impact on SDI
quickly diminished and disappeared shortly after or between the 5–40% pro­
pensity score mark. The repeated cross-section approach at the country-level
does not provide enough observations to make meaningful inference in a
treatment effect space as it relates to estimated propensity scores and the
impact on the SDI. Ideally, the HTE model could be applied to a panel. Despite
these difficulties, the results still offer promising evidence that having a sub­
stantive CER provision is positively related to the SDI and there is a generally
positive impact on the SDI over a relatively large range of propensity scores
associated with adding a substantive environmental rights provision to a
country’s constitution. Another interesting approach would be to consider how
the aggregate environment fares in the face of an increased likelihood of
constitutionalized substantive environmental rights at the country level. As it
stands, however, the treatment effect is associated with country-specific SDI
scores and not some broader measure of the environmental outcomes beyond
the country level.
12
Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
-0.6
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Pairwise Correlation (R. Axis)
countries which already have substantive CER provisions are those
which were already most likely to do so and are those countries which
are more likely to have realized a larger impact on the SDI from doing so
(a first-mover advantage, if you will). At the same time, it could be that
the pool of countries without said provisions may not realize as large an
impact on their respective environmental outcomes from being the
marginal country to add a substantive CER provision. In this sense, the
marginal country is that country which has the set of observable char­
acteristics from the data such that it is on the cusp of adding a CER
provision or not but where more weight is given to adding a provision.
So, not quite the indifferent country. The effect might still be positive,
but because the estimation processes are matching countries in a pooled
framework, by the time a country without a substantive CER provision
obtains the observable characteristics of an existing country that has had
a substantive CER for some time, the treatment effect from adding a
provision could be dampened by the fact that the country it matched
with already experienced a faster improvement in environmental out­
comes (or, in this case, SDI) earlier in its history due to when it added the
CER provision. When a country matches with another country in the
data is important for whether there will be a positive impact on the SDI
from adding a CER provision and the size of said impact. The longer a
substantive CER provision exists in a country the more chances there are
to make use of said provision to impact environmental outcomes, and
these impacts could be nonlinear across time. If a country only recently
matches on observables with a country that has had a substantive CER
provision for some time, then it stands to reason that the treatment effect
might be subdued due to various temporal, political, resource, and
institutional constraints.
6. Some notes on the use of alternative LHS variables
To further consider the selection and endogeneity issues outlined
above, I replaced SDI with additional LHS variables in the panel
framework but did not implement similar changes within the HTE
framework. In these unreported estimations, the additional LHS vari­
ables are EPI and, using data from the World Bank World Development
Indicators Database, the percent of the population with access to basic
drinking water services, safely managed drinking water services, basic
C. Jeffords
.6
.4
Treatment Effect
0 -.2
-.4 .2
0 .2
Propensity Score
Untreated
95% Confidence Interval
Fig. 4. Treatment Effect of Having a CER Provision on SDI Using the MS Method on Pooled Data from 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002–2014 (includes Rule of Law).
sanitation services, and safely managed sanitation services.10
EPI itself cannot be used in a panel framework given that its
composition and weighting structure changes with each iteration of the
index and it is published every two years. Using one-year lags, the
estimation results from a cross-section for the two most recent data years
(2014 and 2016) as well as in a pooled cross-section for these two years
were mixed and more sensitive to the inclusion of RHS variables. In
some cases, a statistically significant positive correlation between CER
and EPI was found, but not in nearly as many cases as for SDI. Given that
EPI is comprised of 20–32 underlying indicators, includes a subjective
weighting scheme, and measures fundamentally different environ­
mental outcomes, these results are worth exploring in the future to
determine why the relationship is stronger in one context (i.e. with SDI)
and weaker or nonexistent in another (i.e, with EPI). At the same time,
just because the trajectory of the positive relationship between CER
provisions and environmental outcomes, broadly construed, has been
found in multiple quantitative studies does not mean we should always
expect this result to hold across all sets of data.
The estimation results using the water and sanitation variables as the
LHS variables yielded a statistically significant positive difference in
means in both panel and cross-section frameworks, but this effect was
diminished when the models were extended to account for additional
RHS variables. This can be partially explained by the argument (noted
earlier) and articulated in Jeffords and Minkler (2016) that CER pro­
visions are written rather generally but the interpretation or trans­
mission mechanisms from the general language to specific outcomes are
what would impact something like improved access to drinking water or
sanitation services. It might be the case that those countries with explicit
constitutional provisions for the human right to water have more in­
dividuals with access to water and sanitation, but that was not consid­
ered in this analysis.
10
Although there is an appendix to this paper, these results are not reported
therein due to size constraints. As such, the results of these estimations are
available upon request.
Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049
.4 .6 .8
Treated
Smooted Treatment Effect
7. Discussion and practical implications of the primary findings
Based on the growing body of empirical evidence, it would be easy to
suggest to the leaders or people of a country that constitutionalizing a
substantive environmental right, in a vacuum, is not a bad idea. That,
relative to not having one, having one, whether it makes a difference or
not, has at least not been shown to negatively impact the environment.
Specific case law might have something different to say on this, but the
quantitative analyses suggest a non-negative relationship at the country-
level. This, however, obscures the avenues through which a constitution
impacts the natural environment and the specific ways in which a sub­
stantive CER provision is used to engender improved environmental
human rights outcomes which, at the same time, likely impact the nat­
ural environment. After all, protecting one’s right to a clean or healthy
environment will also help to clean the environment, or at least the logic
and intuition are there to support this claim. So, what can be said of the
practical implications of these broad, country-level findings that obscure
the micro-level details of how the changes might occur?.
For one, it seems that a strong, institutionalized democracy supports
improvements in environmental outcomes while also providing the
necessary ethos for constitutional change to respect, protect, and fulfill
environmental human rights. This goes together with mitigating the
potential for forms of political violence. At the same time, the negative
relationship between Rule of Law and the SDI is hard to square with
these suggestions.11 That is, this relationship appears to work against the
effect of having a substantive CER provision. One possible explanation
for this is the fact that many countries take steps to improve environ­
mental outcomes (in general) and environmental human rights (in
particular) but do so without constitutional rights delineated as such (or
without constitutions). It is possible that the perception of the strength
of the rule of law as it negatively relates to the SDI stems from the idea
that individuals believe national policies and laws are not enough of a
mechanism to help protect and improve environmental outcomes. The
current situation in the United States is a reasonable anecdote for this
11
See Fig. 3 for a simple, pairwise correlation between Rule of Law and SDI.
13
C. Jeffords
.6
.4
Treatment Effect
0 -.2
-.4.2
0 .2
Propensity Score
Untreated
95% Confidence Interval
Fig. 5. Treatment Effect of Having a CER Provision on SDI Using the MS Method on Pooled Data from 1989 to 2014 (excludes Rule of Law).
type of situation where there is tension between the national constitu­
tion and state constitutions, especially as they relate to environmental
human rights concerns. This suggests there is additional scope, espe­
cially for those countries without national CER provisions, to begin the
conversation of how adding one might work to improve environmental
outcomes but perhaps also the perception of the rule of law within the
country. For those countries with existing substantive CER provisions, it
might be time to revisit how the provision has impacted environmental
human rights outcomes and if it has not yet had any known impact, to
consider why. The latter is especially important given the framing of the
environmental human rights outcomes as, for example, measured
through changes in SDI, EPI, or measures of access to drinking water and
sanitation services.
In general, while decision-makers (“policy-makers”) might find it
interesting to know that there is a positive correlation between CER
provisions and certain environmental outcomes and, specifically, be­
tween CER provisions and SDI, they might also want to consider how
adding a CER provision might be useful for their country’s situation.
Given that countries share characteristics across time and space but also
have idiosyncratic characteristics which make them unique, the HTE
analysis contained herein provides additional insight beyond simply
having a CER provision. It suggests that there is a positive treatment
effect on SDI which is consistent across a range of propensity scores. This
information can allow policy-makers within the countries which are
considering adding a CER provision to better understand the “risk”
behind doing so, where the risk could be measured in terms of the po­
tential cost of the treatment effect (or lack thereof). The results of this
analysis are not to be generalized, however, as it may be the case that
future analyses demonstrate different treatment effect trajectories as a
function of the probability of adding a CER provision. Policy-makers can
thus use this analysis to begin an examination of their own character­
istics in the context of countries with similar characteristics and CER
provisions in an effort to tease out how the addition of a CER provision
in their own country might unfold as it relates to environmental out­
comes. At the same time, it is important that policy-makers also consider
how CER provisions are correlated with environmental outcomes in
Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049
.4 .6 .8
Treated
Smoothed Treatment Effect
countries dissimilar to their own because, after all, countries evolve and
different social, economic, political, and institutional trajectories are
always a possibility.
Of course, it is important to consider the specific avenues through
which the environment and environmental human rights are impacted
by substantive CER provisions, but these broad, country-level quanti­
tative studies only allow for general suggestions. Starting with a high-
level analysis of the framework that supports substantive CER pro­
visions should likely be followed by a dissection of the underlying
transmission mechanisms which may or may not allow for the provision
itself to be used as it was intended for that country at that point in time.
In other words, do not let sit and fester the provision itself or the decision
to add a provision, perhaps advertise it, have conversations about it, and
attempt to create an environment through which the provision has the
chance to matter, otherwise it is likely just empty talk.
8. Conclusion
The proliferation of substantive CER provisions has been followed by
a growing body of empirical research interested in gauging how envi­
ronmental outcomes are impacted by these provisions. In general, these
findings indicate that there is a positive and statistically significant
correlation between the two but that the relationship is sensitive to the
estimation framework, time period, sample size, and choice of RHS
variables. The findings of this paper echo these results and provide
further evidence that substantive CER provisions matter for environ­
mental outcomes and specifically for changes in SDI, and these results
stand under various estimation approaches and considering a variety of
RHS variables.
A key extension offered here is the application of the HTE model and
the subsequent finding that there is a positive and potentially constant
effect on SDI associated with the increased likelihood that a country
constitutionalizes a substantive environmental human right. Of course
these results are sensitive to the estimation framework, but future
research will hopefully allow for the application of treatment effects
models to data where the primary interest is how one particular country-
14
C. Jeffords Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049

1 .5
Treatment Effect
0 -.5
-1

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1
Propensity Score

95% Confidence Interval Smoothed Treatment Effect

Fig. 6. Treatment Effect of Having a CER Provision on SDI Using the SD Method on Pooled Data from 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002–2014 (includes Rule of Law).
1.5 1
Treatment Effect
.5 0

0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1
Propensity Score

95% Confidence Interval Smoothed Treatment Effect

Fig. 7. Treatment Effect of Having a CER Provision on SDI Using the SD Method on Pooled Data from 1989 to 2014 (excludes Rule of Law).

specific fixed effect, among multiple country-specific fixed effects, im­
pacts an outcome or LHS variable. Despite these caveats, the body of
evidence demonstrating a positive relationship between substantive
CER provisions and environmental outcomes has grown in scale and
scope. This generates the need for additional research to further
corroborate or refute these results and, at the same time, consider how
substantive CER provisions impact environmental outcomes and the
avenues through which these changes occur. Constitutions are difficult
to change and represent the most enduring qualities and characteristics
a country wishes to expound upon through policies, case-law, statutory
law, norm cascades, and the like. Placing a substantive environmental
human rights provision within a national constitution is not only a signal
that the country and its people believe in this right and hold it to be
important, but that there is now an additional mechanism through

15
C. Jeffords Ecological Economics 186 (2021) 107049

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