Energy Transition Litigation and Procedural Justice in Japan: Courts as Arenas of Environmental Citizenship?
This paper examines how litigation is contributing to the ongoing dynamics of Japan’s energy transition by compensating for weak procedural justice and limited public participation in policymaking. Focusing on two current cases—the Rokkasho reprocessing plant (pending) and the Kobe coal-fired power plant—the analysis contrasts nuclear and thermal energy governance to explore how citizens and lawyers mobilize courts to challenge the lack of transparency in the decision-making, constrained deliberation, and technocratic lock-in. Drawing on environmental justice theory, particularly the procedural dimension, the paper argues that litigation in Japan is not merely reactive but constitutive of a form of environmental citizenship—where judicial spaces enable civic voice, intergenerational claims, and democratic accountability in an otherwise closed policy environment.