Comment by Raymond A. Just
In 1973 the United States Congress recognized every citizen's right to sustained biodiveristy by enacting the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and including within it a provision conferring upon “any person” the capacity and right to enforce the Act's mandates. Congress thereby empowered every citizen to protect the diversity of life present on our planet from being further reduced by the unwise actions of his fellow man. In Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, decided in 1992, the United States Supreme Court took away this right and ability via an antiquated reading of the “actual injury” prong of Article III's standing requirements. Shortly after the Lujan decision was handed down, however, another supreme court in another country reached a much wiser decision. In Minors Oposa v. Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (The Philippine Children's Case), decided in 1994, the Supreme Court of the Philippines gave legal recognition to the concept of intergenerational standing. It found that a person has the right to represent future generations in preserving the right to a balanced and healthful ecology. This Comment examines the Lujan decision and the inequity which it has spawned, and, after citing the growing international and national precedent favoring recognition of the rights of future generations, proposes that the decision on standing from the Philippine Children's Case serve as a vehicle for bursting through the barrier erected by the Supreme Court in Lujan. Specifically, this Comment suggests that if the U.S. legal system was to recognize a person's right to represent his posterity in the context of ESA claims, the actual-injury component to standing could be satisfied much more easily by acknowledging the exponentially greater likelihood that violations of the Act would cause actual, concrete injury to persons yet unborn (by preventing them from observing and interacting with species that will become extinct in the future). After examining probable arguments against recognition of intergenerational standing for ESA claims, the Comment concludes that such recognition is possible under existing U.S. legal tradition, is warranted by existing social thought, and is especially appropriate in the context of the Endangered Species Act.
About the Author
Raymond A. Just. B.A., 1989, University of California Berkeley; J.D. Candidate, 1997, Tulane Law School.
Citation
71 Tul. L. Rev. 597 (1996)