No future for future generations: who is international environmental law for?

Abstract

The idea that the environment must be protected for future generations has been gaining traction in recent years. This article argues that the concept of future generations, as de ployed in international environmental law, is, however, deeply exclusionary, with only some humans being envisaged as future generations. It is furthermore argued that the concept is anthropocentric in that it focuses only on human future generations. The article discusses whether the concept can be recast considering these critiques, deploying queer and deco lonial approaches to do so. In particular, Indigenous understandings of future generations are highlighted as offering an alternative framing. The article concludes by arguing that legal concepts must be carefully designed to ensure the construction of a future whereby climate change and environmental degradation are addressed in an equitable and just way, providing three pathways that can be used to begin to reframe the concept of future gener ations accordingly.