External publications

When cooperation meets negotiations: an approach to address the complexity of transformation to sustainability

Hernandez, Ariel
External Publications (2022)

in: Imme Scholz / Lilian Busse / Thomas Fues (eds.), Transboundary Cooperation and Global Governance for Inclusive Sustainable Development (Festschrift Dirk Messner), Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 199-205

ISBN: 978-3-8487-8636-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5771/9783748930099-199
Open access

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) serve as a ‘blueprint’ for a more sustainable future. The achievement of this vision is a difficult endeavour not only because of the issues involved but also of the process defined by uncertainty and the lack of precedents (Hernandez 2021). In addition, the SDGs entail critical questioning whether the current multiscale framework for global cooperation between states and between state and non-state actors is conducive to transformation to sustainability (T2S). One question refers to the role of power and power asymmetry in global and domestic cooperation. Given the current power imbalances, does the achievement of the SDGs require the prior dismantling of inequities that reinforce power asymmetry? Dirk Messner et al. (2016) argue that, while actors will reflect upon the payoffs of cooperation given the existing power asymmetries, cooperation can still result to the achievement of goals.