The State as an Environmental Trustee

The Erasmus Mundus Masters Program in Public Policy (Mundus MAPP) of the CEU School of Public Policy cordially invites you to a public lecture by

Klaus Bosselmann

Erasmus Mundus Visiting Scholar
Professor of Law, University of Auckland

on

The State as an Environmental Trustee

Chair: Ágnes Bátory, Professor, Mundus MAPP Program Director, CEU School of Public Policy

In the build up to COP 21 in Paris this December, there is widespread skepticism regarding the effectiveness of a state-negotiated climate agreement, regardless of whether it is legally binding or not. Rather than searching for compromises that are acceptable to all or most parties, a more effective global climate regime could be based on the atmosphere as a global commons. Governance of the global commons (such as the atmosphere, oceans, Antarctica, etc.) would involve trusteeship functions of international bodies (e.g. UN Trusteeship Council or a World Environment Organisation). This in turn requires an understanding of states that act as trustees for their citizens and people in general (including future generations). Governmental trusteeship functions are not new and are arguably part of the legitimacy of states. Recent research in the area of international law has shown that concepts of state sovereignty and the UN system are compatible with, and conducive to, trusteeship governance. The lecture builds on ideas developed in "Earth Governance: Trusteeship of the Global Commons" (Edward Elgar, 2015).

Klaus Bosselmann is professor of law at the University of Auckland and an Erasmus Mundus Visiting Scholar in Mundus MAPP. He is the founding director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law and teaches in the areas of international environmental law, global governance, European environmental law, and comparative constitutional law. For his pioneering work on ecological approaches to law, policy, and governance he received numerous awards including the inaugural Senior Scholarship Prize of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law, the global professional organization of environmental law scholars.