The right to a healthy environment as an intergenerational phenomenon

Abstract

The necessity of considering the right to a healthy environment in the context of intergenerational phenomenon is especially fueled by accusations that the current generations live at the expense of future unborn generations, which is often accompanied by a rather brutal rhetoric like 'suspensive robbery' (as the famous environmental activist Paul Hawken points out: 'We have an economy where we steal from the future, sell in the present and we call that GDP'). In that sense, the paper analyzes the temporal range of the right to a healthy environment by addressing its substance, the idea of intergenerational justice and equality, the ability of future generations have rights in the present, as well as sustainable development - until now the most optimal compromise between seemingly irreconcilable demands of economy and ecology as well as the interests of present and future generations.

Keywords

• the right to a healthy environment
• intergenerational justice
• the right of future generations
• sustainable development