NCP Annual Board Meeting 2022

Two sessions of the NCP Annual Board Meeting were held online, on February 4th, 2022, in the presence of Tony Oposa, Chair leader, and Professor Nicholas Robinson, Chair emeritus. These sessions were moderated by Emilie Gaillard, general coordinator of the Chair. All the research line leaders were present. 

The first session took place from 9 am to 11 am (French Time), a round of presentations was made and then the floor was given to Tony Oposa, who greet all the participants and thank them for their amazing projects within the NCP. Then, David Forman spoke about his commitment to the line of research on the Indigenous Peoples NCP research line, especially in the Pacific, and this specially during the sabbatical year he will take. He also expressed his desire to participate in the NCP summer school that will take place the first week of September in Caen. 

The following person to speak was Laurie Fartaria, a doctoral student of the NCP. She introduced herself and presented her thesis project. Then she shared the details of the intergenerational webinars project about Indigenous Peoples that she will lead once every two months. 

After this intervention, Michel Prieur, took the floor and gave us a summary of the activities on the Legal indicators and the book published at the end of last year, Measuring the effectiveness of environmental law through legal indicators. Then, Ali Mekouar gave us details on the new project of publishing a book on Environmental Diplomacy in the Chair’s Collection that he is working on with Michel Prieur and Emilie Gaillard.

Later on, on one hand Alexandra Aragao and Daniele Galvao, members of the research group on Legal indicators on the Portuguese team. Daniele announced the beginning of his Erasmus + internship within the chair in Caen from mid-February to June 2022. On the other hand, Cristiane Derani, part of the Brazilian team of the same project, told us about the partnership project between the University of Caen, the Chair and the University of Santa Caterina in Brazil signed last year.

Then the axe of research line Towards the recognition of animal rights belonging to the main research line Processes of change of fundamental rights and legal systems was addressed by Aloise Quesne. She told us about the on-line symposium which took place on December 10th, 2021, under the title : What right(s) for animals ? and about the publication of the proceedings of the conference. 

In addition, the floor was given to Alyn Ware, who is working on Climate justice research line with the young people of WYCJ to seek an Advisory Opinion. Jule Schnakenberg, representative of the WYCJ youth movement, told us more about the upcoming webinars on this topic and the parallel project to reinforce this initiative from the French-speaking Africa front. The following stages to come in this project where explainned by one of the ScPo students, Sophie Pecqueur.

The last part of this session was dedicated to the Bioethics research line, Amandine Cayol, Bénédicte Bévière Boyer and Emilie Gaillard. They told us about the two Symposiums held last year on the themes : Transhumanism and Transanimalism and the publication projects to be carried out on these themes on the NCP collections. In 2023, the NCP plans to close this cycle with the Trasterre symposium.

The second session started at 2:45pm to 5:30pm (French time). All the participants intervened in a round of presentations and then Genoveva Ramos, from the Axis of Cooperation in the Canary Islands, who works with Ana Maria Lozano, in the project of the Intergenerational Pedagogical Kit on the care of water present the advancements until today. This project highlights the vision of the Indigenous Kogi people of the Sierra Nevara de Santa Marta. For this reason an invitation was made to Eric Julien, expert in this community, to integrate this team to continue advancing in the next stages of the project this year. 

Then the floor was given to Erin Daly and James May, who told us a little more about the Good Legal Stories project, branch of the Good Stories Movement lead by Tony Oposa. Three publications have been made through a 15 to 20 minute video format, since January. Two new publications are expected on February 16th and March 2nd with the latest storytelling on Establishing Rights of Nature and Advancing Environmental Justice. The Chair Emeritus, P. Robinson, congratulated them on this inspiring project and other colleagues were encouraged to participate by sending information on other stories to highlight this year.

On the other hand, the floor was given to Alyn Ware to explain again the projects of the Climate Justice research line and then the floor was given to the IUT communication students, Matthias Fichet and Oceane Bance, who are currently helping to promote the projects of this research line on the Chair’s instagram (@normandychairforpeace). In addition, Juliette Maillard, from the ScPo group, took the floor to present the ICJ WYCJ NCP Francophone Africa project, in which Ali Mekouar wishes to actively participate.

Then, Luis Miguel Gutierrez and Laetitia Braconnier, from the Transitional Justice research line, told us about the webinars that took place last year under the title : Weaving of transitional justice and the territorial rights of indigenous peoples in Colombia, a project of which the NCP and its partners on the project want to publish the proceedings. Likewise, Leslie Cloud took the floor to present her project ideas for this year in the Indigenous peoples research line and her support to the interrelated lines.

In addition, Jochen Sohnle was also given the floor to explain the ongoing project of publishing a book on Environmental Ethics, that he is directing with Christophe Bouriau and Emilie Gaillard.

Then the Legal indicators team took the floor to describe the statistical process necessary to test their effectiveness, a work enunciated by Christophe Bastin and then commented by Cristiane Derani (University of Santa Caterina, Brazil) and Alexandra Aragao (University of Coimbra, Portugal). 

Also, the issue of the proceedings of the Chair’s Colloquium held in Marseilles last year before the IUCN international congress on the environment was discussed. This editing work will be carried out by Kathryn Gwiazdon for the English version and by Emilie Gaillard for the French version.

After a review of past activities, the work for the year 2022 and the roadmap were presented and adopted collectively. Finally, an open invitation was extended to members of the Chair who wish to participate in the summer school to be held the first week of September in Caen.

The next Board Meeting will be scheduled in 2023.