Just less than a year after the world debated how best to develop the planet in a sustainable way, Unisa intends taking the debate into the lecture halls and the courts.
The university has announced that, from January, it will offer a master of laws (LLM) course in international law on sustainable development.
‘Sustainable development is a multidisciplinary concept,” says Unisa’s Dire Tladi, who is responsible for course content. ‘It has a scientific and an economic nature. So there have to be legal rules and instruments in place.
‘Law makes it possible for sustainable development to be more than just a concept. If it [sustainable development] requires certain behaviour from government, the private sector and individuals, you need law,” says Tladi.
He says the degree is necessary to ensure that professed moral and politically correct concepts adopted in the name of sustainable development have a legal framework.
The year-long course will have four sections. The first is a general introduction to the area, and the second considers the purpose of sustainable development. ‘It sounds easy and nice to talk about the balance between development and the environment, but what exactly does that mean?” Tladi asks.
The third section focuses on how the various elements of sustainable development can be integrated, and includes an ethical dimension. ‘There are environmentalists who are not for sustainable development because they believe that it leads to the watering-down of environmental laws,” Tladi says.
He offers the example of a community living next to a forest, and maintaining that they need to cut the forest down to survive. ‘We should be able to say that they should not cut it down because that would be to everybody’s detriment. But we should be able to offer them the benefits they would have enjoyed. In other words, we should place environmental burdens on those states that are able to bear them,” says Tladi.
The fourth and final section encompasses the relationship between human rights, sustainable development and international law. Tladi says Unisa is considering a fifth section to cover international economic law and international trade law.
The course is aimed at policymakers in the public sector and within companies that are willing to show their commitment to sustainable development.
He adds that the international nature of the course and of sustainable development presents graduates with opportunities in foreign affairs departments and United Nations bodies.
‘I would be happy if we [enrolled] people who make policy — and if we had three people from government.” In addition: ‘The mining companies are always engaged in sustainable development issues and banks are the institutions providing loans to people involved in environmental practices.
‘On the whole, where there are decisions on economic, development and environmental activity, there will always be a need for qualified people.”