Dr Stefan Knauß

Dr Stefan Knauß is a Research Group Leader for socio-ecological transformation at the Just Transition Center (JTC), Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE), University of Oxford. He also holds a guest scientist position at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ).

His research operates at the vital intersection of environmental ethics, decolonial philosophy, and institutional governance. Dr Knauß specializes in developing actionable frameworks for a Just Transition and investigates the legal implementation of the Rights of Nature.

He received his PhD in Philosophy in 2015 from the University of Halle, where his doctoral research explored the debate of humanitarian justified warfare from a Latin American perspective ("From Conquista to Responsibility while Protecting"). Since then, he has led several high-profile projects as Principal Investigator (PI), including DFG-funded research on physiocentric legal foundations and biodiversity governance at iDiv.

My research focuses on the core phiosophical, ethical, and political challenges of the global transformation towards sustainability. I am particularly interested in:

• Environmental Ethics & Physiocentric Law: Transitioning from anthropocentric to ecological legal frameworks.
• Decolonial & Intercultural Philosophy: Integrating non-Western epistemologies into global sustainability governance.
• Just Transition Frameworks: Analyzing the socio-ecological dimensions of landscape and policy transformation.
• Rights of Nature: Empirical and theoretical analysis of the effective implementation of ecological rights in a global context.

Selected Projects

• Landscapes of Just Transition (PI): (British Academy) – A collaborative project with the University of Oxford focusing on the governance of socio-ecological change. LINK
• The Roots of Rights (PI): (DAAD) – Investigating participatory democracy and Indigenous knowledge in the context of the Rights of Nature. LINK
• BIOdiversity GOvernance and VALUES (BioGoValues) (PI): (MLU-BioDivFund) – Researching the value foundations of biodiversity governance at iDiv. LINK
• A Physiocentric Grounding of Law (PI): (DFG) – Exploring the Latin American Buen Vivir as a basis for a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Nature. LINK

• Knauß, S., Gutmann, A., Kahl, A., Ruales, J.G., Wiliams, T., Reimann, J. and Bosselmann, K. (accepted) Deep and thin Roots of Rights in Germany and New Zealand. Ecological Civilization, ecolciviliz01313.
• Kahl, A. and Knauß, S. (accepted) Living as Nature: Māori Political Ecology and Bruno Latour’s Challenge to Western Modernity. Ecological Civilization, ecolciviliz01306.
• Westerink, J., Nel, J., van Dam, R., Dianoux, R., Kelemen, E., Knauß, S., Korhonen-Kurki, K., Locher-Krause, K., Orta-Ortiz, M.S., Rantala, S., Schroer, S., Vandewalle, M., Włodarczyk-Marciniak, R. and Wortel, A. (2026) Transformative pathways for social networks to navigate towards a nature positive society: collaborate, challenge, disrupt. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.
• Knauß, S. and Lindau, A.-K. (2025) Rights of Nature as an Innovation Space for Education for Sustainable Development and Transformative Learning? The hybrid Values and Governance Mode of Mount Taranaki in New Zealand. Sortuz: Oñati Journal of Emergent Socio-Legal Studies.
• Harms, P., Joshi, N. and Knauß, S. (2025) Designing multispecies role-playing games – From human-nature partnerships towards multispecies justice. NPJ Urban Sustainability.
• Schreiner, V., Mehring, M., Kleemann, J., Hauck, J., Knauß, S., Poßer, C., Schleyer, C., Potthast, T., Grunewald, K., Fürst, C., Müller, J., Albert, C., Egerer, M., Haase, D., Jähnig, S., Kaiser, J., Sanders, T., Sommer, P., Wellmann, T., Keil, P. and Wittmer, H. (2025) Towards transformative change for biodiversity: What can we learn from case studies in Germany? Journal of Environmental Management.
• Mehring, M., Brietzke, A., Kleemann, J., Knauß, S., Poßer, C., Schreiner, V., Wittmer, H., Albert, C., Fürst, C., Grunewald, K., Kolkmann, M., Lettenmaier, L., Sanders, T., Schleyer, C., Settele, J., Straka, Z. and Hauck, J. (2024) Multiple ways to bend the curve of biodiversity loss: An analytical framework to support transformative change. People and Nature, 1945-1959.
• Knauß, S. (2024) Intergenerational Justice, Right to Healthy Environment and Rights of Nature - The Role of German Civil Society in the Transition to Ecological Law. In, Ecological Law in Practice: Case Studies for a Transformative Approach to Law, 241-260.
• Knauß, S. (2023) Decolonial ethics and the limits of freedom of speech - Enrique Dussel’s ethics of liberation and the obligation to critique material and discursive Exclusion. Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie, 333–350.
• Knauß, S. (2018) Conceptualizing Human Stewardship in the Anthropocene: The Rights of Nature in Ecuador, New Zealand and India. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 703-722.

Editorships

• Knauß, S.; Kahl, A.; Gutmann, A., García Ruales, J; Bosselmann, K. (2026) Transformative Practices: Rights of Nature and the Good Life. Ecological Civilization.