Children giving birth to their parents: towards duty-rights theory of human rights?

Abstract

The work that I propose with the intention of getting the master degree in human rights and democratisation seeks to explore some of the mysterious concepts that are used in the theories of rights, in the international declarations, more and more in the constitutional provisions of the states and even in decisions made by courts: future generations. Precisely, the paper aims at locating the concept of future generations in the human rights theory. For it intends to address questions whether future generations do have rights and whether we do owe them anything. The paper argues that future generations do have rights but a special form which is in rem rights. They entail an imperfect obligation or moral duty on us. The first and foremost duty that we owe them is a duty of justice. Additionally, the paper addresses the question of the relation between rights and justice arguing that justice alongside with liberty and correlativity is the third condition of rights. Accomplishing these aims, indirectly the paper explores the so-called third generation of human rights or “solidarity rights” (the right to a proper environment, the right to development). Hence, arguably the emergence of the third generation of human rights occurs in the context of the discussion about the future generations. As regards the method, the paper explores these puzzling features from a historical, philosophical and legal angle. The first one aims at explaining the emergence of future generations as reason for environmental rights and justice. The second one aims at justifying the content and of it. The third one aims at linking the previous two in order to get closer to the points to be argued. It is a novel and perhaps useful approach as long as it has not been yet done by any of the E.Ma students so far (at least according to author’s research) and insofar as it poses significant theoretical and practical challenges for at least the theory of human rights.