Participatory Governance and Environmental Rights: A Climate Justice Assessment of the Jadar Project

This thesis examines the contradictions of the Green Transition through the lens of climate justice, using the Jadar project in Serbia as case-study that demonstrates extensively how the imperative to deliver Sustainable Development Goals in the shortest possible time can, if mismanaged, lead to violations of environmental rights both substantively and procedurally. The case is peculiarly illustrative not only for analysing in practice how principles of environmental democracy are applied- or sidelined- in decision-making processes, but also for exploring how a constellation of cross-cutting issues interacts in such contexts – ranging from democratic and rule of law backsliding to the silencing of environmental activism. At the same time, the Jadar project offers a unique vantage point from which to examine the broader geopolitical and regulatory dynamics surrounding Critical Raw Materials. As the European Union seeks to secure strategic autonomy in the supply of materials deemed essential for the transition towards a sustainable, low-carbon future, projects like Jadar acquire pivotal relevance. The case-study therefore sheds light on how evolving sustainability objectives- if narrowly framed or pursued through technocratic urgency- can inadvertently reproduce extractive and exploitative logics that externalize harm into sacrifice-zones. It highlights how participatory governance functions as the hinge between legitimacy and injustice, degerming whether strategic projects contribute to a just transition or instead perpetuate the very inequalities and environmental burdens they purport to resolve.