Guyana and the UN Declaration on Future Generations

Dr Bertrand Ramcharan

By Dr Bertrand Ramcharan

Seventh Chancellor of the University of Guyana; Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche International Institute, New York.

A New Guyana is in the making. I have been submitting in these pages that it would be helpful for all parties to identify and abide by policy consensuses on international principles of sustainability, human rights, and peaceful coexistence. The UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Sustainable Development Goals represent such policy frameworks on which all political parties could base their policies for Guyana.

To these, we may now add the UN Declaration on Future Generations, which Guyana subscribed to as part of the Pact for the Future adopted at the Summit of the Future held at UN Headquarters on 22 and 23 September, 2024. The Declaration on Future Generations could be a lode-star for the government and people of Guyana, especially the young.