Towards the establishment of green courts for the settlement of environmental disputes: a study in the light of the report of the United Nations Environment Programme on environmental courts .

Climate change is one of the urgent challenges facing constitutional systems in the 21^st century. At the international level, on July 28, 2022, the UN general assembly declared that the right to a healthy environment is a fundamental human right. At the national level, several states have innovated several institutional and procedural mechanisms to tackle climate change impacts, which led to the emergence of green constitutionalism, and the judiciary plays a fundamental role in the constitutional theory as a complementary institution to the executive and legislative branches. This role led to the emergence of climate litigation phenomena. However, the severe impacts of climate change and the growing scientific complexity of climate cases led to the emergence of specialized environmental courts to tackle those complexities effectively and efficiently. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) documented the institutional and procedural aspects of nearly 2115 green courts in 67 countries. Considering the above-mentioned, this research paper sheds light on the role of the judiciary in climate change governance generally and the emergence of green courts. This paper will focus on the role of green courts regarding scientific issues in climate change cases and the specific role of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales. It will be concluded by discussing whether this institutional innovation could be applied to the Egyptian constitutional system.