CISDL’s 2022 – 2024 years featured several key events and achievements, with new developments for CISDL as an international legal research centre, as an established convenor of key experts on the SDGs, and a facilitator of cutting-edge research and publications. CISDL engagements have been varied and impactful, as are country commitments to sustainable development.
Throughout 2022, 2023, and 2024, CISDL was delighted to co-host a series of high-profile online lectures, skill-sharing workshops and seminars, building our network in more than 160+ countries. We co-hosted Climate Law and Governance Day (CLGD) 2022 online during COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh and CLGD2023 as an in-person symposium in the Middlesex University Dubai during COP28 in the UAE. We organised an in-person ‘Live from Bonn’ Roundtable in SB59 in 2023, and for SB60 we organised an official Side Event in Bonn, as well as an online ‘Live from Bonn’ Roundtable in which over 1200 registrants joined. The pre-COP26 academic conference with partners ‘in’ Cambridge, United Kingdom, took on a significant pledge to increase climate law and governance capacity from 600 to 6,000 legal specialists by 2024—exceeding 2500 by mid 2024. Further, the CISDL provided unique insights into what future generations can accomplish when their voices are heard, through the Voices of Future Generations Children’s Initiative with UNESCO, and in support of the new Global Youth Council on Science, Law and Sustainability. In 2023, New Sustainable Development Law and Policy Online Courses Offered by University of Cambridge Institutions to Democratise Education were piloted with the help of CISDL, and later by 2024 emerging as a pivotal base for online courses for a massive number of students across the globe. On October 19, 2023, we had a book launch “CITES as a Tool for Sustainable Development” coordinated by CISDL and the Biodiversity Law and Governance Initiative (BLGI).
CISDL co-hosted legal roundtables to celebrate the winners of the 2022 Legal Specialist Awards, led further public lectures online, engaging many partners and reaching thousands of people in over 120 countries, and co-hosted the online 2022 and 2024 Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series on Globalization, Sustainability and the Power of Ideas with Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of the WHO in 2022, and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Director General, World Trade Organisation in 2024, at the University of Cambridge. CISDL members published books, articles, briefs and blogs relating to the SDGs, continued their work on several volumes for our series with Cambridge University Press, shared research in a number of online and in-person symposia and conferences across every continent, and served as bridges between the CISDL’s mission and values and future generations as professors, experts, practitioners and mentors.
As key global events such as the global pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the conflict in Gaza, among other violations of international law worldwide, are reshaping the contours of international cooperation, CISDL has been working to respond quickly and effectively. Future events and programming for 2022- 2027 integrate lessons learned from the pandemic in order to ensure that we maintain in-person connections while also widening access and participation. We also continue to cooperate in research through publications, reports, blogs, research, projects and, of course, plans for the future.