Giulia Battistoni, SAFI President (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow, University of Verona)
This is part one of a two-part blog post series, read part two here.
On the Brink of Apocalypse
That the planet and humanity stand on the brink of Apocalypse is something we are all well aware of.[1] The countdown to environmental catastrophe is nearing its end. There is no excuse for culpable ignorance – a concept dating back to Aristotle – where failing to acknowledge available knowledge only deepens guilt.[2] With access to vast amounts of information, ignoring reality is a choice with real consequences.
Over the past year, environmental disasters have struck worldwide, leaving no room to turn a blind eye. Wildfires devastated Los Angeles (2025) and Greece (2024), leading to mass evacuations and casualties.[3] Floods wreaked havoc worldwide: Nepal, Bangladesh, and Thailand were hit in summer 2024;[4] in May 2024, severe floods in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul caused casualties and missing persons; in April 2024, China’s “floods of the century” displaced over 50,000 people. And Europe was not spared, as Spain, Germany, and Italy also faced significant flood crises during the same period.[5] Heatwaves proved even deadlier, with temperatures exceeding 40°C in the Mediterranean and reaching a staggering 62°C in Rio de Janeiro.[6] In February 2024, the President of Catalonia declared a state of emergency in Barcelona due to a severe drought, while in May 2024, an Indian court urged the government to do the same in response to a deadly heatwave.[7] In the summer of 2024, over 1,300 worshippers died during the Mecca pilgrimage due to extreme heat.[8] The UN has classified this crisis as an extreme heat epidemic.[9] Events like these are driven by the worsening climate crisis: 2024 was the first year to surpass the 1.5°C threshold, making the goal of keeping warming below 2°C – and ideally under 1.5°C – increasingly unattainable.[10] Coal consumption has surged, especially in India and China, increasing carbon dioxide and methane emissions, while deforestation in Indonesia and the Amazon, driven by mining and agriculture, further weakens our planet’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases.[11]
Despite the urgency, little progress has been made. The crisis exposes a political and regulatory void, underscoring the need for effective supranational institutions to address these escalating threats.
From Crisis to Change: An Italian Proposal Born During the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the failure of supranational institutions in managing global crises and underscored governments’ struggles to act decisively. It also reinforced humanity’s vulnerability and the deep link between human well-being and environmental health.[12]
It is no coincidence, then, that an important project for a Constitution for the Earth emerged precisely during the pandemic period.
On February 21, 2020, a distinguished assembly of jurists, politicians, economists, and philosophers convened in Rome to promote binding obligations on human rights protection.[13] A key figure was Italian jurist Luigi Ferrajoli, who later expanded on these ideas in his book Per una Costituzione della Terra (For a Constitution of the Earth, 2022), advocating for a global legal framework based on universal constitutional principles to address urgent crises – above all, the ecological emergency. Rooted in Kantian thought, Ferrajoli’s vision sees humanity as a single global society requiring a cosmopolitan order – a federation of peoples to prevent self-inflicted destruction. While seemingly utopian, he argues that elevating constitutionalism to the supranational level is not just desirable but inevitable.[14] This article critically engages with his compelling work, making its core ideas accessible beyond Italian-speaking audiences.
The book’s first section tackles Global catastrophes. For Ferrajoli, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the universal nature of the rights to life and health while exposing two key failures: 1. A fragmented healthcare system failing to guarantee universal access; 2. Weak institutions like the WHO, unable to enforce fundamental rights. With governments acting independently – often prioritizing market interests – COVID-19 underscored the need for coordinated global governance. Given the five major global emergencies – climate disasters, nuclear wars, fundamental rights violations and hunger, labor exploitation, mass migrations – Ferrajoli calls for global legal guarantees to restrain state and market power and expand constitutionalism on a planetary scale.[15]
Ferrajoli paints a grim yet powerful picture of the environmental crisis, likening it to a “metastasis engulfing the planet” – a deadly tumor spreading unchecked, threatening Earth’s very survival. He holds humanity and its leaders accountable for this “unforgivable guilt”, dismissing ignorance as an excuse. At the heart of his argument is the notion of systemic crimes – offenses so vast that evade traditional criminal law. Without clear perpetrators, often implicating entire populations or humanity itself, these crimes challenge the principle of individual culpability and expose legal blind spots. This concept raises important questions about accountability and legal limitations, which I intend to explore further. Classical criminal law hinges on Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege – no crime and no punishment without a defined law. This means that a legal provision must exist: without it, an act cannot even be considered a legal offense, cannot be punished from a criminal law perspective. Moreover, crimes require both actus reus (a wrongful act) and mens rea (intent or knowledge). Now, environmental damages defy this framework: harm unfolds over time, causality is hard to trace, and polluters act out of profit-motives, not direct malice. All this complicates their classification, though they could be addressed through failure to exercise due diligence. Ferrajoli is thus right in arguing that environmental crimes are fundamental rights violations beyond the reach of – I would add “current” – criminal law.[16]
Yet, severe environmental damages still remain massive violations of constitutional rights at both national and supranational levels and, in practice, there is currently no clear legal framework for intervention.[17] To address this legal gap, Ferrajoli’s expanded notion of constitutionalism should shift accountability from criminal to political responsibility. He argues that limiting “crime” to legally defined offenses within criminal law leads to selective outrage, allowing large-scale harms to go unnoticed or normalized. By introducing systemic crimes as grave and systematic human rights violations that should fall under political responsibility, Ferrajoli underscores the performative – and I would even say transformative – power of legal language in shaping public perception and legal action. The idea is that once these concepts are firmly established, international jurisdictions can and must be created to investigate, adjudicate, and enforce penalties effectively.
The second part of Ferrajoli’s work focuses on the Limits of Contemporary Constitutionalism, contrasting two models: 1. The nationalist model, rooted in Carl Schmitt’s idea of the state as a homogeneous, unified entity, which thrives on the friend-enemy dynamic, fueling conflict and war;[18] 2. The pluralist model, which limits all powers in order to protect fundamental rights, fosters political diversity, and promotes peaceful coexistence based on solidarity and dialogue. Ferrajoli argues that sovereign nation-states are incapable of addressing global challenges as they remain trapped in the first model, reinforcing division and competition. The only solution is to adopt the second model at a supranational level. In addition to this, global constitutionalism is supposed to resolve key contradictions – between universal rights and restricted citizenship, and peace and state sovereignty, which perpetuates the rule of the strongest.[19] In this sense, citizenship and sovereignty must also be redefined, as the traditional concept of sovereignty will only perpetuate conflict at the international level – a reality Hegel had already recognized.[20]
Ferrajoli ties the failure of national constitutional systems to democracy’s short-term, national focus, which blocks meaningful global action. No state, he argues, will pursue impactful ecological reform alone without a coordinated global strategy. As nation-states remain local actors shaped by global markets, politics has become subordinate to economics, rendering national constitutionalism ineffective. Democracy itself, he contends, should be redefined. International agreements pledge to protect freedoms, yet without enforcement, fundamental rights remain unguarded. The UN, too, is hindered by weak legal guarantees for human rights and an overriding emphasis on national sovereignty, preventing true supranational governance. The 1998 International Criminal Court, for instance, remains unsupported by major powers.[21] The root issue is international law’s dependence on nation-states. While the UN Charter offers a foundation for global governance, it lacks the power to override sovereignty. To build a Federation of the Earth, Ferrajoli calls for global institutions capable of enforcing laws, rights, equality, peace, and resource protection.[22] His solution: a dual system of legal guarantees to close the gaps in international law:
1. Primary guarantees, ensured by institutions that prohibit harm and ensure access to fundamental rights, like freedom, equality, and non-discrimination. This includes strengthening the WHO and FAO, creating a global commons system for essential resources like water, and transforming institutions like the World Bank into independent entities free from the influence of wealthy nations;
2. Secondary guarantees, ensured by judicial mechanisms to address violations of primary rights, including a Global Constitutional Court and a jurisdiction for systemic crimes. Ferrajoli also envisions a global taxation system to prevent the exploitation of global commons by wealthy nations, which currently treat them as res nullius (ownerless property).[23]
In the third part of his work, Ferrajoli expands on Constitutionalism beyond the state developing three key frameworks: 1. Supranational constitutionalism, establishing international peace, banning war as a crime, abolishing national armies, and ensuring supranational protection of fundamental rights;[24] 2. Market constitutionalism, seeking to counter the absolute power of market forces, preventing market dominance over politics, and restoring dignity to labor through regulatory oversight;[25] 3. Commons-based constitutionalism, protecting essential resources – natural (like air, water) and artificial (like medicine) – as global commons, prohibiting commodification, and implementing direct guarantees against weapons and greenhouse gases.[26]
Continued at Part 2 of this series.
[1] On January 28, 2025, the Doomsday Clock, created in 1947 by scientists to convey, through a powerful image, the reality of the threat facing humanity, was moved one second closer to midnight, highlighting the increasing severity of global crises. See: TheBulletin.org.
[2] This is akin to an individual who causes an accident while intoxicated: their negligence is the determining factor. The distinction lies between “acting in ignorance” (when one disregards available knowledge, making their ignorance culpable), and “acting out of ignorance” (when one is genuinely unaware and could not have known the circumstances or consequences). “Acting out of ignorance” thus absolves guilt, while “acting in ignorance” incurs responsibility. See: G. Battistoni, Azione e imputazione in G.W.F. Hegel alla luce dell’interpretazione di K.L. Michelet, IISF Press, Naples 2020, p. 121 ff. and Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, III, 2, 1110 b 25-1111 a.
[3] See: TheGuardian.com. Although some regions have always been prone to such events, climate change has worsened their effects.
[4] See: Reuters.com; Reuters.com; Reuters.com.
[5] Between 2014 and 2023, regions worldwide exposed to torrential rainfall increased by over 50% compared to 1961-1990. See: TheGuardian.com; Reuters.com; ElPais.com; Spiegel.de; Repubblica.it; Internazionale.it.
[6] See: Internazionale.it.
[7] See: Internazionale.it; Internazionale.it.
[8] In August 2021, Sicily recorded a European high of 48.8°C. See: Internazionale.it. Many deaths in La Mecca were linked to an “unauthorized pilgrimage”, leaving hundreds without air-conditioned shelter. See: TheGuardian.com; Internazionale.it.
[10] See: Internazionale.it.
[11] See: LeMonde.fr; Internazionale.it; TheGuardian.com. The Amazon, crucial in mitigating climate change, has already lost an area the size of France and Germany combined. There are, however, ongoing efforts to halt deforestation. See: TheGuardian.com.
[12] I made this point in G. Battistoni, A biocentric ontology at the basis of an anthropocentric concept of co-responsibility to non-human world, in «Filosofia Morale/Moral Philosophy» 2/2023, 4, pp. 101-110 (Open Access).
[13] Among them: Raniero La Valle, Luigi Ferrajoli, Valerio Onida, Bishop Nogaro, Riccardo Petrella, and others. See: IlManifesto.it; IlManifesto.it.
[14] See L. Ferrajoli, Per una Costituzione della Terra. L’umanità al bivio, Feltrinelli, Milano 2022, p. 18.
[15] Ivi, p. 28. The passages quoted from this volume are my own translations.
[16] Addressing them within that framework would likely require revising key concepts such as responsibility and imputation, along with recognizing ecocide in international criminal law – an effort already underway, as some countries have begun classifying severe environmental damage as a crime in their national laws. See Linkiesta.it; TheGuardian.com. In addition to this, the notion of responsibility, traditionally retrospective and individual, must be rethought in collective and forward-looking terms – an ethical duty before a legal one, centered on caring for the environment and future generations. I critically expanded on these ideas in: G. Battistoni, Per una fondazione razionale della co-responsabilità verso la natura e le generazioni future, in «Pòlemos. Materiali di filosofia e critica sociale» 1, 2023, pp. 101-120 (Open Access) and G. Battistoni: A biocentric ontology at the basis of an anthropocentric concept of co-responsibility to non-human world, in «Filosofia Morale/Moral Philosophy» 2/2023, 4, pp. 101-110. See also M. Calloni, Human Development and Sustainability. Towards a Multilayered Idea of Co-Responsibility, in «Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie», vol. 110, issue 4 (ed. by K. Y. Albrecht/G. Battistoni/S. Zucca-Soest), 2024, pp. 504-518.
[17] See L. Ferrajoli, Per una Costituzione della Terra, p. 41.
[18] «Das Wort „Verfassung“ muß auf die Verfassung des Staates, d. h. der politischen Einheit eines Volkes beschränkt werden […]». C. Schmitt, Verfassungslehre, Duncker&Humblot, Berlin 2017 [1. Auf. 1928], p. 3.
[19] See L. Ferrajoli, Per una Costituzione della Terra, p. 59.
[20] See G.W.F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. by A.W. Wood, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003, §§ 333-334. See also L. Ferrajoli, Per una Costituzione della Terra, p. 60.
[21] Ivi, p. 66; pp. 75-76.
[22] Ivi, p. 79.
[23] Ivi, p. 83 ss.
[24] See cap. 9.
[25] See cap. 10.
[26] See cap. 11.