Call of the Wild: Generational Accountability of the Global Commons

This paper analyses the generational accountability of the global commons, grounded in an environmental ethical responsibility framework heuristic of analysis of the responses by key institutional actors affecting, and affected by, the BP Gulf of Mexico Oil spill (“GOMOS”). This is the first study to fill a major gap in the literature by extending the scope of established Anthropocene-based corporate governance-oriented accountability that frames duties and liabilities to existing and legally empowered stakeholders to the entitlements of and obligations owed to future generations in the global governance the global commons. environmental ethical responsibility heuristic framework analyses various ethical dimensions of the GOMOS in terms of (i) who matters (deontological), what matters (consequential), (ii) who matters (deontological) and (iii) why does it matter (ecological) ethical perspectives on generational accountability. The framework is then applied using a problem-based research approach to (i) identify conflicting ethical responsibility stances of major institutional actors; (ii) analyse the subsequent evolution of their positions in the subsequent decade to GOMOS; and (iii) evaluate how key actors sought to “frame” environmental accountability to address the short-term rights and duties of empowered US actors, to the detriment of longer term obligations to non-empowered Mexican coastal communities and entitlements of future generations. The public agenda immediately following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was initially dominated by the interplay of BP management and US Government and framed exclusively within a US legal and moral community. Subsequently, NGOs exploited the incident to influence broader global commons governance issues, while BP management sought to limit the damage by recognising provisions, and evolved its business model to more explicitly addressed the concerns of its key empowered stakeholders. However, the interests of other local Mexican coastal communities outside this frame whose lives and habitats were permanently damaged by the event and to future generations were ignored. The study’s findings have social implications about motives facing key institutional actors to influence the rights of future generations’ entitlements to the global commons. the “framing” of environmental ethics within context limited accountability concerning to empowered, anthropocentric stakeholders concerning their short-term rights and duties, resulted in a lack of ecological accountability concerning longer-term obligations and entitlements of other communities, beings and future generations arising from the broader biodiversity loss caused by corporate exploitation and degradation of the global commons.