Alejandra Mancilla

Alejandra Mancilla is professor of philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo. Her main research interests are in political and environmental philosophy, and ethics. Starting in 2021, she is the principal investigator of the five-year project Dynamic Territory: A Normative Framework for Territory in the Post-Holocene, which asks how to solve conflicts of interest around land and natural resources on a global scale, when the stability and predictability of geographic, climatic and demographic factors can no longer be taken for granted. Her work so far has focused on the foundations of basic human rights and global justice (see The Right of Necessity), and on the justification of territorial rights and rights over natural resources. In a previous project, Political Philosophy Looks to Antarctica (2017/2020), she examined the moral grounds of territorial rights and rights over natural resources in the last uninhabited continent on earth, and suggested how looking to Antarctica might lead us to rethink key concepts in political theory like sovereignty, colonialism and domination. She also has an ongoing interest in natural law theory, the Scottish Enlightenment, and non-Western philosophical traditions.

Research projects / interests:

• Territorial rights and resource rights
• The concept of state sovereignty in the face of contemporary global challenges
• Antarctica as a locus for rethinking theories of territorial and resource rights
• The global commons as a site for realizing global justice, and Antarctica as a case study
• The right of necessity and its place in the contemporary debate on global justice

Keywords: Polar Governance, Environment, Climate Change, Wilderness, Values, Political Philosophy, Environmental Ethics, Territory, Resource Rights