Today the Fair Start Movement has updated a legal action at the United Nations, originally filed November, 2021, as detailed here.
The filing today adds many new parties from Africa, India and elsewhere – and argues the current common formula for climate reparations and their priority use is based on the same fundamental false assumptions that created the crisis, and sets the awards too low – devaluing harms by trillions of dollars and ensuring millions of deaths of mostly black persons.
The filing solves what is the greatest collective action problem humans have every faced: Bringing children into the world in a way that ensures their measurable self-determination, rather than the massive inequity and ecocide we see today. The authority to govern derives from and is conditional on this, so the update urges action now even short of a formal statement.
The model the filing shows as overriding the current reproductive rights regime need not be ideal. It only has to be be better than than the current system, which is not hard to do given that it offers little in any protection for the values we all share.
This devaluation derives from a system of fundamental entitlement and impact fraud – a charade to protect illegitimate concentrations of wealth and power – begun at the United Nations between 1948 and 1968 that circumvented democratic processes, protecting concentrations of familial and church wealth that should have been directed to women and children. That move – at the most fundamental level – ensured the climate crisis and millions of deaths.
The filing argues that current climate responses are essentially the fox guarding the henhouse, and instead urges an alternative model based on the highest standard of environmental protection: Bottom up measurable self-determination ensured through incentivizing changes in the birth, developmental, and emancipatory conditions of every child, rather than exploiting children for growth and treating liberty as the freedom to harm others.
Esther Afolaranmi, the lead attorney on the filing, said this: “Do we all admit we benefitted at horrific cost to others, and saw the good we did set back by inequity? The evidence is overwhelming. If we can admit that we can move forward with mandatory reparations that override the United States and European states authority to protect wealth gathered illegally – in violation of the Children’s Convention – and at deadly cost to others.”
The legal action uses the preemptive standard that should have defined human rights and constitutional entitlements as early as 1968, and avoids the most fundamental driver of the crisis: Some privileging their children at deadly cost to other children, including the millions already dying as the crisis accelerates.
The legal action sets in motion a child-entitling process much like anti-apartheid work of the African National Congress in its Defiance campaigns, which includes a truth and reconciliation process where key audiences admit how inequitable growth undid their public benefit claims and assist in funding reparative family planning, or face impact fraud litigation. The action argues for “constitutive” preemption of constitutional, environmental, consumer deception, and other areas of law that use the fundamental false assumptions that created the crisis.
Read our cover letter, and general engagement form, below – and act.
COVER LETTER TO PETITION TO THE UNITED NATIONS: ADDRESSING ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL DEGRADATION AND ITS IMPACT ON FUTURE GENERATIONS
United Nations Headquarters, New York, NY 10017 USA
I. Introduction
We, the Fair Start Movement (FSM), together with our global partners from Africa, China, South America, India, and women’s advocacy groups, present this petition to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). We submit this as a continuation of our ongoing efforts to address fundamental legal oversights that allow environmental and social degradation to threaten the rights of future generations. We highlight the inadequacy of current international frameworks in recognizing and protecting these rights.
II. The Problem: Structural Flaws in Human Rights Regimes
Since 2008, FSM has consistently raised concerns about the failure of international human rights regimes to adequately ensure democratic equity and a “fair start” for all children. This failure is rooted in the absence of a standardized approach to public benefit claims and climate-related damage evaluations, allowing for rampant entitlement mismanagement that disproportionately affects the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly people of color.
The wealth amassed by a few, especially in developed nations, was acquired without paying the true social and environmental costs. The rich have amassed wealth at the cost of others’ well-being, including future generations who bear the brunt of environmental destruction. This ongoing crisis is exacerbated by the inequitable allocation of resources, as wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, while millions are left to suffer the consequences of environmental degradation.
III. The Core Issues: Legal Authority for Fairness
- Public Benefit Claims: Current legal frameworks lack standardized mechanisms to prevent fraudulent or inflated claims related to environmental and public benefit initiatives. This results in mismanagement of resources that should be directed toward addressing climate-related damage.
- Climate Crisis Loss and Damage Evaluations: The failure to establish proper baselines for evaluating the harm caused by climate change prevents a clear assessment of the true impact on communities. This has allowed for continued environmental harm without adequate legal accountability or compensation mechanisms.
- Equity for Future Generations: The right to self-determination for future generations is fundamental to national legitimacy. Governments cannot claim legitimacy if they continue to ignore the rights of children to equal participation in democratic processes. There is an urgent need for legal recognition of these rights, especially as it pertains to their environmental inheritance.
IV. Historical Oversight in International Law
The international human rights regime, established between 1948 and 1968, failed to prioritize democratic equity for future generations. Instead, it embraced a flawed framework that prioritized procreative autonomy—a value that benefited wealthy, often white families, while failing to ensure adequate investment in vulnerable populations. This oversight allowed unsustainable growth models to flourish, exacerbating global inequality and environmental collapse.
The lack of focus on equitable birthrights within the human rights framework has led to a crisis where marginalized populations, particularly in the Global South, suffer the most from a climate crisis they did not create. The legal frameworks of many nations and international bodies must be realigned to prioritize ecological and democratic equity for future generations, as the current systems continue to exacerbate inequality.
V. The Legal Basis for Reform
Under existing international law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), there is already a recognized obligation to protect the rights of children and the environment. However, these rights must be extended and strengthened to include a legally enforceable “Fair Start” principle that mandates equitable birth conditions and development opportunities for all children.
- Article 24 of the ICCPR emphasizes the protection of children without discrimination. This must be expanded to ensure that all children are given equal access to resources, education, and a healthy environment, starting from birth.
- Article 6 of the ICCPR guarantees the right to life, which must be interpreted to include protection from environmental degradation. This protection is not merely a moral obligation but a legal one, requiring the reallocation of resources from wealthy nations to support vulnerable communities disproportionately affected by climate change.
VI. A Fair Start for All Children
To address the climate crisis effectively, we propose integrating the “Fair Start for All Children” model into international legal frameworks. This model emphasizes:
- Family Planning and Delayed Parenthood: Encouraging sustainable family planning practices that align with environmental and social equity goals. This includes ensuring that children are born into conditions that support their full development and capacity for self-determination.
- Redistributive Justice: Redirecting wealth from those who have accumulated it through unsustainable practices to fund environmental reparations and support vulnerable populations. This can be achieved through the establishment of planning accounts for young parents, ensuring they have the resources necessary to raise children in safe and equitable environments.
- Recognition of Collective Rights: Encouraging collective models of family planning and care that move away from individualistic approaches, which have historically benefited the wealthy at the expense of the vulnerable. Such collective efforts would ensure that all communities share the burden and benefits of environmental and social reform.
VII. Holding Wealthy Nations Accountable
The climate crisis has exposed the deep inequalities embedded in international economic and social systems. Wealthy nations, particularly in the Global North, are primarily responsible for the environmental harm that now disproportionately affects poorer countries. It is imperative that:
- Reparations for Climate Damage: Wealthy nations must be held legally accountable for their role in exacerbating climate change. This includes providing financial and technical assistance to developing countries to help mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.
- Redistribution of Wealth: Wealth accumulated through unsustainable practices must be redirected to support initiatives aimed at reversing the damage caused by climate change. This includes funding sustainable development projects, renewable energy initiatives, and ecological restoration programs in the most affected regions.
- Legal Accountability: International and national legal systems must evolve to hold individuals, corporations, and nations accountable for their role in environmental degradation. This includes establishing mechanisms for litigating and compensating for climate-related harms, as well as enforcing stronger environmental regulations.
VIII. The Urgency of Action
The time to act is now. The failure to address these issues threatens not only the survival of future generations but also the legitimacy of political and legal systems worldwide. We urge the United Nations and its member states to:
- Implement legal reforms that standardize public benefit and climate damage claims to prevent further fraud and mismanagement.
- Prioritize the rights of future generations by incorporating the “Fair Start” principle into international human rights frameworks.
- Hold wealthy nations accountable for their disproportionate role in causing the climate crisis and ensure that resources are equitably distributed to mitigate its effects.
IX. Conclusion
This petition calls upon the United Nations to take immediate and decisive action to address the root causes of environmental degradation and social inequity. The rights of future generations must be protected through legal reforms that ensure democratic equity, fair distribution of resources, and accountability for those responsible for climate damage. Only by enacting these changes can we hope to secure a just and sustainable future for all.
USE OUR ENGAGEMENT FORM BELOW TO JOIN THE FAIR START MOVEMENT
[Fill in the name of a person or organization] is doing great work, but to avoid them undoing it they should admit that children entering the world without what their rights promise them is cancelling the benefits of the work for most, driving up the costs of race and climate reparations – the death debt, reversing sustainable development, and ensuring violence as temperatures rise.
[Fact / Value Check: If the person or organization does not back overriding current systems to measurable empower and repay children for climate harms as they enter the world, are they doing more harm than good?]
Many have admitted the undoing – vegans, for example, who know inequity/growth does more harm than dietary change does good and have started to fix the problem by admitting the undoing and instead backing fair starts in life for all children as the preemptive standard for national legitimacy.
This inversion of power systems offsets our positionality, and any false claims we might have made (as many now working with Fair Start previously did), to allow unifying self-determination for all. Rights to wealth are not inherent but contingent on each child in the nation being empowered with equity and thus emancipated in particular ways.
At bottom, if we can’t admit we failed and reorient ourselves, we will be saying that mostly children of color who had nothing to do with climate and related crises should suffer and die, while mostly white families who benefited and, in many cases, perpetuated the crisis by exploiting children rather than creating value should live and profit. These entities generally did not create value so much as create their own audiences and demand by preventing sufficient investments in children to make them self-determining in quantity and civic quality, enough to evade growth-based catastrophe.
