The Rights of Future Generations

Narinder Kakar, Anna Shostya and Victor M. Tafur

Chapter 10 in Pathways To Sustainable Development, 2025, pp 154-166 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Most of today's social, economic, political, technological, and environmental problems are long term and multifarious, and require solutions with a long-term perspective. To take the future into account is an urgent necessity, as much as it is an ethical obligation. Yet, future generations are not yet born. Consequently, they lack legal rights. This chapter argues that, despite repeated commitments, there is no specific mechanism within the UN dedicated to the protection of the rights of future generations. This makes future generations particularly vulnerable and entirely dependent on the present generations’ actions and policies. Only a small number of countries, like Finland and Wales (as discussed in this chapter) have introduced reforms of their political systems to try to safeguard the interests of future generations. This chapter explores various pathways toward building a framework to protect the rights of future generations, with the Pact for the Future as a backdrop. It concludes that the main pathway to safeguarding the rights of future generations is the one that involves supra-state institutions and international negotiations.

Keywords: Rights of future generations; Presentism bias; UN Policy Briefs; Declaration on Future Generations; Supranational institutions; International negotiations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035356331
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