Felix Ekardt

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Felix Ekardt (born April 1, 1972 in West Berlin ) is a German lawyer , philosopher and sociologist .

Ekardt deals in particular with the theory of justice , with the theory of sustainability , with climate policy , with questions of political control and governance in global society and with the conditions of social change.

In addition to regular reports in the media, he gained notoriety with the preparation of a lawsuit before the Federal Constitutional Court in which he seeks compliance with Germany's climate goals from the Paris Agreement .

Life

Felix Ekardt studied law , social and religious studies in Berlin and Marburg from 1991 to 1997 . In 1996 he worked as a research assistant at the University of Aberdeen . In 1997 he passed his first state examination in law in Marburg and, after his legal clerkship, the second state examination in Leipzig in 1999 . Ekardt received his doctorate in law 2000 at the University of Halle on the causes of non-sustainability. In 2018 he received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Leipzig with a critique of the cost-benefit analysis . In 2001 he completed his religious and social science studies with a master's degree at the University of Marburg. He obtained a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree in European law from the University of Leipzig in 2003 . Felix Ekardt completed his habilitation in law at the University of Rostock in 2003 with an interdisciplinary thesis on the theory of sustainability. During this time, from 1995 to 2003, he also worked for a law firm focused on environmental law .

From 2002 to 2007 Ekardt was visiting professor for philosophy at the University of Leipzig, from the end of 2002 to the end of 2008 he was junior professor for public law with a focus on German, European and international environmental law at the University of Bremen . Since the beginning of 2009 he has been an adjunct professor at the University of Rostock , where he is assigned to the Faculty of Law, the Interdisciplinary Faculty and the Leibniz Science Campus Phosphorus Research Rostock. Above all, however, he is the head of a supraregional institute primarily based in Leipzig , the Research Center for Sustainability and Climate Policy. In addition, from 2012 to 2015 he was an external long-term fellow at the Research Institute for Philosophy in Hanover.

In addition to his work at the Sustainability and Climate Policy Research Center and the University of Rostock, Ekardt has been teaching at other universities from time to time since 2009. He taught at the universities of Göttingen and Halle . Since autumn 2019, he has held the chair for public law and administrative sciences at the political science faculty of the University of Erfurt for two semesters .

Ekardt provides political advice on sustainability and climate policy issues and is a regular author in national newspapers. Ekardt ran for Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen in the mayor election in Leipzig at the beginning of 2013 and received 9.8 percent of the votes cast in the first ballot. Ekardt has been the honorary state chairman of BUND Saxony since April 2013 .

Scientific theses

Felix Ekardt represents - also in the media - often controversial theses on issues of sustainability and an open society, for example that democracy is being undermined by simple truths, but that these represent a general human tendency and are not specifically populist. He also addresses the connection between climate change and fossil fuels and other problems such as terrorism or fine dust pollution. Both are also taken up in the latest paperback, Kurzschluss: How simple truths undermine democracy . In it Ekardt examines whether reason and democracy have a permanent chance in the face of an omnipresent general human - especially not just populist - tendency to simple truths, or whether they are in danger of remaining historically exceptional.

Ekardt's main work Theory of Sustainability: Ethical, Legal, Political and Transformative Approaches - using the example of climate change, resource scarcity and world trade - shorter and updated since 2019 at Springer also available in English as Sustainability: Transformation, Governance, Ethics, Law - originally appeared in 2004 in Self-published and then in two further editions in 2011 and 2016 by Nomos; Popularizing paperbacks were originally published by CH Beck Will Democracy Unjust (2007) and The Principle Sustainability (2nd edition 2010). Later popularizations were at Herder Cool Down: 50 misconceptions about our climate future ; a second edition was published in February 2012 under the title Climate Protection After the Nuclear Phase-Out - 50 Ideas for a New World ; Another update appeared in October 2014 as a task of the century, the Energiewende: A manual in a kind of third edition from Christoph Links Verlag and the Centers for Civic Education. The most recent attempt to offer a popular synthesis of the theory of sustainability with a focus on the conditions of social change is contained in the paperback We Can Change , published by Oekom in 2017 . Social change beyond criticism of capitalism and revolution .

In his work, Ekardt seeks an ethical and legal theory of his own, "modern-liberal" approach to the theory of justice and a new understanding of freedom, a balancing approach that competes with economic cost-benefit analysis , a theory of human behavioral drives and social change in the context of sustainability and a Governance approach for more effective sustainability tools. Overall, this should result in a human-scientific sustainability theory with a focus on governance, ethics, law and transformation. The theory of justice, including the doctrine of freedom and balancing, is a conception - in parallel ethical and legal - inspired by Kant and discourse ethics in individual points, but compared to both of them, strongly developed; it contains u. a. a normative justification of environmental protection as well as human rights over time and space and wants to redefine the space of the rationally recognizable in the area of ​​ethics and law.

In the theory of human behavior and social change, Ekardt shows that the narrowing of various disciplines to individual factors such as knowledge, self-interest, problems with the common good or biological drives are not tenable, even if all these points are relevant; In addition, notions of normality, feelings and values ​​(and their cultural component) become relevant. For Ekardt, it is also central that social change occurs in an interplay of different actors (each characterized by the same drives mentioned) and therefore the question of whether politics or citizens / consumers or companies or other actors are more decisive. In doing so, an integrated and at the same time individual view of individual and social change processes in a combination of sociological, psychological, economic, cultural, sociobiological and other elements is sought. In governance theory, typical control problems such as rebound effects and relocation effects to other sectors, countries or to other environmental problems are analyzed that have so far often thwarted effective environmental protection. Building on this, it is shown - without the connection to cost-efficiency aspects that is customary among economists - that instruments that are geographically and objectively as broad as possible and that work with absolute goals can most likely have a problem-solving effect from a sustainability perspective, for example economic instruments such as certificate markets and taxes , flanked by differentiated ones further measures. In contrast to the discourse on instruments, Ekardt envisages a real-time radical limitation of quantities via cap and trade for fossil fuels and animal stocks as particularly suitable, which he considers to be the key drivers of various challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, health problems caused by air pollutants and the like. a. m. holds.

Ekardt is currently focusing on the issues of land use and climate change, phosphorus shortage and biodiversity as well as the development of integrated approaches to solving various environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity and disturbed nitrogen cycles, particularly with a focus on economic policy instruments. Ekardt also publishes the series Environmental Humanities: Transformation, Governance, Ethics, Law at Springer and the series Contributions to Social Science Sustainability Research at Metropolis Verlag.

In a brief report from March 2019 on behalf of the Solarenergie-Förderverein Deutschland , Felix Ekardt deals with the limits of (German) administrative offense law related to school absences as part of the Fridays for Future movement .

Fonts (selection)

  • Sustainability: Transformation, Governance, Ethics, Law. Springer, Dordrecht 2019, ISBN 978-3-030-19276-1 .
  • Theory of Sustainability. Ethical, legal, political and transformative approaches - using the example of climate change, scarcity of resources and world trade. Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden 2016 (2nd edition at Nomos, 3rd edition overall), ISBN 978-3-83-296032-2 .
  • We can change: Social change beyond criticism of capitalism and revolution. Oekom Verlag, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-86581-842-3 .
  • Short Circuit: How Simple Truths Undermine Democracy. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2017 (also the Centers for Political Education), ISBN 978-3-86153-962-9 .
  • Economic evaluation - cost-benefit analysis - economic ethics. A criticism of the example of climate protection - at the same time to numbers in the sustainability discourse Metropolis Verlag, Marburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-7316-1329-9 .
  • Edited with Herwig Unnerstall and Beatrice Garske: Globalization, free trade and environmental protection in times of TTIP: Economic, legal and political perspectives. Metropolis Verlag, Marburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-7316-1197-4 .
  • with Bettina Hennig: Economic instruments and assessments of biodiversity - lessons for nature conservation from climate protection? Metropolis Verlag, Marburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-7316-1120-2 .
  • The energy transition of the century: a manual. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2014 (also the Centers for Political Education), ISBN 978-3-86153-791-5 ( online [special edition 2015] ).
  • with Christian Heitmann and Davor Susnjar: Securing social-ecological standards through participation. Hans Böckler Foundation , Düsseldorf 2012, ISBN 978-3-86593-175-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sybille Klormann: climate policy of the federal government to court. In: Zeit-Online. November 23, 2018, accessed December 11, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Career - Prof. Dr. Dr. Felix Ekardt, LL.M., MA, head of the research center. Retrieved August 20, 2018 .
  3. ^ Website of the Research Center for Sustainability and Climate Policy
  4. ↑ Announcement of the final result by the Leipzig Office for Statistics and Elections , accessed on January 31, 2013
  5. ↑ State board overview page of the BUND Saxony ( memento of the original from November 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bund-sachsen.de
  6. ↑ ZEIT online from December 9, 2016
  7. ↑ ZEIT online from April 1, 2017
  8. ↑ Ekardt: Kurzschluss: How simple truths undermine democracy . Christoph Links Verlag, Berlin 2017, p. 9 f.
  9. ↑ On the history of Ekardt's work: Theory of Sustainability . 3rd edition = 2nd edition of the new edition, Nomos, Baden-Baden 2016, pp. 5–8.
  10. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 5–8.
  11. ↑ Ekardt: We can change . Oekom, Munich 2017, pp. 9–11.
  12. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 180–366; Ekardt: We can change , pp. 100–109.
  13. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 122–179; Ekardt: We can change , pp. 13–137.
  14. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 452-596.
  15. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 5–8.
  16. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 205–236.
  17. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 122–179; Ekardt: We can change , pp. 13–137.
  18. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 171–179; Ekardt: We can change , pp. 119–123.
  19. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 5–8; Ekardt: We can change , p. 19 f.
  20. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 485-490.
  21. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 412–494
  22. ↑ Ekardt: Theory of Sustainability , pp. 412–494
  23. ↑ List of current Ekardt projects
  24. ↑ Series Environmental Humanities: Transformation, Governance, Ethics, Law at Springer (last accessed on June 24, 2020).
  25. ^ Homepage of the series of publications
  26. ^ Felix Ekardt: Fridays for Future: Constitutional barriers to sanctions in the event of school absence. (pdf) Brief report on behalf of the Solarenergie-Förderverein Deutschland eV In: Prof. Dr. Dr. Felix Ekardt, LL.M., MA Research Center Sustainability and Climate Policy, Leipzig / Berlin. March 31, 2019, accessed April 5, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Ekardt, Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher, lawyer and sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 1, 1972
PLACE OF BIRTH West Berlin