Transformative Transitional Justice for Climate Justice: Lessons from Practice
- Posted on
- In Publications, Research
- by Jasmina Brankovic
In 2025, two South African communities created the first explicitly transitional justice process for climate harms. Emphasising the experiences and solutions of residents directly affected by climate change, the process was also novel in using a transformative approach to transitional justice.
Participants developed measures that demonstrate a more comprehensive way of conceptualising the effects of climate change – as a wide range of profound and long-lasting climate harms, rooted in and exacerbating structural inequalities – and of responding to them in backwards-looking and forward-looking ways that enable deeper social change. As such, this transformative transitional justice process represents a new methodology and opens fresh pathways towards climate justice, which bridge the local and the global.
The process consisted of four measures: 1) a truth-telling process on climate harms experiences, causes and solutions; 2) a commemoration event for past climate harms, combined with an educational workshop on future climate change responses; 3) the design and construction of a physical memorial honouring all those affected by climate harms; and 4) reform-focused advocacy for participatory climate change response planning and implementation at the municipal level.
Documenting the measures, their outcomes and the lessons learnt, this report shows what transformative transitional justice for climate harms can look like in practice, both for communities affected by climate harms and for practitioners and other stakeholders working towards transitional and climate justice. It argues that such a bottom-up process can complement and strengthen top-down national and international efforts, as well as serve as a discrete form of justice in transition itself.
For more publications, videos and images from this initiative, visit our project page.
Transformative Transitional Justice for Climate Harms - Lessons from Practice - Brankovic 2026
Dr. Jasmina Brankovic is Senior Research Adviser at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. With a focus on participatory methods, Jasmina conducts research on inequality and socioeconomic transformation, climate justice, narrative change, and civil society strategies in transitional contexts. Her publications include 'Violence, Inequality and Transformation: Apartheid Survivors on South Africa's Ongoing Transition' (2020), 'The Global Climate Regime and Transitional Justice' (2018) and 'Advocating Transitional Justice in Africa: The Role of Civil Society' (2018). She has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Marburg (Centre for Conflict Studies).
