Wohltmann, Franziska

Currently, I am a doctoral-researcher at the FAU Nürnberg-Erlangen in my final year.

My doctoral project argues for the need to overcome the state-centric, unilateral nature of transnational law-making and to counter the active role of corporations in shaping decision-and law-making within the Business and Human Rights discourse by a new regime of people- and planet-centred transnational law. It critically engages with the ignorance of rights-holders / community knowledge, solutions and research and the disregard of their participation in the design of transnational human rights and environmental due diligence (HReDD) laws. It criticises this victimization of communities and rights-holders and argues that these laws reproduce colonial patterns and lack legitimacy as the democratic ideal that those affected should participate in decisions that concern them is ignored. The doctoral project further argues that epistemic injustice in international law must be actively confronted. In this vein, it sketches a people and planet-centred relationally transnational law-making that has the potential to go beyond merely tackling corporate rights violations through counteracting epistemic injustice and introducing active participation of communities in transnational law-making. Depending on the input of rights-holders and communities, this kind of relationally transnational law-making could also effectuate socioeconomic change in the lifestyles and consumption patterns in the ‘Global North’.

Area(s) of expertise: IHRL, BHR, Rights of Remedies, Participatory rights, TWAIL, CLS, Environmental Law, Feminist Approaches to IL