210105 VO M4: SpezialVO International Politics and Development (2022W)

This lecture introduces Master students to the basic features of international biodiversity politics, with a specific focus on the institutions, actors, and power relations that have shaped global environmental agreement-making related to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.
Compared to climate change, the loss of biological diversity is less visible and popular in global environmental politics. However, for the last decade, the study of international biodiversity politics has received new impetus, inter alia because of 1) the increased recognition that biodiversity and climate change must be tackled together, 2) the establishment of new international institutions, and, 3) explicit conflicts over the conceptual and political frameworks that should guide international biodiversity politics. Another important factor – and this is one focus of the lecture – is the role economic reasoning and epistemic selectivity have played in reconfiguring biodiversity conservation as a relevant parameter for economic development and human well-being; a development increasingly contested by Indigenous People and local communities, many state actors of the global South, non-state actors, activists, and scientists advocating for new concepts, including “Pachamama”, “Buen Vivir”, and “Nature’s contribution to people” (NCPs) (Stevenson et al., 2021, Vadrot, 2014, 2020; Brand and Vadrot 2013; Borie and Hulme 2015). In this vein, biodiversity politics is increasingly characterized by the struggle over the kinds of values attributed to nature, the forms of knowledge suitable to understand the drivers and causes of biodiversity loss, and the appropriate regulatory frameworks for the equal distribution of the costs and benefits related to biodiversity loss and conservation (Escobar, 1998; Brand and Vadrot, 2013).

Starting from the premise that international biodiversity politics is an increasingly important and contested field of global environmental politics this lecture aims:

1) to introduce students to key actors, institutions, and power relations constituting the field of international biodiversity politics,

2) to familiarize students with historical, institutional, and epistemic developments in the field of international biodiversity politics, illustrating how power relations have shaped
- the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD),
- the establishment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and
- ongoing negotiations on a new Treaty to protect marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ),

3) to critically discuss recent developments in international biodiversity politics including negotiations on the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), transformative change, and struggle over digital sequence information and access and benefit sharing to (marine) genetic resources.

The course targets Master students interested in the various themes of international biodiversity politics, and global environmental politics more broadly. The course combines theory and practice and is therefore interesting for students that wish to increase their knowledge and skills on how to study the sites, actors, and processes of global environmental agreement-making (Hughes et al., 2021, Vadrot, 2020).