Book contents
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Climate Ethics, Affirmative Action, and Unjust Enrichment
- 2 Historical Responsibility and Climate Change
- 3 Historical Emissions
- 4 How Legal Systems Deal with Issues of Responsibility for Past Harmful Behavior
- 5 Asking Beneficiaries to Pay for Past Pollution
- 6 Benefiting from Unjust Acts and Benefiting from Injustice
- 7 A Luck-Based Moral Defense of Grandfathering
- 8 In Defense of Emissions Egalitarianism?
- 9 In the Name of Political Possibility
- 10 Right to Development and Historical Emissions
- Index
- References
4 - How Legal Systems Deal with Issues of Responsibility for Past Harmful Behavior
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2017
Book contents
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Climate Ethics, Affirmative Action, and Unjust Enrichment
- 2 Historical Responsibility and Climate Change
- 3 Historical Emissions
- 4 How Legal Systems Deal with Issues of Responsibility for Past Harmful Behavior
- 5 Asking Beneficiaries to Pay for Past Pollution
- 6 Benefiting from Unjust Acts and Benefiting from Injustice
- 7 A Luck-Based Moral Defense of Grandfathering
- 8 In Defense of Emissions Egalitarianism?
- 9 In the Name of Political Possibility
- 10 Right to Development and Historical Emissions
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter will consider how the legal system approaches issues of historical responsibility in other contexts involving long delays between actions and the resulting harm. Tort law and environmental laws have grappled with problems of liability based on past actions. Examination of these legal regimes can shed light on the issue of whether greenhouse gas emitters should be considered responsible only after a cut-off date when climate change was better understood. These regimes also elucidate other issues relating to historic responsibility, such as allocation of responsibility between emitters and burden of proof. The problem of climate change is unique in some ways, and the legal system is not always the best gauge of ethical judgments. Nevertheless, understanding how society has handled other cases of historical responsibility can illuminate the problem of climate justice.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Climate Justice and Historical Emissions , pp. 80 - 106Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2017
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