Transregional Just Transition Governance: Socio-legal and Politico-economic Perspectives

Our research explores how law and governance navigate transitions that seek to balance economic needs, climate goals, and social justice.

JTC Team A1 Strukturwandel &<br />
Partizipation: Gruppenbild – Dr. Jan Winkler, Hermine Bär, Cheyenne Wolf, Pia Kahlfuß, nicht abgebildet: Felix Schiedlowski

We examine legal, political and economic interdependencies shaping transregional governance in interconnected ecosocial transformations. Our research explores how law and governance navigate transitions that seek to balance economic needs, climate goals, and social justice. We analyse the potential and limits of law in fostering global cooperation and how transition regulations support equitable outcomes or risk deepening inequalities.

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A transregional view recognises multiple overlapping regulatory contexts focusing on relationality, complementarity and reciprocity. Through the lens of globalised legal pluralism, we analyse the interplay of legal principles, processes, practices, and conflict regulation, paying attention to normative tensions between economic needs and imperatives, climate goals, and social justice.

We interlink socio-legal with politico-economic perspectives by

(1) examining how law such as supply chain regulations, climate and migration policies, and investment facilitation agreements shape transitions and
(2) exploring governance and the politics of law, for example, the role of transnational actors, public-private partnerships in de-carbonisation/fossilisation, labour markets and trade and investment relations.

Key questions include: how do governance systems address or reinforce tensions between competing norms? To what extent do legal and economic structures enable or undermine equitable and sustainable transitions? How can inclusive and plural regulations be promoted?

 

The China-Europe Corridor: International Trade Strategies for Resilience and Just Transitions

This project focuses on the important land corridor between China and Europe from the perspective of transregional governance for a just transition.
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The Architecture of Just Production in a Transforming World

This research examines the governance challenges for equitable production systems in socio-ecological structural change.
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Investment Facilitation Agreements and their Potential to Enable a Just European Investment Policy

This project examines the role that investment facilitation agreements play in implementing a fair European investment policy.
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Just Capital: Transition Regimes in Globalised Energy Governance

This project examines transnational green financialization of socio-ecological structural change processes, focusing on initiatives like Just Transition Funds (JTFs) and Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs), as well as Germany's innovative climate protection agreements (KSV).
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16448592 IR3MBM77 1 chicago-author-date 50 default 1 1975 https://jtc.uni-halle.de/wp-content/plugins/zotpress/
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Sureau, Timm Pascal. 2024. “Sentiments of Crisis: A Catalyst for Bureaucratic Transformation and Digitalisation.” Administory 9 (1): 142–59. https://doi.org/10.2478/adhi-2024-0009.
Sureau, Timm. 2025. Multiple Strukturwandel. With Universitäts- Und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt and Martin-Luther Universität. Vol. 1. Policy Papers on Just Transition. Just Transition Center. doi.org/10.25673/118808.
Seidel, Katrin. 2025. Just Transitions Beyond Silos: Toward Inclusive and Ethical Governance. Vol. 3. Policy Papers on Just Transition. Just Transition Center. doi.org/10.25673/119421.

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