Prof. Dr. Andreas Fischer-Lescano

The preamble to the Paris Climate Agreement calls on the signatory states to shape the necessary socio-ecological transformations as "just transitions" and to take account of the equal originality of social and ecological justice requirements. And this is exactly what research in my field is all about. As interdisciplinary networked legal scholars, we investigate fundamental questions of socio-ecological transformation.

Basically, all my projects are about shaping the legal-political framework conditions with the aim of enabling a socio-ecological transformation, which in particular must also be a transformation of the existing power and legal structures. There is a gap between the requirements of socio-ecological justice and the realities of a post-colonial, intersectionally discriminatory, anthropocentric and economically unequal global society. My area of expertise researches how these patterns of dominance also shape global law and thus also global sustainability law. And we are looking for ways to overcome them. To name one example: The question of an inclusive global society must not be narrowed anthropocentrically. Socio-ecological justice is also about a new conception of the ecological, about incorporating ecology into legal policy. This is where our German-Ecuadorian project "Nature as a Legal Person", funded by the DFG, comes in. Together with our Ecuadorian cooperation partners, we are looking at, among other things, how natural entities can gain access to justice, how they are represented and, above all, what social effects the rights of nature entail.

For me, academic work is a dynamic process that thrives on exchange with students and early career researchers. It makes me happy to discuss new topics, theories and methods with young, committed and critical students, doctoral candidates and postdocs and to learn from and with each other in the process.

As a sustainability institute, the Kassel Institute for Sustainability has three unique selling points, the combination of which sets it apart from all other sustainability institutes I know:

1. The Kassel Institute lives the unity of research and teaching - in other words, it is not a pure research institute. The Institute bundles the existing research and teaching on ecological, social and economic sustainability at the University of Kassel and develops it further in a decidedly interdisciplinary approach.
2. The Institute integrates normative and empirical dimensions by linking research and teaching at the Institute to questions of transnational justice, democratic representation and criticism of the prevailing concept of sustainability with concrete fields of application.
3. The Kassel Institute does not understand sustainability solely in ecological terms, but is dedicated to questions of socio-ecological justice in a comprehensive sense that also includes institutional issues.

All questions of socio-ecological transformation are also questions of law and power. This basic assumption is reflected in a large number of the Institute's projects. Let me illustrate this with an example from the field of "forests": My colleague Andreas Braun is investigating constellations of plantation forestry in the Global South. Reforestation projects are considered to have great economic and ecological potential. However, as Andreas Braun's work shows, these large-scale projects often lead to social and legal conflicts with the local population, as the impact on their livelihoods is often devastating. Questions of justice, law and power - and thus connections to my work - are inherent here.