Part III Conceptual Pillars, Ch.20 Equity

This chapter critically analyses the notion of equity in international environmental law. It begins by discussing the meaning of equity in international law and briefly reflecting on familiar examples of the manifestation of equity in international environmental law treaties. The prominence of intergenerational and intra-generational equity in international environmental law warrants a subsequent critical analysis of the content, legal status, and relationship between these forms of equity. This discussion indicates that although the two components of equity may prima facie be in conflict, they constitute important complementary aspects of sustainable development. The chapter then calls for the progressive development of aspects of intra-generational and intergenerational equity that may have profound consequences for international environmental law.

Lebensrealität und Rente

The current pension debate focuses primarily on the issue of generational equity. However, this work addresses problems that do not concern intergenerational but intragenerational distribution processes in the statutory pension system: Given the plurality of forms of employment and lifestyles, the ‘structural conservatism’ of this system, including its normative concepts of the conventional employment relationship and the average family, appears to have become a challenge. Accordingly, this work presents inconsistencies and inequalities that result from this confrontation. At the same time, it offers a benchmark that allows for a normative assessment of the discrepancies it points out, viewed from a Christian social–ethical perspective.

Sustainability, Territories and Circular Economy

The asymmetry in combining ethics, economic efficiency, intra-generational and inter-generational equity, which characterizes the current governance of the three fundamental functions of the planet's economic systems, is at the origin of the segmented approach to well-being in territories, that is, the inability to be able to satisfy the various demands of the Company without "outsourcing the costs of the scarcity" of capital stocks, generating inequalities and jeopardizing the well-being of future generations. In other words, without being able to pursue an integrated approach to well-being and its sustainability. In this context, the awareness of firms and families of having to adopt new deci-sion-making models, focused on the circular economy, and capable of directing Territories towards a "Circular Economic System" becomes central.

CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

The concept of Sustainable Development is today becoming the guiding principle in the entire environment versus development debates and is generally seen as solution to this stalemate situation. The concept of sustainable development is structured on two forms of equity i.e. Inter-generational equity and intra-generational equity. This concept of Inter-generational equity initially evolved in the International Environmental law, in its mode of rule and management, today find a place in our Environmental law and its interpretation and decisions as well. This paper is an attempt to analyze the understanding and attitude of the Indian Courts towards this valuable principle.