The Governance Lag: When Technological Innovation Accelerates Faster Than the Law of Sustainability

Abstract

This paper focuses on the widening governance gap between technological innovation and sustainability law in India. The sudden growth of digital technologies in the form of artificial intelligence, data centers and cloud computing has brought about new environmental issues that current legal systems are unable to manage. With the help of the doctrinal legal analysis and conceptual modeling, the paper addresses the problem of how technological acceleration tends to exceed the pace of environmental regulation development. The paper identifies gaps in the Indian environmental law and policy in the aspect of sustainability governance of emerging technologies. The constitutional grounds of sustainable technological governance are discussed through the judicial precedents and policy developments. The study states that the increasing gap between innovation and law should be closed with the help of adaptive regulatory systems to provide sustainable technological development in India.