Environmental protection as a constraint on economic activity.

Some reflections on ruling no. 105 of 2024

Abstract

The paper aims to explore several issues raised by the Constitutional Court’s ruling in the Priolo case (Judgment No. 105 of 2024), with particular attention to the role of the judiciary in implementing the new Fundamental Principle concerning environmental protection, as well as to the potential redefinition – along sustainable and intergenerational lines – of the socio-economic transformation project enshrined in Article 3(2) of the Italian Constitution. This analysis is situated within a Euro-national legal framework increasingly characterized by judicial decisions annulling legislative policies that fail to align with environmental protection principles, which have by now been incorporated into the vast majority of national constitutions