Environmentalism versus constitutionalism: A contest without winners

This essay is about two threats to society. One is to the environment that, if unattended, will endanger our way of life. The other is to constitutional government and to the economy that arises from ill-advised responses to the challenges of environmental protection. The latter threat, if unaddressed, will not only endanger our way of life by diminishing freedom and prosperity but, in the end, will also defeat our good intentions about the environment. [Executive summary extract]

Singapore 'shared values' and law: Non east versus west constitutional hermeneutic

This article examines the apparent contradictions in Singaporean interpretation and application of its Westminster modeled Constitution in which the Constitution is treated as any other piece of legislation and Western style individual rights are easily overrun. It also examines the Government's particularist claim to Asian values as an explanation for its handling of the Constitution and seeks an alternative approach to understand the Constitution with reference to the Government publication, the Shared Values. The author suggests that this Document serves as a quasi-Constitution, and finds that interpreting two leading cases with this hermeneutic leads to a more satisfactory understanding of the court's decisions. The article concludes that the Government's approach toward the law to create the society it envisioned and published in the Document is a different and pragmatic issue, rather than a result of any fundamental East versus West cultural difference.