JCU RED Symposium

A Broken Promise?

The 2030 Agenda’s Commitment To Leave No-one Behind

27-29 September 2023

The Cairns Institute

^{The 2030 Agenda sets out a vision for sustainable development that places equality and non-discrimination at the centre of its efforts. To achieve this, the Agenda has the core commitment ‘to remain steadfast in ensuring that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are implemented in accordance with international human rights law, eliminating gender inequalities and all forms of discrimination, [and] reaching out to those that are furthest behind first.} 

^{Yet, having now passed the midway point of efforts to realise the goals, both inequality and discrimination remain pervasive. According to the 2022 United Nations SDGs progress report, 1 in 5 people have experienced discrimination on at least one of the grounds prohibited under international human rights law, while between-country income inequality has risen over recent years for the first time in a generation.} 

^{In 2020, the share of the world’s workers living in extreme poverty increased for the first time in two decades, hunger and food insecurity is rising globally, and progress in many areas of gender equality is falling. As Oxfam’s 2023 inequality report notes, all of this is occurring at the same time as ‘the very richest have become dramatically richer and corporate profits have hit record highs. The 2023 JCU RED symposium seeks to grapple with the 2030 Agenda’s ‘central transformative promise’ to Leave No One Behind through a focus on three themes: power; discrimination; systemic injustice.}

^{The symposium calls for papers that consider one of more of these themes in relation to any of the 17 SDG Goals. Submissions may focus on how discrimination and systemic injustice limits progress towards the goals, how power relations shape or constrain progress, or what new}

^{discourses, concepts, methodologies, and strategies exist for grappling with inequality and inequity within and across sectors of relevance to the SDGs. What new research is needed to think differently about how power circulates and gives shape to unjust social forces or institutions? Empirical case studies of places or sectors where particular forms of discrimination are embedded are welcomed, as are theoretical papers and multidisciplinary perspectives. While the 2030 Agenda focus on discrimination centres on people, contributions may also focus on the unfair or prejudicial treatment of flora, fauna, and natural environments. Collectively, the symposium aim is to explore how an  attentiveness to unequal and unjust power relations might provide new ways forward for the SDGs  broken ‘transformative promise.’}

Full program can be viewed/downloaded here.

See our Keynotes here.