Intergenerational Justice and Curtailments of the Discretionary Powers of Governments
Author(s)
Wood, Paul M.
Abstract
Governments of all nations presume they possess full discretionary policy-making powers over the lands and waters within their geopolitical boundaries. At least one global environmental issue–the rapid loss of the world’s biodiversity, the sixth major mass extinction even in geological time–challenges the legitimacy of this presumption. We receive the short-term benefits of economic development; future generations will receive the resulting burden of a biosphere in which one of the life-support systems necessary for humanity will have been compromised. Using Ronald Dworkin’s conceptions of distributive justice, it can be demonstrated that constitutional constraints on the discretionary powers of governments, for the sake of intergenerational justice, are entirely consistent with central tenets of liberal democracy. As a result, we should abandon to some extent the presumption that governments have full jurisdiction over the lands and waters within their boundaries.
