Weiss, Edith Brown --- "Implementing Intergenerational Equity" [2010] ELECD 593; in Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos (eds), "Research Handbook on International Environmental Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Environmental Law

Editor(s): Fitzmaurice, Malgosia; Ong, M. David; Merkouris, Panos

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201249

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: Implementing Intergenerational Equity

Author(s): Weiss, Edith Brown

Number of pages: 17

Extract:

5 Implementing intergenerational equity
Edith Brown Weiss



Introduction
Climate change, the central environmental issue in this century, inherently raises significant
problems of intergenerational equity. The actions we take today to address (or to ignore)
climate change have enormous implications for the well-being of future generations. In 1988,
Our Common Future (the Brundtland Report) brought long-term effects to the fore interna-
tionally by enunciating the concept of sustainable development. It has now become almost
routine to refer in a general way to the effects of our actions on future generations. Climate
change is the quintessential intergenerational problem.
Within the last two decades, the principle of intergenerational equity, which underlies sustain-
able development, has become sufficiently well established that it is timely to revisit the theory
and the extent to which the principle has become part of international law. It is appropriate to
explore the implementation of intergenerational equity: in international and national courts, in
new national executive and legislative institutions, and in national constitutions and legislation.
In the context of climate change, the principle of intergenerational equity is essential to ensure
that the interests of future generations and of those who may have no voice today are heard.
This chapter addresses intergenerational equity related to the environment and natural
resources and to cultural resources (see generally Brown Weiss, 1989, 1999 and 2002; Brown
Weiss, 1993a: 332­53). The theory applies more broadly to issues such as debt, health care,
and social structures.

Problems of intergenerational equity
As background, it ...