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I haven't read about this case, but some context: This has been an issue in environmental cases for a while. It can manifest in different ways, including "standing," i.e., who has the ability to bring lawsuits, and what types of injuries are actionable. If you google some combination of "environmental law" & standing & future generations you'll find references to this literature, e.g.: https://scholarship.law.uc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1272&context=fac_pubs

Last I checked, this was the key case in which a court (from the Phillipines) actually recognized a right of future generations: http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/gintenlr6&div=29&id=&page=

Also, people often list parties as plaintiffs for PR reasons, even though there's basically no chance that a court would recognize that the named party has legal standing.

JasonApr 15 202410

Agree on PR stunt -- as long as one party has standing in this kind of litigation, it doesn't generally matter whether the others do.

mhpage

Jan 25 2018

Related (and perhaps of interest to EAs looking for rhetorical hooks): there are a bunch of constitutions (not the US) that recognize the rights of future generations. I believe they're primarily modeled after South Africa's constitution (see http://www.fdsd.org/ideas/the-south-african-constitution-gives-people-the-right-to-sustainable-development/ & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_South_Africa).

See in context

Ongoing lawsuit naming "future generations" as plaintiffs; advice sought for how to investigate

by kokotajlod

Jan 23 20181 min read 8

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Juliana vs. US is an ongoing lawsuit. Notably, it names "FUTURE GENERATIONS" as plaintiffs in the case.

I don't know much law, but I hear precedents are important, and so maybe EA's concerned about the long-term future should be especially interested in ensuring that this case sets a good one.

https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/us/federal-lawsuit/

I heard about this from someone I met yesterday who studies this case. I'm going to meet with him someday soon and ask more questions. What questions should I ask?

So far I intend to follow the importance/neglectedness/tractability framework and ask questions like "What is the budget of this organization? Is there no other precedent, are they really the first case of this kind? Is it too late to change anything about their approach, or are there still decisions that need to be made?" But I think people with more legal background than me (I have zero) could suggest better questions to ask...

Also, I'm interested in hearing whether or not I've completely misjudged the expected value of looking into this. Maybe this sort of thing is actually not that important or tractable?

Thanks in advance.

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ukc10014Apr 15 20241

There is also this - the Future Claimant's Representative - it is apparently a phrase from US bankruptcy/tort law that has been applied in an environmental and museumology context by Ian Baucom, a US academic. This is probably out of context for your question, but I'm interested in fleshing out: what would a FCR that represents interests of future generations of AIs that are more likely to enter the moral circle (i.e. when we turn off a GPT-n or make big changes to an advanced/human-level AI, are we doing something we wouldn't be happy doing to a human or other entity that is (possibly/roughly) morally equivalent) look like? I think Bostrom might have mentioned something like this in one of his digital minds papers.

If anyone has any thoughts/wants to work on this with me, please get in touch (I'm thinking of it as a video and/or paper/essay).

mhpageJan 25 20186

Also, people often list parties as plaintiffs for PR reasons, even though there's basically no chance that a court would recognize that the named party has legal standing.

JasonApr 15 202410

Agree on PR stunt -- as long as one party has standing in this kind of litigation, it doesn't generally matter whether the others do.

mhpageJan 25 20183

kokotajlodJan 25 20180

OK, thanks! This is very helpful, I'm reading through the article you cite now.

zdgroffJan 25 20183

This seems really exciting and promising to me now that you point it out. I did not pay much attention to this lawsuit since I classified it in my head as a climate change thing, and climate change is much more crowded than other high-impact future causes. Based on what I know of the U.S. legal system, though, having a lawsuit recognize future generations' claims would be a pretty big deal and probably very good for far future causes in general. I'm glad you thought of this.

MarkusAnderljungFeb 2 20180

Sounds really interesting!

Here are some potentially interesting things to be aware of:

The Human Rights Project: https://www.nonhumanrights.org/
There has been a similar case in Norway recently, where the constitution states that people have the right to an environment that supports health and that this right also applies to future generations. My understanding is that the case failed, but it might be interesting nonetheless. Here's an article about the case: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-norway/norway-environmental-lawsuit-says-arctic-oil-plan-violates-constitution-idUSKBN1DE173 Here's the relevant article of the Norwegian constitution: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57f7996cf5e23175d8f0de01/t/5888deb7414fb5440508f140/1485364919565/Article+112+of+the+Norwegian+Constitution-final.pdf
There's also been significant work on how to give future generations representation in political systems, by CSER and some students at Cambridge: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/to-save-generations-of-tomorrow-we-need-to-change_uk_5a6f4347e4b0290826014b1c?utm_hp_ref=uk-news

kokotajlodJan 24 20180

I should clarify: I'm not only looking for help from lawyers. Any advice or ideas would be appreciated.