Sustainable Development and Human Rights Law (SUSTLAW) 2019

The relationship between law and development continues to be a key issue of debate both in academia and policy circles. Law’s impact on development outcomes across the globe through the rules of trade and investment becomes ever clearer in the face of intensifying global transactions and interactions. Against this background, what are the potential and limits of law in realising human rights and sustainable development in a globalized world? SUSTLAW tackles this question by providing key conceptual and analytical tools to gain in depth knowledge of and critically assess the interplay between law and development.

The programme offers high quality teaching and learning in a dynamic environment, paying attention to South-North as well as the South-South interactions. Development is not conceived in unidirectional terms (from North to South) but as a process characterised by complex social, political and economic interactions across the globe where Southern actors play and ought to play roles as important as Northern ones. Key themes explored will include not only human rights implementation and development cooperation but also standard-setting on human rights and sustainable development for the future.

SUSTLAW purports to overcome the lack of critical reflection on what human rights and sustainable development mean in a development cooperation context and further enrich legal thinking with interdisciplinary insights.