On July 4^th and 5^th I co-chaired a conference in Geneva that was hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Future Council (WFC), on implementing intergenerational equity. Over the course of two days, we confirmed a common conviction that something must be done to protect the wellbeing of future generations, as well as a shared commitment to act. Nevertheless, I am concerned.

Despite a core group of dedicated professionals, a laundry list of legal precedent, and the potential for catastrophic consequences, steps towards legal recognition for future generations have stalled over the last decade. As discussed by the Coordinator for Social Watch, this stagnation has coincided with an explosion of international legal protections for corporations engaged in various forms of business and trade. An increasingly apparent struggle between the two sets of priorities and stakeholders—largely defined by unequal access to resources and representation—may explain this distortion.

The impression that traditional legal language is perhaps better suited to preserve private property than to promote collective rights was considered a key factor that has facilitated alliances between corporate entities and national governments, and prevented past efforts to protect common heritage from gaining traction. Another reason for the growing divergences between trade and business law and approaches to intergenerational justice may be the primarily reactive relationship of international human rights law with violations, compared to anticipative bent of economics.

Perhaps the privilege accorded to business over future generations in law is further linked to a general assumption that measurable benefits for constituents of the former will exceed those of the latter. Considerable resources have gone in to demonstrating how protections for trade, investment and business can have a direct impact on the lives of people and communities; while IHRL has only begun to develop evidence that correlates strong human rights protections with improvement to lives of a voter base.

As economic law seems to be loosing touch with the society it serves; integrating obligations towards future generations in IHRL can introduce the checks and balances needed to realign international law with its fundamental purposes of improving lives and promoting social progress. Dominant economic institutions overestimate the benefits of expanding GDP and the uncertainty about what future generations will need in order to justify mass exploitation of non-renewable resources and other practices that endanger human rights—economic discounting reliant on un-invented technology aside. Fortunately, the evolving system of economic, social and cultural rights offers two very helpful approaches to mapping rights for current and future generations: basic needs and progressive realization.

Applied research is now needed to convince those with the ultimate responsibility for implementing international law: national governments. In order to develop an accessible knowledge base about what extending the human rights framework to future generations would mean for people today, as well as tomorrow, I am proposing a partnership with any organisation that is willing to support the analysis of multidisciplinary data on the impact, implications and mechanisms of/for the inclusion of future generations as a recognized group in IHRL.

This will include developing an understanding of the implications of the extension of human rights protections to future generations, formulated in the context of sustainable development. Building on this basis, an exploration of socio-economic-intergenerational trade-offs—and what they mean for progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights—will address concerns about balancing human rights between present and future legal persons. Finally, the research series will examine the possibility of applying the Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as an instrument to protect the rights of future generations. Analysis of these three overlapping issues will equip advocates and states with the evidence necessary to integrate long-term perspectives into human rights-related legislative and policy decisions.

Karen Moir is a consultant who supports human rights and sustainable development across the United Nations. She can be contacted for more information on related human rights work via email, LinkedIn or Twitter.

The guiding principle of International Human Rights Law (IHRL) is universality, or the ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.’ The Preambles of key instruments like the International Covenants on Civil and Political, and Economic Social and Cultural Rights assert this, while the Charter of the United Nations opens by affirming the determination of the world to spare ‘succeeding generations’ of the horrors that ultimately led to the creation of the United Nations itself.

However, legal evidence drawn from around the globe demonstrates that the ability of states to impact the human rights of future generations (through, for example, the extractive sector) is not adequately reflected in the law today.

In order to ensure the universality of access to justice despite social realities that are far from static, IHRL is necessarily an ever-evolving web of living instruments. Since the appearance of international law, the benefactors have been able to depend on steady progress and continuous codification of what constitutes human rights. In the face of permanent and irreparable damage to the economic, social, cultural and environmental fabric that is necessary for the effective exercise of rights, limiting legal protections to current generations may fail to protect what could, philosophically speaking, be the largest cohort of humans ever to exist.

The arguments against integrating intergenerational justice into human rights frameworks are many, but the two most common simply do not hold up to scrutiny. First is the issue of balancing rights between the here and now and the ambiguous ‘later’. Development practitioners in particular, are wont to worry that extending rights to future generations would somehow undermine those of the most vulnerable in the world today. Without spending to much time on the socio-cultural rights of identifiable individuals that necessarily have a temporal element (for example, ‘the conservation, the development and the diffusion of science and culture’ ICESCR, Art.15(2)); it is sufficient to recall that the extension of human rights to women did not violate those of men, nor did the extension of human rights to ethnic and religious minorities violate those of majority groups. Human rights is by its very definition a balancing act, and the act of balancing rights can only be considered legitimate once all human beings are accounted for.

This leads us to the next most frequently encountered protest: how can the law account for future generations? The capacity to promote and protect human rights through representation is confirmed by the most widely ratified instrument of international human rights law: the Convention on the Rights of the Child. There are diverse approaches to representing the best interests of others in law; therefore, I am tempted to treat this complaint as more of an avoidance tactic than an actual obstacle. There is a response to every challenge: the Genocide convention may already establish group recognition, predictable causality is tackled by the precautionary principle in environmental law, and so on. Yet, future generations continue to fall outside the protections international human rights law.

Nevertheless, advocates of sustainable development and international environmental law continue to pursue the cause. In New York on May 9^th the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs convened an Expert Panel on Intergenerational Solidarity. Next week the United Nations Environment Programme in collaboration with the World Future Council will host a Global Conference on Implementing Intergenerational Equity: ‘Bringing Future Perspectives to the Status Quo.’ I will co-chair this event to promote enhanced understanding of the concept of intergenerational equity and explore strategies for protecting the rights of future generations.

More information and the tentative agenda can be found here. Please feel free to join the discussion online or in person.

Karen Moir is a consultant who supports human rights and sustainable development across the United Nations. She is currently engaged with the United Nations Development Programme in New York, and explored the implications of limited legal protections for future generations at the University of Essex. Additional research on balancing rights across generations and the application of human rights law to protect them is forthcoming.