Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the number of cases being brought before national courts addressing the constitutional rights of children and future generations (FG) in the context of environmental protection. These cases have required courts to devote increasing attention to a wide-ranging and complicated array of constitutional rights claims involving the short- and longer-term impacts of environmental harm on children and FG. This article argues that both litigation and judicial efforts in this area have been hampered by the lack of precision of definitions of ‘future generations’ under comparative constitutional and international human rights law, in particular vis-à-vis children. This lack of precision poses a major challenge to both the delineation and enforcement of rights claims in the context of such litigation. After outlining how these cases are being brought and how courts are addressing (or not) the complexities involved in defining children and FG respectively, the article highlights the lack of authoritative definitions of FG in comparative constitutional law – a lacuna that, the author argues, is exacerbated by the ongoing lack of a clear definition of FG in the international human rights law context. The article concludes by identifying key challenges faced by litigators and courts seeking to engage with the rights of children and FG that result from this definitional gap.

中文翻译：

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儿童和后代在法庭上的权利：定义的棘手问题


近年来，向国家法院提起的涉及环境保护背景下儿童和子孙后代（FG）宪法权利的案件数量急剧增加。这些案件要求法院越来越多地关注范围广泛且复杂的宪法权利主张，涉及环境危害对儿童和女性的短期和长期影响。本文认为，由于比较宪法和国际人权法对“未来一代”的定义缺乏精确性，尤其是针对儿童的定义，这一领域的诉讼和司法努力受到了阻碍。这种缺乏精确性对此类诉讼中权利主张的界定和执行构成了重大挑战。在概述了这些案件如何提起以及法院如何解决（或不解决）分别定义儿童和 FG 所涉及的复杂性之后，文章强调了比较宪法中缺乏对 FG 的权威定义——作者认为，这是一个缺陷，由于国际人权法中一直缺乏对女性生殖器官的明确定义，这一问题更加严重。文章最后指出，由于这一定义上的差距，寻求参与儿童和女性权利的诉讼律师和法院所面临的主要挑战。