Abstract
Over five decades ago, a strong campaign for the recognition of environmental rights as human rights at international for a culminated
in the Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment in 1972. About 150 nations of the world (excluding Nigeria) currently recognize
environmental rights as fundamental human rights in their Constitutions. Nonetheless, the scope of application of such rights to future generations is still debatable. This paper presents a justification for intergenerational justice within the ambit of environmental human rights and sustainable development of natural resources by answering the following research questions: Do the future generations have any environmental human rights? Is this generation under any obligation to
secure such rights for future generations? Is the present generation fulfilling its legal obligations to future generations? Issues such as the
existence of intergenerational rights, the scope of environmental obligations on generational contemporaries and non-contemporaries, the
fulfillment of these intergenerational obligations, the existence or otherwise of group rights and the delineation between generations as it affects environmental civic responsibilities form the crux of this legal discourse. This paper concludes in favour of the existence of
intergenerational environmental rights and underscores the need for the preservation of such rights for future generations.
Keywords: Sustainable Development, Environmental Rights, Human rights, Intergenerational Justice.
