Event Title
Achieving Sustainable Development through Anthropocentric Laws: A Feigned Commitment to Posterity?
Location
Room 107
Start Date
2-7-2012 1:30 PM
End Date
2-7-2012 2:50 PM
Description
Global commitment to sustainable development can be measured by the commitment of individual countries to preserve the environment for future generations. The Commitment of a country will no doubt be manifest in the ethic underlying its environmental protection laws.
The question then is, what is the most appropriate ethic for the preservation of the environment; why is it more appropriate than any other ethic; and how can it be made to replace any existing ethic?
Generally speaking, environmental ethics either makes the resultant environmental laws short-sighted (anthropocentric) or long-sighted (ecocentric). Laws are short-sighted when they are focused on merely remedying current environmental problems as they affect man in this present generation. They are however long-sighted when they are preservationist in nature – that is, where they seek to preserve nature for present and future generations.
The preservationist (preventive) ethic is at the core of the principle of sustainable development. Unfortunately, however, this principle is yet to gain ground in most countries, let alone globally. Thus, only a preservationist ethic can produce laws that will preserve the environment for present and future generations.
Once this fact is reckoned with, the next challenge will be how to enthrone this ethic in the stead of the curative ethic which underlies most environmental protection laws. This brings to the fore, the importance of the Constitution or primary law of a country. Where a country’s primary law contains a preservationist ethic (particularly in the form giving nature right to existence), every other environmental legislature in the country will reflect same.
Therefore, where a country fails to show such commitment to the preservation of the environment through posterity provisions in its primary law, then sustainable development will remain illusory in that country. Worse still, where this failure stretches across countries, then posterity’s trust in this generation would be completely breached.
Presentation
Included in
Achieving Sustainable Development through Anthropocentric Laws: A Feigned Commitment to Posterity?
Room 107
Global commitment to sustainable development can be measured by the commitment of individual countries to preserve the environment for future generations. The Commitment of a country will no doubt be manifest in the ethic underlying its environmental protection laws.
The question then is, what is the most appropriate ethic for the preservation of the environment; why is it more appropriate than any other ethic; and how can it be made to replace any existing ethic?
Generally speaking, environmental ethics either makes the resultant environmental laws short-sighted (anthropocentric) or long-sighted (ecocentric). Laws are short-sighted when they are focused on merely remedying current environmental problems as they affect man in this present generation. They are however long-sighted when they are preservationist in nature – that is, where they seek to preserve nature for present and future generations.
The preservationist (preventive) ethic is at the core of the principle of sustainable development. Unfortunately, however, this principle is yet to gain ground in most countries, let alone globally. Thus, only a preservationist ethic can produce laws that will preserve the environment for present and future generations.
Once this fact is reckoned with, the next challenge will be how to enthrone this ethic in the stead of the curative ethic which underlies most environmental protection laws. This brings to the fore, the importance of the Constitution or primary law of a country. Where a country’s primary law contains a preservationist ethic (particularly in the form giving nature right to existence), every other environmental legislature in the country will reflect same.
Therefore, where a country fails to show such commitment to the preservation of the environment through posterity provisions in its primary law, then sustainable development will remain illusory in that country. Worse still, where this failure stretches across countries, then posterity’s trust in this generation would be completely breached.