Just Transitions and International Law conference

Climate change threatens humanity and supporting ecosystems.

International and regional legal and policy frameworks, governments, development actors and the private sector are striving to deliver a global green energy transition.

Several international instruments affirm that this transition must be ‘just’ and align with wider sustainable development objectives and human rights norms.

The 2015 Paris Agreement, for example, acknowledges ‘the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities’, while the UN 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals combine green energy transition and other environmental objectives with wide-ranging social and economic targets.

Self-evidently, measures to secure a systemic shift toward a lower carbon economy affects all countries, regions, industries, and communities.

The idea of a just transition evokes policies that are designed and implemented in line with international principles, such as equity, participation, transparency and inclusion, and international human rights.

But the law, policy and scholarship on ‘just transitions’ is nascent and fragmented.

There are sizeable knowledge gaps over the underlying conceptual architecture, and economic, institutional, and social implications of a just transitions, at international, regional and national levels.

The conference will analyse challenges raised by just transitions to a low-carbon economy in, and for, international law. These challenges will be considered in six panels, focusing on:

Human Rights and Just Transitions

Just Transitions and Business

Just Transitions and International Economic and Investment Law

Security and Just Transitions

Global Perspectives on Just Transitions

Just Transitions Litigation

The conference includes two keynote speeches delivered by Judge Tim Eicke, the European Court of Human Rights, and Professor Freya Baetens, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford.