Prof. Sebastian Oberthür

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Prof. Sebastian Oberthür

Senior Policy Advisor

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Sebastian Oberthür worked as Senior Associate at Ecologic from 1996 to 2005. After becoming Academic Director of the IES (Institute for European Studies) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in October 2005, he has been Senior Policy Advisor for Ecologic. His main areas of work are international environmental agreements and international environmental institutions, as well as climate policies. He works in German and English and has a working knowledge of Spanish and French.

Sebastian Oberthür's current research interests include issues surrounding the horizontal and vertical integration of international institutions relevant to the environment as well as the development and implementation of various environmental agreements. Most recently, he has conducted studies on the interaction between international institutions, the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the structure and design of the system of international environmental institutions, the reporting of data under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and the foreign environmental policy making of the European Union in international environmental agreements.

 

Sebastian Oberthür has dealt with issues of international environmental policy as well as climate policy since the early 1990s. He has published widely on these subjects and is invited regularly as an expert to participate in and speak at relevant conferences and workshops. Dr. Oberthür has followed the negotiating processes on the international co-operation for the protection of the ozone layer as well as of the climate for several years as a scientific observer, as an appointed member and representative of the International Council of Environmental Law (ICEL), or as a member of the German delegation. Since 2005, Sebastian Oberthür serves as a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC).

Before joining Ecologic, he conducted studies in the framework of several projects, inter alia, on behalf of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, and Energy, the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research, and the Scientific Advisory Council of the German Government on Global Environmental Change (Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen, WBGU) and others. In 1996 and 1997, he also taught International Relations at the Technical University Berlin. From 2001 to 2005, Sebastian Oberthür served as a part-time assistant professor at the Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg.

From 1987 to 1992, Sebastian Oberthür studied political science in Marburg and Berlin. In 1995, he received a PhD from the Free University Berlin for his work on ”The Contribution of International Regimes to Solving Environmental Problems” (summa cum laude).

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Recent content by Prof. Sebastian Oberthür

Publication:Report
 
Cover of the report titled 'Transformative procedural climate governance: Mechanisms, functions, and assessment criteria'. At the top, a modern logo consisting of intertwined loops in multiple colors, representing the brand '4i TRACTION', which stands for innovation, investment, infrastructure, and integration. At the bottom, the authors' names and the 4i TRACTION brand element at the bottom, subtly repeating the logo's color scheme.
This report presents an approach to studying the EU’s procedural climate governance, namely the frameworks, instruments and institutions that shape and support the climate-related decision-making process of the EU.

Transformative Procedural Climate Governance

Mechanisms, functions, and assessment criteria

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Publication:Report
 
Cover of the 4i-TRACTION report "Transformative climate policies: a conceptual framing of the 4i’s"
What makes climate policy transformative? This report sets out the conceptual framing of transformation and transformative climate policies taken in the 4i-TRACTION project.

Transformative Climate Policies

A conceptual framing of the 4i's

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Publication:Book Section
 
Cover of the publication International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy
Based on a stocktake, we present options to improve international soil governance in the short, medium and long term. The stocktake includes existing international instruments and institutions that are relevant for soil protection and its governance at the international level. It assesses the actual and potential steering effect of, inter alia, the Desertification Convention, the Biodiversity Convention, the Paris Agreement and climate regime, regional treaties, FAO, UNEP, IPBES and IPCC.

The Future of International Soil Governance

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Publication:Report
 
This research report by Ecologic Institute identifies ways in which Germany can improve international soil governance in the short, medium and long term. It begins with an inventory of existing international instruments and institutions relevant to soil governance at the international level. It assesses the actual and potential steering effects of international treaties such as the Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the climate regime as well as regional agreements. It also analyses the activities of FAO, UNEP, IPBES and the activities of the IPCC.

Improving International Soil Governance

Analysis and recommendations

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Publication:Book Section
 
Cover of the book "The Paris Agreement on Climate Change"
This chapter first analyses the legal structure of the overall Paris Outcome in terms of the legal status of the different texts, how they are linked, and how they together form the new climate regime. The chapter then looks at the structure of the Paris Agreement's content, i.e. how its individual provisions work together. Finally, it provides a bird's eye view of the legal nature of individual sections and provisions, and concludes with some further insights.

Legal Form of the Paris Agreement and Nature of Its Obligations

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Publication:Article
 
Cover Climate Law
This article analyses the legal form and nature of the Paris Agreement. Dr. Ralph Bodle and Prof. Sebastian Oberthür argue that the Paris Agreement constitutes an international treaty whose prescriptive and precise legal obligations are primarily procedural and focused on 'nationally determined contributions' (on mitigation) and the core transparency framework.

Legal Form and Nature of the Paris Outcome

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Project
 
The project objective is to provide expert policy advice to the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the field of international climate policy. The topic areas of Ecologic are the institutional design and organisation of the international negotiation process in the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, as well as the further elaboration of the compliance system of the Kyoto Protocol. Furthermore the project analyse various questions relating to the future development of the international climate change regime beyond the year 2012.

Institutional Design of International Climate Policy

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