Florian Rabitz
Biographic Data
| ID | 1616306 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Florian Rabitz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Florian |
| FAMILY NAME | Rabitz |
| SIGNATURE | RABITZ F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Kaunas University of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0041-2094 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 82 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The De-Legalization of Novel Biotechnology Governance under the Convention on Biological Diversity
In the 1990s, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) emerged as the primary international forum for managing the interface between biodiversity and biotechnology. Three legally binding protocols to the Convention were concluded, all aiming to regulate bio-innovation. Despite the rapid pace of biotechnological innovation, however, and its implications for biodiversity and equity, CBD policy outcomes have recently shifted towards lower string…
Satellite infrastructures, earth-space sustainability, and the Global South
Satellite infrastructures are indispensable elements of Earth-Space sustainability, including in a North-South context. Using social network analysis, we assess the positionality of the Global South in organizational partnerships in the satellite sector. Using data on satellite launches registered between 1998 and 2023, we find that the Global South, with the notable exception of China, is virtually excluded from satellite manufacturing and exert…
A theory of international technology regulation
Technology is of increasing importance for international cooperation, yet theory development in rationalist International Relations has not kept pace. I develop a theoretical framework for explaining cooperative outcomes in the international regulation of technology. I propose that uncertainty and the distribution of material capacities create a severe international collective action problem for novel technologies, which precludes robust cooperat…
Technology and International Environmental Cooperation
When does technology matter for resolving global challenges of environmental sustainability? Starting from the concept of “techno-fixes” that centers on the impacts of technology on environmental challenges, I develop an alternative account that assesses the implications of technology for international environmental cooperation. I propose the concept of techno-political fixes to refer to technologies that improve cooperative prospects. Techno-pol…
A turning point in global biodiversity governance
In the context of an intensifying global biodiversity crisis, we provide a critical assessment of political and institutional developments in global biodiversity governance between 2022 and 2025. We note that in this period, global biodiversity governance is generating sustained political momentum and institutional innovation consistent with transformative types of change that are needed to mitigate biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. We…
Two problems or one? Climate engineering and conceptual disaggregation
The term “climate engineering” is an ambiguous label for two categories of technologies for mediating global warming, Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Solar Radiation Modification (SRM). Whether CDR and SRM should be grouped together under a common umbrella term, or whether they should be treated as two disparate problems in need of disparate solutions, has long been a matter of debate. This paper first provides an empirical analysis of disaggreg…
The organizational structure of global gene drive research
Putting gene drives into context: Risks, depth of intervention, and regulatory challenges
Engineered gene drives are an emerging technology for the large-scale genetic modification of natural populations of species. They are controversial due to high levels of uncertainty about their risks and benefits. We analyze gene drives in their social, natural, and technological contexts. We discuss their depth of intervention and compare gene drives to “conventional” genetic modification techniques and to other novel high-impact technologies. …
Four Alternative Scenarios of Commons in Space: Prospects and Challenges
The rapid expansion of human activities in outer space is likely to bring new economic, social, and political dilemmas in the next 50 to 100 years. Future governance will have to increasingly juggle earth-space social justice, resource trade-offs, and environmental sustainability issues. This poses new challenges to the governance of global commons, i.e. whether existing studies are fit to address commons in a global context and whether the gover…
Space Resources and the Politics of International Regime Formation
Space resources such as minerals or lunar ice deposits are of growing economic and political interest in the context of the emerging space economy and the intensifying geopolitical tensions of a new “space race”. Scholars and stakeholders increasingly engage with the question of how to regulate the future exploration and exploitation of space resources under international law. A potential option that has drawn broad attention in the debate is a m…
Sharing the Benefits of Asteroid Mining
Near‐Earth asteroids (NEAs) hold metal reserves that could sustain global consumption for millennia. Unresolved questions of technological and economic feasibility notwithstanding, NEA mining could ensure the accessibility and affordability of key strategic resources, contribute to sustainability transitions and displace environmentally and socially harmful terrestrial mining. Based on implicit and explicit normative commitments towards the commo…
A preliminary framework for understanding the governance of novel environmental technologies: Ambiguity, indeterminateness and drift
We propose a conceptual framework to explain why some technologies are more difficult to govern than others in global environmental governance. We start from the observation that some technologies pose transboundary environmental risks, some provide capacities for managing such risks, and some do both. For “ambiguous” technologies, potential risks and risk management capacities are uncertain, unknown or even unknowable. Governance systems are ind…
Beyond technology: A research agenda for social sciences and humanities research on renewable energy in Europe
This article enriches the existing literature on the importance and role of the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in renewable energy sources research by providing a novel approach to instigating the future research agenda in this field. Employing a series of in-depth interviews, deliberative focus group workshops and a systematic horizon scanning process, which utilised the expert knowledge of 85 researchers from the field with diverse discip…
The international governance of gene drive organisms
Gene Drive Organisms (GDOs) are a proposed biotechnological intervention that might generate significant benefits for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity while also raising critical biosafety issues. Despite their inevitable transboundary effects, their implications for international institutions remain undertheorized. This text develops a theoretical analysis of international GDO governance. First, it elaborates the prob…
A topic network analysis of the system turn in the environmental sciences
A semiotic comparison of mass media representations of the swine flu and Covid-19 pandemics: Observing Narcissus Narcosis
This paper compares the coverage of the H1N1 and Covid-19 pandemics in ten prominent US daily newspapers. We selected articles that reference disease-specific keywords, published in the period between the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization and the first peak in laboratory- confirmed cases in the USA (20550 articles on Covid-19 and 1705 articles on H1N1). We analyzed the dataset via t…
Access and allocation in global biodiversity governance: A review
Access and allocation is one of the five analytical themes of the science plan of the Earth System Governance (ESG) project. Concerns over access and allocation are at the core of struggles and conflicts brought about by the often ineluctable trade-offs related to biodiversity conservation and the global, national and local governance systems that aim to contribute to global biodiversity conservation. Access and benefit-sharing mechanisms, integr…
Topic modelling the news media representation of climate change
This article investigates the presence of domestic-international linkages in the Lithuanian mass media discourse on climate change. We apply the domestication framework which distinguishes three types of framing climate change in the media: as a domestic issue disconnected from its global dimensions, as a global issue disconnected from the geographic location in which news is being produced and consumed, and as an issue that links together the do…
The case for a semiotic method in Earth system science: Semantic networks of environmental research
This paper sets a framework for using semiotics as an analytical method for Earth system science. It illustrates the use of such a method by analysing a dataset consisting of 32,383 abstracts of research articles pertaining to Earth system science, modelled as semantic networks. The analysis allows us to explain the epistemological advantages of this method as originating in the systems thinking common in both Earth system science and semiotics. …
Governing the termination problem in solar radiation management
Technologies for Solar Radiation Management (SRM) could limit global warming by manipulating the Earth’s radiation balance. A major objection to SRM is the termination problem: the catastrophic consequences that are likely to result from its sudden discontinuation. The termination problem limits the reversibility of policy choices and poses the risk of inadvertent or enforced program collapse. It is often considered a major impediment to the gove…
Access without benefit-sharing: Design, effectiveness and reform of the FAO seed treaty
The 2001 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture established a global network of seed banks which grants facilitated access to crops for breeding purposes while aiming that the resulting commercial benefits are shared fairly and equitably. While the treaty has been successful in terms of access, benefits are not being shared. I analyze the causes for the lack of benefit-sharing in terms of the treaty’s institution…
Regime complexes, critical actors and institutional layering
Going rogue? Scenarios for unilateral geoengineering
Biopiracy after the Nagoya Protocol: Problem Structure, Regime Design and Implementation Challenges
This article assesses the effectiveness of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for addressing "biopiracy" of genetic resources; that is, their biotechnological utilization in violation of either the provider country legislation or mutually agreed contractual obligations. Biopiracy is defined as a problem resulting from a distributive conflict between provider and user countries, the practical difficulties of m…
Explaining institutional change in international patent politics
This article seeks to explain institutional change in international patent politics since the conclusion of the 1995 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (trips). I argue that the distribution of interests in this issue area adheres to a sharp North–South distinction, and that the pursuit of largely incompatible and conflicting patent agendas by industrialised and developing countries, respectively, has led to the gr…
Beyond technology: A research agenda for social sciences and humanities research on renewable energy in Europe
This article enriches the existing literature on the importance and role of the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in renewable energy sources research by providing a novel approach to instigating the future research agenda in this field. Employing a series of in-depth interviews, deliberative focus group workshops and a systematic horizon scanning process, which utilised the expert knowledge of 85 researchers from the field with diverse discip…
On the EU's performance and leadership in global environmental governance: The case of the Nagoya Protocol
Analysing the European Union's (EU) role in the negotiations of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing regarding genetic resources, this article argues for the integration of (1) the EU's policy objectives and (2) their achievement in the analysis of the EU's performance and leadership in international (environmental) negotiations. We first develop a conceptual and explanatory framework that highlights the inter-relationship betwe…
Going rogue? Scenarios for unilateral geoengineering
Biopiracy after the Nagoya Protocol: Problem Structure, Regime Design and Implementation Challenges
This article assesses the effectiveness of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for addressing "biopiracy" of genetic resources; that is, their biotechnological utilization in violation of either the provider country legislation or mutually agreed contractual obligations. Biopiracy is defined as a problem resulting from a distributive conflict between provider and user countries, the practical difficulties of m…
Four Alternative Scenarios of Commons in Space: Prospects and Challenges
The rapid expansion of human activities in outer space is likely to bring new economic, social, and political dilemmas in the next 50 to 100 years. Future governance will have to increasingly juggle earth-space social justice, resource trade-offs, and environmental sustainability issues. This poses new challenges to the governance of global commons, i.e. whether existing studies are fit to address commons in a global context and whether the gover…
Governing the termination problem in solar radiation management
Technologies for Solar Radiation Management (SRM) could limit global warming by manipulating the Earth’s radiation balance. A major objection to SRM is the termination problem: the catastrophic consequences that are likely to result from its sudden discontinuation. The termination problem limits the reversibility of policy choices and poses the risk of inadvertent or enforced program collapse. It is often considered a major impediment to the gove…
Access without benefit-sharing: Design, effectiveness and reform of the FAO seed treaty
The 2001 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture established a global network of seed banks which grants facilitated access to crops for breeding purposes while aiming that the resulting commercial benefits are shared fairly and equitably. While the treaty has been successful in terms of access, benefits are not being shared. I analyze the causes for the lack of benefit-sharing in terms of the treaty’s institution…
Regime complexes, critical actors and institutional layering
Space Resources and the Politics of International Regime Formation
Space resources such as minerals or lunar ice deposits are of growing economic and political interest in the context of the emerging space economy and the intensifying geopolitical tensions of a new “space race”. Scholars and stakeholders increasingly engage with the question of how to regulate the future exploration and exploitation of space resources under international law. A potential option that has drawn broad attention in the debate is a m…
A preliminary framework for understanding the governance of novel environmental technologies: Ambiguity, indeterminateness and drift
We propose a conceptual framework to explain why some technologies are more difficult to govern than others in global environmental governance. We start from the observation that some technologies pose transboundary environmental risks, some provide capacities for managing such risks, and some do both. For “ambiguous” technologies, potential risks and risk management capacities are uncertain, unknown or even unknowable. Governance systems are ind…
The case for a semiotic method in Earth system science: Semantic networks of environmental research
This paper sets a framework for using semiotics as an analytical method for Earth system science. It illustrates the use of such a method by analysing a dataset consisting of 32,383 abstracts of research articles pertaining to Earth system science, modelled as semantic networks. The analysis allows us to explain the epistemological advantages of this method as originating in the systems thinking common in both Earth system science and semiotics. …
Explaining institutional change in international patent politics
This article seeks to explain institutional change in international patent politics since the conclusion of the 1995 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (trips). I argue that the distribution of interests in this issue area adheres to a sharp North–South distinction, and that the pursuit of largely incompatible and conflicting patent agendas by industrialised and developing countries, respectively, has led to the gr…
On the EU's performance and leadership in global environmental governance: The case of the Nagoya Protocol
Analysing the European Union's (EU) role in the negotiations of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing regarding genetic resources, this article argues for the integration of (1) the EU's policy objectives and (2) their achievement in the analysis of the EU's performance and leadership in international (environmental) negotiations. We first develop a conceptual and explanatory framework that highlights the inter-relationship betwe…
Biopiracy after the Nagoya Protocol: Problem Structure, Regime Design and Implementation Challenges
This article assesses the effectiveness of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) for addressing "biopiracy" of genetic resources; that is, their biotechnological utilization in violation of either the provider country legislation or mutually agreed contractual obligations. Biopiracy is defined as a problem resulting from a distributive conflict between provider and user countries, the practical difficulties of m…
Regime complexes, critical actors and institutional layering
Going rogue? Scenarios for unilateral geoengineering
Access without benefit-sharing: Design, effectiveness and reform of the FAO seed treaty
The 2001 International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture established a global network of seed banks which grants facilitated access to crops for breeding purposes while aiming that the resulting commercial benefits are shared fairly and equitably. While the treaty has been successful in terms of access, benefits are not being shared. I analyze the causes for the lack of benefit-sharing in terms of the treaty’s institution…
Governing the termination problem in solar radiation management
Technologies for Solar Radiation Management (SRM) could limit global warming by manipulating the Earth’s radiation balance. A major objection to SRM is the termination problem: the catastrophic consequences that are likely to result from its sudden discontinuation. The termination problem limits the reversibility of policy choices and poses the risk of inadvertent or enforced program collapse. It is often considered a major impediment to the gove…
Access and allocation in global biodiversity governance: A review
Access and allocation is one of the five analytical themes of the science plan of the Earth System Governance (ESG) project. Concerns over access and allocation are at the core of struggles and conflicts brought about by the often ineluctable trade-offs related to biodiversity conservation and the global, national and local governance systems that aim to contribute to global biodiversity conservation. Access and benefit-sharing mechanisms, integr…
Topic modelling the news media representation of climate change
This article investigates the presence of domestic-international linkages in the Lithuanian mass media discourse on climate change. We apply the domestication framework which distinguishes three types of framing climate change in the media: as a domestic issue disconnected from its global dimensions, as a global issue disconnected from the geographic location in which news is being produced and consumed, and as an issue that links together the do…
The case for a semiotic method in Earth system science: Semantic networks of environmental research
This paper sets a framework for using semiotics as an analytical method for Earth system science. It illustrates the use of such a method by analysing a dataset consisting of 32,383 abstracts of research articles pertaining to Earth system science, modelled as semantic networks. The analysis allows us to explain the epistemological advantages of this method as originating in the systems thinking common in both Earth system science and semiotics. …
A topic network analysis of the system turn in the environmental sciences
A semiotic comparison of mass media representations of the swine flu and Covid-19 pandemics: Observing Narcissus Narcosis
This paper compares the coverage of the H1N1 and Covid-19 pandemics in ten prominent US daily newspapers. We selected articles that reference disease-specific keywords, published in the period between the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization and the first peak in laboratory- confirmed cases in the USA (20550 articles on Covid-19 and 1705 articles on H1N1). We analyzed the dataset via t…
Sharing the Benefits of Asteroid Mining
Near‐Earth asteroids (NEAs) hold metal reserves that could sustain global consumption for millennia. Unresolved questions of technological and economic feasibility notwithstanding, NEA mining could ensure the accessibility and affordability of key strategic resources, contribute to sustainability transitions and displace environmentally and socially harmful terrestrial mining. Based on implicit and explicit normative commitments towards the commo…
A preliminary framework for understanding the governance of novel environmental technologies: Ambiguity, indeterminateness and drift
We propose a conceptual framework to explain why some technologies are more difficult to govern than others in global environmental governance. We start from the observation that some technologies pose transboundary environmental risks, some provide capacities for managing such risks, and some do both. For “ambiguous” technologies, potential risks and risk management capacities are uncertain, unknown or even unknowable. Governance systems are ind…
Beyond technology: A research agenda for social sciences and humanities research on renewable energy in Europe
This article enriches the existing literature on the importance and role of the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in renewable energy sources research by providing a novel approach to instigating the future research agenda in this field. Employing a series of in-depth interviews, deliberative focus group workshops and a systematic horizon scanning process, which utilised the expert knowledge of 85 researchers from the field with diverse discip…
The international governance of gene drive organisms
Gene Drive Organisms (GDOs) are a proposed biotechnological intervention that might generate significant benefits for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity while also raising critical biosafety issues. Despite their inevitable transboundary effects, their implications for international institutions remain undertheorized. This text develops a theoretical analysis of international GDO governance. First, it elaborates the prob…
Putting gene drives into context: Risks, depth of intervention, and regulatory challenges
Engineered gene drives are an emerging technology for the large-scale genetic modification of natural populations of species. They are controversial due to high levels of uncertainty about their risks and benefits. We analyze gene drives in their social, natural, and technological contexts. We discuss their depth of intervention and compare gene drives to “conventional” genetic modification techniques and to other novel high-impact technologies. …
Four Alternative Scenarios of Commons in Space: Prospects and Challenges
The rapid expansion of human activities in outer space is likely to bring new economic, social, and political dilemmas in the next 50 to 100 years. Future governance will have to increasingly juggle earth-space social justice, resource trade-offs, and environmental sustainability issues. This poses new challenges to the governance of global commons, i.e. whether existing studies are fit to address commons in a global context and whether the gover…
Space Resources and the Politics of International Regime Formation
Space resources such as minerals or lunar ice deposits are of growing economic and political interest in the context of the emerging space economy and the intensifying geopolitical tensions of a new “space race”. Scholars and stakeholders increasingly engage with the question of how to regulate the future exploration and exploitation of space resources under international law. A potential option that has drawn broad attention in the debate is a m…
Two problems or one? Climate engineering and conceptual disaggregation
The term “climate engineering” is an ambiguous label for two categories of technologies for mediating global warming, Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Solar Radiation Modification (SRM). Whether CDR and SRM should be grouped together under a common umbrella term, or whether they should be treated as two disparate problems in need of disparate solutions, has long been a matter of debate. This paper first provides an empirical analysis of disaggreg…
The organizational structure of global gene drive research
Technology and International Environmental Cooperation
When does technology matter for resolving global challenges of environmental sustainability? Starting from the concept of “techno-fixes” that centers on the impacts of technology on environmental challenges, I develop an alternative account that assesses the implications of technology for international environmental cooperation. I propose the concept of techno-political fixes to refer to technologies that improve cooperative prospects. Techno-pol…
A turning point in global biodiversity governance
In the context of an intensifying global biodiversity crisis, we provide a critical assessment of political and institutional developments in global biodiversity governance between 2022 and 2025. We note that in this period, global biodiversity governance is generating sustained political momentum and institutional innovation consistent with transformative types of change that are needed to mitigate biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. We…
The De-Legalization of Novel Biotechnology Governance under the Convention on Biological Diversity
In the 1990s, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) emerged as the primary international forum for managing the interface between biodiversity and biotechnology. Three legally binding protocols to the Convention were concluded, all aiming to regulate bio-innovation. Despite the rapid pace of biotechnological innovation, however, and its implications for biodiversity and equity, CBD policy outcomes have recently shifted towards lower string…
Satellite infrastructures, earth-space sustainability, and the Global South
Satellite infrastructures are indispensable elements of Earth-Space sustainability, including in a North-South context. Using social network analysis, we assess the positionality of the Global South in organizational partnerships in the satellite sector. Using data on satellite launches registered between 1998 and 2023, we find that the Global South, with the notable exception of China, is virtually excluded from satellite manufacturing and exert…
Political science (18 works) · Economics (14 works) · Business (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Ecology (10 works) · Corporate governance (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Environmental resource management (7 works)