This open access book analyses the interplay of sustainable development and human rights from different perspectives including fight against poverty, health, gender equality, working conditions, climate change and the role of private actors. Each aspect is addressed from a more human rights-focused angle and a development-policy angle. This allows comparisons between the different approaches but also seeks to close gaps which would remain if only one perspective would be at the center of the discussions.
Specifically, the book shows the strong connections between human rights and the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. Already the preamble of this document explicitly states that “the 17 Sustainable Development Goals ... seek to realise the human rights of all”. Moreover, several goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda correspond to already existing individual human rights obligations. The contributions of this volume therefore also address how the implementation of human rights and SDGs can reinforce each other, but also point to critical shortcomings of the different approaches.
Markus Kaltenborn is Professor of Public Law at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Faculty of Law. He is Director of the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) at Ruhr University Bochum, member of the German Institute for Human Rights (DIMR e.V.) and of the supervisory board of Oxfam Germany e.V; in recent years he has also been Visiting Lecturer at the Institute for Social Development of the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town). His main areas of research are Health Law, Social Protection Law, the Law of Development Cooperation and Human Rights Law. He is (together with Katja Bender and Christian Pfleiderer) editor of the book Social Protection in Developing Countries. Reforming Systems (Routledge 2013) as well as (together with Philipp Dann und Stefan Kadelbach) of the edited volume Entwicklung und Recht (Development and Law, Nomos 2014). Furthermore he is the author of a study on Social Rights and International Development (Springer 2015).
Markus Krajewski holds the Chair in Public Law and Public International Law at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. His research focusses on international economic law, human rights, European external relations and the law of public services. He heads the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN) and is one of the programme directors of the Master programme in Human Rights at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. He also chairs the Board of Trustees of the German Institute for Human Rights and is Secretary-General of the German Branch of the International Law Association.
Heike Kuhn is Head of Division “Human Rights, gender equality, inclusion of persons with disabilities” at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Bonn/Berlin). She has a background of more than 25 years in European and multilateral development cooperation, human rights, financing and programming. Ms. Kuhn has long-standingexperience in leading and managing multilateral negotiations at European and UN-level, lately as Executive Board Director to the International Fund of Agricultural Development and Alternate Representative at the Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic of Germany to the International Organizations in Rome/Italy. Ms. Kuhn holds a Ph.D. in Administrative Sciences from the University of Speyer (Germany) on “The social dimension of the European Community”. She is a fully qualified lawyer, having studied in Marburg and Freiburg/Germany, Moscow/USSR, Los Angeles/USA and Genoa/Italy.
