Organizing for change Towards: a new paradigm for meat governance
Katharina Pistor was a keynote speaker at the “Defund Meat Conference” at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg with a talk on “Organizing for Change: Towards a New Paradigm for Meat Governance” presented at the Deutsch-American Institute (DAI) in Heidelberg.
The conference was held at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg on Thursday and Friday, 16 - 17 January 2025.The conference will be held at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg on Thursday and Friday, 16 - 17 January 2025.
This conference revisits the ‘meat question’ in the contemporary social, political, and legal context. Meat is an embodied symbol of the mounting and interrelated environmental and public health crises that have become characteristic of our era (which may be best described as the Anthropocene and One Health era): climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, pandemics, food insecurity, unhealthy and unsustainable diets, and institutionalised animal suffering. While (not) eating meat has long been cast as a private choice, it is increasingly turning into a public and political issue, as the social, ecological, and ethical costs of industrialised meat production are becoming more visible and prominent. Overwhelming scientific evidence indicates the need for sustainable food transformations and, concomitantly, a dietary transition away from animal-based foods. In consequence, the idea of a new – a transformative – meat governance with the aim of reducing overall meat production and consumption is gaining traction.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025. 8:00 PM 9:30 PM
Our meat production focuses on profit at any price – ecological and social costs are neglected. Katharina Pistor argues for an alternative system: ‘Organizing for change’. Animals should no longer be regarded merely as capital, but should be at the center of a system that protects the earth and regenerates resources.
Pistor wants to break down the boundaries between market and state and between private and common property. Her approach: a new legal system that brings people, animals and the environment into harmony. This will create a world in which sustainability and respect for nature become a living reality.
Katharina Pistor is Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law at Columbia Law School and Co-Director of the Center for Political Economy at Columbia University in New York. She is a co-winner of the Max Planck Research Prize (2012) and a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg and European Academies of Sciences and Humanities.
In cooperation with the Max Planck Institute.
Source: https://dai-heidelberg.de/en/events/katharina-pistor-49616/
Posted In: Lectures
