Guardians of the Future
A new report is being published about a ‘super jury’ that would act as Guardians of Future Generations.
The institutionalisation of such an idea was first proposed by Malta in a preparatory meeting ahead of the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992, but wasn’t taken up by the UN.
In the year of the 20th anniversary of that conference (and the Rio +20 Summit) there is a second wave of support for institutionalising the rights of future generations - at the international and national level.
Rupert Read, a philosopher at UEA writes of his new report:
“It came from the worry that it is clear that the current institutions of government are not working and are not future proof … It also came from a philosophical direction: seeking for a way take the future seriously and in a democratic way.”
“The proposal being made here is that we give future people en masse the nearest possible equivalent to the vote”. The need for democratic representation of unborn people led Read to the idea of a “super-jury”. “Random selection would emphasise that we all share this responsibility for future people, and that none of us and all of us are ideally placed to do this vital job,” he writes in the report.
Read about the report on the Green House Think Tank website. Also read The Guardian write up about the report.
