The Role of Fiduciary Duty in Safeguarding the Future

Abstract

The modern idea of a right to a healthy environment achieves salience only in the context of developed societies with economic and political institutions that pose a threat to the environment. If vulnerable peoples do not enjoy a right to a healthy environment, they are left to negotiate as best they can with those who are indifferent to the effects of environmental degradation. On the fiduciary theory, sovereign power is constituted and constrained by human rights. So if the right to a healthy environment is a human right, then under the fiduciary theory it is a right that limits intrinsically the claims that can be made on grounds of sovereignty. In general, however, the right to a healthy environment, like most human rights, is non-peremptory, since circumstances may arise in which restrictions on the right are necessary to provide for individuals secure and equal freedom.