Facing the Future

Conceiving Legal Obligations Towards Future Generations

Bibliographic Data

ID13053310
AuthorsSvenja Behrendt (0000-0002-9433-5703, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume12
Publication date2024-04-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitics and Governance (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2183-2463 • E-ISSN: 2183-2463
PublisherCogitatio (PUBLISHER • PT)
DOI10.17645/pag.7839
OpenAlexW4394881170
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited43

Conceiving legal obligations towards future generations is challenging—especially from a positivist stance and if obligations and claims are understood as being correlative in nature. Legal obligations towards future generations are often rejected from the outset if (and insofar as) there is no explicit acknowledgement or established doctrine. This neglects the power of sound legal interpretation. I argue that obligations towards future people and generations are grounded in the relational character of human rights and that their positivity is not a problem in a legal order containing norm texts that can reasonably be interpreted as acknowledging human rights; no additional enactment is necessary for these obligations to be part of the positive law. This claim is based on a (novel) concept of fundamental rights which is compatible with legal positivism

Acknowledgement · Black letter law · Business · Comparative law · Doctrine · Epistemology · Human rights · Interpretation (philosophy · Law and economics · Legal doctrine · Legal formalism · Legal norm · Legal positivism · Legal realism · Legal research · Norm (philosophy · Order (exchange · Political science · Positivism · Power (physics · Private law · Sociology · Climate Change and Geoengineering · Environmental law and policy · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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