STAFF
Thierry Ngosso, Director
Thierry Ngosso
Thierry Ngosso is a political philosopher interested in global justice and more precisely in three important and interconnected contemporary issues in this field: climate change, human rights and migration. He addresses global justice from both the State/Firm division of labor and the Western/non-Western perspectives. His research has therefore a strong focus on business corporations and on comparative philosophy. Ngosso earned a PhD in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain (2015) and is currently a lecturer at the department of philosophy of the Catholic University of Central Africa where he led the efforts towards the establishment of the Ethics and Public Policy Laboratory in 2019, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Business Ethics at the University of St. Gallen where he is managing director of the Competence Center for African Research. Ngosso was previously a Berggruen Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics of Harvard University and was awarded a 4-years Ambizione grant (2019-2023) by the Swiss National Foundation to conduct a research on ‘The (human) right to health (care) and the obligations of states and firms in sub-Saharan Africa’.
Pierre-Germain Belinga, Scientific Coordinator
Pierre Germain Belinga
Pierre Germain Belinga est Philosophe de l'éducation. Ses recherches ciblent les politiques publiques d'éducation, avec un intérêt plus accru pour les politiques globales d'éducation, qu'il examine sous le prisme des théories contemporaines de la justice dans le cadre de sa thèse en finalisation à Sorbonne Université sous la direction du Professeur Alain Renaut. Pierre Germain Belinga est Chercheur au Centre National d'Education (CNE) - Ministère de la Recherche Scientifique et de l'Innovation (Cameroun). Il enseigne également la Philosophie de l'éducation au Département de Philosophie de l'UCAC. Il assure la direction scientifique au sein du Laboratoire EthicsLab.
RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
Dr. TAMO ATABONGAWUNG, University of Buea
Prof. ERNEST-MARIE MBONDA, UCAC-Yaoundé & University of Moncton
Prof. ESTELLE KOUOKAM, UCAC-Yaoundé
Prof. EMMANUEL BABISSAGANA, UCAC-Yaoundé & University of St. Louis
Tamo Atabongawung
Tamo Atabongawung is Lecturer at the University of Buea (Cameroon) and specializes in International Law, Human Rights and Development. From 2014 – 2018 he was Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social Studies, The Hague (Netherlands). He was previously Researcher at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and part of the project on Globalization and Legal Theory at the Centre for Law and Cosmopolitan Values. Dr. Atabongawung has held visiting research positions at the European University Institute, Florence (Italy) and the Hoover Chaire of Economics and Social Ethics, Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium). He has published on a variety of subjects including corporate human rights accountability, the right to development in international law and natural resources governance in Africa. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Antwerp (Belgium).
Emmanuel Babissagana
Emmanuel Babissagana est Chercheur Associé à EthicsLab. Docteur en Philosophie et Lettres de l’Université Saint-Louis de Bruxelles, sa thèse, défendue en 2004, interroge dans une perspective interdisciplinaire les fondements éthiques et politiques de l’interdiction absolue
de la torture en droit international. Il essaie ainsi de comprendre quelle valeur ou réalité supérieure à la vie l’humanité essaie de protéger en interdisant de façon absolue la torture, alors que la peine de mort n’est pas frappée d’un interdit aussi universel. Cette thèse est publiée en 2006 sous le titre L’interdit de la torture en
procès ?. Chercheur à l’université Saint-Louis de Bruxelles (depuis 2004), chargé de cours à l’université catholique d’Afrique Centrale depuis 2006, professeur invité au collège de France (2007-2008), ses recherches variées et ses enseignements portent sur les principales questions d’actualité en philosophie morale et politique (la bonne gouvernance, les migrations, la mondialisation et ses multiples défis,
les droits de l’homme, de la nature, des animaux, l’environnement etc.), en philosophie économique ( la décroissance, le libéralisme économique, les
rapports éthique-économie-entreprise, etc.,), en philosophie des relations internationales (le retour de « la guerre juste » et ses enjeux), et ce toujours dans une perspective interdisciplinaire. Il est auteur de diverses publications sur ces questions.
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
ERIC VERNUY SUYRU, PhD Student in International Relations, University of Yaoundé I
ROSINE BIDJECK SONG, PhD Student in Philosophy, Catholic University of Louvain
EMILIENNE DIANE NDINGSA EMGBANG, Master Student in Philosophy, UCAC-Yaoundé
ETHICSLAB FELLOWS
James Holmes
Honorary Research Fellow
Ethicslab is pleased to welcome James Holmes as a 2020/2022 Honorary Research Fellow. James is an investment banker with keen interest on Africa. He is also the President of Management International University, which is currently offering courses to students in Nigeria and Botswana. As Secretary General of the International Communities Organisation he leads a team committed to reconciliation in self-determination conflicts around the world. He has combined these three work experiences into a research project on how business and economic development can support reconciliation and improved human rights. During his stay at the Ethicslab, James’ research will be part of Valens Emerging Markets, which has committed to deploying a large sum of private investment into Cameroon in order to aid both the economic development and reconciliation process. In order for the investment to be viable and successful, extensive research into the private sector and the communities the investments will impact are crucial. This research will explore amongst others the political risk in different areas and sectors across the country and assess the most impactful way to invest in the country; how investment can help improve living standards and the empowerment of local communities and further reconciliation to ensure that private investments do not exacerbate existing tensions or create new ones.
Claudia Delgado
University of Oviedo, Spain, September - December, 2019
Claudia Delgado studied Philosophy at the University of Oviedo and then she did the Erasmus Mundus Master “EuroPhilosophy”, during which she stayed at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, at the UCLouvain and at Wuppertal University. After that, she went back to Spain, where she has worked in a private company and at public education system too. Recently, she obtained a Ph.D. fellowship at the University of Oviedo. The subject of her Ph.D. is ‘Philosophy and poverty’.
As EthicsLab Graduate Fellow, her research will focus on the study of the mechanisms used individually, socially and also at the institutional level in order to deal with the consequences of poverty in Cameroon.
Ndidi Nwaneri
Lagos State University, Nigeria, September 2019 - February 2020
Ndidi Nwaneri holds a B.Sc. in Economics, an M.A. in Public Policy, and a Ph.D. in Social and Political Philosophy. She has over 20 years’ academic and professional experience in public policy, social, and international development. She has worked and studied in the Americas, Europe and Africa, and has taught university courses in Public and Social Policy, Ethics and the Person, International Development, Business, and Military Ethics. She sits on the executive board of the International Development Ethics Association (IDEA).
As EthicsLab Fellow, Ndidi’s research will focus on Ethics and Technology. Her research will question the assumption that adoption of new technology is always a beneficial addition to the socio-economic development aspirations of poor countries. She argues with regards to such countries, new technologies carry high risks of immediate moderate social harms, as well as lower risk of greater (existential) harms. First, although new technologies like social media and mobile telephony have increased the quality of life of persons in developing countries, to the extent that these technologies are adopted according to existing social structures, in many cases, they further entrench pre-existing, (in many cases unjust and harmful) social structures. Furthermore, developing countries are severely ill prepared to manage the risk.
Jean-Eric Bitang
University of Douala, Cameroon, October, 2019
Jean Éric Bitang will hopefully receive his PhD from the University of Douala in 2020, where he has worked both as a teaching and research Assistant to Prof. Emboussi Nyano and Prof. Malolo Dissakè and as a temporary Lecturer in Philosophy, especially in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art. His Dissertation focuses on the relationship between Modern and Contemporary Art in order to build a concept of Negative Modernity in the path of Theodor W. Adorno’s aesthetic thought. One of his main interest is the Theory of Ugliness on which he has written a book to be published at Éditions Dianoïa, in Paris: À la recherche d’une théorie de la laideur. Petite Critique de la Raison esthétique [In Search of a Theory of Ugliness. A short Critique of Aesthetical Reason]. He has also published Journal articles and book chapters on Paulin Hountondji and African Philosophy (2016), inquiring about the revolutionary content of Art (2017), and dealing with Horkheimer and Adorno (2017). He is currently working on a book questioning the philosophical legacy of Marcien Towa (expected for late 2020-early 2021).
As EthicsLab Fellow, Jean Éric Bitang will be working on the ethical issues arising from the return of African artworks to their native lands decided by Emmanuel Macron, President of France, in November 2018. To this extent, he will intensively discuss the “Sarr/Savoy Report,” a document commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture and written together by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy. This Report stands as the intellectual framework for this action of ‘Returning back the African Cultural Heritage to Africa’. According to Sarr and Savoy, the aim of such an action is to move ‘towards a new relational Ethics’ with Africa in which the ‘pacification of Memories’ is certainly one of the main goals to achieve. Jean Éric Bitang’s claim is that the notion of ‘Responsibility’ is the ethical concept at the core of this endeavor, and this responsibility is not only to be related to colonialism (from which the act of giving back the African artistic and cultural treasures to Africa makes sense); it also engages Africans and African states regarding their relationship to those cultural productions, while they are returning to their native lands in a different state or existence than the one they had before they were stolen or teared from their direct and immediate life.
ADVISORY BOARD
Ajume Wingo, University of Colorado, USA
Danielle Allen, Harvard University, USA
Emmanuel Babissagana, University of St. Louis-Bruxelles, Belgium
Ernest-Marie Mbonda, University of Moncton, Canada & UCAC, Cameroon
Florian Wettstein, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Gabriel Ndinga Boundar, UCAC, Cameroon
George Pavlakos, University of Glasgow, UK
Jess Miner, Harvard University, USA
Juliana Bidadanure, Stanford University, USA
Katrin Flikschuh, London School of Economics, UK
Mathias Risse, Harvard University, USA
Mikael Petitjean, University of Louvain, Belgium
Nien-hê Hsieh, Harvard University, USA
Nils Gilman, University of California-Berkeley and Berggruen Institute, USA
Nir Eyal, Rutgers University, USA
Noelia Bueno, University of Oviedo, Spain
Philippe Van Parijs, University of Louvain, Belgium
Rose Leke, University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon
Samia Hurst, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Thomas Bienvenu Tchoungui, UCAC, Cameroon
Tim Meijers, University of Leiden, Netherland.