Description
Book SynopsisThis important book focuses on how newly emerging institutions for future generations can contribute to tackling large scale global environmental problems, such as threats to biodiversity and climate change. It is especially timely given the new global impetus for decarbonisation, as well as the huge growth of climate litigation and climate protest movements, often led by young people.
Global environmental crises and reactions against short-term thinking have spawned new institutions aimed at giving a voice to future generations in policy-making, such as dedicated commissioners. This book looks at why we need such institutions using approaches from ethics, human rights, sustainable development, intergenerational justice and administrative law. How to design such institutions to maximise their effectiveness, operating principles for such institutions, and case studies from around the world are canvassed. A range of reform proposals are also explored, including mainstreaming future generations’ voices in parliamentary processes, commissioners for future generations, human rights-based bodies and deliberative assemblies.
This collection brings together philosophers, political and social scientists, lawyers and practitioners. It provides both an introduction to the field and a scholarly in-depth set of studies. It will appeal to academics, policymakers and civil society.
Trade Review‘Short-termism in policymaking is usually lamented as inexorable. We prioritize short-term policy outcomes, we often hear, because future generations are powerless. Giving Future Generations a Voice
shows that it need not be so. Gathering specialists from various fields, it explores a range of institutions, from ombudspersons to citizens’ assemblies to sustainable development institutions, to better reflect future interests in present policies. It is an indispensable collection for anyone wishing to learn what grounds such institutions and how to make them work.’ -- Iñigo González Ricoy, University of Barcelona, Spain
