Background 

Climate change and the devastation it leaves and will yet leave in its wake compels urgent, ambitious, global, and sector-wide interventions. For now, the European Green DealEuropean Green Deal (EGD) represents one of the most comprehensive climate plans involving the greatest number of countries globally. Through the EGD, the EU aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by at least 55% by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The delivery of the EGD relies on a suite of regulations and directives covering subjects including effort sharing; inclusion of GHG emissions from land use, land use change and forestry; sustainable food systems; renewable energy and energy efficiency; energy tax; and carbon border adjustment. The EGD also includes a just transition mechanism and the social climate fund.  

The EGD is representative of a new generation of climate response measures which are expansive in coverage, directly engage non-state entities, include social justice mechanisms, and with extensive trans-boundary implications. We describe these expansive society-wide transition policies as ‘Green Deals’. They range from broadly scoped suite of policies like the EGD to narrower interventions like the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. Green Deals are at a scale reminiscent of the American ‘New Deal’ of the 1930s. This symposium aims at critically interrogating the justice implications of Green Deals. What are their distributive consequences along Global South/North and core/periphery divides? How do they affect historically marginalized communities and individuals along race, gender, class, disability, and other identity markers? Who are the winners and losers? How is justice conceptualized and embedded in Green Deals? What vision of justice should such policies aim for?  

The symposium brings together diverse perspectives and voices on justice and climate change to articulate a vision for just and effective climate policies using the EGD as a case study. The symposium will be co-curated and published on the Afronomicslaw and the Sustainable Global Environmental Law (University of Amsterdam) websites. 

Call for Symposium Participants 

We invite scholars, practitioners, policy makers, and members of civil society organizations to make written contributions on topics related to the description above, including any of the themes below. 

• Origins of Green Deals  
• Green Deals and Regional Climate Strategies and Plans  
• Green Deals and Racial Justice  
• Economic Models Underpinning Green Deals 
• Green Deals and Sustainable Food Systems  
• Green Deals, Debt, and Climate Finance 
• Green Deals and Just Transitions 
• Cross-border Impacts of Green Deals 
• Green Deals and Development in the Global South 
• Green Deals, Mining, and Host Communities 
• Green Deals and Gender 
• Green Deals and Culture 
• Green Deals and Human Rights 

Submission Requirements 

Written contributions should be analytical and not more than 2500 words. References should be hyperlinked and or end noted. Citations could adopt any style guide. 

Interested participants should send an email notification about their intention to submit a contribution by February 6th, 2023. Please send us 500 words on how you’d like to contribute. Participants are encouraged to submit their written contributions before April 3rd, 2023, for early consideration. Contributors will be notified of the decision of reviewers by April 15, 2023, and articles will be published at the end of April 2023. 

Contributors may also be invited to participate in an online roundtable on Justice and Green Deals in May 2023, and explore publishing extended versions of their submissions in a special issue of the African Journal of International Economic Law. 

Submit your contribution to afronomicslaw@gmail.com, copying tamalenona@gmail.com.