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Critical minerals will play a vital role in the energy transition. In South East Asia like in other regions across the world, there will be an additional advantage in that critical mineral development can contribute to an economic recovery and in time a green economic recovery. This article explores the role of justice in critical mineral development in the South East Asian region with a specific focus on Indonesia. The recent literature on critical minerals has a very limited focus on the role of justice in critical mineral development and this is even more so the case for South East Asian countries. This article provides a first account, utilising the JUST framework to explore, assess and quantitatively examine justice in the critical minerals industry in South East Asia and in particular, Indonesia. If the South East Asian region is to have a green economic recovery, there has to be a focus on achieving justice and reducing unjust outcomes. Indonesia provides strong examples for the potential of the industry and the development of policy to ensure justice, yet, it presents lessons for other South East Asian countries of the pitfalls in such ambition.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is an important environmental protection tool introduced into the environmental governance framework to evaluate and inform the administrative decision-making processes regarding whether certain developments or projects are to be allowed. In this article, EIA’s legal status and procedure are examined in relation to a Middle Eastern context, specifically to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Two different types of analysis are employed. The first is doctrinal analysis, focusing on the legal and statutory provisions regulating and organising this environmental protection tool—this genre of analysis entails identifying and unpacking the laws and regulations that govern this tool. The second type is qualitative analysis involving original data from 27 semi-structured interviews—one of the first of its kind on this topic in the KSA. The key contribution of the article comprises the examination and synthesis of the current status of different theories in the current international literature with regard to the underexplored issue of EIAs in the KSA.

A 1.5 °C world relies on the development of modern renewable energy sources in Latin America and the Caribbean. Whilst existing research offers insights into national case studies, our study responds to a lack of region-wide analysis. To identify the relative level of national commitment to a just transition in the region, this study collects, analyses, and visualizes global data from eight different sources. It uses a ranking method to analyse relative performance. To find where policy improvement is most urgently needed, trends are extrapolated on fossil fuel dependency, subsidies, and carbon dioxide emissions, as well as renewable energy production and international finance, through the lens of distributional, procedural, and restorative justice. We call for a new approach to international clean energy finance which promotes greater procedural justice whilst ensuring that green energy deployment leads to higher levels of meaningful employment.

In terms of funders, we would like to acknowledge the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies at Lund University as well as the St Andrews Sustainability Institute, School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St. Andrews for their financial support in this initiative. With the dual challenges of reducing emissions from fossil fuels and providing access to clean and affordable energy, there is an imperative for a transition to a low carbon energy system. The transition must take into consideration questions of energy justice to ensure that policies, plans and programmes guarantee fair and equitable access to resources and technologies. An energy justice framework is outlined to account for distributional, procedural and recognition inequalities, as well as emerging themes such as cosmopolitan and non-Western understandings of justice, in decision-making relating to energy systems. The spectrum of research offers critical perspectives on the energy transition as well as tools for decision-making and policy processes. Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods all contribute to our understanding of the problems and the success of responses. The studies presented in this special issue illustrate that the field of energy justice is a rapidly growing arena. There is constant innovation taking place in enabling the transition with new structures, processes and metrics being introduced to guide decision-making and a more holistic view of the community emerging where acceptance, mobilisation and empowerment are opening possibilities for a just transition to a low carbon energy system. The importance of introducing the interdisciplinary approach between social sciences and natural sciences as well engineering implementation supported by scientific data and experiments shall be emphasized in future studies. Postprint

Highlights • Explores the role of justice in the development of the critical minerals industry. • Utilises the JUST framework from legal geography. • Explores distributive, procedural, restorative, recognition and cosmopolitan justice. • Taxation, EIAs, SLOs, and waste are vital for critical minerals industry. • Critical minerals important for addressing inequality and the just transition., It is a fundamental objective to transition towards a low-carbon economy worldwide which is supported by an international legal agreement – the 2015 Paris Agreement. In order to achieve this ambition, there is a need for new and more mineral extraction which is necessary for the technology for this low-carbon transition. These minerals are known as critical minerals and this article examines the role of justice needed in their development. The literature to-date lacks any holistic yet focused examination of the key elements of justice in the development of this industry. This conceptual article makes an original contribution that utilises an interdisciplinary perspective, legal geography, and explores key issues of justice that include distributive, procedural, restorative, recognition and cosmopolitan. The research identifies the key questions that need to be resolved under each element of justice and the unfortunate limited timeframes for action. Critical justice areas include taxation, environmental impact assessments, waste management, social license to operate, and cross-border actions. Resolving these issues will directly address societal issues of inequality and ensure a just transition to a low-carbon economy. Already there is a global race for critical minerals, and justice needs a stronger role in its development based on evidence to-date.

In many countries, industry is one of the largest consumers of electricity. Given the special importance of electricity for industry, a reliable electricity supply is a basic prerequisite for further industrial development and associated economic growth. As countries worldwide transition to a low-carbon economy (in particular, by the development of renewable energy sources), the increasing fluctuation in renewable energy production requires new flexibility options within the electricity system in order to guarantee security of supply. It is advanced in this paper that such a flexibility transition with an active participation of industry in general has unique potential: It will not only promote green industrial development, but also become an engine for inclusive industrial development and growth as well as delivering a just transition to a low-carbon economy. Given the high potential of industrial demand-side flexibility, a first monitoring approach for such a flexibility transition is illustrated, which bases on a flexibility index. Our flexibility index allows for an indication of mis-developments and supports an appropriate implementation of countermeasures together with relevant stakeholders. Hence, it holds various insights for both policy-makers and practice with respect to how industrial demand-side flexibility can ensure advances towards an inclusive, just, and sustainable industrial development.

The energy sector is characterized by inequality and this is part due to the lack of distributive justice applied to energy resource tax revenue. This paper advances one solution to this problem which is for such countries to establish a Sovereign Wealth Fund. There is limited literature on ensuring that distributive justice is a key policy goal of energy taxation and this research aims to contribute to that literature as well as the emerging literature on Sovereign Wealth Funds. Too often as identified in the research, energy taxation policy is developed in isolation and a more holistic perspective is needed which incorporates the entire tax system. A focus on distributive justice as an over-arching energy taxation policy goal is particularly important as a retention of the current status quo will continue to see countries lose the majority of the benefits of their own energy resources to foreign markets and consumers. A Sovereign Wealth Fund, at its core a legal construct with a financial purpose can not only contribute to increased distributive justice but can also ensure increased accountability, transparency and governance in their energy sector.

Funding: ESRC (ES/I001425/1). The German government presented the decision to phase out nuclear energy as a nationally accepted rebalancing of inequality in the energy sector. We expose how this radical change was delivered through a myriad of change agents, most notably through the rise of small energy companies. Critical junctures, in this case the Chernobyl disaster rather than Fukushima, offer moments in time when national policy systems are destabilized. They provide opportunities for changing policy in a perceived pro-energy justice direction if a new consensus can be forged. The paper concludes with a discussion on how energy scholars must engage more with policy analysis frameworks if long-term effective solutions are to be found to persistent energy inequalities. Postprint

It is now over 20 years since the seminal paper on energy law as a discipline was published. The aim of this article is to review what currently constitutes energy law after this 20-year hiatus. There are two main ambitions of this article, which we hope will have a similar impact on the field. The first is to develop for scholars and practitioners a view of what constitutes energy law-and to make this accessible to both law and non-law energy scholars. The second is to advance a set of core principles that guide energy law, in essence a treatise for energy law. We advocate for a paradigm shift in our current understanding of what constitutes energy law. We advance that it should revolve around this set of guiding principles; however, we acknowledge that to some degree it is perhaps not a paradigm shift due to the current absence of any core principles of energy law. Nevertheless we argue that in our advancing of a guiding set of principles we set out a new path for the study of energy law and thus we aim to change what constitutes energy law and challenge the assumptions of existing researchers as globally society moves towards a transition to low-carbon economies.

This Correspondence takes issue with the repeated use of the term “energy bullying” by authors Monyei, Jenkins, Serestina and Adewumi in their paper Energy Policy 119 (2018) pp68-76. Reasons are advanced why the authors' criticism of the global north lacks clear empirical evidence, and risks undermining efforts to combat climate change. A more constructive approach of working together between global south and global north is put forward by the corresponding authors.

The ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO) is a construct that has potential to transform the mining sector internationally. The SLO is increasing in importance because it can reduce all risks during the energy project life-cycle that are detrimental to the success of energy projects. This paper analyses how SLO's are at first perceived by interdisciplinary energy scholars before examining the legal nature of an SLO and looking at the effectiveness of such an agreement from the perspectives of both the energy company and the local community. In essence, this research seeks to address what is the legal basis of an SLO. Further, an original case study on Columbia is presented which highlights the SLO in action and its transformative effect. The paper also engages in new debates around the relationship of SLOs to related energy concepts such as the energy justice and environmental impact statements, which are also vital to energy infrastructure development. Postprint

This article focuses on reviewing energy law education in the UK. For such a fast-growing discipline it is important to reflect on the features that give cohesiveness to its curriculum development: how it is taught; who is teaching it and where it is being taught; and what content is given to the curriculum offered? Is it, for example, national in focus or international, or both? A recent review on the state of energy law education in the US demonstrates the scale and ambition of energy law education in that country. This article complements that exercise by providing a review of energy law education in the UK as at 2016. By comparing and contrasting the two approaches, we can glean some distinctive features of the UK approach. More research is needed on energy law education but from this article it is clear that energy law has taken a foothold in legal education in the UK.

In terms of funders, we thank the ESRC (ES/I001425/1) and EPSRC (EP/I035390/1) and UKERC (http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/news/whole-systems-networking-fund-project-announcement.html) for supporting the development of our work in this area. Just transition is a new framework of analysis that brings together climate, energy and environmental justice scholarships. It was originally coined as a term that was designed to link the promotion of clean technology with the assurance of green jobs. The Paris climate change agreement marks a global acceptance that a more rapid transition is needed to avert disastrous consequences. In response, climate, energy and environmental justice scholarships must unite in assessing where injustices will emerge and how they should be tackled. Just transition offers a new space for developing an interdisciplinary transition sensitive approach to exploring and promoting (1) distributional, (2) procedural and (3) restorative justice, termed here as a new triumvirate of tenets. Postprint

This research is a legal analysis concerning four scenarios for cross-border carbon dioxide (CO2) transport that could increase the deployment of carbon-capture and storage (CCS) deployment in Europe. The legal analysis categorizes the law into three levels-international, national and local-and considers the four scenarios in light of these three levels of energy law. Upon reviewing the four scenarios, it is clear that the Rotterdam Nucleus (referred to as the 'Pilot Case') is the leading scenario and as a result it is explored in more detail. The potential Pilot Case is based on the development of Rotterdam (in the Netherlands) as a southern North Sea hub. Under this Rotterdam Nucleus scenario, captured CO2 will be transported through the Port of Rotterdam to depleted gas fields offshore the Netherlands. CO2 will also be transported through further links using CCS infrastructure to facilitate the processing of undeveloped gas fields offshore UK. The Pilot case contemplates further expansion opportunities, increasing the capture clusters through additional pipelines, expanding to further gas fields and using the port of Rotterdam for CO2 shipping-hence the analysis of the other scenarios may be invaluable in the future development of CO2 networks in the EU. Finally, and an original contribution of this article is that it employs the three lawyers of energy law theoretical framework to an energy problem that was examined by an interdisciplinary research team. Furthermore, this research was developed further through two key industry stakeholder meetings with CCS experts in the EU. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the AIPN. All rights reserved.

Over the last decade, ‘Energy Justice’ is a concept that has emerged in research across many disciplines. This research explores the role and value of the energy justice concept across the disciplines. It provides the first critical account of the emergence of the energy justice concept in both research and practice. A diagrammatical image for examining the energy justice concepts is presented and this is a tool for interdisciplinary engagement with the concept. In this context, restorative justice is introduced and how it results in energy justice applying in practice is detailed. Energy research scholarship at universities is assessed and it is clear that through universities there is a platform for energy justice scholarship to build on the interdisciplinary energy scholarship at universities. Further, the role of education is vital to policy-making, and the understanding and development of the energy justice concept. Finally, in analysing how the energy justice concept can impact on policy-making, there is a critical examination of the energy justice and its relationship with economics, and how it can transfer directly into practice by assisting in balancing the competing aims of the energy trilemma. Postprint

This article assesses the legal and political nature of decision-making with regards to nuclear energy policy in Turkey. The main focus is on the choice of nuclear technology and the associated safety and liability issues for Turkey's new nuclear development plans. The article highlights the importance of legal certainty for both safety and liability in the nuclear energy sector. In particular, the liability regime in case of a nuclear accident must be clear and transparent. It also concludes that it is not the environmental impact assessment, safety concerns or liability regime but politics that is the key determinant in the choice of nuclear technology for a new nuclear project. In addition, with the planned use of the new financial model of Build-Own-Operate, this results in legal certainty being even more important for new nuclear development in Turkey.

This paper examines from a policy perspective nuclear energy policy in the United States (US) from 1990 to 2010 and questions whether it is or has become a Federal or State responsibility. The present study, as befits policy research, engages with many disciplines (for example, in particular, law and politics) and hence the contributions move beyond that of nuclear energy policy literature and in particular to that on nuclear new build and other assessments of large infrastructure projects. Several examples at the Federal level are identified that demonstrate that the nuclear industry has evolved to a stage where it requires a focus on the power of actions at a more localised (state) level in order to re-ignite the industry. The research concludes that there remains a misunderstanding of the issue of project management for complex construction projects, and it is highly arguable whether many of its issues have been resolved. Further, the research asserts that the economics of nuclear energy are not the most influential reason for no nuclear new build in the US.

This paper advances the application of the methodology, contrast explanation, to energy policy research. Research in energy policy is complex and often involves inter-disciplinary work, which traditional economic methodologies fail to capture. Consequently, the more encompassing methodology of contrast explanation is assessed and its use in other social science disciplines explored in brief. It is then applied to an energy policy research topic—in this case, nuclear energy policy research in the UK. Contrast explanation facilitates research into policy and decision-making processes in energy studies and offers an alternative to the traditional economic methods used in energy research. Further, contrast explanation is extended by the addition of contested and uncontested hypotheses analyses. This research focuses on the methods employed to deliver the new nuclear programme of the UK government. In order to achieve a sustainable nuclear energy policy three issues are of major importance: (1) law, policy and development; (2) public administration; and (3) project management. Further, the research identifies that policy in the area remains to be resolved, in particular at an institutional and legal level. However, contrary to the literature, in some areas, the research identifies a change of course as the UK concentrates on delivering a long-term policy for the nuclear energy sector and the overall energy sector.

The ambition of this conference was to deliver a first examination of how policy is delivered in the context of low-carbon energy infrastructure in the UK. The UK has been developing policy in this area since 2002 (Heffron, 2013). Finally, as the decade passed, in November 2012 an Energy Bill was put before the UK Parliament. One of the chief purposes of this Energy Bill is to establish the right environment for new electricity generation infrastructure in the low-carbon sector. There is significant debate on how this will be achieved and, indeed, whether this piece of legislation will actually deliver this outcome. This conference aimed to examine the dynamics of policy delivery. Throughout the day, there was entertaining discussion as a variety of conference presenters provided interesting contributions on how to deliver such policy goals. In total, there were twelve speakers throughout the day representing the UK (University of Oxford, Pinsent Masons Law Firm, University of Stirling, University of Dundee and University of Aberdeen), and also those who provided lessons from abroad from the University of Copenhagen, Central European University, Milieu Ltd., Pillsbury Law Firm (Washington DC, US) and the Conservation Law Foundation (MA, US). © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

This paper describes the nexus of energy justice, supply and security. It advances the case that energy justice is the relatively new concept in this triangle of issues and an area requiring research. There are three central tenets of energy justice: distributional, procedural and recognition justice. Each of these tenets figures at certain stages in the energy supply chain and as a consequence there is an effect on energy supply. An example of the wind energy sector in Denmark is presented which demonstrates how the application and promotion of energy justice can enable the growth of an industry supply chain. This in turn contributes to increased energy security and national economic growth.

Carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase to the detriment of society in many forms. One of the difficulties faced is the imbalance between the competing aims of economics, politics and the environment which form the trilemma of energy policy. This article advances that this energy trilemma can be resolved through energy justice. Energy justice develops the debate on energy policy to one that highlights cosmopolitanism, progresses thinking beyond economics and incorporates a new futuristic perspective. To capture these dynamics of energy justice, this research developed an Energy Justice Metric (EJM) that involves the calculation of several metrics: (1) a country (national) EJM; (2) an EJM for different energy infrastructure; and (3) an EJM which is incorporated into economic models that derive costs for energy infrastructure projects. An EJM is modeled for China, the European Union and the United States, and for different energy infrastructure in the United Kingdom. The EJM is plotted on a Ternary Phase Diagram which is used in the sciences for analyzing the relationship (trilemma) of three forms of matter. The development of an EJM can provide a tool for decision-making on energy policy and one that solves the energy trilemma with a just and equitable approach. Publisher PDF

Energy justice is a fast emerging research and policy tool which captures the injustices across the energy life-cycle, i.e., from ‘cradle-to-grave’. The Energy Justice Metric (EJM) quantifies energy justice through analyzing the energy justice performance of different countries utilising data from international institutions and national governments. This paper identifies why there is a need for a modeling tool such as the EJM which focuses on the full energy life-cycle and also has a distributive (inequality-correcting) oriented approach. The EJM demonstrates how a country can achieve an improved balance between the three competing aims of the energy trilemma, i.e. economics, politics and the environment. A key feature of the EJM is modeling energy justice using a ternary plot where the energy justice performance of a country can be transferred directly onto the energy trilemma. In this paper, five countries are analysed, the US, UK, Germany, Denmark and Ireland. The EJM presents a research and policy decision-making tool that can contribute to the growing literature that tackles the issue of inequality in society, and informs on society’s decision on which energy source would be more just for a society to build. Postprint