Towards a Just Transition

Towards a Just Transition explores how principles, instruments, processes and practices of law and governance progress the goal of creating systems of production and reproduction that focus on human well-being and the regeneration of ecosystems , through democratic means.

Since 2024, this initiative consists of several research and education projects on the legal and governance dimensions of Just Transition, involving ESL researchers and others.

Research Projects

The research projects include elaborating what ‘Just Transition’ means and might imply for different dimensions of law and governance. For example, we develop an approach to ‘Justice’ and to ‘Transition’ that can be useful in analysing legal or governance proposals or instruments that say they address ‘Just Transition.’ We offer instruments and ways that might be helpful for communities to enhance their influence in governance initiatives that seek community input. We look at what implications of ‘Epistemic Justice’ means for how we research law and governance and Just Transition.  

We use a variety of legal, socio-legal and participatory research methods in our work, and frequently bring a critical perspective to the theories and methodologies used, and the data generated.

Education

The education projects include formal (within an accreditation context) and non-formal (accreditation not relevant) initiatives, delivered to students and to others (e.g., community members, policy makers, civil servants and others).

Collaborations, transdisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity

Several of the projects involve collaboration with non-academic partners, participating in a variety of ways and roles (transdisciplinary projects). Some were undertaken with knowledge co-production as an objective. Longer-term non-academic partners include Iedereen aan Boord (Rotterdam) and the Centre for Spatial Justice (Istanbul). Transdisciplinary  

Interdisciplinarity is a strong feature of this initiative. Though legal and governance knowledge is the ‘anchor’ discipline, we also work with knowledge from other disciplines such as finance, urban studies and urban planning, social studies (including community development and adult education), cultural studies, philosophy, science and technology studies, and the climate sciences.