Beyond Just Transition: Advancing Responsible and Rights-Based Business Practices in the Energy and Extractives Sector

The special issue brings together diverse academic and practitioner perspectives to explore the legal and governance aspects of implementing a just transition in practice. Recent studies have highlighted how efforts to advance clean energy transition programs in energy and extractive sectors have been increasingly linked to social exclusions, greenwashing, rising energy poverty levels and constraints to access to land and other resources in already vulnerable communities. While the need for a just transition is clear, an interdisciplinary and multijurisdictional examination of the practical challenges and gaps in the design and implementation of just transition programs has remained sparse. This special issue seeks to fill this gap in the existing literature. Through thematic and geographical case studies, the contributions herein critically examine the social, environmental and human rights implications of the clean energy transition, illuminating what a just transition should entail and how it can be realized in diverse contexts.