Conceptualising Energy Justice in the Context of Human Rights Law

Abstract

This article explores energy justice in the context of human rights law. Although energy justice and human rights in the energy sector are fundamentally interconnected, energy justice research within and beyond legal scholarship has not engaged with human rights law or vice versa. As an academic effort, energy justice suffers from a lack of real-life legal application. Human rights law, on the other hand, is a well-established legal discipline and a branch of international law operationalised through broad means, comprising international and national legislation and litigation. This article argues that human rights law can be used to frame the same substantive issues as energy justice and that, because of this, human rights law could provide energy justice with a legal (rather than purely academic or policy-focused) framework for its operationalisation.