Event Report: SDG+10: A Global Legal Stocktake of Achievements, Opportunities and Challenges Conference 2025
The first annual Critical Perspectives on Sustainable Development and Global Law Conference at the University of Southampton from 17-18 September 2025, brought together scholars and practitioners to reflect on ten years of progress under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Themed “SDG+10: A Global Legal Stocktake of Achievements, Opportunities and Challenges”, the conference engaged with the pressing legal, environmental, and governance questions facing the 2030 Agenda.
Among the diverse participants were two of the Chair’s postdoctoral research fellows: Dr. Charlene Musiza and Dr. Elfas Torerai, who each contributed significant insights from different vantage points.
Dr. Musiza, attending the conference in person, presented her paper titled “Reconciling Farmers’ Rights and Plant Breeders’ Rights: A Legal Pathway to Biodiversity Conservation under the ITPGRFA.” Her intervention spoke to the broader challenges of biodiversity conservation under SDG 15. She highlighted how intellectual property regimes such as the UPOV 1991 Act and the TRIPS Agreement often marginalize smallholder farmers’ rights to save and share seeds, thereby threatening agricultural biodiversity. She proposed the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) as a framework that better balances plant breeders’ rights with farmers’ traditional seed systems. Drawing attention to the Treaty’s mechanisms for equitable access and benefit-sharing, Dr. Musiza called for reforms that recognize customary seed-saving practices, support participatory breeding, and integrate biodiversity goals more effectively into global legal systems.
Dr. Torerai joined the conference virtually, delivering a presentation entitled “The Rise of Fintech and Financial Outliers in the Age of AI in South Africa: Implications on Financial Stability.” His contribution linked to the panel on harnessing AI for the SDGs, where he explored how emerging fintech innovations, driven by artificial intelligence, are reshaping financial markets in South Africa. While recognizing the potential of these technologies to expand financial inclusion and economic growth, he emphasized their destabilizing effects on traditional regulatory frameworks and financial stability. His presentation called for proactive legal and policy approaches to balance innovation with systemic safeguards, ensuring that fintech contributes to rather than undermines sustainable development.
Together, Dr. Musiza and Dr. Torerai’s contributions exemplified the interdisciplinary spirit of the conference: interrogating how global legal frameworks can reconcile tensions between innovation, rights, and sustainability. Their perspectives; from biodiversity conservation to fintech regulation, demonstrated the critical role of African scholarship in global debates about the SDGs.