Arctic development of the past is persistent in inequitable practices, leaving scars from the impacts of social, economic and environmental inequality. In addition, Arctic development of today is occurring alongside the adverse effects of climate change within an integrated global system deficient in mechanisms for incentivising just transitions toward sustainable development. With the goal of enhancing the governance capacity of the EU to mitigate this problem, JUSTNORTH brings together 13 partners from 7 disciplines to evaluate the viability of Arctic economic activities.

The project will merge justice theories with sustainable development goals to enable EU policy coherence toward just transitions. This will be integrated with an investigation of the empirical realities of existing Arctic economic activities in 16 case studies using innovative research methodology, through conceptual, comparative, descriptive, correlation, policy, legal and interview-based analysis techniques. Though this, JUSTNORTH will offer policy, legal and regulatory pathway recommendations, by developing a frameworks from the reconciliation of the various ethics and value systems present in the Arctic, which can serve as a cornerstone for determining the viability of economic activities in the Arctic in line with the goals of sustainable development. 

Ultimately, JUSTNORTH will provide both a negotiation tool for stakeholders to Arctic development (and a potential labelling standard for just/ethical regulatory standards) in its JUSTscore framework, which will create both transparency, documentation and standardisation for sustainable development across the Arctic (and the EU market). Adhering to coproduction of knowledge with stakeholders throughout, JUSTNORTH will bring insights from indigenous, local, business, State and NGO perspectives of the social, economic and environmental complexities of the Arctic into the realm of policymaking for just sustainable development.

The research project has its own website.

The coordinator of the project is Corine Wood-Donnely.