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35 - Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Rights for Future Generations

from Part III - Applications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2025

By
Eric Martínez  and
Christoph Winter
Edited by
Kevin Tobia
Kevin Tobia
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

The last several years have featured the development of legal longtermism – the set of theories associated with the view that law should be concerned with ensuring the long-term future goes well. Although recent literature has shown that the principles underlying legal longtermism are widely endorsed across the Anglosphere, it remains an open question whether these principles are endorsed across cultures. Here we surveyed laypeople (n=2,938) from ten countries – Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom and United States – regarding law’s role in protecting future generations. We find participants in our sample widely endorse (a) increasing legal protection for future humans beyond current levels; (b) extending personhood and standing to some subset of humans living in the near and far future; and (c) prioritizing the interests of future people over those of present people in some national and international lawmaking scenarios. Taken together, these results suggest the notion of granting rights and legal protection to future generations is endorsed cross-culturally, carrying wide-ranging implications for legal theory, doctrine, and policy.

Keywords

future generationspersonhoodstandingcross-culturalexperimental jurisprudence
Type
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The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Jurisprudence , pp. 610 - 648
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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