Carolyn Raffensperger: Legal Guardianship for Future Generations

Carolyn Raffensperger, executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, writes on the idea and application of legal guardianship for future generations in "Recalibrating the Law of Humans with the Laws of Nature: Climate Change, Human Rights, and Intergenerational Justice," a collection of papers from U Vermont Law School's Climate Legacy Initiative.

From Recommendation 12 - Arrange for Court Appointed Special Masters and Experts (pdf):

Climate change cases will proliferate in courts throughout the world in the coming decades. While most of the environmental cases of the past thirty years have hinged on scientific issues and contested facts, the emerging ecological and climate change cases, particularly those that are global in scale and intergenerational in scope, will turn on economic issues, be accompanied by vast scientific uncertainty, and have enormous societal ramifications. These facts, which fall into the category of “post-normal science problems,” call for special masters and expert witnesses to serve in courts as a form of legal guardian or ombudsperson for future generations, and to do so according to essentially the same criteria and with the same training and certification as are set out in some detail in CLI Recommendation No. 10 (above in this Appendix B) relative to legal guardians of future generations generally. Such is the concern and focus of this recommendation.

From Recommendation 10 - Adopt a Model Executive Order Establishing an Office of Legal Guardian for Future Generations and Provide for the Training and Certification of Legal Guardians (pdf):

This recommendation proposes the following Model Executive Order that a mayor, governor, tribal leader, president, or other administrative officer can use to designate a legal guardian for future generations.

Hat tip: On the Commons.