Sustainable supply of Critical Raw Materials: Governance for Justice in Time of Rapid Socio Ecological Change (JustInTime)

A key challenge for the EU in achieving its climate and digital objectives lies in the sourcing, processing, and recycling of critical raw materials. With the European Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), the EU seeks to secure a sustainable supply for European industry and reduce dependence on single-country suppliers. Two CRMA “strategic projects” are located in Northern Sweden, a region which is also attracting massive investments to expand fossil-free steel, battery, and renewable energy production. This proposal forms part of an interdisciplinary initiative in political science, law, and ore geology to jointly explore the conditions under which critical raw materials can be accessed sustainably.

Supervisor: Karin Beland Lindahl, Associate Professor, Political Science, ETKS

Subject description

Politics is all about the allocation of resources and the shaping of society by collective decisions, in short, the question of who gets what, when and how. Political science is the scientific study of politics and political processes in the broadest sense. Central to the discipline, however, are questions concerning the functioning of democracy and its challenges; issues of ideology, power and distribution; the development and role of political parties; as well as the design, performance and outcome of societal decision-making processes under different institutional conditions at the global, national and local levels.

Co-supervisors: Christina Allard, Professor, Law, ETKS and Edward Lynch, Associate Senior Lecturer, Ore Geology, SBN.

Project description

JustInTime addresses this governance dilemma: how to balance effectiveness and access to critical raw materials with social acceptance and legitimacy amid rapid socio-ecological and geopolitical change. The aim is to explore whether, and how, governance that pays attention to justice can enable sustainable and legitimate access to critical raw materials. More specifically, the project investigates how procedural, distributive and recognition justice interact, and how these dimensions of justice relate to legitimacy and sustainability in the implementation of the CRMA in Sweden. CRMA implementation raises critical questions: How can effectiveness be balanced with procedural justice? What constitutes a fair distribution of benefits and burdens between majority interests within the EU and affected local communities and social groups? How are diverse actors’

perspectives and claims recognized in “strategic” projects and permit processes? And, how do resource availability and recycling potential affect actors’ perspectives and claims to justice? Considerations of justice and legitimacy are inseparable from the institutional context of resource distribution, e.g. law (see proposal by Pettersson, Law), and equally dependent on natural conditions such as the supply and location of minerals (see proposal by Wanhainen, Ore Geology). Together, the three projects are designed to mutually support one another while advancing the long-term development of excellent disciplinary and interdisciplinary research across the three units.