About the lecture
In this lecture Daria Davitti will examine the complex architecture of the sustainability measures introduced by the European Green Deal through the EU Taxonomy Regulation and its delegated acts.
These measures purport to pursue the three pillars of sustainability – social, economic and environmental – and aim to achieve a reduction of greenhouse emissions of at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, and EU climate neutrality by 2050. Since these measures are aimed at re-orienting investment towards sustainable economic activities to realize the objectives of the European Green Deal, there is a need to analyse their implications for states, foreign investors and, most importantly, for the protection of human rights, as well as their limited ability to respond to the urgent need for effective climate action. Emerging research indicates that these measures will exacerbate, rather than alleviate, the challenges we face to achieve climate neutrality. Crucially, they also risk entrenching existing authoritarian trends and increase the threat posed by so-called ‘ecologism’.
About the speaker
Daria Davitti is Associate Professor at Lund University, Faculty of Law. Before joining Lund University she was Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham, School of Law, where she also headed the Forced Migration Unit and the Business and Human Rights Unit of the Human Rights Law Centre. Professor Davitti is a member of the Law and Development Research Network (LDRN), the Legal Action Committee of the Global and Legal Action Network (GLAN), and serves on the steering committee of the research hub New Frontiers in International Development Finance and on the editorial board of the Journal of World Investment and Trade (JWIT). Her research focuses on the intersection and implementation of international human rights law and international economic law in complex contexts, such as situations of armed conflict, climate breakdown, humanitarian emergencies and forced migration. She is currently involved in the research project ‘Screening for Sustainability’ at Lund University, together with Britta Sjöstedt and a team of doctoral researchers. Together, they examine the implications of the EU Taxonomy of the European Green Deal and their alignment with international human rights law and international environmental law. She is also the recipient of a European Research Council Starting Grant 2023 for the project ‘Refugee Finance: Histories, Frameworks, Practices – REF-FIN’ which will start in January 2024.