Doing the Sustainable Development Dance

Inaugral lecture

Proferssor Jane Holder, UCL Faculty of Laws and chaired by: Stephen Hockman QC

About this lecture

We are nearing the end of the UN’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) (2005-14). This has triggered important initiatives in schools and, increasingly, in higher and further education. In this lecture I critically examine the form of sustainability advanced by the ESD movement and question the role of legal education in furthering this. I am particularly concerned with how to relate sustainability and justice, including environmental justice – the fair and equal distribution of environmental ‘goods’ and ‘bads’, since combining these concepts seems to offer an important means by which law teachers can contribute to the ESD agenda and, possibly, reframe it in a more far-reaching and politically challenging manner. I illustrate these points with examples of radical ESD thinking and action, including the process of ‘greening’ UCL.