Power and future people's freedom: intergenerational domination, climate change, and constitutionalism

摘要

Intergenerational domination is the idea that future people's freedom is violated insofar as they are vulnerable to the capacity of the people living before them to interfere. This paper explores the extent to which intergenerational domination applies to two familiar phenomena: climate change and constitutionalism. The first part of the paper argues that the emission of greenhouse gases does not amount to intergenerational domination. Being hurt by climate change does not equal subjection to the capacity of previous generations to interfere. The second part argues that intergenerational domination is under certain conditions applicable to the relationship exemplified by political constitutionalism. Hence, this study shows that constitutional provisions introduced in order to protect future generations from climate change is more likely to contribute to rather than to protect them from intergenerational domination.