Producing steps and guidelines for legal transformation

A helpful tool for public and private actors

The project, funded by the Research Council of Finland, focuses on developing a legal transformation toolkit to help policymakers and business actors identify key transformation points. The toolkit aims to bring legal solutions and remove legal barriers to mitigate climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, meeting the European Green Deal agenda.

Approaching the legal system through its resilience

Understanding the ins and outs of the law

A legal system may resist, adapt, or transform when facing change. Our aim is to explore how resilient the law is in supporting a sustainability transformation and how various actors adapt to it. Understanding the dynamics of the Finnish legal system and how it determines the roles of public and private actors is essential. This understanding will help us determine the most effective way to implement sustainability goals through the law—the key factor that can either accelerate or impede the achievement of these goals.

Towards a green transition

Achieving sustainable transformation goals

Our work focuses on studying how to implement EU sustainability goals within the Finnish legal system without compromising the key values and functions of law. We focus on three policy areas: climate change (net-zero greenhouse gas emissions), biodiversity (protecting 30% of land, sea, and freshwaters) and zero pollution of waters. Through our analytical approach to law, we aim to provide a path to deliver a just green transition.

The road to sustainability

Our project is structured in six work packages, which are the pathway to our goals

WP1
Understanding the law’s resilience

There is a disconnect between legal scholarship and sustainability transformation research. In this first work package, our aim is to map the global rule of law literature to explore the functions of developed legal systems and their resilience. The work package is also responsible for the coordination of the entire project.

WP2
Authorities, business and civic actors

All actors in society have a role in delivering a sustainability transformation. To explore their legal possibilities and limits, we will focus on analysing the Finnish legal system and those involved in it (legislature, courts, public authorities, and business and civic actors).

WP3
Policy transformation

Grounding in the transdisciplinary vision of the project, we will identify the policy transformation points that have a significant potential to support a just sustainability transformation. Based on the insights from the expert interviews and surveys, our aim is to gain an overview on how to achieve the three sustainability goals.

WP4
Legal feasibility

Once the policy transformation points have been identified, the next step is to analyse their legal feasibility and legitimacy. Through a novel methodological approach called disciplinary comparison developed by two of the consortium members, we will compare the doctrine, tradition and structure of the legal disciplines that are relevant to sustainability transformation.

WP5
Societal impact

In this work package, we will analyse the positive and negative social, economic, and environmental consequences of the policy transformation points that were previously identified. These consequences can lead to unpredictable societal change and impact pathways that policymakers need to consider.

WP6
Transformation toolkit

This work package is responsible for refining the knowledge produced by the rest of the team in order to build the transformation toolkit. It has the task of supporting the coordination of activities within the project and ensuring that the ethical issues concerning openness and high standards of scientific research are considered.