Energy Justice & the Social Contract Chair

The EJ&SC Chair is based on the establishment of an international centre of excellence for research on energy justice with the aim of designing a new social contract and concreting the transformations called for by the low-carbon transition. From a legal perspective, the Chair aims to develop innovative interdisciplinary approaches to thinking about energy justice in a systemic and applied way. Our work analyses the concept of energy justice and the way in which it should be formalised in a new “social contract” involving all energy sector and society stakeholders. We focus on improving legal mechanisms at local, national and international levels to ensure that justice becomes the raison d’être of energy law and permeates legal systems. We support that a better integration of justice issues is a basis for building a new social contract in the energy sector over time. This social contract would help to improve efforts to achieve key transformations such as - meeting climate change targets, - developing low-carbon energy technologies, - reducing the environmental impact of the energy sector, - increasing employment. Interdisciplinary in aims as in means, the Chair is supported by an international scientific committee connecting distinguished scholars in the field of energy justice. It is also linked with the French and European institutional and associative worlds, particularly through a platform aiming at producing, valuating, and transferring knowledge to the European institutions on energy, climate and sustainability law and justice. This platform brings together several prestigious research institutions in energy law.