Youth movements, intergenerational justice, and climate litigation in the deep time context of the Anthropocene

Abstract

After decades of ineffective state-led global climate governance that has been dominated by mostly short-term Northern political and corporate interests, we are now witnessing an increased recognition of the planetary scale of the climate crisis and its impacts on present and future life on Earth. The Anthropocene is argued to be the new geological epoch and is associated with fast-approaching planetary boundaries and a new understanding of promethean humans as a powerful geological force. The Anthropocene introduces a new context for thinking about the climate crisis and its associated multiple patterns of differentially distributed injustices, including the temporal aspects of justice. At the same time, the climate crisis prompts the need to embark on new strategies to ensure a safe and just operating space for all present and future generations within planetary limits. While traditionally marginalized in national, regional and United Nations political fora, and largely ignored by the high rhetoric of multilateral environmental agreements that have been unable to operationalize intergenerational justice in day-to-day governance, young people are now actively claiming their position as representatives of present and future generations. They do so through protests, but also increasingly through more formal avenues to deliberately assert claims for intergenerational justice. One increasingly popular and often successful strategy is climate litigation. In this paper, we explore the shift in understanding and the practicing of intergenerational justice in the deep time context of the Anthropocene, and how young people are becoming more powerful political actors that use climate litigation to ensure intergenerational justice. We briefly reflect on the 2021 decision of the German Constitutional Court in Neubauer et al versus Germany as an example of successful youth-led climate litigation.

Courts, climate litigation and the evolution of earth system law

“…Courts are often the only available institutional means through which civil society may influence climate change governance, as was the case in Earthlife Africa v Minister of Environmental Affairs (2017), where a prominent South African NGO successfully halted the approval of a coal-fired power plant (Kotzé & Du Plessis, 2020). National courts can also give standing to individuals who have no voting rights, such as children, with Neubauer v Germany (2021) offering a prominent example (Kotzé & Knappe, 2022).…”

The contradictions of youth participation for intergenerational justice in urban environmental planning

“…This is in large part due to the difficulty of representing future generations in democratic processes, which poses an important ethical and practical challenge (Tremmel, 2006;Hiskes, 2009). Nevertheless, discounting future costs and benefits in economics (Portney and Weyant, 2013), considering the option and bequest value in environmental economics (Beltratti et al, 1992), and youth-led litigation demanding climate action (Slobodian, 2019;Kotzé, 2021;Kotzé and Knappe, 2022;Rodela and Stuber, 2023) all reflect applications IGJ that aim to influence decision-making and public discourse regarding sustainability and the well-being of future generations.…”

State-Centrism in International Relations: Examining the Construction of Nonstate Collective Actors in Human Rights Scholarship

“…2 Considering the long-standing critique of the lack of recognised nonstate actors in IR theory and the key contribution made by IR human rights scholarship to this issue, this article takes on the task of critically unpacking the implications held by different approaches for the conceptualisation of the mentioned non-state actors for IR, specifically in the context of human rights scholarship in IR. In its goal of aiming to identify socially embedded patterns of meaning and the implications and effects they bring, it thereby remains methodologically grounded on a reflexive thematic analysis as a method that is used to map and decompose the state of knowledge when it comes to human rights and collective non-state actors -via their mutual reflexivity -to spotlight the need for a different agenda for further research 1 Most notably, "transnational groups of affected persons", grassroots movements and activists, women and youth movements, and indigenous organisations (Berger and Esguerra, 2018;Holzscheiter, 2018;Baver, 2020;Knappe and Schmidt, 2021;Kotze and Knappe, 2023). 2 In this scholarship, an actor is generally considered to be "an identifiably human or collective subject that in principle can gain agency and thus become an agent"; an "agent" denotes an entity that can act, and "agency" the corresponding ability to act.…”