Derecho al FuturoManuel Castañón del Valle

Press Room

Resources for journalists and media outlets wishing to cite or interview Manuel Castañón del Valle.

Short bio

Manuel Castañón del Valle

Manuel Castañón del Valle is a Spanish lawyer specializing in Environmental Law since 1995 and one of the pioneering voices internationally in the legal recognition of future generations. Since 2000, he has directed the Environmental Law Department of the Seville Bar Association. President of the Future Generations Foundation. He is the author of several books and articles on environmental law and the protection and defense of future generations. Professor of Environmental Law and international speaker. He has worked with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and took part in drafting the Maastricht Principles on the Human Rights of Future Generations (2023).

Quotable lines

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“If we squander our environmental heritage, our own children may not live to see the full consequences of the planet’s decline — but the people born three or five generations from now will.”
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The generations who today have the power to legislate, litigate and govern are also the first generation in history with enough scientific information to know exactly what those who come after us will inherit if we fail to act with the determination the situation demands.
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“The present generation is the guardian of the planet’s natural resources, so that those who inhabit the Earth in the future can build their lives under optimal conditions.”
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Who cares for and protects your grandchild’s grandchild? That is the question that needs an answer.
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It would be hard to find, in the comparative law of the coming decades, a task more urgent or more noble than giving those generations — silent, but no less real — a legal voice of their own and institutions to defend them.
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The legal recognition of future generations has ceased to be a doctrinal abstraction and has become a governance necessity that is being recognized, with growing clarity, in practice.

Visual assets

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