Imagining Justice: Environmental Humanities, Intergenerational Ethics, and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions)

Abstract

In an era marked by ecological crises, social unrest, and widening intergenerational inequities, literature has emerged as a critical site for imagining justice and sustainable futures. This paper examines how the Environmental Humanities intersect with the moral imperatives of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) by reconfiguring ethical and aesthetic paradigms. Through an interdisciplinary lens that draws from ecocriticism, posthumanism, and justice theory, the study explores how literary narratives articulate intergenerational responsibility, ecological consciousness, and institutional critique. Texts by Amitav Ghosh, Richard Powers, Alexis Wright, and Margaret Atwood serve as case studies to reveal how fiction not only mirrors environmental and political crises but also envisions restorative frameworks of peace and sustainability. The paper argues that literature performs an act of “ethical world-making,” fostering both planetary empathy and civic imagination central to achieving SDG 16.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.65525/SVUP.9788199392083.2025.18-24.