Human rights abuses such as modern slavery and other forms of labour exploitation (Nolan & Boersma, 2019; Caruana et al., 2021) are intricately connected to environmental destruction and intensifying greenhouse gas emissions (Jackson et al., 2020; Brown et al., 2021; Bales & Sovacool, 2021). At the same time, slow-onset climate change and sudden calamities such as extreme weather events drive displacement and create vulnerability to forced labour, human traZicking and other human rights abuses (Molinari, 2017; Bharadwaj et al., 2022; Vigil, 2022).

These dynamics create vicious cycles, where climate change and business-related human rights abuses are mutually enabling and amplifying. Recent work describes these dynamics as "multi-directional complex feedback loops", in which social and ecological harms circulate through global value chains and earth systems, complicating conventional notions of cause and eZect (Jackson et al., 2024; Schneider & Murray, 2025). Regarding these dynamics as discrete wrongs fails to capture the complex relationships and the implications for business ethics. Instead, these harms should be seen as compounding injustices (Toft, 2020; Martin-Ortega et al., 2022; Ergene et al., 2024).

Existing normative frameworks start to show strain at the nexus between human rights and climate change. Human rights theorising, often structured around the "Respect, Protect, Remedy" framework, assumes identifiable rights-holders, duty-bearers and violations, as well as remedies tied to attributable corporate actions (Ruggie, 2013; Dahan et al., 2023). Yet climate change emerges cumulatively from the actions of multiple actors, is mediated by socioecological processes, and threatens the conditions under which human rights can be realised (Deva, 2024). Corporate responsibility thus becomes diffused and temporally extended, raising questions about what it means to "respect" human rights when contributions are non-linear, probabilistic, incremental and collective.

Conversely, debates on climate ethics and environmental justice have put forward accounts of collective action problems and intergenerational duties (e.g., Smith & Mayer, 2018) yet often treat human rights and climate harms in parallel, transpose conceptual tools from one domain to the other, or do not consider nature as a rights holder (Chapron et al., 2019). However, the moral dimensions of business-related human rights abuses that accompany "Just Transition" pathways (e.g., coercion, dispossession, labour exploitation and other harms in renewable energy value chains; see Cockayne et al., 2022; Davidson, 2023; Areias, 2024) - remain comparatively undertheorised. This reveals blind spots in commonly accepted accounts of corporate responsibility and business ethics that require a systemic rethinking (Dahan et al., 2023; Soundararajan et al., 2025).

The motivation for this Special Issue lies in these blind spots. Scholars call for research that pushes against disciplinary "totemism and taboos" that narrow the scope of critical enquiry (Bapuji et al., 2020; Spence, 2022; Böhm et al., 2022). At the same time, discussions about impactful research stress the need for work that simultaneously advances theory and informs practice (Wickert, 2021; Dacin et al., 2022). The Special Issue looks to develop and advance conceptual insights and practical guidance at the human rights – climate change nexus, which remains only partially understood with the use of existing theoretical frameworks.

Types of Papers and Suggested Topics

Conceptual and normative papers are encouraged, as are empirically grounded studies in which analysis is used to develop, challenge, or refine ethical concepts and arguments. The Special Issue is open to submissions from diverse disciplinary perspectives, including – but not limited to – corporate governance, operations and supply chain management; law, regulation and litigation; sustainability and climate justice; sustainable development; accounting, disclosure, and transparency; work and organisational studies; and political science and international relations, provided that submissions advance business ethics theory rather than merely applying external frameworks.

Submissions may, for example, consider what it means for firms to “respect” human rights when relevant harms materialise as risk impositions and incremental contributions to pushing ecological thresholds, rather than as isolated violations. This may involve revisiting concepts such as complicity, culpable ignorance, and shared but diZerentiated responsibilities in contexts of complex causation and intricate supply chains (Clarke & Boersma, 2015; Schrempf-Stirling et al., 2022; Dahan et al., 2023). Authors may explore how duties of prevention, mitigation and remedy should be allocated among corporate actors, investors, states and other stakeholders when harms arise from intertwined social and environmental processes, and where governance arrangements remain fragmented (Areias, 2024; Wang & Lotfi, 2024).

Papers might interrogate the moral permissibility and limits of trade-oZs in mitigation and adaptation pathways that reduce emissions yet predictably entail dispossession, displacement or exploitation, including in renewable energy projects, critical mineral extraction and land-use projects (Bales & Sovacool, 2021; Vigil, 2022; Davidson, 2023). What, if anything, can justify trade-oZs, and what follows in terms of reparative and compensatory obligations? How should just transition pathways incorporate the voices of workers and communities, whose livelihoods and futures are often at stake, yet whose perspectives often remain marginal in corporate and policy discourse (Cockayne et al., 2022; Flanagan & Goods, 2022)?

We also encourage contributions that critically examine the design and implementation of emerging due diligence, disclosure and accountability frameworks at the nexus of business, human rights and the climate crisis. These might address, for instance, whether current regulatory approaches risk entrenching unsustainable practices and lacking forms of governance, or whether they can be reimagined to support more humanistic, justice-oriented business models (Cousins et al., 2020; Schleper et al., 2022; International Court of Justice, 2025). Papers that integrate insights from practice – such as strategic litigation, civil society campaigns, or multi-stakeholder initiatives are welcome where they deepen normative analysis.

Across all suggested topics, we particularly welcome work that:

• makes explicit why existing human rights or climate ethics frameworks are not suZicient on their own to account for the phenomena examined;

• develops revised or novel concepts, typologies, or principles tailored to the interconnected crises of human rights abuses and climate change; and

• shows how such theoretical advances can inform context-sensitive solutions that foreground the experiences of affected communities, especially in the Global South.

Themes and questions include, but are not limited to:

• When climate-related harm is seen as an unequal risk-imposition rather than a discrete violation, how should concepts such as 'respect' and 'remedy' be specified?

• How should responsibility be allocated when causal contribution is incremental, historically layered and distributed across complex value chains?

• How should business ethics evaluate transition pathways that reduce emissions yet predictably entail dispossession, repression, or severe labour exploitation?

• What kinds of trade-offs caused by just transition pathways are permissible, if ever, and if so under what constraints and remedial obligations?

• To what extent are businesses acknowledging the nexus, are responses substantive or symbolic, and how do disclosure regimes shape corporate narratives of accountability?

• What opportunities and risks are presented by mandatory due diligence frameworks? How effective are these in unifying environmental and social responsibilities?

We welcome papers that make "theoretical, political and intellectual space for non-hierarchical dialogue between diZerent epistemological traditions" (Banerjee, 2022, p. 1084). This ensures that different voices and diverse knowledge traditions are heard (De Colle et al., 2024). By this we aim to create space for plural yet rigorous academic engagement to ensure that diverse voices and forms of knowledge can inform debate, without displacing the journal’s commitment to scholarly evaluation, empirical and conceptual grounding, and normative critique.

Submission Instructions

All submissions must be original, not published or under consideration for publication elsewhere. Authors must follow the Journal of Business Ethics submissions guidelines and format the paper in the JBE style. For more details about the types of manuscripts that will be considered for publication, please see the website of the Journal of Business Ethics.

Please submit manuscripts through the Editorial Manager by February 1, 2027. The online submission system will be opened 60 days prior to this submission deadline. Submitted manuscripts will go through a double-blind peer-reviewed process as indicated in JBE’s submissions guidelines.

Upon submission, please indicate that your submission is to this Special Issue of JBE. Questions about expectations, requirements, the appropriateness of a topic, etc., should be directed to the lead guest editor of the Special Issue: Martijn Boersma. Journal’s editorial procedures Peer Review Policy, Process and Guidance, and Peer Reviewer Selection. Papers submitted to this Special Issue cannot subsequently be resubmitted to any of JBE’s sections or to another JBE Special Issue; these include papers that have been rejected or withdrawn after review, even if they have been heavily modified and/or revised.

Information Session and Paper Development Workshops

The guest editors will host an information session for prospective authors in May 2026, to be held at the University of Bath’s Business, Organisations and Society Symposium on Just Transition and Business. This session will be delivered in hybrid format and will provide an opportunity to discuss the aims of the special issue, the kinds of contributions sought, and ask other questions.

Two virtual paper development workshops will be convened following the initial short paper submission deadline. To accommodate participants across different regions, one workshop will be scheduled for Asia–Pacific time zones, and the other for timezone aligned with Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The workshops are intended to provide constructive feedback on papers to support authors in developing their submissions for full consideration in the special issue.

Please send your short papers (max 3000 words, excluding references) to the lead guest editor at the email address above by 1 August 2026. Authors whose papers are accepted will be invited to attend one of the two paper virtual development workshops. Participation in the workshops does not guarantee acceptance of the paper for the special issue. While information session attendance and workshop participation are not a requirement for consideration of a paper for publication in the special issue, authors are encouraged to attend and participate.

• Special Issue Information Session: 20 May 2026 (9am GMT)

• Short paper submission deadline for development workshops: 1 August 2026

• Hybrid paper development workshops: September 2026 (Indicative)

• Full paper submission deadline (for consideration in SI): 1 February 2027

• This Special Issue is anticipated to be published in 2028