Law and Development Conversations Blog

Multistakeholderism in Global Governance and Human Rights Law: Tracing Discussions at the UN High-Level Political Forum and Beyond 

The blog symposium is curated by guest editors Prof. Gamze Erdem Türkelli, Dr. Rossella De Falco and Dr. Isabelle Zundel. 

Introduction

On 27 September 2015, the United Nations (UN) adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,[i] a universal call to advance global progress in the core areas of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership. Adopted over a decade ago, the 2030 Agenda aimed at realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an overarching set of 17 goals and 169 targets, by 2030. At the end of 2026, as we are reaching the endpoint, a core point of debate is also what comes next. 

While the 2000’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were primarily focused on achieving development targets through state-based official development assistance, the UN 2030 Agenda and the SDGs promote a whole-of-society framework and call on governments to promote multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) with civil society, the private sector and other actors. SDG17 specifically focuses on reinvigorating the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development. While MDG8 mainly focused on partnerships between state actors, SDG17 advocates for “effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships” (SDG17, Target 17.h).  

This turn towards multistakeholder approaches was already institutionalised in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, which codified MSPs as Type II outcomes, or voluntary actions running alongside negotiated intergovernmental outcomes. These hybrid public-private arrangements, referred to as MSPs, now encompass all domains of sustainable development, including the delivery of global public goods and services such as food, health, education and water, which are also linked to human rights.  

The rise of MSPs, therefore, presents both a paradigmatic shift in the normative order from multilateralism towards multistakeholderism and an operational shift away from state-based towards multistakeholder-based norm-making, implementation and provision mechanisms.  Nonetheless, the increasing role of non-state actors and the proliferation of voluntary arrangements in global development diplomacy raise many questions in terms of human rights law and policy. For example, how can states be held accountable for their human rights obligations when MSPs are involved in development plans? By the same token, what are the long-lasting societal impacts of multistakeholder-based governance?

This blog symposium expands the conversation around multistakeholder approaches to development in multilateral fora, such as the UN High-level Political Forum, taking place every year in New York, and the associated Regional Forum on Sustainable Development (RFSD), normally happening around April every year across UN Regional Hubs. These global gatherings are the central space to evaluate and monitor States’ progress on the implementation of SDGs. The blog symposium goes further to also look at other global multilateral events that are relevant to expanding scholarly debate at the interface of global governance and international human rights law when it comes to multistakeholderism and multilateralism within the UN 2030 Agenda.     

In doing so, this virtual symposium brings together a variety of disciplines at the interface of international human rights law and global governance. Authors engage with the debate around multi-stakeholder partnerships in global governance at UN level from legal, political sciences, economics and sociological perspectives. The pieces in the blog symposium will look into regional perspectives, including differences and similarities, as well as evolution across time.

Contributions encompass the following themes:

  • The relationship between human rights accountability, multilateralism and multistakeholderism within the governance of the SDGs and the UN 2030 Agenda, with special reference to the UN High-level Political Forum and connected thematic and regional events.
  • The evolution across time of narratives related to multistakeholder approaches to development, and the potential implications for human rights accountability in multi-level governance for development.
  • The increasing participation of public, hybrid and private actors in multilateral spaces dedicated to global development, and its implications for human rights accountability.  
  • Specific-sector issues, with special reference to food, health, education and water.
  • Reflections on UN institutions and processes and their impacts on human rights accountability amidst the rise of multistakeholderism.
  • Takeaways for the post-2030 sustainable development era.

Overall, the blog symposium has two main aims. First, it provides a space to gather evolving scholarly reflection on the fast-paced multilateral events related to multi-stakeholder partnerships and human rights accountability. This space of reflection is essential to facilitate future in-depth investigation, new synergies and networks investigating the interface of global governance and multistakeholderism. 

Second, the blog symposium seeks to expand the interest surrounding these themes, reaching not only other academics, but also civil society, policymakers, other practitioners and the broader public. The blog symposium thus also serves the purpose of expanding public debate and dissemination of research agendas beyond academia.

Info about the GENESIS research project

The blog symposium is part of the broader research project GENESIS, financed by a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, led by Professor Gamze Erdem Türkelli at the University of Antwerp.[ii] In particular, it is linked to the first research stream in this research project.

Disclaimer

The research on which this blog symposium is based is funded by the European Union (ERC Starting Grant, GENESIS, 101117107). The views and opinions expressed, however, are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

©2024 ERC-2023-STG GENESIS 

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (Project Number: 101117107).

[i] United Nations General Assembly, ‘Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ UN Doc A/RES/70/1 (21 October 2015).

[ii] For more information, please see: https://www.genesis-erc.eu/. 

Authors

  • Gamze Erdem Türkelli is an Associate Research Professor at the Law & Development Research Group. Her work is situated in the interface of international law, human rights law and sustainable development. She conducts research into transnational human rights obligations, hybrid public-private actors in international law such as multistakeholder partnerships, ‘innovative’ development financing, business & human rights, children’s rights as well as accountability and responsibility. She is the Principal Investigator of the ERC Starting Grant 2023 funded GENESIS Project (www.genesis-erc.eu).

  • Rossella De Falco is a postdoctoral researcher at the Law & Development Research Group, working at the intersection of international law and global governance. She holds a PhD cum Laude in Human Rights, Society and Multi-level Governance from the University of Padova, an LLM from the University of Essex and a double degree MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and from the University of Bologna. She has extensive experience in health and human rights across Africa, Europe and Latin America, including as Program Officer on the Right to Health at the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Head of Right to Health Campaign at Just Fair UK. Amongst others, she collaborated with the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Center for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Her research interests encompass global health law and policy, health and human rights, comparative welfare studies, and research methodologies. She is the co-editor of the Elgar Companion to Wellbeing and the Sustainable Development Goals (Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming, 2026). 

  • Isabelle Zundel is a researcher in international human rights law, with research interests spanning regional human rights systems, international environmental law, and socio-legal studies. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the Law and Development Research Group at the University of Antwerp, where she works on the ERC Starting Grant 2023-funded GENESIS Project, led by Gamze Erdem Türkelli, which examines multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) as actors in achieving sustainable development and their interrelationship with human rights. In addition, she coordinates the Sustainable Development and Global Justice Cluster of the LLM programme at the University of Antwerp for the academic year 2025–2026 and supports a five-year VLIR-UOS-funded research project in partnership with Mzumbe University.