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OCR
1.6. Our Responsibility to Future Generations According to the social teaching of the Church, legal regulation is necessary "468. Responsibility for the environment should also find adeguate expression on a juridical level. It is important that the international community draw up uniform rules that will allow States to exercise more effective control over the various activities that have negative effects on the environment and to protect ecosystems by preventing the risk of accidents. "The State should also actively endeavour within its own territory to prevent destruction of the atmosphere and biosphere, by carefully monitoring, among other things, the impact of new technological or scientific advances ... [and] ensuring that its citizens are not exposed to dangerous pollutants or toxic wastes’*’.” The juridical content of ‘the right to a safe and healthy natural environment" is gradually taking form, stimulated by the concern shown by public opinion to disciplining the use of created goods according to the demands of the common good and a common desire to punish those who pollute. But juridical measures by themselves are not sufficient.** They must be accompanied by a growing sense of responsibility as well as an effective change of mentality and lifestyle.” 1.6. Our Responsibility to Future Generations “Responsibility for the environment, the common heritage of mankind, extends not only to present needs but also to those of the future. “We have inherited from past generations, and we have benefited from the work of our contemporaries: for this reason we have obligations towards all, and Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004), para. 468, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dottsoc_en.html. Pope John Paul II, Message for the 1990 World Day of Peace (1 January 1990), Acta Apostolicae Sedis 82 (1990): 152. Pope John Paul II, Address to the European Commission and Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg, 8 October 1988), 5, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 81 (1989): 685; cf. Pope John Paul II, Message for the 1999 World Day of Peace, 10, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 91 (1999): 384-85. C£ John Paul II: Message for the 1999 World Day of Peace, 10: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 91 (1999), 384-385. 37
