Two complementary points of view to put environmental protection back at the heart of public debate

The biodiversity crisis isn't just destroying nature: it's also threatening our societies, our well-being and our survival. Based on the scientific assessments and findings of the IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), this Francqui Chair will explore our toxic relationship with nature, the global failure to protect it, and the multiple values of living things.

Speaker: Sander Jacobs, Senior Researcher at INBO (Institute for Nature and Forestry), Nature & Society research group, Coordinator of the Urban Nature research program and Visiting Professor at Ghent University.

19/11/2025 - Inaugural lecture | Biodiversity crisis: causes, consequences, and how (not) to get out of it.

This Francqui Chair offers a fresh look at the advances but also the tensions that today characterize the way the law organizes society's relationship with the environment. If the ambition to protect the environment has indeed become a legal issue, how are its essential mainsprings evolving, whether in climate matters, in the relationship to human health, or in the status accorded to nature?

The organization of this Chair is fully integrated into the Law School's Fil Rouge 2025-2026 dedicated to this substratum essential to life that is the environment, nature, our earth: "Réenchanter la terre".

Orator: Delphine Misonne, Senior Research Fellow FNRS, Professor at UCLouvain, Director of CEDRE and member of the Royal Academy of Belgium.

27/11/2025 - Inaugural Lesson I Protecting the environment beyond politics