Introduction

Abstract

This book addresses the ways in which just transitions have developed and expanded from a rallying cry of American unions seeking to protect members from the ravages of coal mine closures without a legal requirement for assistance in the transition to an international law construct bridging multiple concerns and constituencies. This book is founded upon an understanding of just transitions as a truly profound statement on the ways in which law and regulation can continue to grow without causing unfettered difficulties to those who must be affected by necessary transitions. It is a fundamentally holistic and equitable view of just transitions, one which seeks to move the concept out of the coal mining and energy processes for decarbonization and into new forms of climate-responsive sectors and beyond. The book further argues that the Covid-19 pandemic and its effects can be seen as a large-scale transition in health, society, economy and environment which has included a series of legal and regulatory measures that have emerged in most instances without a concerted grasp of their impacts in the short or long term. Having analysed how the pandemic has brought about transitions and can be viewed as helping or hindering the advancement of just transitions in legal responses to crises, the book then argues that just transitions as a framework can be extended further still. Indeed, the book argues that this extension will be necessary in order to continue efforts at crafting responses to predicted and unforeseen future issues that will require a transition and can best bring about lasting legal and regulatory changes guided by just transitions.

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