Bill of Rights of Future Generations

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What rights do we give to future generations?


Previous efforts on this subject include:

  • " Every person has the right to inherit an uncontaminated planet on which all forms of life may flourish. "
Captain Jacques Cousteau in the early 1990's launched a campaign for a formal resolution to inscribe this first Article of this Bill of Rights in international law. It is carried on by the Custeau Society and in 2001 the motion was delivered to the Secretary General of the United Nations.
  • The Constitutional Law Foundation counts among its purposes to work for the application of the U.S. Constitution's provisions for the protection of posterity and works on the Stewardship doctrine and discuss various historic views on the subject in detail.
  • In 1997 the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations (Stiftung für die Rechte zukünftiger Generationen) was founded, a think-tank that considers intergenerational justice to mean that today's youth and future generations must have at least the same opportunities to meet their own needs as the generation governing today. It publishes the publishes the journal "Intergenerational Justice Review"
  • 2009 Axel Gosseries and Lukas Meyer (Eds): Intergenerational Justice ISBN: 978-0-19-928295-1 Describes libertarian, Rawlsian, sufficientarian, contractarian, communitarian, Marxian and reciprocity-based approaches to the subject.




Let's come up with a text for a bill of rights that inspires us and our own generation to take the rights of possible future generations as seriously as we take our own rights. Please comment on the discussion page or improve the efforts below.


Bill of Rights of Future Generations

  1. All possible future generations have a right to exist.
  2. Future generations have a right to benefit from knowledge of previous generations.
  3. ...