The Rights of Future Generations and the Burden of Present Generations in Protecting the Environment

Abstract

In Europe, one’s right to the environment was explicitly established as a fundamental human right, and was also established in the interests of future generations. Damage to the environment causes, in most cases, long-lasting, negative effects which have a negative impact on posterity, i.e., those future generations which need to be protected, due to which it is necessary to intervene with effective policies that lead to an ecological transition achieved with a reduction in extant polluting substances. The goal of this article is to understand whether or not future generations are holders of an active subjective juridical situation in terms of an individual’s right to a healthy environment. A comparative analysis of jurisprudential and doctrinal sources aims to discard the option of considering future generations as holders of a subjective right to a healthy environment and will focus on current subjects upon whom many constitutions impose a legal situation aimed at implementing a series of climate-protection actions for those who will come in the future.

Keywords

• environment
• article 37 nice charter
• future generations
• ecological transition
• climate neutrality