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This article explores how legal interpretivism offers a robust framework for addressing intergenerational equity in contemporary jurisprudence. Drawing on sophisticated accounts of interpretivist theory, particularly the distinction between hybrid and pure interpretivism, this article argues that pure interpretivism's emphasis on moral principles determining how institutional practice affects legal rights provides courts with the theoretical foundation needed to consider the interests of future generations. Through analysis of evolving case law, particularly in climate litigation, this article demonstrates how judges are already engaging in interpretivist reasoning when addressing intergenerational equity concerns. The article contributes to ongoing debates about the grounds of law and judicial methodology in addressing long-term, global challenges like sustainability and climate change, arguing that pure interpretivist approaches offer both theoretical coherence and practical solutions for protecting future generations’ interests while maintaining legal legitimacy.

Global warming and the excessive exploitation of water resources have raised significant concerns regarding water scarcity and the degradation of aquatic ecosystems. To enhance integrated water resource management, a multi-objective optimization model integrated water allocation and water quality has been developed, in which there are trades-off between average economic benefit efficiency maximization and social welfare for long-term sustainability. In the social welfare maximization objective, an adapted Bentham-Rawls criterion is incorporated to addresses intergenerational trade-offs in high-quality water resource allocation, and the overlapping generations structure is employed to analyze the intertemporal dynamics of water pollution, thereby alleviating the conflicts between economic growth and environmental quality in the basin. Besides, total economic efficiency maximization objective is also important as it ensures the effective utilization of water resources. Using the heavily polluted Tuojiang River basin in China as a case study, the feasibility and rationality of this model have been demonstrated. Scenario analysis further validates the model's effectiveness and explores the impacts of varying control parameters. Results indicate that improving sewage treatment capacity, reducing water pollution accumulation, and accounting for the reasonable needs of future generations for high-quality water can promote the sustainable development of the basin. Compared with the previous models, the proposed optimization model is capable to increase the social welfare by 13.83% and total economic efficiency by 15.97%.

Ranking infinite utility streams includes many impossibility results, most involving certain Pareto, anonymity, or continuity requirements. We introduce the concept of the future agreement extension, a method that explicitly extends orderings on finite time horizons to an infinite time horizon. The future agreement extension of the given orderings is quasi-transitive, complete, and pairwisely continuous. Furthermore, its asymmetric part is larger than that of any other pairwisely continuous extension of the orderings. In case of anonymous and strongly Paretian orderings, their future agreement extension is variable step anonymous and strongly Paretian. Characterizations of the future agreement extensions of the utilitarian and leximin orderings are obtained as applications.

With the rapid development of society and the economy, the demand for water resources is increasing. This, combined with the increasing competition for water resources between current and future generations, hinders the sustainable development of society. To alleviate prominent water resources problems, achieve sustainable utilization of water resources and the sustainable development of society and economy, a multi-objective optimal water resources allocation model is proposed, in which different water sources and different water departments are considered to achieve the maximum social and economic benefits of the study area on the premise of water resources sustainability. To meet the needs of future generations, the discount value is introduced to measure intergenerational equity. A case study from seven cities in the upper and middle reaches of the Huaihe River Basin is given to verify the practicality and viability of the model. The non-dominated sorting Genetic Algorithms-2(NSGA-2) was used to find optimal water resources allocation schemes in 2020 and 2050 under the condition of a hydrological drought year (inflow guarantee rate p = 75%). Compared with previous models, the intergenerational equity model considers the sustainability of water resources, has higher social and economic benefits, and ensures the fair distribution of water resources among generations. According to the results, under balanced weight, the water shortage ratio of the seven cities will decrease from 5.24% in 2050 to 1.58% in 2020, and the economic benefit will increase from 79.46(1010CNY) to 168.3(1010CNY), respectively. In addition, the discount value of economic benefit in 2050 is 80.23(1010CNY), which is still higher than that in 2020. This shows that the water resource allocation scheme can eliminate the disparity between supply and demand for water resources and achieve intergenerational equity. Therefore, the intergenerational equity model can alleviate the contradiction of water resources and realize intergenerational equity.

A sustainable world is one in which human needs are met equitably and without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Human well-being is described by four primary elements—basic human needs, economic needs, environmental needs, and subjective well-being. These elements can interact in a myriad of ways to influence overall well-being. What makes changes in human well-being sustainable for a population or a nation? Two major interactional concepts can push changes in human well-being toward a sustainable state in space and time—social equity and intergenerational equity. The concept of social equity distributes well-being over space, ensuring the fair treatment of all members of society promoting spatial sustainability of a well-being decision. The concept of intergenerational equity distributes well-being through time, ensuring the well-being of present and future generations of a population or nation, promoting temporal sustainability of a well-being decision. The roles of social and intergenerational equity in terms of their influence on human well-being are examined with a focus on more sustainable decision-making.

The contribution of the present research is to link the global consensus in international legal scholarship on the principle of intergenerational equity to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The methodology used is, first, to provide a literature review of theories of intergenerational equity developed in international law scholarship, followed by a textual analysis of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that contains the SDGs. To place the SDGs in their proper context, an overview is provided of the most important declarations on sustainable development of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), and outcome documents of the most important World Conferences on sustainable development organized under the auspices of the United Nations. Two general conclusions can be drawn from the present research: in international law scholarship and in the SDGs and previous declarations, the earth is generally seen as a resource, to be used by present and future people, and not as something warranting respect regardless of its worth to human beings. Second, the main challenge is to find a proper balance between intergenerational equity—present and future people—and intragenerational equity—the rich and the poor of the present generation.

How might we extend aggregative moral theories to compare infinite worlds? In particular, how might we extend them to compare worlds with infinite spatial volume, infinite temporal duration, and infinitely many morally valuable phenomena? When doing so, we face various impossibility results from the existing literature. For instance, the view we adopt can endorse the claim that (1) worlds are made better if we increase the value in every region of space and time, or (2) that they are made better if we increase the value obtained by every person. But they cannot endorse both claims, so we must choose. In this paper I show that, if we choose the latter, our view will face serious problems such as generating incomparability in many realistic cases. Opting instead to endorse the first claim, I articulate and defend a spatiotemporal, expansionist view of infinite aggregation. Spatiotemporal views such as this do face some difficulties, but I show that these can be overcome. With modification, they can provide plausible comparisons in cases that we care about most.

The three pillars of society—democracy, the market, and science and technology—are not systems that guarantee survival. This is because they will cause “future failures” that will eventually impose heavy burdens on future generations. Therefore, we need to design mechanisms to reinforce these three systems. This is called future design. Its basic concept is “futurability,” which is the ability of the current generation to prioritize the interests of future generations. This study examines the necessity of futurability, its background, and its relationship with intergenerational equity. In particular, using a simple numerical model in which the investment of the current generation affects the resources of future generations, this article shows that if each generation looks only to its own interests, humanity will face extinction. To ensure the survivability of humanity, each generation must demonstrate futurability, especially the importance of demonstrating futurability in a non-steady state.

BackgroundThis study aims to examine to what extent sustainability has been incorporated into assessments of road infrastructure projects. It identifies promising approaches that include indicators reflecting core sustainability criteria, determines criteria that were insufficiently covered as indicators, and develops an integrated indicator set covering all criteria.MethodsA systematic review was performed to obtain all related papers/reports in two academic databases: Scopus and Web of Sciences. The indicators extracted from papers/reports were first coded, then evaluated by using quantitative and qualitative content analysis.ResultsThe project appraisal methods for decision-making is found to be a promising approach, covering more extensive criteria than others. Two criteria – namely adaptation and precaution and intergenerational equity – were hardly ever adopted as indicators. Ten main groups of indicators were extracted to construct an integrated set incorporating all core criteria.ConclusionsSome criteria appear to have become mainstream, while others deserve attention. The safest choice is to combine methods/tools or to adopt the integrated set developed for exhaustive criteria inclusion.