Mediating the Green Transition: A Conflict-Sensitive Approach to Sustainability Law

Abstract

The convergence of climate, ecological and social crises has accelerated the urgency of a just transition. Yet the legal and regulatory frameworks designed to guide this transition often remain fragmented, technocratic and conflict-blind. This paper argues that sustainability law – if it is to respond meaningfully to this convergence of crises – must integrate tools and practices capable of navigating the socio-political tensions and competing interests that the transition inevitably provokes. In particular, it proposes mediation as a conflict-sensitive governance strategy that can expand the transformative potential of sustainability law and help operationalise justice within the green transition. Drawing on interdisciplinary insights from conflict resolution, transition studies and legal theory, this paper critiques dominant legal approaches to climate and energy governance for prioritising procedural legality and efficiency over inclusivity and equity. Top-down decision-making structures, even when dressed in participatory language, often marginalise those most affected by transition impacts – rural communities, workers in sunset industries and indigenous peoples. Legal frameworks tend to treat conflict as a barrier to implementation rather than as a signal of deeper structural and relational fractures that need to be addressed. This paper reframes conflict not as an obstacle, but as a generative entry point for legal and institutional learning. Mediation offers a methodology for unpacking value-based disagreements, mapping asymmetries and co-constructing development pathways that reflect plural interests. It supports early-stage dialogue, fosters mutual recognition and enables parties to co-generate outcomes that integrate environmental goals with social legitimacy. In this sense, mediation becomes a vehicle for embedding justice, voice and responsiveness within the (legal) governance of the green transition. Ultimately, this paper contributes to the development of sustainability law as an interdisciplinary and transformative field – one that besides identifying barriers to justice and ecological integrity also offers tools to navigate them. By situating mediation at the heart of just transition governance, it offers a critical and constructive response to the convergence of crises that sustainability law must now confront.