Both concepts of “global public goods” and “global commons” are increasingly being used, both as powerful rhetorical devices in the policy discourse of international organizations and the debates of civil society, and as analytical and normative frameworks in international legal scholarship, economics and political theory. What difference does it make to express and frame global challenges according to one concept or the other? What kind of international cooperation and governance schemes do these concepts imply? Which democratic qualities and shortcomings in global decision-making processes do they reveal? Adopting a comparative approach and an interdisciplinary perspective, this two-day conference, hosting Prof. Dr. Inge Kaul and Prof. Dr. Pierre Dardot as keynote speakers, aims to highlight the epistemic networks and legal and political underpinnings behind each discourse.