Despite the fact that ‘sustainable development’ and 'global justice' are buzzwords, they are often only paid lip-service to as rhetoric often prevails over reality. The Sustainable Development and Global Justice program aims to overcome the lack of critical reflection on what global justice and sustainable development mean in a development (cooperation) context and to further enrich legal thinking with interdisciplinary insights.
Objectives
SUSTJUSTICE has five specific objectives: They relate to building knowledge and awareness, enhancing critical reflection, developing synthetic, analytical and presentation skills, and building networks:
- Describe specific theoretical, conceptual and practical challenges facing the fields of human rights law and sustainable development, adopting an interdisciplinary approach.
- Articulate critical analysis on the relationship between respect for human rights and sustainable development.
- Use the analytical and presentation skills covered in the course for developing teamwork and integration of a gender perspective for sustainable development and the protection of human rights.
- Build networks among students, organizers and experts, from Flanders, the Global South and North.
- Critically evaluate actors and processes involved in law and development initiatives in a globalized world, both from an ‘external’ (the transnational actors involved) and an ‘internal’ (the developing country and its inhabitants) perspective.
Former participants have therefore engaged in the SUSTJUSTICE programme as a way to further their knowledge and expertise, prepare for a career shift, or to pursue a PhD on the topic.
Learning outcomes
| Learning Outcome 1 | Having a solid knowledge of the theories and concepts underpinning the fields of human rights and global justice, international law and sustainable development, and of the ways these are applied in practice. |
| Learning Outcome 2 | Having an advanced and complex understanding of the actors and processes involved in law and development, from both an external and an internal perspective, with particular attention to the challenges of gender, environmental sustainability and contextualisation. |
| Learning Outcome 3 | Being able to engage critically and creatively with the potential and limits of human rights law and sustainable development |
| Learning Outcome 4 | Being able to analyse a situation from multiple perspectives, apply knowledge to new cases and present work fluently and convincingly |
| Learning Outcome 5 | Having built a rich and diverse network with colleagues and experts |