Do future generations have rights?

Abstract

The American Philosophical Association, in the February 1973 issue of its Bulletin, requested contributions on the topic: "Can it be asserted that future generations have rights, for example, to pure air?" The response raised two second-order questions: (i) why did the participants find so little explicit discussion of the problem to work upon? (ii) why do we find so much interest in it now? The paradox in the conjunction of these two questions is not very difficult to resolve: the problem has only become real recently. In fact, it was during the late seventies that the world community was awakened from its slumber to a new social awareness which remained marginal in its consciousness and conscientiousness for many decades. This was the awareness of the limits to growth! At that time many began to realise that it was unrealistic to speak simply of progress, without taking very seriously into account the limitations of the natural resources, the ecological crisis, the dangerous consequences of modem technology, and the ever-growing double gap: between some parts of the world and others; between present and future generations.