Program summer term 2025: Negotiation, mediation and legalization of global sustainability goals
In recent years, interdisciplinary research of norms - including political science, sociology and law - has increasingly focused on questions of contestation, sturdiness and translation of sustainability and environmental norms between different contexts (global - national - local). The interdisciplinary series of events in the summer term 2025 will take up these debates and continue them with guest speakers, researchers and students.
The series of events is structured along the three central concepts of negotiation, mediation and legalization:
- Negotiation of global sustainability goals:
September 25, 2025 marks the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This also means that only five years remain for implementation. According to this year's UN report on the Sustainable Development Goals, progress is far behind on what is needed to achieve the SDGs, with a compliance rate of just 17%. While negotiations on the future of the global sustainability goals are already beginning at international level with five years left of the 2030 Agenda, sustainability goals are being weighed up, prioritized and implemented at local level in view of limited resources and a wide range of tasks. Whether and how these local and global negotiation dynamics interact is still an open (research) question.
- Mediation of global sustainability goals:
Another focus will be on mediation of global sustainability goals. Amid complex global challenges such as climate change, geopolitical and economic instability, international organizations are asserting their role in the development, communication and anchoring of environmental and sustainability standards. To this end, they not only have extensive knowledge that they make available to their member states. However, it remains unclear to what extent this knowledge is used by states, transnational groups, companies and political decision-makers to achieve their sustainability goals. The question also arises as to how international organizations select the scientific knowledge they spread. What guides these decisions and who influences them?
- Legalization of global sustainability goals:
Structures of resource exploration and nature appropriation are being reinforced in many places in the name of “sustainability” and “climate neutrality”. They lead to rights violations, environmental damage, the loss of biodiversity and social conflicts. Courtrooms are places where various actors seek compensation for injustices suffered by human and non-human subjects in connection with controversial regulations on the use of natural resources. At the same time, law is increasingly being discussed as an instrument for socio-ecological transformation. This series of events will therefore also deal with the juridification of global sustainability goals and the role of law in their implementation. After all, to bring a case to court, the injustices caused must be articulated and recognized, responsibility assigned and appropriate measures for reparation determined, which poses a variety of scientific and practical challenges.
With these events, we want to explore the dynamics of negotiating, mediation and legalizing sustainability goals and offer a series of events for the summer term 2025 in which we would like to discuss this topic in the field of tension between normativity and normality.
The following events are planned for the summer term 2025:
- 07.05.2025 (14-16 c.t.) Presentation of the Master's research projects on the topic “Transformation of boundaries”
- 14.05.2025 (18-19:30 s.t.) Lecture by Prof. Dr. Carola Klöck (Sciences Po Paris) on “The role of small island states in the global negotiation of sustainability”
- 20.05.2025 (18-19:30 s.t.) Lecture by Dr. Eva Krick (Johannes-Gutenberg-University Mainz) on the topic “Environmental expertise in participation processes”
- 03.07.2025 Research workshop on findings from field research in the field of social science sustainability research
- 09.07.2025, tbc (18-19:30 s.t.) Debate between Dr. Ana Colomer (University of Valencia) and Prof. Dr. Isabel Feichtner (JMU, requested) on the topic “Transformation law and the juridification of sustainability” (in English)
The events will be organized in interdisciplinary cooperation with the Chair of Social Science Sustainability Research, the Chair of Public Law and International Economic Law, the Department of Political Theory and the Chair of International Relations and European Studies.
In terms of content, the events follow on from the debates from the summer term 2023 on “Transformative Sustainability Knowledge” and the winter term 2024/25 on “Sustainability and Ethics”.
