An agenda with a short deadline: all the construction work undertaken by the CNRS, the MRSH and the Region is aimed at an announcement in June and a start-up by the fourth quarter of 2019 at the latest (highlights are already scheduled for August 2019).

An innovative device: a chair-device

In the process of setting up the MRSH, the CNRS regional delegation and the INSHS CNRS, an innovative formula emerged:

• A Chair that is a mechanism rather than a personal Chair. In addition to the presence and work of the chairholder, who must necessarily have a strong international dimension, it is intended that a pool, a college, of senior researchers, also of international renown, participate, under the leadership of the chairholder, in the animation and construction of the system.
• The pool of senior researchers would be associated with a pool of senior researchers II brought in by the seniors, already in a strong international scientific position but less advanced in their career than the college of seniors.
• The objective is to multiply international influence and leverage through synergies based on the exceptional networks of Tony Oposa and Professor Robinson.

These points of the chair system have been discussed with the candidates explored.

Mrs. Mireille Delmas-Marty of the Collège de France has already agreed to sponsor the project and to participate actively in the senior citizens’ college.

In order to institutionalize the Forum as a place that cannot be ignored, it is also necessary to make it live throughout the year, between editions, and become a “hub” around peace:

• To ensure a permanent presence on the web, by the creation of a permanent site allowing the creation of a community and contents around the Forum: in-depth publications, relay of events, creation of a documentation fund, publications of the Normandy Chair for Peace …
• Encourage the hosting of events and structures around peace: meetings, general assemblies, headquarters

We start with the idea of a “device chair”:

It is led and coached by Chair Tony Oposa

1. For the scientific organization, it relies on a permanent correspondent who is Emilie Gaillard, co-director of the MRSH’s risk unit. She coordinates all of the Chair’s activities at the MRSH under the supervision of Tony Oposa. She will be the general scientific coordinator of the Chair.
2. Nicolas Robinson co-leads, particularly in the academic area, alongside the chairholder, Tony Oposa.
3. His permanent contact is Pascal Buléon, CNRS research director and director of the MRSH, who is responsible for the link with the Region, the CNRS and the University. The MRSH will hold the chair.

The chairholder, in close collaboration with Nicholas Robinson and Emilie Gaillard, in discussion with the MRSH has proposed an intellectual pre-project for the chair, which will be enriched and refined in discussion with several members of the senior college, including Professors Delmas-Marty, Brown-Weiss and Professor Michel Prieur. The chair-discipline gives full latitude to the chairholder (Tony Opposa) to conceive and act; it has the advantage of creating a collective dynamic as of now, and of associating several colleagues to the achievements and actions. This intellectual project, Right of Future Generations, is in keeping with the spirit of Normandy for Peace. It has a strong intellectual dimension, it is part of the local and international research and higher education landscape, and it is open to international civil society.

A chair-device is :

• Around the incumbent Tony Opposa and Nicholas Robinson, colleges grouping colleagues who will come for a time to impulse, participate, contribute to actions: reflection, training, seminars, workshops, academies, public debates, conferences, meetings etc…
• A college of internationally renowned senior researchers, chaired by Nicholas Robinson and coordinated by him and Tony Opposa, is involved in the animation and construction of the system.

The seniors of this college bring their favorite topics, these topics are the subject :

• Actions in Normandy.
• Events in relation with other events that they are in charge of elsewhere in the world. Thus, an opening and a relation between actions, trainings, events in the whole world and in Normandy is built.
• They can lead a program line over time on a given topic. These different program lines give depth and richness to the chair system.

They propose one or more juniors for a second college:

A college of junior researchers is formed, and they come regularly and punctually to participate in the actions that have been designed by the chairholder, the college of seniors and the MRSH. They are progressively integrated into the discussion of the intellectual and academic life of the chair and its evolution over the course of three years.

We can envisage a college of young researchers (either in post elsewhere and coming for some time or invited post doc).

The CNRS may, in its national action on doctoral students, assign one to the chair.

The actions of the chair have begun to be imagined: the meetings in New York between Emilie Gaillard (who was sent to meet them), Tony Oposa and Nicholas Robinson have produced a pre-project.

The MRSH, its communication department, will produce all the presentation, design and distribution documents, under the supervision of Tony Opposa and Emilie Gaillard.

We constantly consider :

• The most assertive international dimension
• A back and forth between :
  • actions in the classical academic field,
  • interdisciplinary perspectives,
  • an articulation with the judicial world: judges and lawyers,
  • actions with civil society

Program lines of the Chair under construction, work in progress

For the first time, indigenous peoples will be sitting on an equal footing with States at the next IUCN World Congress. This is historic and is part of a process of reconciliation and the search for resilience in our societies. A one-day colloquium inviting indigenous delegations would be welcome in Normandy before the World Congress on the occasion of the 2020 Peace Forum within the framework of the Chair.

Gathering success stories to pave the way to sustainable, resilient societies and cities. This is the point on which Tony Oposa intends to lead a particularly marked and important leadership (modeling of sustainable cities, resilience). Several partnerships with specialized institutes have already been identified.

The objective is to gather positive experiences of resilience (possibility of relying on existing networks to gain synergy) and to end up with a handbook, publications giving these positive examples. Short videos will be used to illustrate these case studies in a lively and educational way.

Goal: 6 to 12 documented and deliverable cases by June 2020.

Establishment of Legal Clinics on the Law of Future Generations: At the interface between academia and society, some members of the College are accustomed to working with these clinics. The Chair will be able to draw on various networks in which Tony Oposa and Professor Robinson have the opportunity to involve them.

Research on legal indicators of the effectiveness of the right of future generations 

It will provide a scientific measurement of the implementation of the right of future generations using legal indicators of effectiveness. Thanks to legal indicators, public authorities and citizens will be given a readable tool for the scientific evaluation of a public policy that will allow them to avoid making reforms “blindly”. This project is based on the work of Professor Michel Prieur, a pioneer in this field.