Newsletter: Archive

2014

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Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 08/2014

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1) Chil­dren at the con­sti­tu­tion­al court. Goal: To abol­ish the min­i­mum vot­ing age

2) FRFG is search­ing for an EVS-volunteer

3) FRFG receives award

4) 7th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2013/14 on the top­ic of “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Justice”

5) Obit­u­ary to Hans-Peter Dürr, advi­so­ry mem­ber of the FRFG

6) UN Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil Opens High-lev­el Segment

7) Cli­mate Change and Human Rights — and Ethics Perspective

8) “Scrap­ping Help to Buy Would Be an Act of Inter­gen­er­a­tional Theft.”

9) Aus­tralian Car­bon Tax Repealed

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1) Chil­dren at the con­sti­tu­tion­al court. Goal: To abol­ish the min­i­mum vot­ing age

15 chil­dren and teenagers, aged between 10 and 17, have sub­mit­ted a com­plaint to Germany’s con­sti­tu­tion­al court. They demand the abol­ish­ment of the min­i­mum vot­ing age and, thus, the strength­en­ing of democ­ra­cy and gen­er­a­tional jus­tice. They are sup­port­ed by the Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Gen­er­a­tions, which is the “most well-known extra-par­lia­men­tary think tank for mat­ters of inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice” (Wirtschaftswoche), as well as the children’s ini­tia­tive “Plant for the Plan­et.” Legal assis­tance is pro­vid­ed by Prof. Michael Quaas, one of “Germany’s best lawyers” accord­ing to the Han­dels­blatt-Rank­ing 2014. Prof. Quaas has so far sup­port­ed the cam­paign free of charge.

Con­test­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion at the con­sti­tu­tion­al court has trig­gered con­sid­er­able media atten­tion, which we doc­u­ment in our press pages (Ger­man).

Cam­paign Background:

Chil­dren had no vote in the 2013 gen­er­al elec­tion. In Ger­many, more than a mil­lion peo­ple are unable to exer­cise their right to vote – just because they are under 18. This means that 17% of the pop­u­la­tion are being denied their most impor­tant polit­i­cal and con­sti­tu­tion­al right. This goes against the prin­ci­pals of democ­ra­cy and pop­u­lar sov­er­eign­ty and is no longer sup­port­able. We have been work­ing with chil­dren and young peo­ple in regards to this mat­ter, and togeth­er we have start­ed the “Wir wollen wählen!” (“We want to vote!”) cam­paign.

On 20th Novem­ber 2013, more than a dozen chil­dren and young peo­ple, togeth­er with the FRFG, sub­mit­ted an elec­toral com­plaint to the Bun­destag. The Bun­destag reject­ed our com­plaint on 8th May 2014. On 7th  July 2014 the FRFG flied a com­plaint before the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court, demand­ing the abol­ish­ment of the min­i­mum vot­ing age.

If the com­plaint is approved by the con­sti­tu­tion­al court, the costs of sci­en­tif­ic advice and legal assis­tance will be incurred. We would there­fore like to ask you to sup­port our cam­paign finan­cial­ly. We have launched an appeal for dona­tions at Bet­ter Place . We thank you very much for your support!

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2) FRFG is search­ing for an EVS-volunteer

The FRFG is search­ing for an EVS-vol­un­teer for the new issue of the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review. The project will start from 1st Jan­u­ary 2015 and end on 31st of Decem­ber 2015. All inter­est­ed peo­ple can send us an appli­ca­tion (includ­ing CV, moti­va­tion let­ter, cer­tifi­cates, ref­er­ences) via E‑Mail (kontakt@srzg.de).

Young peo­ple can also con­tact us for more infor­ma­tion about the EVS and the project. Please note that very good Eng­lish lan­guage skills are required for our project!

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3) FRFG receives award

The FRFG was award­ed the Our Task Glob­al Think­ing Award at the Earth 2100 Con­fer­ence, which was held on 26th and 27th July 2014 George Mason Uni­ver­si­ty, Vir­ginia, USA. Dr. Bruce Auer­bach received the award on behalf of the FRFG. He was impressed with the enthu­si­asm of Our Task, which is a young organ­i­sa­tion which seeks to engage the young in cam­paign­ing for envi­ron­men­tal change.

For more infor­ma­tion about Our Task and the Earth 2100 Con­fer­ence, click here.

A video of the award cer­e­mo­ny can be found here.

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4) 7th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2013/14 on the top­ic of “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Justice”

The  top­ic for the 7th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2013/14 is “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice” and the dead­line for sub­mit­ted work is draw­ing ever near­er. Entries in Eng­lish or Ger­man can still be sub­mit­ted until the 15th Octo­ber 2014. After the dead­line, the work will be judged by our high-rank­ing jury and prizes will be award­ed to the best pieces.

The jury is com­prised of:

- Prof. Dr. Klaus Hur­rel­mann (Her­tie School of Gov­er­nance, Berlin)
— Prof. Dr. Dieter Frey (Lud­wig-Max­i­m­il­ian-Uni­ver­si­ty, Munich)
— Dr. phil. Wolf­gang Kraushaar (Ham­burg Insti­tute for Social Research)
— Dr. James Sloam (Roy­al Hol­loway, Uni­ver­si­ty of London)
— Juliana Bidada­nure (Uni­ver­si­ty of York)
— Ash­ley Sea­ger (Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foundation)
— Jun.-Prof. Dr. Dr. Jörg Trem­mel (Eber­hard Karls Uni­ver­si­ty Tübingen)

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found here.

The com­plete ten­der doc­u­men­ta­tion will be sent upon request via email to kontakt@srzg.de.

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5) Obit­u­ary to Hans-Peter Dürr, advi­so­ry mem­ber of the FRFG

Prof. Hans-Peter Dürr, one of the FRFG’s advi­so­ry mem­bers, died on the 18th May 2014. Prof. Dürr was born in Stuttgart on 7th Octo­ber 1929; he died at the age of 84. He was a quan­tum physi­cist, a peace and anti-nuclear activist, a philoso­pher and alter­na­tive Nobel Prize lau­re­ate, a mav­er­ick and inquisitor.

He empha­sized the respon­si­bil­i­ty of sci­en­tists for peace, ecol­o­gy and glob­al jus­tice and became an impor­tant voice in the debate on dis­ar­ma­ment of the 80s. In 1987 he received the Right Liveli­hood Award in recog­ni­tion of “his pro­found cri­tique of the Strate­gic Defense Ini­tia­tive (SDI) and its work to make sophis­ti­cat­ed tech­nol­o­gy avail­able for peace­ful pur­pos­es.” Jakob von Uexküll, founder of the Right Liveli­hood Award and the World Future Coun­cil, praised Dürr as “a bridge between worlds and world­views.” An obit­u­ary to Prof. Dürr can be found on the web­site of the Wol­rd Future Coun­cil.

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6) UN Eco­nom­ic and Social Coun­cil Opens High-lev­el Segment

On 7th July 2014, the Unit­ed Nations released a press state­ment about its Eco­nom­ic and Social Council’s post-2015 agen­da. The new agen­da will build on the suc­cess­es and short­com­ings of the Mil­len­ni­um Devel­op­ment Goals, with mea­sur­able tar­gets and scaled-up invest­ments in areas such as edu­ca­tion, health, gen­der equal­i­ty and youth employ­ment. Also part of the new agen­da is erad­i­cat­ing extreme pover­ty and an imper­a­tive to build­ing sta­ble soci­eties and tack­le grow­ing inequal­i­ty in both rich and poor countries.

To read the whole press release, click here.

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7) Cli­mate Change and Human Rights — and Ethics Perspective

The mes­sage of a recent side event to the Unit­ed Nations Human Rights Coun­cil, held on 19th June 2014, was that “Cli­mate change is increas­ing inequal­i­ty and impact­ing ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty and secu­ri­ty as well as pro­vok­ing the forced dis­place­ment of peo­ple and thus seri­ous­ly affect­ing the human rights of peo­ple all over the world. Cli­mate action based on sci­ence can help pro­tect the basic human rights of indi­vid­u­als both in this gen­er­a­tion and in future ones, as cli­mate change pos­es ques­tions to inter­gen­er­a­tional justice.”

For more infor­ma­tion, the rest of the arti­cle can be found here.

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8) “Scrap­ping Help to Buy Would Be an Act of Inter­gen­er­a­tional Theft.”

George Osborne, the UK’s Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer, has said that scrap­ping the Help to Buy ini­tia­tive would be an “act of out­ra­geous inter­gen­er­a­tional theft.” He said that we want young peo­ple to have the same oppor­tu­ni­ties to buy homes as his gen­er­a­tion did. The Help to Buy scheme offers work­ing first-time buy­ers a loan of up to 20% (on top of a mort­gage) of the price of a new­ly-built house, on which no inter­est is payable for the first five years.

The rest of the Telegraph’s arti­cle can be accessed here.

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9) Aus­tralian Car­bon Tax Repealed

On 17th July, Australia’s Sen­ate vot­ed to repeal the car­bon tax by a mar­gin of 39 votes to 32. The tax was intro­duced in July 2012 and Australia’s high­est pol­luters were charged 23 Aus­tralian dol­lars per tonne of green­house gasses they pro­duced. The Prime Min­is­ter, Tony Abbot, has pledged to reduce green­house emis­sions with­out the “inter­na­tion­al odd­i­ty” of a car­bon tax, but Green par­ty leader said that the repeal­ing of the car­bon tax rep­re­sent­ed “inter­gen­er­a­tional theft.”

To read more, click here.

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All newslet­ters are avail­able on our home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Press > Newsletter

If you want to unsub­scribe this newslet­ter, please send an e‑mail to
kontakt(at)srzg.de or unsub­scribe direct­ly on our homepage.
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Please feel free to con­tact us with any feed­back con­cern­ing our newsletter.

With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er Str. 29
D‑70619 Stuttgart

Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt(at)srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org & www.srzg.de

—

Board:
Bern­hard Winkler
Dr. Bet­ti­na Munimus
Wolf­gang Gründinger
Adri­an Schell (head of board)

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Office Man­ag­er:
Igor Dimitrijoski

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Copy­right © 2014 FRFG

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Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 06/2014

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1) “We want to vote” Cam­paign: Bun­destag rejects FRFG’s Elec­toral Complaint

2) FRFG is search­ing for an EVS-volunteer

3) 7th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize 2013/2014 with the top­ic “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Justice”

4) Young Amer­i­cans sue gov­ern­ment agen­cies for inaction

5) Cana­da: debate about how to engage young peo­ple in local politics

6) Sri Lan­ka: World Youth Con­fer­ence 2014

7) 44th St. Gallen Symposium

8) Youth invit­ed to attend world summit

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1) “We want to vote” Cam­paign: Bun­destag rejects FRFG’s Elec­toral Complaint

On 20th Novem­ber 2013, more than a dozen chil­dren and young peo­ple, togeth­er with the FRFG, filed an elec­toral com­plaint at the Bun­destag. On 8th May 2014, the Bun­destag reject­ed our com­plaint. We now have the chance to insti­tute our pro­ceed­ings at the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court before 4th June, 2014. The SRzG is going to make use of this option. At the moment we are work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with our lawyer, Prof. Quaas, to pre­pare the complaint.

To get more infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign click here.

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2) FRFG is search­ing for an EVS-volunteer

The FRFG is search­ing for an EVS-vol­un­teer for the new issue of the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review. The project will start from 1st Jan­u­ary 2015 and end on 31st of Decem­ber 2015. All inter­est­ed peo­ple can send us an appli­ca­tion (includ­ing CV, moti­va­tion let­ter, cer­tifi­cates, ref­er­ences) via E‑Mail (kontakt@srzg.de). You peo­ple can also con­tact us for more infor­ma­tion about the EVS and the project. Please note that very good Eng­lish lan­guage skills are required for our project!

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3) 7th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize 2013/2014 with the top­ic “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Justice”

The invi­ta­tion to sub­mit papers for the 7th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Prize 2013/2014, which is ini­ti­at­ed by the FRFG in coop­er­a­tion with the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF), is now open. This year’s top­ic is “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice”. Thanks to our coop­er­a­tion with the Eng­lish Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion, there’s also the pos­si­bil­i­ty to hand in Eng­lish writ­ten papers. Clos­ing date is 15th Octo­ber 2014. Fund­ed by the Apfel­baum Foun­da­tion, prizes totalling 10,000 € will be award­ed to the best papers submitted.

Part of the jury are:

-    Prof.Dr. Klaus Hur­rel­mann (Her­tie School of Gov­er­nance, Berlin)
—    Prof.Dr. Dieter Frey (Lud­wig-Max­i­m­il­ian-Uni­ver­sität, München)
—    Dr. phil. Wolf­gang Kraushaar (Ham­burg­er InstitutfürSozialforschung)
—    Dr. James Sloam (Roy­al Hol­loway, Uni­ver­si­ty of London)
—    Juliana Bidada­nure (Uni­ver­si­ty of York)
—    Ash­ley Sea­ger (Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foundation)
—    Jun.-Prof.Dr. Dr. Jörg Trem­mel (Eber­hard KarlsUniversitätTübingen)

For more infor­ma­tion on the CfP click here.

You are wel­come to request the entire ten­der doc­u­ments via kontakt@srzg.de.

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4) Young Amer­i­cans sue gov­ern­ment agen­cies for inaction

Young peo­ple from all over the Unit­ed States are suing six fed­er­al agen­cies for cli­mate inac­tion, which con­sti­tutes a vio­la­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of the youth. Filed by five teenagers and two NGOs and sup­port­ed by more than 30 envi­ron­men­tal and con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­fes­sors, the suit refers to the pub­lic trust doc­trine. It is part of a nation­wide cam­paign that wants to call atten­tion to cli­mate change and its sig­nif­i­cance (espe­cial­ly for the younger gen­er­a­tions) and aims to make the US gov­ern­ment final­ly take action on this issue.

Right now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Cir­cuit has to decide on the fed­er­al suit. Click the fol­low­ing link to see the whole dis­cus­sion.

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5) Cana­da: debate about how to engage young peo­ple in local politics

The Depart­ment of Munic­i­pal and Inter­gov­ern­men­tal Affairs of New­found­land and Labrador has intro­duced a new bill. Bill 6 will amend sev­er­al acts con­cern­ing munic­i­pal oper­a­tions so that youth rep­re­sen­ta­tives are allowed to be appoint­ed to city and town coun­cils. Although young rep­re­sen­ta­tives, aged under 18, wouldn’t be allowed to vote, the bill would give young cit­i­zens a voice in the councils.

Now, the politi­cians of New­found­land and Labrador are dis­cussing the poten­tial con­se­quences of this bill. Indeed, every­one wants the youth to be more engaged in pol­i­tics but the views on Bill 6 are diverg­ing. For exam­ple, one con­cern is that the polit­i­cal jar­gon of coun­cil meet­ings isn’t youth appro­pri­ate and could even dis­cour­age young peo­ple to be active in politics.

For more infor­ma­tion about the top­ic click this link.

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6) Sri Lan­ka: World Youth Con­fer­ence 2014

The first world­wide World Youth Con­fer­ence was held in Colom­bo, Sri Lan­ka, from May 6th – 10th 2014. 1,500 par­tic­i­pants from all over the world, half of them between the ages of 18 – 29, met under the theme “Main­stream­ing Youth in the Post-2015 Devel­op­ment Agen­da”. The Con­fer­ence, based on an inter­gen­er­a­tional dia­logue, result­ed in the Colom­bo Dec­la­ra­tion on Youth. This Dec­la­ra­tion con­sists of rec­om­men­da­tions on 14 sub­jects, such as devel­op­ment of youth lead­er­ship, elim­i­na­tion of pover­ty, gen­der equal­i­ty, youth rights and inclu­sive youth par­tic­i­pa­tion and has a sym­bol­ic char­ac­ter. Hope­ful­ly, the rec­om­men­da­tions will be pre­sent­ed to the 69th Ses­sion of the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly by mem­ber states that were present at the Conference.

Click the fol­low­ing link for more infor­ma­tion.

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7) 44th St. Gallen Symposium

The 44th St. Gallen Sym­po­sium took place a the Uni­ver­si­ty of St. Gallen, Switzer­land, on the 8th and 9th May 2014. 600 “Lead­ers of Today” and 200 “Lead­ers of Tomor­row” took part in a debate on “The Clash of Gen­er­a­tions.” The keynote address was deliv­ered by Pro­fes­sor Lau­rence Kot­likoff, who described inter­gen­er­a­tional injus­tice as “A war on our chil­dren” and implored the audi­ence to acknowl­edge and face up to the issue.

To see Pro­fes­sor Kolikoff giv­ing his speech, click the fol­low­ing link.

For more infor­ma­tion about the 44th St. Gallen Sym­po­sium, click this link.

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8) Youth invit­ed to attend world summit

Young peo­ple are invit­ed to attend the One Young World Sum­mit 2014, which will be held in Dublin, Ire­land from 15th-19th Octo­ber 2014. The invi­ta­tion is extend­ed to all young peo­ple between the ages of 18 and 30. The sum­mit aims to bring togeth­er the younger gen­er­a­tion to share and hear their con­cerns, opin­ions and solu­tions and to take action to bring about change in their respec­tive com­mu­ni­ties, com­pa­nies and countries.

For more infor­ma­tion about the sum­mit, appli­ca­tion and fund­ing, click here.

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All newslet­ters are avail­able on our home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Press > Newsletter

If you want to unsub­scribe this newslet­ter, please send an e‑mail to
kontakt(at)srzg.de or unsub­scribe direct­ly on our homepage.
—-
Please feel free to con­tact us with any feed­back con­cern­ing our newsletter.

With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er Str. 29
D‑70619 Stuttgart

Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt(at)srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org & www.srzg.de

—

Board:
Bern­hard Winkler
Dr. Bet­ti­na Munimus
Wolf­gang Gründinger
Adri­an Schell (head of board)

—

Office Man­ag­er:
Igor Dimitrijoski

—

Copy­right © 2014 FRFG

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Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 03/2014

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1) Leg­isla­tive Prize for Gen­er­a­tional­ly Just Laws

2) Cam­paign: “We want to vote!”

3) Sev­enth Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2013/2014 and its top­ic “Youth Move­ments for inter­gen­er­a­tional justice”

4) Dis­cus­sion on the vot­ing age in the UK

5) Ris­ing inequal­i­ty among employ­ees in England

6) The Transat­lantic Trade and Invest­ment Part­ner­ship and the risks for our food

7) FRFG part of the Work­shop “Future Chal­lenges of Fam­i­lies in Europe” in Tallinn

8) Vot­ing Age in Norway

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1) Leg­isla­tive Prize for Gen­er­a­tional­ly Just Laws

The award cer­e­mo­ny for the Leg­isla­tive Prize will be on April 8th at 6 pm in the Hum­boldt-Viad­ri­na School of Gov­er­nance in Berlin. Due to the cor­po­ra­tion with the Huboldt- Viad­ri­na, the award cer­e­mo­ny is embed­ded in the Plenum­s­tri­a­log of ener­gy revolution.

The law to nuclear phase out was enact­ed by the sev­en­teenth Bun­destag and will be award­ed with the Leg­isla­tive Award. The Leg­isla­tive Award for gen­er­a­tional­ly-just laws will be giv­en to young rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the four par­ties in the eigh­teenth Bun­destag. Through the prize, the SRzG wants to main­tain focus on the impor­tance of cam­paign­ing for inter­gen­er­a­tional­ly just laws (tran­scend­ing par­ty lines) also in the com­ing leg­isla­tive periods.

More infor­ma­tion on the Leg­isla­tive Award can be found here.

More infor­ma­tion on the Tri­alo­grei­he with the top­ic ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion can be found on the fol­low­ing web page: www.trialog-energiewende.org

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2) Cam­paign: “We want to vote!”

Dur­ing the Bun­destagswahl 2013, mil­lions of kids and teenag­er did not have the chance to vote- only because they are under the age of 18. This is vio­lat­ing the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy and the sov­er­eign­ty of the peo­ple. This sit­u­a­tion is no longer tol­er­a­ble. To change this inequal­i­ty, we start­ed the ini­tia­tive, “Wir wollen wählen!” (“We want to vote!”).

On Novem­ber 20th, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the SRzG and a dozen chil­dren and ado­les­cents chal­lenged the valid­i­ty of the elec­tions. If the Bun­destag rejects our motion, we will hand in con­sti­tu­tion­al complaint.

Aid appeal at Bet­ter Place for the campaign.

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3) Sev­enth Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2013/2014 and its top­ic “Youth Move­ments for inter­gen­er­a­tional justice”

As of now starts the call for papers by the SRzG in cor­po­ra­tion with the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF) for the sev­enth Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award. The top­ic is “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice”. The award is insti­gat­ed by the Foun­da­tion Apfel­baum an endowed with €10,000.

More infor­ma­tion on the call of papers.

You can ask for the bid­ding doc­u­ments via Email. Please con­tact antony@if.org.uk or kontakt@srzg.de.

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4) Dis­cus­sion on the vot­ing age in the UK

The right to vote has been grant­ed to 16-year-olds in the Scot­tish inde­pen­dence ref­er­en­dum, which will take place on Sep­tem­ber 18th. Even though this not unlike­ly done under the regard that both sides expect to derive advan­tages from it, this is to be appreciated.

The British Youth Coun­cil is now lob­by­ing for low­er­ing the vot­ing age down to 16 in the UK more than before, mak­ing it a sub­ject in West­min­ster again. Encour­aged by the Scot­tish, young sup­port­ers demon­strate in front of par­lia­ment reg­u­lar­ly and numer­ous­ly. They are polit­i­cal­ly sup­port­ed by Labour and the Lib­er­al Democrats.

More infor­ma­tion: 1 & 2

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5) Ris­ing inequal­i­ty among employ­ees in England

Eng­land also faces a grow­ing gap between wages of younger and old­er work­ers. While old­er employ­ees used to earn 1.7 times more than younger in 1997, this ratio rose to 2.6 times more in 2014. If this is depict­ed in real income, 18–21-year-olds now earn 19% less than before, while over-50-years-olds earn 25% more. Fur­ther­more, increased cost of liv­ing puts pres­sure on the spend­ing capac­i­ty of young peo­ple: they have to spend about 45% on essen­tials like rent, food and fuel. At the same time, youth unem­ploy­ment is ris­ing. This is some­thing that should wor­ry policy-makers.

More infor­ma­tion can be found here.

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6) The Transat­lantic Trade and Invest­ment Part­ner­ship and the risks for our food

The Transat­lantic Trade and Invest­ment Part­ner­ship (TTIP) is more and more becom­ing a dis­cus­sion on how food ought to be manip­u­lat­ed in the EU. While Amer­i­can stan­dards are more based on allow­ing food until pos­si­ble risks are known, Euro­pean are more pre­cau­tious and tend to pro­hib­it foods until its harm­less­ness was proofed.

Still, this does not explain, why genet­i­cal­ly and hor­mon­al mod­i­fied food, which was proofed harm­ful and can­cer-caus­ing for human beings is now dis­cussed to be allowed in Europe.

How­ev­er, a strong coun­ter­move­ment seems to devel­op in the mem­ber states of the EU, lead by agri­cul­tur­al spokes­men. Fur­ther­more, he debate will with­out much doubt have a great impact on Euro­pean Elec­tions in May.

More infor­ma­tion: 1 & 2

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7) FRFG part of the Work­shop “Future Chal­lenges of Fam­i­lies in Europe” in Tallinn

The SRzG- Ambas­sador Yvonne Eich rep­re­sent­ed the foun­da­tion at the work­shop “Future Chal­lenges and fam­i­lies in Europe” on Jan­u­ary 8th, 2014 in Tallinn. This took place in the course of the first con­sor­tium-meet­ing of the cross-nation­al EU- research project “Chang­ing fam­i­lies and sus­tain­able gen­er­a­tions: Pol­i­cy con­texts and diver­si­ty over the life course and across gen­er­a­tions” and was lead by the Vien­na Insti­tute of Demog­ra­phy. Togeth­er with 25 par­tic­i­pants, Yvonne Eich argued, which fac­tors are major for a har­mon­ic atmos­phere for com­ing gen­er­a­tions in the fam­i­ly. It was also focussing on the needs of com­ing gen­er­a­tions. This is why all mem­bers shared the opin­ion that there have to be ris­ing con­sid­er­a­tions and mea­sures to tack­le youth unem­ploy­ment and that young peo­ple have to have more access to polit­i­cal pow­er. Inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice in regard to pub­lic spend­ings was also a top­ic. The cam­paign “We want to vote!” for suf­frage with­out age restric­tions, cur­rent­ly orga­nized by the SRzG, was sup­port­ed by many of the participants.

The results of the Work­shop are pub­lished at the begin­ning of march on the project-web­site www.familiesandsocieties.eu. They are the fun­da­ment for the work­ing project “Fore­sight and Future Impact”, which aims to devel­op inno­v­a­tive rec­om­men­da­tions for polit­i­cal action with the help of future research meth­ods. Tak­ing part in the project are 25 research part­ner from 15 coun­tries as well as stake­hold­ers from Euro­pean orga­ni­za­tions, foun­da­tions and min­istries work­ing with fam­i­ly politics.

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8) Vot­ing Age in Norway

Low­er­ing of the vot­ing age is a debate high on the agen­da in sev­er­al Euro­pean coun­tries dur­ing the recent years. Nor­way is no excep­tion. In the 2011 munic­i­pal­i­ty elec­tion, a vot­ing age tri­al was con­duct­ed, where the vot­ing age was low­ered to 16. More infor­ma­tion here.

The results can be summed up, refer­ring to four groups of argu­ments; the democ­ra­cy argu­ments, the polit­i­cal matu­ri­ty argu­ments, the legal argu­ments and the con­sti­tu­tion­al arguments.

In respect of the democ­ra­cy argu­ment, it is too ear­ly to decide whether the tri­al improved the qual­i­ty of Nor­we­gian democ­ra­cy. How­ev­er, the find­ings indi­cate that the lev­el of polit­i­cal engage­ment among ado­les­cents in the rel­e­vant munic­i­pal­i­ties slight­ly increased, and that 16-and 17-year-olds had a high­er turn our rates than vot­ers between 18 and 21. Regard­ing the polit­i­cal matu­ri­ty argu­ment, the report states that those over the age of 18 are sig­nif­i­cant­ly more polit­i­cal mature than those under 18. Con­cern­ing the two last groups of argu­ments, the legal argu­ments and con­sti­tu­tion­al argu­ments the con­clu­sions are that there are no for­mal bar­ri­ers (nation­al or inter­na­tion­al) pre­vent­ing Nor­we­gian politi­cians too low­er the vot­ing age, nei­ther are there any legal reg­u­la­tions (nation­al or inter­na­tion­al) that demand such reforms. As for con­sti­tu­tion­al reforms, the vot­ing age might be low­ered with­out hav­ing con­se­quences for the eli­gi­bil­i­ty age (18) or the age of major­i­ty (18), even though this will vio­late the prin­ci­ple of har­mo­niza­tion. If the vot­ing age is to be low­ered in local elec­tions only, this demands amend­ments in the elec­toral law. If the vot­ing age is to be low­ered in both local and nation­al elec­tions, both the elec­toral law and the con­sti­tu­tion must be amended.

Summed up, the report lends sup­port to both actors who sup­port and actors who oppose low­er­ing the vot­ing age in Nor­way from 18 to 16. Nor­we­gians politi­cians are free to low­er the vot­ing age, if they want to. Thus, it remains a high­ly polit­i­cal question.

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With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er Str. 29
D‑70619 Stuttgart

Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt(at)srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org & www.srzg.de

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Board:
Bern­hard Winkler
Dr. Bet­ti­na Munimus
Wolf­gang Gründinger
Adri­an Schell (head of board)

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Office Man­ag­er:
Igor Dimitrijoski

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Copy­right © 2014 FRFG

2013

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Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 12/2013

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1) Cam­paign: “We want to vote!”

2) Aca­d­e­m­ic Sym­po­sium: “Youth Quo­tas”, 25/26 Octo­ber 2013

3) The 7th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2013/2014: “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Justice”

4) New Board Mem­ber at the FRFG: Bern­hard Winkler

5) The new ambas­sadors of the FRFG

6) The 44th St. Gallen Sym­po­sium: “The Clash of Civilizations”

7) Report of the Oxford Mar­tin Com­mis­sion for Future Generations

8) Future Gen­er­a­tions in the UN

9) Impor­tant Events for the FRFG

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1) Cam­paign: “We want to vote!”

At the par­lia­men­tary elec­tions in 2013, chil­dren and youth had no voice. Mil­lions of peo­ple in Ger­many are exclud­ed from the elec­tions, just because they are under the age of 18. This vio­lates the con­sti­tu­tion­al laws on democ­ra­cy and sov­er­eign­ty of the peo­ple. This sit­u­a­tion is no longer defen­si­ble. There­fore, the FRFG has, togeth­er with chil­dren and youth, tak­en the ini­tia­tive to found the cam­paign “We want to vote!” . The main goal for the cam­paign is to con­test the par­lia­men­tary election.

You can sup­port our cam­paign! Please see our fund­ing request at betterplace.org for fur­ther information.

The pol­i­cy paper “Elec­tions with­out age lim­its”, made by the FRFG can be found here .

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2) Aca­d­e­m­ic Sym­po­sium: “Youth Quo­tas”, 25/26. Octo­ber 2013

In the last week­end of Octo­ber (25/26th), the Aca­d­e­m­ic Sym­po­sium “Youth Quo­tas – The Answer to Changes in Age Demo­graph­ics”, was arranged in Stuttgart by the FRFG and the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF)
A high num­ber of estab­lished as well as younger sci­en­tists pre­sent­ed their ideas to this high­ly under-researched top­ic. The week­end was char­ac­ter­ized by a pleas­ant atmos­phere. Sev­er­al pre­sen­ta­tions were giv­en, all of them at a high aca­d­e­m­ic level.
At the sym­po­sium, the aca­d­e­m­ic papers regard­ing the 4th Demog­ra­phy Prize 2012/2013  were award­ed. The Stiftung Apfel­baum pro­vid­ed a prize mon­ey of 10 000 EUR for free disposal.

The com­plete pro­gram of the sym­po­sium can be found here.

The award­ed papers can be found here.

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3) The 7th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2013/2014: “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Justice”

In coop­er­a­tion with the IF, the FRFG here­by announces the 7th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2013/2014 con­cern­ing the top­ic “Youth Move­ments for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice”. The award is sup­port­ed by the Apfel­baum Foun­da­tion. The win­ner will receive 10 000 Euro.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion regard­ing the Prize can be found here.

You can access the com­plete doc­u­ments for the award by con­tact­ing kontakt(at)srzg.de

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4) New board mem­ber at the FRFG: Bern­hard Winkler

Since Octo­ber 27th, Bern­hard Win­kler is a new mem­ber of the board of the FRFG. Win­kler is dis­plac­ing Danyal Bayaz.

Bern­hard Win­kler (born in 1989), is study­ing law at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Linz, Aus­tria. He is the author of the book “So nicht! Anklage ein­er ver­lore­nen Gen­er­a­tion” and a mem­ber of the think tank “denkt.at”, a net­work of thir­ty young Aus­tri­an thinkers.  Fur­ther­more, he worked as a jour­nal­ist in the news­pa­per Oberöster­re­ichis­chen Nachricht­en, and since 2010 he is a PR-employ­ee in a large Aus­tri­an sports article-company.

We are look­ing for­ward to work togeth­er with Bern­hard Win­kler and express our grat­i­tude to Danyal Bayaz  and his effort as a mem­ber of the FRFG board. How­ev­er, Bayaz will not leave the orga­ni­za­tion, as he is still going to work as an ambas­sador for the FRFG.

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5) The new ambas­sadors of the FRFG

Since Octo­ber 27th, the FRFG has six new ambas­sadors, who are going rep­re­sent the FRFG. The new ambas­sadors of the FRFG are:

Anna Hal­big: Anna Hal­big (born in 1990) is study­ing law in Göt­tin­gen. As a part of her study pro­gram “Europäis­ches und inter­na­tion­als öffentlich­es Recht”, she takes par­tic­u­lar inter­est in envi­ron­men­tal law. With­in the Philip C. Jes­sup Inter­na­tion­al Law Moot Court Com­pe­ti­tion, a renowned court sim­u­la­tion, she deals with the judge­ment of cli­mate refugees. Anna Hal­big led the FRFG-del­e­ga­tion at the UN cli­mate sum­mit in Warschau in 2013.

“To me, inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice means that we all have to strive for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion. The con­se­quences of con­tem­po­rary care­less­ness are that the com­ing gen­er­a­tions will have to bare most of the costs. Thus, it is nec­es­sary to curb the neg­a­tive con­se­quences of cli­mate change effectively.”

Yvonne Eich: Yvonne Eich (born in 1984), is work­ing as a research fel­low at the Bun­desin­sti­tut für Bevölkerungs­forschung in Wies­baden, where she is respon­si­ble for the “Online-Demografiedi­a­log” of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Fur­ther­more, she is in charge of the Youtube-chan­nel “Demografiepor­tal” of the Ger­man Gov­ern­ment and the Fed­er­al States. Ear­li­er, she has worked as an edi­tor and blog­ger in the project futurechallanges.org led by the Ber­tels­mann Foun­da­tion. Yvonne Eich has stud­ied Busi­ness and Euro­pean Stud­ies in Ful­da, Queens­land (Aus­tralia), Han­nover and Temeswar (Roma­nia). In her mas­ter the­sis, she inves­ti­gat­ed Social Media Com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the EU.

“To me, inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice, means equal oppor­tu­ni­ties for the youth and the elder­ly. Espe­cial­ly with­in the edu­ca­tion­al sec­tor I iden­ti­fy obsta­cles which make it dif­fi­cult to guar­an­tee every­one the same oppor­tu­ni­ties, not only between gen­er­a­tions, but also with­in one gen­er­a­tion. In my opin­ion, par­tic­u­lar­ly the tri­par­tite school sys­tem and the stig­ma­tized Hauptschu­la­b­schluss are respon­si­ble for this. In 2011, around 50 000 pupils left Ger­man high school with­out com­plet­ing or achiev­ing their diplo­mas. This num­ber presents around 6 % of one age cohort. In oth­er words, the chances of young peo­ple to cre­ate decent lives are put at stake, because many of them have to begin their adult lives with diplo­mas, which are social­ly per­ceived as insuf­fi­cient, or no diplo­ma at all. It is evi­dent that inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice has to start with cre­at­ing equal edu­ca­tion­al opportunities. ”

Bet­ti­na König: Bet­ti­na König (born in 1978) has a diplo­ma in Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion and is the founder and head of board of Vere­ins fair­work e.V., which is advo­cat­ing the rights of interns since 2004. Beside orga­niz­ing strikes, speech­es and con­sul­tan­cy advices, she sub­mit­ted a peti­tion to the Bun­destag and pub­lished the book “Vom Prak­tikum zum Job”. In 2011 she stood as a can­di­date for the SPD in the con­stituen­cy of Reinick­endorf-Ost in order to enter the Abge­ord­neten­haus in Berlin (region­al par­lia­ment), where she failed to enter only by a small mar­gin.  She is still involved in the SPD, amongst oth­ers as a deputy chair­woman and a del­e­gate to the Lan­desparteitag (region­al con­gress of the par­ty). Cur­rent­ly, Bet­ti­na König is work­ing as a pub­lic rela­tions con­sul­tant for the Ger­man Red Cross and as an office man­ag­er at the SPD frac­tion office in Reinick­endorf. She has two young daughters.

“From my point of view, inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice rep­re­sents the abil­i­ty to leave behind a soci­ety which will offer young peo­ple of today as well as the forth­com­ing gen­er­a­tions the same pos­si­bil­i­ties as the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions claimed for them­selves. The upcom­ing gen­er­a­tions must have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate mean­ing­ful lives, just as those who are old nowa­days. The cur­rent gen­er­a­tions have no right to exces­sive­ly use raw mate­ri­als or to dam­age the envi­ron­ment irre­versibly, and thus let future gen­er­a­tions bare all the costs. Inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice is in par­tic­u­lar relat­ed to envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and the use of nat­ur­al resources. Nev­er­the­less, top­ics like the labour mar­kets, the pub­lic health care ser­vices, eco­nom­ic and fis­cal poli­cies and the over­all social polit­i­cal frame­work have to be approached in a way that is not dis­ad­van­tag­ing any gen­er­a­tion.  Espe­cial­ly regard­ing the aspects of the cur­rent demo­graph­ic changes, the ques­tion of jus­tice between gen­er­a­tions is more sig­nif­i­cant than ever before. We can­not allow peo­ple to be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against because of their age. This means that we need to encour­age politi­cians, busi­ness and oth­er impor­tant soci­etal actors to look ahead and take respon­si­ble acts to ensure that the basic needs of future gen­er­a­tions are safe­guard­ed. Espe­cial­ly our politi­cians have a huge respon­si­bil­i­ty in this regard. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, they are cur­rent­ly fail­ing to take this respon­si­bil­i­ty in many areas. Some­one has to put it back on the agen­da, this is why I would like to work as an ambas­sador for the FRFG.”

Manouchehr Sham­srizi: Manouchehr Sham­srizi (born in 1988) is cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing his Mas­ter in Pub­lic Pol­i­cy at the Hum­boldt Viad­ri­na School of Gov­er­nance in Berlin. As a schol­ar­ship hold­er of the Deutsch­land­stipendi­um, he is a mem­ber of the theme group “Alter und alternde Gesellschaft” at the Hum­boldt Uni­ver­si­ty and the Scher­ing Foun­da­tion. Pre­vi­ous­ly, he stud­ied Economy‑, Culture‑, and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence at the Zep­pelin Uni­ver­si­ty, where he also was coor­di­na­tor of the Euro­pean Cen­ter for Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Research. He is a Glob­al Jus­tice Fel­low at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty and a fel­low of the Roy­al Soci­ety of Arts. Besides, he is also a mem­ber of sev­er­al think tanks, amongst oth­ers the “beta-group” of the ZEIT Foun­da­tion, the Google Col­lab­o­ra­to­ry, the Siemens Future Influ­encers and the Grameen Cre­ative Labs “Yunus Brain­pool”. He is blog­ging at futurechallanges.org led by the Ber­tels­mann Foun­da­tion, and he is work­ing as a colum­nist in the “REVUE – Mag­a­zine for the Next Society”.

“Every def­i­n­i­tion of inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice is locat­ed at the inter­face between right­eous gen­er­a­tions and the ideas of gen­er­a­tional jus­tice. If gen­er­a­tions are not behav­ing fair regard­ing their eth­i­cal han­dling of knowl­edge based deci­sion premis­es, it will be not pos­si­ble to observe inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice just as much as spheres of jus­tice which are blind for their struc­tur­al links. Gen­er­a­tions are the only actors which are able to cre­ate iden­ti­ty in these dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed-transna­tion­al soci­eties in which I can change my sur­name, reli­gion and cit­i­zen­ship with­out any dif­fi­cul­ties. How­ev­er, I will still be part of my gen­er­a­tion. In this sense inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice implies the recog­ni­tion of the neces­si­ty to claim for jus­tice as a whole gen­er­a­tion – fur­ther­more inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice means to acknowl­edge the polit­i­cal beau­ty result­ing due to a coop­er­a­tion between the gen­er­a­tions: do ut des.”

Mar­tin Speer: Mar­tin Speer (born in 1986) is entre­pre­neur, activist and stu­dent. He was part of the group “Stu­dents for Barack Oba­ma” and he  found­ed the bev­er­age com­pa­ny OCÓO as well as the adver­tis­ing agency “Ideen­re­pub­lik”.  He is a co-ini­tia­tor of the “Gen­er­a­tio­nen­man­i­fest” and “Zukun­ft­man­i­fest”. He also wrote the open let­ter “Stellt gle­ich, was gle­ich ist” to the Bun­destag. Ear­li­er, he stud­ied Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Sci­ence in the USA and cur­rent­ly he is study­ing Econ­o­my in Berlin.

“I want to leave behind a world where upcom­ing gen­er­a­tions can cre­ate mean­ing­ful lives for them­selves. How­ev­er, inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice is more than just a per­son­al mat­ter for me. It is the eco­nom­ic, eco­log­ic and social require­ment for a sus­tain­able and promis­ing soci­ety. In order to achieve that, we have to start today – liv­ing, man­ag­ing economies  and gov­ern in a respon­si­ble man­ner. Togeth­er with the FRFG, I want to make sure that the chal­lenges of the future are being tak­en into account today. Inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice con­cerns all of us, young and old.” 

Danyal Bayaz: Danyal Bayaz (born in 1983) comes from Hei­del­berg and has stud­ied Polit­i­cal Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Finance. Besides, he is a skilled jour­nal­ist, who is cur­rent­ly writ­ing his PhD at the Fac­ul­ty of Eco­nom­ics and Social Sci­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hohen­heim (Stuttgart). With­in the top­ic of inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice, Bayaz takes spe­cial inter­est in macro­eco­nom­ic perspectives.

“From my point of view, inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice means that the inter­ests of the present gen­er­a­tions and the future gen­er­a­tions are bal­anced against each oth­er. Obvi­ous­ly, it is utopi­an to believe that one gen­er­a­tion is able to hand the world over to the next one in the cur­rent state, because the world is chang­ing every day. How­ev­er, we should indeed make an effort to make sure that future gen­er­a­tions at least have the same oppor­tu­ni­ties from the begin­ning, when it comes to orga­niz­ing their lives and cre­at­ing accept­able liv­ing con­di­tions. Prac­ti­cal­ly, inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice has two dimen­sions: The finan­cial dimen­sion is very impor­tant, espe­cial­ly regard­ing the con­sol­i­da­tion of nation­al bud­gets. The oth­er dimen­sion is an envi­ron­men­tal con­flict between the gen­er­a­tions which is empha­sized through top­ics like the han­dling of nuclear waste and car­bon dioxide.” 

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion about our new ambas­sadors can be found here.

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6) The 44th St. Gallen Sym­po­sium: “The Clash of Civilizations”

The 44th St. Gallen Sym­po­sium “The Clash of Civ­i­liza­tions” will take place between 6.–9.of May 2014. More infor­ma­tion about the sym­po­sium can be found on the offi­cial web­site.

In line with the sym­po­sium a com­pe­ti­tion for aca­d­e­m­ic arti­cles was announced. The prize mon­ey will be 20 000 € (divid­ed on the three win­ners). Fur­ther infor­ma­tion regard­ing the com­pe­ti­tion can be found here.

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7) Report of the Oxford Mar­tin Com­mis­sion for Future Generations

In Octo­ber 2013, the Oxford Mar­tin Com­mis­sion pub­lished the “Now for Long Term” Report, in which they urge today’s deci­sion-mak­ers “to over­come their dai­ly press­ing pre­oc­cu­pa­tions” and “to tack­le prob­lems that will deter­mine the lives of today’s and tomorrow’s gen­er­a­tions”. There­fore, the Com­mis­sion maps the main chal­lenges that are to be faced in areas such as soci­ety, resources, health, geopol­i­tics and gov­er­nance, for instance: how can growth and devel­op­ment be more sus­tain­able and inclu­sive? How can food, ener­gy, water and bio­di­ver­si­ty be made more secure?

It then reports on suc­cess­ful as well as on failed mea­sures that were tak­en until now to respond these chal­lenges. In regard to these con­crete expe­ri­ences, the report iden­ti­fies five shap­ing fac­tors that make pos­i­tive change tricky: (1) insti­tu­tions, (2) time, (3) polit­i­cal engage­ment and pub­lic trust, (4) grow­ing com­plex­i­ty and (5) cul­tur­al bias­es. Con­sid­er­ing this dif­fi­cul­ties, it pro­pos­es 5 mea­sures to tack­le glob­al chal­lenges: (1) part­ner­ships between gov­ern­ments, firms and indi­vid­u­als in order to find cre­ative solu­tions, (2) renew­al of insti­tu­tions in order to be more adapt­ed to actu­al chal­lenges, (3) reval­u­a­tion of the future and empha­sis on long-term action, (4) giv­ing younger gen­er­a­tions the pos­si­bil­i­ty of shap­ing today tomorrow’s poli­cies, rein­force dia­logue and shared val­ues between all actors.

Key mes­sages of the report were already dis­cussed in the Unit­ed-States where its orig­i­nal­i­ty and rel­e­vance were par­tic­u­lar­ly appre­ci­at­ed. For­mer gen­er­al Direc­tor of the WTO Pas­cal Lamy as well as Nobel Lau­re­ate Amartya Sen are part of the Oxford Mar­tin Commission.

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8) Future Gen­er­a­tions in the UN

The report from the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, “Inter­gen­er­a­tional Sol­i­dar­i­ty and the Needs of Future Gen­er­a­tions” is out. The full report can be found here.

A high num­ber of the Major Groups and many civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions, with the sup­port of numer­ous Mem­ber States, called for the estab­lish­ment of a UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Future Generations.

In the course of the Rio+20 process this pro­pos­al mor­phed into a High Lev­el Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment and Future Gen­er­a­tions. Unfor­tu­nate­ly this was dropped in the final hours of nego­ti­a­tions and instead we have been look­ing towards the report on inter­gen­er­a­tional sol­i­dar­i­ty and future gen­er­a­tions (para 86 of ‘The Future We Want’) as a key tool to ensure that inter­gen­er­a­tional equi­ty becomes an inte­gral part of UN pol­i­cy-mak­ing processes.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found here.

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9) Impor­tant events for the FRFG

At Novem­ber 7th 2013, the FRFG-ambas­sador Mar­tin Speer par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Maybrit Ill­ner talk with the top­ic “Koali­tion der Wohltäter – Wer bezahlt die teuren Renten-Pläne?”. The com­plete broad­cast can be seen at Youtube.

At Novem­ber 18th, the final event of the aca­d­e­m­ic year “Die demografis­che Chance” took place in the for­mer ple­nary hall of the Ger­man Par­lia­ment. Dur­ing the event, the results of the polit­i­cal sim­u­la­tion “Par­la­ment der Gen­er­a­tio­nen” were pre­sent­ed as well.

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All newslet­ters are avail­able on our home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Press > Newsletter

If you want to unsub­scribe this newslet­ter, please send an e‑mail to
kontakt(at)srzg.de or unsub­scribe direct­ly on our homepage.
—-
Please feel free to con­tact us with any feed­back con­cern­ing our newsletter.

With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er Str. 29
D‑70619 Stuttgart

Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt(at)srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org & www.srzg.de

—

Board:
Bern­hard Winkler
Dr. Bet­ti­na Munimus
Wolf­gang Gründinger
Adri­an Schell (head of board)

—

Office Man­ag­er:
Igor Dimitrijoski

—

Copy­right © 2013 FRFG

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Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 03/2013
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1) LEGISLATIVE PRIZE 2013 FOR INTERGENERATIONALLY JUST LAWS

2) DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE 2012/13 ON “YOUTH QUOTAS”

3) INTERGENERATIONAL ARTWORK IN THE PARLIAMENT OF BADEN-WÜRTTEMBURG

4) NGO AIMS TO STOP DESERTIFICATION

5) EUROPEAN COMMISSION PROPOSES REGULATION FOR YOUTH EMPLOYMENT INITIATIVE

6) EU YOUTH CONFERENCE IN DUBLIN

7) LAST BUT NOT LEAST

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1) LEGISLATIVE PRIZE 2013 FOR INTERGENERATIONALLY JUST LAWS

In addi­tion to the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award and the Demog­ra­phy Prize last year the FRFG estab­lished the Leg­isla­tive Prize for Gen­er­a­tional­ly Just Laws. The Leg­isla­tive Prize will be award­ed for the first time at the end of the 2013 leg­isla­tive peri­od. The FRFG has pro­vid­ed the jury with dossiers of the rec­om­mend­ed laws and leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tives. With the help of an eval­u­a­tion sheet, the jury will eval­u­ate the rec­om­mend­ed laws and select a win­ner. In sum­mer 2013 the prize will be award­ed. The FRFG hopes to be able to con­firm the Pres­i­dent of the Ger­man Bun­destag as the prize recipient.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the Leg­isla­tive Prize: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Awards > Leg­isla­tive Prize for Gen­er­a­tional­ly Just Laws

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2) DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE 2012/13 ON “YOUTH QUOTAS”

The dead­line for the Demog­ra­phy Prize 2013, ded­i­cat­ed to the ques­tion “Youth Quo­tas – The Answer to Changes in Age Demo­graph­ics?”, has been extend­ed until July 1, 2013. We encour­age you to make inter­est­ed peo­ple aware of the prize. Thanks to coop­er­a­tion with the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion in Lon­don, the prize is also open to the Eng­lish-speak­ing world. Essays can be sub­mit­ted in either Ger­man or Eng­lish. The prizes for the com­pe­ti­tion will be award­ed at an aca­d­e­m­ic sym­po­sium on “Youth Quo­tas” on Octo­ber 26, 2013.Numerous aca­d­e­mics have accept­ed the FRFG’s invi­ta­tion to take part in the sym­po­sium. Fund­ing appli­ca­tions have been sub­mit­ted in order to secure fund­ing for the symposium.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the Demog­ra­phy Prize: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Awards > Demog­ra­phy Prize 2012/13

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3) INTERGENERATIONAL ARTWORK IN THE PARLIAMENT OF BADEN-WÜRTTEMBURG

In coop­er­a­tion with the depart­ment of Inter­gen­er­a­tional­ly Just Poli­cies at the Eber­hard Karls Uni­ver­si­ty Tübin­gen, the FRFG has begun work on an inter­gen­er­a­tional art­work in the Par­lia­ment of Baden-Würt­tem­berg. The art­work will be named “Die zukün­fti­gen Baden-Würt­tem­berg­er/in­nen” – “The Future Cit­i­zens of Baden-Würt­tem­berg”. The idea is to cre­ate an art­work at the cen­ter of pow­er in the Par­lia­ment of Baden-Würt­tem­berg to remind politi­cians of their respon­si­bil­i­ty to future gen­er­a­tions. Since the cre­ation of the piece will be part of the “Art­work on Con­struc­tion” scheme, financ­ing is secured. €100.000 has been guar­enteed by t. With the ren­o­va­tion of the Par­lia­ment of Baden-Würt­tem­berg start­ing this year, it is hoped that the art­work will be fin­ished by 2014–2016. Dur­ing a meet­ing with Gui­do Wolf, Pres­i­dent of the Par­lia­ment, on Feb­ru­ary 28, 2013andduring a fur­ther such meet­ing with the art-com­mis­sion, details about the timetable of the art com­pe­ti­tion were dis­cussed. The FRFG, rep­re­sent­ed by advis­er Meis­ter-Scheufe­len, will play a deci­sive role in the jury of the competition.

Read more about the art­work project: https://www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Themes > Artwork

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4) NGO AIMS TO STOP DESERTIFICATION

In March the Future For­est project starts in the Kubuchi Desert, Inner Mon­go­lia, to stop the expan­sion of the desert. Kwon Byung-Hyun, pres­i­dent of Future For­est, leads the project, which employs stu­dents from Korea, who are work as vol­un­teers. Dust storms cause sand to trav­el not only to Chi­na but also to Korea. More­over, the Kubuchi Desert expands every year because rain­fall decreas­es and because poor farm­ers cut down trees for fire­wood. Future For­est, which has its head­quar­ters in Korea and Chi­na, fights against the process of deser­ti­fi­ca­tion, which is a result of cli­mate change. The NGO con­sid­ers deser­ti­fi­ca­tion as “the most urgent threat human civ­i­liza­tion faces”. There­fore Kwon and the stu­dents plant trees and bush­es to help pre­vent it. In doing so, they try to make the plan­et a bet­ter place for future generations.

Read about the project in the Kubuchi Desert: https://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/14901-leading-climate-fight-defense-could-preserve-and-protect-rather-than-kill-and-destroy

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about Future­For­est: https://www.futureforest.org/eng/page/main/index.asp

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5) EUROPEAN COMMISSION PROPOSES REGULATION FOR YOUTH EMPLOYMENT INITIATIVE

On Feb­ru­ary 7/8, 2013, the Euro­pean Coun­cil ini­ti­at­ed a Youth Employ­ment Ini­tia­tive (YEI) to tack­le youth unem­ploy­ment. From 2014 to 2020, about € 6bn would be pro­vid­ed. The ini­tia­tive is intend­ed to help young peo­ple who nei­ther have an appren­tice­ship, train­ing posi­tion nor employment.

Above all, young peo­ple who live in regions in which the youth unem­ploy­ment rate is 25% or more in 2012 would be sup­port­ed and inte­grat­ed in the job mar­ket. In addi­tion to the Youth Employ­ment Ini­tia­tive, oth­er nation­al projects which are fund­ed by Euro­pean Social Fund (ESF) could be linked to the YEI.

A Youth Guar­an­tee would assure school leavers or those young peo­ple who lose their job an appro­pri­ate new job, train­ing posi­tion, edu­ca­tion­al place­ment or intern­ship with­in four months.

Read about the pro­pos­al for YEI: https://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=9788&langId=en

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6) EU YOUTH CONFERENCE IN DUBLIN

From March 11–12, 2013, the EU Youth Con­fer­ence “Social inclu­sion of young peo­ple in the EU” took place in Dublin. 150 young peo­ple and 100 Min­istry offi­cials from 27 EU Mem­ber States dis­cussed the find­ings of an EU-wide con­sul­ta­tion with 11,000 young peo­ple on the top­ic of social inclu­sion of young peo­ple. The results of this con­sul­ta­tion and the con­fer­ence show that young peo­ple con­sid­er that there is an urgent need for action on the fol­low­ing top­ics: Employ­ment; edu­ca­tion; par­tic­i­pa­tion; wel­fare; sup­port; youth organ­i­sa­tions; and qual­i­ty of youth work. The joint con­clu­sions will be pre­sent­ed for adop­tion by Frances Fitzger­ald TD, Min­is­ter of Chil­dren and Youth Affairs, to the Coun­cil of Youth Min­is­ters in Brus­sels in May.
The con­fer­ence is part of the Euro­pean Commission’s Struc­tured Dia­logue process which brings togeth­er young peo­ple and pol­i­cy-mak­ers to dis­cuss issues of youth pol­i­cy and to guar­an­tee that the opin­ion and the con­cerns of young peo­ple are tak­en into account in active policy-making.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence and its conclusions:
https://www.dcya.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/eu-presidency-2013/EU-Youth-Presidency-Events.html

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All newslet­ters are avail­able on our home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Press > Newsletter

If you want to unsub­scribe this newslet­ter, please send an e‑mail to
kontakt(at)srzg.de or unsub­scribe direct­ly on our homepage.
—-
Please feel free to con­tact us with any feed­back con­cern­ing our newsletter.

With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er Str. 29
D‑70619 Stuttgart

Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt(at)srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org & www.srzg.de

—

Board:
Bern­hard Winkler
Dr. Bet­ti­na Munimus
Wolf­gang Gründinger
Adri­an Schell (head of board)

—

Office Man­ag­er:
Igor Dimitrijoski

—

Copy­right © 2013 FRFG

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2012

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Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 11/2012
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1.) Sym­po­sium and award of the 6th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award

2.) Leg­isla­tive Prize: Gen­er­a­tional­ly just laws wanted

3.) Uproar over the ombuds­man for future gen­er­a­tions in Hungary

4.) UK Uni­ver­si­ties: Is online possible?

5.) David Wil­letts: Deci­sion mak­ers need bet­ter access to research

6.) Last but Not Least…

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1.) SYMPOSIUM AND AWARD OF THE 6th INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE AWARD

On the 3 Novem­ber, the 6th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award – endowed with a prize fund of 10,000 Euros – was award­ed as part of a sym­po­sium in Stuttgart. The theme of the sym­po­sium was “The debt brake — Eval­u­a­tion in the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al con­text”. After the two win­ning essay­ists, Heiko Bur­ret and Lea Grohmann, received their awards, two work­shops were con­vened with the prize win­ners. Dur­ing these work­shops, the the­ses put for­ward in their win­ning essays were dis­cussed in detail.

The idea of a Gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award orig­i­nat­ed from the Stiftung Apfel­baum, which also pro­vides the mon­ey for the award’s prize fund.

Read the full report: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Sym­posia > Sym­po­sium 2012

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2.) LEGISLATIVE PRIZE: GENERATIONALLY JUST LAWS WANTED

At the end of every leg­isla­tive peri­od in Ger­many, the FRFG awards a non-remu­ner­at­ed prize for a praise­wor­thy law or a com­mend­able leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tive that either removes a present injus­tice that affects future gen­er­a­tions or pro­tects future gen­er­a­tions from future injus­tices. Since gen­er­a­tional jus­tice is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary theme and affects var­i­ous areas such as finance, soci­ol­o­gy, edu­ca­tion, ecol­o­gy and Europe, we are search­ing for your input. Which law or leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tive from the recent past do you regard as praise­wor­thy? Send us your can­di­dates for an out­stand­ing law or leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tive with a short jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to kontakt(at)srzg.de by 30 Novem­ber 2012 at the latest.

The jury will deter­mine the win­ner. Mem­bers of the jury:

Dr. Maja Göpel (Direc­tor of Future Jus­tice, World Future Council)
Prof. Dr. Dr. Franz Josef Rader­ma­ch­er (FRFG Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Board)
Prof. Dr. Ute Mager (Cen­ter for Sus­tain­able Research, Uni­ver­si­ty of Heidelberg)
Prof. Dr. Miran­da Schreurs (Direc­tor of the Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy Research Insti­tute at the Freie Uni­ver­sität Berlin)
Dr. Bet­ti­na Munimus (FRFG Exec­u­tive Board)

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the prize or the jury:
www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Awards > Leg­isla­tive Prize for Gen­er­a­tional­ly Just Laws > Jury

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3.) UPROAR OVER THE OMBUDSMAN FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS IN HUNGARY 

In 2010, a coali­tion com­prised of Fidesz and KDNP won a two-thirds major­i­ty in the Hun­gar­i­an par­lia­men­tary elec­tions. Since then, the right-wing pop­ulist gov­ern­ment of Vik­tor Orbán has under­mined the author­i­ty of the ombuds­man. More­over, a law has been passed which abol­ish­es the cur­rent arrange­ments and reduces the role of the ombuds­man to a deputy with sig­nif­i­cant­ly less pow­er and com­pe­ten­cies. In an act of protest, the cur­rent Ombus­man, Sán­dor Fülöp, has resigned. He holds the reduc­tion of the ombudsman’s com­pe­ten­cies to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. The new incum­bent, law pro­fes­sor Mar­cell Szabó, was elect­ed by the Par­lia­ment in Sep­tem­ber 2012.

Fülöp (pho­to) had been espe­cial­ly active in pro­mot­ing pro­gres­sive envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion. Future gen­er­a­tions in Hun­gary join him in protest.

Press releas­es of the Office of the Par­lia­men­tary Commissioner:
https://jno.hu/en/?&menu=news&doc=pr-110621
https://jno.hu/en/?&menu=news&doc=pr-110425

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4.) UK UNIVERSTIEIS: IS ONLINE POSSIBLE?

With young peo­ple in the UK fac­ing ever high­er tuition fees if they choose to go to uni­ver­si­ty, David King­man from the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion explores the pos­si­bil­i­ty that uni­ver­si­ty edu­ca­tion may take place online in the future. His blog spec­u­lates that uni­ver­si­ty edu­ca­tion going online could reduce the cost of get­ting a degree sig­nif­i­cant­ly; help­ing those who cur­rent­ly strug­gle to fund their stud­ies get into high­er edu­ca­tion. Imple­men­ta­tion, how­ev­er, will be depen­dent upon the will of uni­ver­si­ties to make it more accessible.
Read the full blog entry: https://www.if.org.uk/archives/2885/university-funding-could-virtual-courses-be-the-answer

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5.) DAVID WILLETTS: DECISION MAKERS NEED BETTER ACCESS TO RESEARCH

In a recent arti­cle in the Guardian, David Wil­letts, author of the book “The Pinch: how the baby­boomers took their children’s future and why they should give it back”, lament­ed the wide chasm between the out­put of the aca­d­e­m­ic world and the mak­ing of pub­lic pol­i­cy. A cou­ple of years after the pub­li­ca­tion of his book – which attempt­ed to frame the inter­gen­er­a­tional debate in the UK by using many con­cepts and mod­els bor­rowed from schol­ar­ly cir­cles – Wil­letts prais­es the Soci­ety Cen­tral ini­tia­tive at Essex Uni­ver­si­ty, which aims to close the gap between aca­d­e­mics and pol­i­cy mak­ers. But he warns that there is still a prob­lem with the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of the most up-to-date research results.

David Willet’s arti­cle: www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/oct/22/evidence-based-policy-david-willetts
Soci­ety Cen­tral: www.societycentral.ac.uk

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6.) LAST BUT NOT LEAST.…

Please let us know of peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in the top­ic Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus¬tice. If you send us their postal address, they will receive a copy of the mag­a­zine >Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review< as a non-bind­ing sam­ple copy.

————-
All newslet­ters are avail­able on our home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Press > Newsletter
—-
If you want to unsub­scribe this newslet­ter, please send an e‑mail to
kontakt@srzg.de or unsub­scribe direct­ly on our homepage.
—-
Please feel free to con­tact us with any feed­back con­cern­ing our newsletter.

With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er­str. 29
D- 70619 Stuttgart
Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt@srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org
—
Board of Directors:
Danyal Bayaz
Wolf­gang Gruendinger
Adri­an Schell (Chair)
Dr. Bet­ti­na Munimus

—-

Copy­right © 2012 FRFG

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Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 07/2012
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1.) Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2011/12: The Results

2.) Top­ic Announce­ment for the Demog­ra­phy Prize 2012/13

3.) Leg­isla­tive Prize: Jury Announcement

4.) RIO+20 Con­fer­ence: Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Future Generations

5.) Young US Cit­i­zens sue Their Government

6.) French Pes­simism on the Well­be­ing of Future Generations

7.) Youngest May­or in the World

8.) Meet­ings

9.) Last but Not Least…
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1.) INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE AWARD 2011/12: THE RESULTS

The names of the win­ning essay­ists of the Gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award – this year devot­ed to the effec­tive­ness of the Ger­man “debt brake” mod­el — can now be announced. In total, the FRFG received 13 sub­mis­sions. Dur­ing the meet­ing of the jury on the 12th of July, two win­ning essays were selected.

The first prize (€6,000) was award­ed to Heiko Bur­ret, doc­tor­al can­di­date at the Wal­ter Euck­en Insti­tut, for his essay “Die deutsche Schulden­bremse als Panazee? –Eine Analyse im his­torischen Kon­text” (The Ger­man Debt Brake as Panacea? – An Analy­sis in His­tor­i­cal Con­text). Lea Sophie Grohmann was award­ed sec­ond place (€4,000) for her sub­mis­sion “Gen­er­a­tio­nen­gerechte Finanzpoli­tik im Bun­desstaat – Ohne Aus­sicht auf Erfolg?“ (Gen­er­a­tional­ly Just Finan­cial Pol­i­cy at the Lev­el of the Fed­er­al State – No Prospect of Success?).

We con­grat­u­late the win­ners of the prize for their inno­v­a­tive con­tri­bu­tions. We send our com­mis­er­a­tions to essay­ists who missed out on the prize.

An award cer­e­mo­ny as well as a sym­po­sium – ded­i­cat­ed to the same top­ic as the prize — will take place on the 3rd of Novem­ber in the branch of the GLS Bank in Stuttgart.

The win­ning essays will be pub­lished short­ly on our website:
www.intergenerationaljustice.org> Awards > Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award 2011/2012

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2.)  TOPIC ANNOUNCMENT FOR THE DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE 2012/13

Thanks to the sup­port of the Stiftung Apfel­baum Foun­da­tion, a €10,000 prize fund will be award­ed to the essay­ists of the best papers we receive for the Demog­ra­phy Prize 2012/2013, which is devot­ed to the top­ic of youth quo­tas and their pos­si­ble effec­tive­ness in coun­ter­bal­anc­ing inter­gen­er­a­tional injus­tices in polit­i­cal bod­ies and insti­tu­tions. The award­ing con­sor­tium is com­posed of the FRFG and the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF), a Lon­don-based think tank.

The pro­mo­tion of youth quo­tas and youth rep­re­sen­ta­tion in deci­sion-mak­ing could ini­ti­ate an impor­tant soci­etal change. As organ­i­sa­tions whose mis­sion is to pro­mote jus­tice and fair­ness between gen­er­a­tions, IF and FRFG would like to gen­er­ate a fruit­ful debate in this area, with a focus on the empow­er­ment of young peo­ple in pol­i­tics and soci­ety. In the com­ing months a full call for papers will be pub­lished on the FRFG web­site and read­ers will be noti­fied in an upcom­ing newslet­ter. It will then be pos­si­ble to down­load the appli­ca­tion doc­u­ments nec­es­sary to make an entry.

Link to com­plete top­ic announcement:
www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Awards > Demog­ra­phy Prize 2012/2013
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3.) LEGISLATIVE PRIZE: JURY ANNOUNCEMENT

At the end of every leg­isla­tive peri­od in Ger­many the FRFG awards a non-remu­ner­at­ed prize for a praise­wor­thy law or a com­mend­able leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tive that either removes a present injus­tice that affects future gen­er­a­tions or pro­tects future gen­er­a­tions from future injus­tices. Since gen­er­a­tional jus­tice is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary theme and affects var­i­ous areas such as finance, soci­ol­o­gy, edu­ca­tion, ecol­o­gy and Europe, we are search­ing for your input. Which law or leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tive from the recent past do you regard as praise­wor­thy? Send us your can­di­dates for an out­stand­ing law or leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tive with a short jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to kontakt@srzg.de.

We are pleased to be able to offi­cial­ly announce the names of the jury mem­bers for the prize:

Prof. Dr. Dr. Franz Josef Rader­ma­ch­er (FRFG Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Board)
Dr. Maja Göpel (Direc­tor of Future Jus­tice, World Future Council)
Prof. Dr. Ute Mager (Cen­ter for Sus­tain­able Research, Uni­ver­si­ty of Heidelberg)
Prof. Dr. Miran­da Schreurs (Direc­tor of the Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy Research Insti­tute at the Freie Uni­ver­sität Berlin)
Danyal Bayaz (FRFG Exec­u­tive Board)

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the prize or the jury:
www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Awards > Leg­isla­tive Prize for Gen­er­a­tional­ly Just Laws > Jury

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4.) RIO+20 CONFERENCE: SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

After a pause in excess of 20 years, a fur­ther UN con­fer­ence in Rio took place in July on sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Above all, the con­fer­ence focused on the devel­op­ment of an eco­log­i­cal­ly-friend­ly approach to the world econ­o­my as well as the estab­lish­ment of the nec­es­sary insti­tu­tion­al frame­work for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. The World Future Coun­cil, an organ­i­sa­tion that endeav­ors to bring future gen­er­a­tions to the cen­tre of pol­i­cy mak­ing, sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al to estab­lish an office for an “Ombuds­man for Future Gen­er­a­tions” at the Unit­ed Nations.

In a side con­fer­ence, Gen­er­al-Sec­re­tary Ban Ki-Moon announced that it is his inten­tion to cre­ate the office of a Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Future Gen­er­a­tions in the future. The FRFG ful­ly sup­ports this ini­tia­tive and thanks the behind-the-scenes efforts of the lob­by­ists that made this vic­to­ry possible.

Fur­ther details as well as the for­mal plan­ning are still unclear. The FRFG will keep you up-to-date on future developments.

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5.) YOUNG US CITIZENS SUE THEIR GOVERNMENT

Sev­en young Amer­i­cans have brought action against their own gov­ern­ment. The courts will be asked to com­pel the gov­ern­ment to ful­fil its oblig­a­tion to pro­tect the envi­ron­ment. They hold the atmos­phere to be a pub­lic good and there­fore some­thing that must be pro­tect­ed by the US state. The young peo­ple involved in the case are not yet old enough to vote, but are old enough to stand up for their rights in court.

Full report in The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/an-inconvenient-lawsuit-teenagers-take-global-warming-to-the-courts/256903/

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6.) FRENCH PESSIMISM ON THE WELLBEING OF FUTURE GENERATIONS

An inter­na­tion­al pub­lic opin­ion poll recent­ly pub­lished by the Inter­na­tion­al Trade Union Con­fed­er­a­tion (ITUC) shows that of the 13 coun­tries inves­ti­gat­ed, only cit­i­zens in Brazil, Bel­gium and India believe that future gen­er­a­tions will be bet­ter off than today’s gen­er­a­tion. 66% of respon­dents from all coun­tries believe that future gen­er­a­tions will be worse off, while only 27% believe they will be bet­ter off. Accord­ing to the sur­vey, the French have the most pes­simistic out­look, with 93% of respon­dents feel­ing that future gen­er­a­tions will be dis­ad­van­taged. The find­ings rep­re­sent the opin­ions of over 1.4 bil­lion people.

The full study is avail­able on the ITUC’s website:
https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/120604_-_ituc_poll.pdf

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7.) YOUNGEST MAYOR IN THE WORLD

Bashaer Oth­man, a 15-year-old Pales­tin­ian girl, has become the youngest ever may­or of a town in the West Bank. Although her employ­ment is only tem­po­rary (two months), she will be respon­si­ble for sign­ing offi­cial doc­u­ments and super­vis­ing munic­i­pal employ­ees. After her time as may­or ends, she hopes to share her expe­ri­ence of run­ning state insti­tu­tions with oth­er young peo­ple.  Sufi­an Sha­did, the elect­ed may­or of the town and sup­port­er of the scheme, hopes that her appoint­ment will help to sup­port youth in the future. If suc­cess­ful, the ini­tia­tive could be repli­cat­ed in oth­er parts of the world.

Report from Al Bawaba:
https://www.albawaba.com/editorchoice/mayor-palestine-girl-433134

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8.) MEETINGS

4th Sep­tem­ber: “The increas­ing need of care, the finan­cial cri­sis and envi­ron­men­tal dam­age: gen­er­a­tional ego­ism at the cost of the next gen­er­a­tion? Ways to achieve gen­er­a­tional­ly just poli­cies.”  With FRFG spokesman Wolf­gang Gründinger. Berlin.

10th Sep­tem­ber: “Cli­mate Week”. A pan­el dis­cus­sion with an FRFG rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Bielefeld.

12th Sep­tem­ber: “YOUMARES Con­fer­ence” of young oceanog­ra­phers. Keynote speech from a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the FRFG. Lübeck.

18th Sep­tem­ber: Book intro­duc­tion of “Wir Zukun­ftssuch­er” (Searchers of the Future) at the Har­bor Front Fes­ti­val with Wolf­gang Gründinger. Hamburg.

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9.) LAST BUT NOT LEAST.…

Please let us know of peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in the top­ic Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus¬tice. If you send us their postal address, they will receive a copy of the mag­a­zine >Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review< as a non-bind­ing sam­ple copy.

————-
All newslet­ters are avail­able on our home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Press > Newsletter
—-
If you want to unsub­scribe this newslet­ter, please send an e‑mail to
kontakt@srzg.de or unsub­scribe direct­ly on our homepage.
—-
Please feel free to con­tact us with any feed­back con­cern­ing our newsletter.

With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er­str. 29
D- 70619 Stuttgart
Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt@srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org
—
Board of Directors:
Danyal Bayaz
Wolf­gang Gruendinger
Adri­an Schell (Chair)

—-

Copy­right © 2012 FRFG

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Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 05/2012
********************************************************

1.) Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review 2012

2.) 6th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award Cer­e­mo­ny and Symposium

3.) James Wil­helm on the BBC World Service

4.) UN Report: Human Devel­op­ment in Africa requires Empowerment

5.) Ban Ki-moon: Grasp the “Gen­er­a­tional Oppor­tu­ni­ty” at Rio+20

6.) Meet­ings

7.) Last but Not Least…

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1.) INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE REVIEW 2012

The 2012 edi­tion of FRFG’s flag­ship peer-reviewed jour­nal, proud­ly pro­duced in coop­er­a­tion with our UK part­ner, The Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF), is now avail­able. It con­tains a range of arti­cles that attempt to bridge the gap between the demands of social, inter­na­tion­al and inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice, with a strong focus on impli­ca­tions for pol­i­cy. Authors tack­le the the­o­ret­i­cal chal­lenge of com­bin­ing intra- and inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice and seek to inves­ti­gate how the inter­de­pen­den­cies inter­sect in numer­ous case-spe­cif­ic contexts.

The jour­nal fea­tures con­tri­bu­tions from Prof. Ste­fan Baumgärt­ner, Pro­fes­sor of sus­tain­abil­i­ty eco­nom­ics at the Leuphana Uni­ver­si­ty of Lüneb­urg and Prof. Christoph Lumer, Pro­fes­sor of moral phi­los­o­phy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Siena (Italy), among others.

A hard copy of the jour­nal can be ordered from the FRFG direct­ly for €12. Mem­bers will receive a copy as part of their mem­ber­ship. In line with FRFG’s aim to dis­sem­i­nate sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge as wide­ly as pos­si­ble, a free online ver­sion is acces­si­ble on our web­site: (www.intergenerationaljustice.org > IGJR)

This year’s edi­tion is the prod­uct of close coop­er­a­tion between the FRFG and the new­ly found­ed Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion, who have worked as joint-part­ners in its pro­duc­tion. The edi­to­r­i­al team for the 2012 edi­tion com­prised of Edi­tors-in-chief James Wil­helm (FRFG) and Boris Kühn (FRFG) as well as Guest Edi­tor Antony Mason (IF).

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2.) 6th INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE AWARD CEREMONY AND SYMPOSIUM

In con­junc­tion with the award cer­e­mo­ny of the 6th Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award on the 03.11.2012 at the GLS Bank’s branch office in Stuttgart, a sym­po­sium cov­er­ing the sub­ject of the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award, “The Debt Brake in Ger­many – Eval­u­a­tion in a nation­al and inter­na­tion­al con­text”, will take place.

One impor­tant goal of this sym­po­sium is the pre­sen­ta­tion of the award­ed papers from the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Award through­out the day. The the­ses and pro­pos­als for reforms con­tained in the papers will be the sub­ject of dis­cus­sions in work­shops and form the basis of the pan­el debate. Thus the con­clu­sions and ideas of young sci­en­tists will be demon­strat­ed to a wider audi­ence as well as crit­i­cised, expand­ed and eval­u­at­ed in a dis­cus­sion with politi­cians from both fed­er­al and state lev­el, sci­en­tists and munic­i­pal representatives.

Fur­ther information:
https://www.intergenerationaljustice.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=221&Itemid=263

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3.) JAMES WILHELM ON THE BBC WORLD SERVICE

After a sim­i­lar inter­view last year, Mr. James Wil­helm, Office Man­ag­er of the FRFG and Edi­tor of the Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review 2012, was invit­ed to give his thoughts on the future of the eurozone.
Mr. Wil­helm empha­sised the need to not lose focus on young peo­ple in the cri­sis, despite the ongo­ing enforce­ment of strin­gent aus­ter­i­ty plans in many euro­zone coun­tries. He also called for the har­mon­i­sa­tion of retire­ment ages across the euro­zone and a broad focus on dis­tin­guish­ing between good and bad investments.

The dis­cus­sion is avail­able to stream online from BBC iPlayer:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00rg2kr

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4.) UN REPORT: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA REQUIRES EMPOWERMENT

In the absence of food secu­ri­ty in Africa, the goal of sus­tain­able human devel­op­ment will be unreach­able. In many cas­es poor nutri­tion com­pro­mis­es basic human func­tion­ing, which leads to a com­plex of prob­lems that could reach far into the future of the con­ti­nent. Despite this, the need for food secu­ri­ty typ­i­cal­ly elic­its a mere­ly “weak pol­i­cy response” among pol­i­cy-mak­ers, accord­ing to the Africa Human Devel­op­ment Report 2012. An “incom­plete under­stand­ing of the extent and caus­es of the prob­lem” as well as the “absence of a civ­il and polit­i­cal con­stituen­cy demand­ing inter­ven­tion” are cit­ed as rea­sons for the over­sight. But, above all, the lack of pol­i­cy action is due to the lack of vis­i­ble ben­e­fits, due to the fact that mal­nu­tri­tion is less strik­ing when its con­se­quences reach into the future.

Tak­ing into account the large poten­tial util­i­ty of ensur­ing food secu­ri­ty for the future of human devel­op­ment, the report finds that “nutri­tion poli­cies have to be at the cen­tre of the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment debate”.

Report sum­ma­ry:
https://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/corporate/HDR/Africa%20HDR/UNDP-Africa%20HDR-2012-Summary-EN.pdf

Full report:
https://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/corporate/HDR/Africa%20HDR/UNDP-Africa%20HDR-2012-EN.pdf

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5.) BAN KI-MOON: GRASP THE “GENERATIONAL OPPORTUNITY” AT RIO+20

UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Ban Ki-moon has plead­ed for a unit­ed front at the Rio+20 con­fer­ence, which will take place next month. In his opin­ion-piece in the Inter­na­tion­al Her­ald Tri­bune, he stat­ed that “Rio offers a gen­er­a­tional oppor­tu­ni­ty to hit the reset but­ton: to set a new course toward a future that bal­ances the eco­nom­ic, social and envi­ron­men­tal dimen­sions of pros­per­i­ty and human well-being.” How­ev­er, the new course entails fol­low­ing the one first set out twen­ty years ago; the path which, accord­ing to Mr. Moon, has still not been seri­ous­ly embraced: sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Yet revi­sions to that mod­el will now be nec­es­sary, stat­ed the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, in order to ensure “dynam­ic yet sus­tain­able growth for the 21st cen­tu­ry and beyond”.

The RIO+20 Con­fer­ence will take place on the 20–22 June 2012:
https://www.uncsd2012.org

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6.) Meet­ings

25 – 28/05. Zitadelle Mainz: Open Ohr Fes­ti­val „Sys­tem neu starten?“ (New Sys­tem?) with FRFG rep­re­sen­ta­tive Simon Schnetzer.

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7.) LAST BUT NOT LEAST.…

Please let us know of peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in the top­ic Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus¬tice. If you send us their postal address, they will receive a copy of the mag­a­zine >Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review< as a non-bind­ing sam­ple copy.

————-
All newslet­ters are avail­able on our home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Press > Newsletter
—-
If you want to unsub­scribe this newslet­ter, please send an e‑mail to
kontakt@srzg.de or unsub­scribe direct­ly on our homepage.
—-
Please feel free to con­tact us with any feed­back con­cern­ing our newsletter.

With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er­str. 29
D- 70619 Stuttgart
Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt@srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org
—
Board of Directors:
Danyal Bayaz
Wolf­gang Gruendinger
Adri­an Schell (Chair)

—-

Copy­right © 2012 FRFG

********************************************************
Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 04/2012
********************************************************

1.) New Leg­isla­tive Prize

2.) Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review 2012

3.) Online-peti­tion pro­motes Ombuds­man for Future Generations

4.) Gen­er­a­tion Y: Savvy Consumers

5.) Demo­graph­ic Change: Bad News for Investors

6.) Meet­ings

7.) Last but Not Least…

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1.) NEW LEGISLATIVE PRIZE

In 2013, the new­ly cre­at­ed “Leg­isla­tive Prize for Gen­er­a­tional­ly Just Laws” will be award­ed for the first time. A law will be award­ed which either removes a present injus­tice that affects future gen­er­a­tions or pro­tects future gen­er­a­tions from future injustices.

Among the jury mem­bers are Prof. Dr. Dr. Rader­ma­ch­er, mem­ber of the FRFG Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Board; Dr. Maja Göpel, Direc­tor Future Jus­tice for the World Future Coun­cil; and Prof. Dr. Ute Mager, Direc­tor of the Research Cen­ter for Sus­tain­able Jus­tice at the Hei­del­berg Uni­ver­si­ty, Germany.

Since gen­er­a­tional jus­tice is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary theme and affects var­i­ous areas such as finance, soci­ol­o­gy, edu­ca­tion, ecol­o­gy and Europe, we are search­ing for your input. Which law or leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tive from the recent past do you regard as praiseworthy?

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found on the FRFG web­site > Awards > Leg­isla­tive Prize

Now we need your help:
1) We are still search­ing for a short and con­cise name for the prize. It could refer to some­one who has made a con­tri­bu­tion wor­thy enough of hav­ing the prize named after him/her.
2) Send us your can­di­dates for an out­stand­ing law or leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tive with a short jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to kontakt@srzg.de. The cho­sen law can per­tain to any polit­i­cal lev­el (local, nation­al, Euro­pean), as long as the law has already been passed or is present­ly being dis­cussed in a leg­isla­tive process. We’ll keep you up-to-date on your favourites.

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2.) INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE REVIEW 2012: THE INTERDEPENDENCIES BETWEEN JUSTICES

The new edi­tion of FRFG’s flag­ship jour­nal will reach pub­li­ca­tion in April. It will con­tain a vari­ety of arti­cles which attempt to bridge the gap between the demands of social and inter­na­tion­al jus­tice and inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice, with a strong focus on impli­ca­tions for pol­i­cy. A copy of the IGJR 2012 can be ordered from FRFG for just €12, while mem­bers will receive a copy as part of their mem­ber­ship. A year’s mem­ber­ship at FRFG can cost as lit­tle a £20 (depen­dent on age). In line with FRFG’s aim to dis­sem­i­nate sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge as wide­ly as pos­si­ble, a free online ver­sion will also soon become avail­able on our website:

www.intergenerationaljustice.org > IGJR

This year’s edi­tion is the prod­uct of close coop­er­a­tion between the FRFG and the new­ly found­ed Inter­gen­er­a­tional Foun­da­tion (IF), who have worked as joint-part­ners in its pro­duc­tion. The edi­to­r­i­al team for the 2012 edi­tion com­pris­es of Edi­tors-in-chief James Wil­helm (FRFG) and Boris Kühn (FRFG) as well as Guest Edi­tor Antony Mason (IF).

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3.) ONLINE-PETITION PROMOTES OMBUDSMAN FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

A cam­paign for the cre­ation of an “Ombudsper­son for Future Gen­er­a­tions” at the UN sum­mit in June in Rio de Janeiro is cur­rent­ly tak­ing place through an online peti­tion. The obudsper­son will act as a guardian rep­re­sent­ing the inter­ests of future gen­er­a­tions. FRFG sup­ports this ini­tia­tive and is cam­paign­ing for more signatures.

The peti­tion and fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the ini­tia­tive could be found at
https://www.righttothefuture.org/RFHomeDE

Back­ground infor­ma­tion on the insti­tu­tion­al anchor­ing of gen­er­a­tional jus­tice in constitutions:
www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Themes > Gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice in Constitutions

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4.) GENERATION Y: SAAVY CONSUMERS

Mar­ket research shows that Gen­er­a­tion Y, also known as the “Mil­len­ni­al gen­er­a­tion”, is pecu­liar­ly selec­tive when it comes to con­sump­tion. “We’ve always had trea­sure hunters but these guys have tak­en it to a new lev­el”, says Car­ol Phillips, a mar­ket­ing expert at Brand Ampli­tude. New con­sump­tion habits are caus­ing busi­ness strate­gies to change, as blogs and cus­tomer reviews become increas­ing­ly deci­sive for con­sumers who are chas­ing a bar­gain. Research from pub­lic rela­tions com­pa­ny Edel­man found that 42 per cent of Gen­er­a­tion Y use four or more sources pri­or to pur­chas­ing a prod­uct. In the mar­ket­place, Philips refers to the Mil­len­ni­al Gen­er­a­tion as “gen­er­a­tion of researchers”.

Eliz­a­beth Dexheimer’s report: https://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=203391

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5.) DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE: BAD NEWS FOR INVESTORS

Even with a short-term res­o­lu­tion to the sov­er­eign debt prob­lem fac­ing many devel­oped coun­tries, demo­graph­ic change will con­tin­ue to ensure that low­er returns on invest­ment con­tin­ue for some time to come, writes Shane Shep­herd. He wor­ries that when the Baby Boomers final­ly retire, their con­sump­tion demands, which he pre­dicts will remain large­ly at the same lev­els as today, will be beyond the scope of what most nation­al economies are able to under­write. Con­sump­tion habits won’t change, but few­er work­ers will be avail­able to pro­vide the goods lead­ing to price infla­tion and a gen­er­al slow­down in GDP growth. Even Japan, which has a his­tor­i­cal­ly high sav­ings rate, pro­vides no safe haven for investors, despite its large amount of for­eign assets: these would only last eleven years, accord­ing to Shep­herd. Coun­tries like the USA, which have large debt already, could be extreme­ly vulnerable.

On the sup­ply side, high­er lev­els of immi­gra­tion could mit­i­gate the prob­lem by increas­ing the ratio of work­ers to retirees. On the demand side, retirees could retire abroad, thus eas­ing con­sump­tion levels.

Shane Shepherd’s Report: https://www.rallc.com/ideas/pdf/fundamentals/Fundamentals_Feb_2012_Dirt_Economics_Demographics_Matter.pdf

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6.) Meet­ings

INAUGRAL MEETING WITH UN YOUTH DELEGATES

San­dra Reindl and Patrick Rohde are both UN Youth Del­e­gates. They are work­ing as mem­bers of the offi­cial Ger­man government’s del­e­ga­tion and give advice on top­ics relat­ing to young peo­ple at UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly. Their main aim is to build a link between young cit­i­zens in Ger­many and the Unit­ed Nations. On the 29th of Feb­ru­ary, an ini­tial dis­cus­sion between the young del­e­gates and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the FRFG took place. The par­tic­i­pa­tion of young peo­ple in pol­i­tics and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of vot­ing rights for young peo­ple were discussed.

More infor­ma­tion about there work can be found at www.jugenddelegierte.de (in German).

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7.) LAST BUT NOT LEAST.…

Please let us know of peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in the top­ic Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice. If you send us their postal address, they will receive a copy of the mag­a­zine >Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review< as a non-bind­ing sam­ple copy.

————-
All newslet­ters are avail­able on our home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org > Press > Newsletter
—-
If you want to unsub­scribe this newslet­ter, please send an e‑mail to
kontakt@srzg.de or unsub­scribe direct­ly on our homepage.
—-
Please feel free to con­tact us with any feed­back con­cern­ing our newsletter.

With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er­str. 29
D- 70619 Stuttgart
Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt@srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org
—
Board of Directors:
Danyal Bayaz
Wolf­gang Gruendinger
Adri­an Schell (Chair)

—-

Copy­right © 2012 FRFG
 

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Newslet­ter for Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice – 02/2012
********************************************************

1.) FRFG Awards Third Demog­ra­phy Prize

2.) Ombudsper­son for Future Generations

3.) Klaus Schwab: Capitalism’s Inter­gen­er­a­tional Fail­ure & Davos

4.) Young Peo­ple: Vic­tims of Age Discrimination

5.) Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice and the Role of the Pub­lic Sector

6.) Meet­ings

7.) Last but Not Least…

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1) FRFG AWARDS THIRD DEMOGRAPHY PRIZE

The Third Demog­ra­phy Prize 2010/2011, endowed with a prize fund of €10,000, was award­ed to two com­pe­ti­tion win­ners on the 16th Jan­u­ary 2012. The Jury decid­ed to give 1st Prize to Bet­ti­na Munimus, for her sub­mis­sion enti­tled “From a quan­ti­ta­tive major­i­ty to qual­i­ta­tive pow­er? An exam­i­na­tion of inter­est groups which rep­re­sent the old­er gen­er­a­tion”. The 2nd Prize was award­ed to Cor­nelia Wiethaler, for her work “The idea of jus­tice accord­ing to Amartya Sen applied to the Ger­man social secu­ri­ty sys­tem – three sketch­es of a mod­el for local respon­si­bil­i­ty”. The awards were for­mal­ly pre­sent­ed to the Prize Win­ners in Berlin, whose work was then used as the basis for fur­ther dis­cus­sion and debate.

Dur­ing the Sym­po­sium in which the prizes were award­ed, the polit­i­cal, soci­etal and eco­nom­ic strate­gies which can be adopt­ed to cope with the fact of age­ing soci­eties were dis­cussed in small groups as well as by experts dur­ing a podi­um dis­cus­sion. Over 70 par­tic­i­pants from posi­tions in econ­o­my, pol­i­tics, and a unex­pect­ed­ly large num­ber of the gen­er­al pub­lic attended.

FRFG awards the Demog­ra­phy Prize for Young Sci­en­tists every two years. It is finan­cial­ly sup­port­ed by the Stiftung Apfel­baum. The top­ic of the Call for papers was “Old major­i­ty – young minor­i­ty: Where is a pow­er shift between gen­er­a­tions already vis­i­ble and how can you bal­ance it?”

A brief doc­u­men­ta­tion of the Sym­po­sium can be accessed here .

A more detailed Ger­man ver­sion is also available.

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2) OMBUDSPERSON FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

The World Future Coun­cil, an asso­ci­a­tion of fifty renowned indi­vid­u­als, has pro­posed the intro­duc­tion of an Ombudsper­son for Future Gen­er­a­tions at the Unit­ed Nations. Accord­ing to Jakob von Uexküll, chair­man of the Coun­cil, the aim of such an Ombudsper­son would be to “rep­re­sent and pro­mote the rights of future gen­er­a­tions to inher­it a well-func­tion­ing eco­nom­ic, eco­log­i­cal, and social sys­tem with­in the scope of glob­al pol­i­tics and UN activ­i­ties”. More­over, “a ful­ly inde­pen­dent Ombudsper­son of this type, who could com­mu­ni­cate with the pub­lic and sub­mit pro­pos­als based on these inter­ac­tions, would make the UN more demo­c­ra­t­ic, account­able and open.”

FRFG wel­comes this pro­pos­al and will pro­mote it at the upcom­ing UN World Con­fer­ence for Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment in Rio de Janeiro. With­in Ger­many, FRFG pro­motes the insti­tu­tion­al anchor­ing of gen­er­a­tional jus­tice in the constitution.

Back­ground infor­ma­tion on the World Future Coun­cil .

Infor­ma­tion on FRFG’s aim to enshrine inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice in con­sti­tu­tions .

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3) KLAUS SCHWAB: CAPITALISM’S INTERGENERATIONAL FAILURE & DAVOS

The founder of the World Eco­nom­ic Forum, Klaus Schwab, has spo­ken out against the “lack of inclu­sive­ness in the cap­i­tal­ist sys­tem” and the wor­ry­ing con­se­quences of the cur­rent glob­al finan­cial cri­sis for future gen­er­a­tions. Although often not­ed by com­men­ta­tors as a staunch sup­port­er of free mar­kets, Schwab has spo­ken out against the per­ceived fail­ures of cap­i­tal­ism and, from an unusu­al­ly crit­i­cal stand­point, called for deep reform. From an inter­gen­er­a­tional stand­point, his main con­cern is that gov­ern­ments are alle­vi­at­ing the socio-eco­nom­ic prob­lems of today by sac­ri­fic­ing nec­es­sary invest­ment in the infra­struc­ture of tomor­row. “Peo­ple feel it’s a dif­fi­cult time”, said Schwab; “there is, they feel, a lack of future perspective.”

The World Eco­nom­ic Forum took place between the 25th and 29th Jan­u­ary 2012. A dis­cus­sion chaired by Schwab him­self on “The Future across Gen­er­a­tions – Annu­al Meet­ing 2012” was par­tic­u­lar­ly note­wor­thy from an inter­gen­er­a­tional per­spec­tive. The jury is out on whether the words expressed at the Forum will be put into action.

View the full debate here .

Orig­i­nal arti­cle on Schwab’s cri­tique of cap­i­tal­ism .

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4) YOUNG PEOPLE: VICTIMS OF AGE DISCRIMINATION

The Eco­nom­ic and Social Affairs Depart­ment of the Unit­ed Nations high­light­ed the dele­te­ri­ous effects of the cur­rent finan­cial sit­u­a­tion on lev­els of youth unem­ploy­ment in its World Youth Report, pub­lished on the 6th Feb­ru­ary 2012. The Report states that young peo­ple have been faced with unem­ploy­ment lev­els far high­er than any oth­er age group for a long time, and that they regard them­selves as vic­tims of ageism. Addi­tion­al­ly, accord­ing to a recent inves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the nation­al anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion unit in Ger­many, age dis­crim­i­na­tion is more than a minor phe­nom­e­non. More­over, it affects young peo­ple more than the old: in com­par­i­son to old peo­ple (17%), dou­ble the amount of stu­dents and young peo­ple (34%) report­ed that they have suf­fered dis­ad­van­tages in the world of work based on age.

FRFG pro­motes sev­er­al mea­sures designed to tack­le age dis­crim­i­na­tion and secure a fair deal for young peo­ple. We sup­port the repeal of spe­cial priv­i­leges for senior cit­i­zens with regard to their work­ing rights and wages as well pro­tec­tion for young employ­ees and interns.

UN World Youth Report 

Ger­man age dis­crim­i­na­tion study

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5) INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE AND THE ROLE OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Speak­ing to stu­dents on the 21st Jan­u­ary, the Labour Par­ty leader in the UK, Ed Miliband, high­light­ed inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice as the key issue of mod­ern times. Mr Miliband empha­sised the need to build and main­tain a large pub­lic sec­tor dur­ing the downturn:
“Inter­gen­er­a­tional justice…is going to be the issue of the next 10 or 15 years. Is this gen­er­a­tion, my gen­er­a­tion, going to do right by the younger generation…The thing you learn is that it takes a very short time to cre­ate youth unem­ploy­ment, it takes a long time, a gen­er­a­tion, to undo the effects of it.”
Jane Elli­son, Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty MP, strong­ly crit­i­cised Mr. Miliband’s inter­ven­tion­ist stance by claim­ing that his par­ty “lacks any cred­i­bil­i­ty on tack­ling the deficit”. More­over, Mr. Miliband stands for “more spend­ing, more bor­row­ing and more debt today”.

The debate high­lights a key ques­tion for inter­gen­er­a­tional pol­i­cy dur­ing the finan­cial cri­sis, with rel­e­vance extend­ing far beyond the UK: Inter­vene to cor­rect the mar­ket at the risk of cre­at­ing inter­gen­er­a­tional debt, or be guid­ed by the lib­er­al non-inter­ven­tion­ist doc­trine in the hope that the mar­ket will reg­u­late itself? Despite par­ty dif­fer­ences, the fact that inter­gen­er­a­tional jus­tice is becom­ing invoked and dis­cussed in nation­al pol­i­cy cir­cles should be a step in the right direc­tion for the well-being of future generations.

Orig­i­nal arti­cle in the Telegraph

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6.) Meet­ings

12th Febu­rary: “Rebel­lion and Revolt in Europe – a Gen­er­a­tional Ques­tion?” Podi­um dis­cus­sion with FRFG Spokesman Wolfgng Gründinger. Karlsruhe.

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7.) LAST BUT NOT LEAST.…

Please let us know of peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in the top­ic Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice. If you send us their postal address, they will receive a copy of the mag­a­zine >Inter­gen­er­a­tional Jus­tice Review< as a non-bind­ing sam­ple copy.

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With best regards,
The Editors

Foun­da­tion for the Rights of Future Generations
(Stiftung fuer die Rechte zukuen­ftiger Generationen)
Mannsperg­er­str. 29
D- 70619 Stuttgart
Tel: +49-(0) 711 – 28 05 27 77
Fax: +49-(0) 3212 – 28 05 27 7
E‑Mail: kontakt@srzg.de
Home­page: www.intergenerationaljustice.org
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Board of Directors:
Danyal Bayaz
Wolf­gang Gruendinger
Adri­an Schell (Chair)

Man­ag­ing Director:
Boris Kühn
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