Postdoctoral Position in Law: Climate Change, Biodiversity and the Social Contract in the European Union

The Center for Climate Change Law and Governance (CLIMA) at the Faculty of Law of the University of Copenhagen is seeking applications for a postdoctoral position in climate change and the social contract in the EU.

The position has an 18-month employment period starting 1 December 2024 and is part of the EU Horizon-RIA Research Project SPECIFY AND PROTECT THE EU SOCIAL CONTRACT (EXPRESS2), which is carried out by a consortium of various universities in the EU.

EXPRESS2

The overall objective of the EXPRESS2 is to address from a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and cross-sectional perspective, the growing demand for a new, more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable social contract in the EU. The project focuses on identifying and analyzing disruptive elements of the social contract, such as insecurity, populism, climate change, mistrust in institutions, gender discrimination, digitalization, and pandemics. The analysis of these stressors includes both individualized and cross-sectional approaches to cover the plausible relation of multiple disruptors, their concatenation, or the “trigger” effect of a disruptive phenomenon to another. By understanding these disruptive elements and their effects on the social contract, the project will propose concrete measures to ironclad the social contract and it will provide relevant information to protect it from actual and potential disruptions thus we conceive social contracts as incomplete theorized agreements and living documents. In addition to academic, policy, and socio-economic outcomes, EXPRESS2 will propose recommendations to strengthen the social contract's resilience and capacity for further development.

Postdoctoral Position at CLIMA: Climate, Biodiversity and the Social Contract in the EU

Within EXPRESS2, the postdoctoral position at CLIMA aims to shed light on the climate and biodiversity related stressors for the social contract in the EU. The current social contract, which holds the balance between economic and social imperatives, is facing new and deeper divides due to environmental constrains. These constrains refer to the undergoing ecological crisis that produces a new landscape of vulnerable groups and rights and responsibilities of countries, citizens, and stakeholders. The international regulation of two key environmental emergencies, namely global warming, and the decline of Earth’s biodiversity, has made notable advances in the last years through the adoption of goals and targets. In fulfilling the obligations adopted under international legal regimes, the EU has put in place policies and regulations to meet the targets and needs emerging from these evolving international regimes but go beyond into the creation of new economic and social models. The related tight deadlines and targets mentioned above set the EU on a pathway, which implies the rapid deployment of policies and regulation and encompasses a transformation of key societal structures such as energy production and consumption, land use and conservation of natural resources.

The application deadline is 1 September 2024 at 23:59 GMT+1.

Apply online via the above ‘Apply’ button.

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