Mobilising political, legal and governance systems panel

Join us for a panel discussion with

Geopolitical fragmentation and mounting resistance to environmental policies are threatening the future of global sustainability regulation and governance. These pressures are connected to broader challenges about how societies, financial systems, and economies will be structured in this new post-multilateral age. In brief, what roles can regulation, litigation and new forms of international cooperation play in delivering on sustainability agendas?

Meet our speakers and chair

Susan Biniaz, a former Deputy Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department, was the lead climate lawyer and a climate negotiator for the U.S. government from 1989 to early 2017. She worked on a wide variety of other subjects during her time at the State Department, including legal issues related to U.S. treaty practice, outer space, law of the sea, the environment, Somali piracy, the Middle East, Europe, the Western Hemisphere, law enforcement, human rights, and private international law. She currently serves as a deputy to Special President Envoy for Climate John Kerry, leading the climate negotiations team.

Veerle Heyvaert is a Professor at LSE Law School and founding Editor-in-Chief of Transnational Environmental Law. She is also Associate Dean of LSE Law School. She teaches environmental law and European law. She has an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence (It). In 1998-1999, she was the inaugural Sir Peter North Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and Keble College, Oxford.

Joana Setzer is an Associate Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at LSE. Dr Setzer is also the Co-lead of the Mobilizing political, legal and governance systems theme of LSE’s new Global School of Sustainability and the lead author of the Global Trends in Climate Litigation Snapshot Report series.

Robert Falkner is Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at LSE, and the Academic Dean of the TRIUM Global Executive MBA, a world leading executive MBA programme jointly run by NYU Stern School of Business, HEC Paris and LSE.

More Information

The Global School of Sustainability Forum 2026 convenes international leaders, private and public sector agenda setters and policy makers, and social science researchers at the cutting edge of sustainability innovation. Where the path to global sustainability requires deep and interdisciplinary engagement across human economy, society, politics and behaviour, we are driving dialogue and framing opportunities for a hopeful and prosperous future for all.

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