Topical Guide: Justice and Rights

Justice Related Topics

Forms of Injustice

Climate change and human flourishing

Denial of access to internet communications

Displaced persons

Economic inequality

Gender and sexual relations

Global lawmaking

Health care and global public health governance

Indigenous peoples

Language discrimination

Market failures

Pandemics, COVID

Poverty and inequality

Psychological trauma

Racial inequality

Sexual degradation

The lack of resources in the Global South academy

Wealth inequality

Sites of Justice

Disaster planning and relief

Displacement in civil conflicts

Economic and international order

Economic deprivation

Environment: protecting and preserving the natural world

Global communications infrastructure

Governance and transparency

Human protection from mass atrocities

National economies

Poverty and inequality

Religious persecution

Sexual violence as dignity-defying acts

Universities in the Global South

Varieties of Justice

Commutative justice

Distributive justice

Justice-as-judgment

Justice-as-right

Justice-as-virtue

Participatory justice

Relational justice

Restorative Justice

3 distinctive components of restorative justice: values, processes, and outcomes

Christian origins of restorative justice theory and practice

Congruence between Christian views of restorative justice and indigenous peoples’ views

Restitution and compensation in welfare economics and explicit examples

Restorative justice

Restorative justice and reconciliation in international responses to global injustices

Restorative justice as a second-order attempt to restore first-order justice

Restorative justice as a unifying vision of shalom

Restorative justice as an effort to promote healing and repair after the wounds of crime

Restorative justice as an expanding global movement to communities, organizations, and societies

Restorative justice is distinctive insofar as it rectifies past wrongs, repairs present harms, and restores well-being and future safety

Retributive and punitive justice in accountability for major atrocities

Promoting Justice

Bringing social-political transformation through the Gospel

Economic solutions for climate

Ensuring participation in global lawmaking by marginal states

Fostering creativity in transnational legal orders

How to prevent mass atrocity crimes—the Asia-Pacific Study Group of Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes

Implications for economic policy on climate change

Justice as promoting wholeness, which requires healing from injustice

Listen and give voice to the linguistically marginalized

Open ourselves to truth claims of others and learn epistemic humility

Promising sites for prevention of mass violence and injustice

Promote intercultural universities where presuppositions of all are heard and apprehended

Shared and divergent goals within the public health community

Three challenges for estimating costs of climate change

Two ways for environmental economics to remedy the harms of climate change

Biblical Foundations of Justice

Dignity and Imago Dei as the grounding of human rights

NT on justice, rights and righteousness

OT and “Correct Justice”

OT Biblical literature, history and narrative, as a literature of self-critique over injustice and oppression

OT on justice and injustice concerned with laws and social practices

OT understanding of justice (mishpat/krima) and righteousness (tzedek/dikaiousunē)

OT ‘righteousness’: a theological not moral conception

The essence of justice lies in ‘second-order justice’, judgment and acts of justice

The universality of justice

“Correct Justice” and the Pauline Dilemma: the relationship between judgment, grace and works

“Correct Justice” not only as a standard for humans but also a principle God abides by

Biblical Understanding of Justice

Biblical emphasis on the quartet of vulnerable: widows, orphans, sojourners, impoverished

Biblical understanding of justice

God is just, loves justice, and enjoins Christians to imitate God

God’s preference option for the poor

Justice & injustice in Bible almost always means social and systemic

Justice intrinsic understanding of the Kingdom of God in NT

Justice requires worship, giving God what is due God

OT writers connect justice with shalom

The pursuit and protection of justice as a central function of government

Treat one’s neighbor justly out of love

Rights

Conferred and non-conferred rights

Considering how rights talk can foster passivity

Contemporary rights-talk is not enough

Individual rights versus the common good in public health

Justice should not be dominated by a rights paradigm

Reproductive rights for women

Reservations about an “intoxication with rights” as a measure of lived-out Christianity

Rights derive from justice, not justice from rights

Rights of the fetus

Rights-talk is not very helpful in the family context

Thin doctrine of rights for future generations in economic analysis of climate change

Uneasiness with rights talk

Witte on the deep history of the idea of natural rights

Duties and Obligations

An intrinsic connection between rights and duties/obligations

Duties and responsibilities in public health

Duty and obligations are more salient values than rights in parenting arrangements after separation

Duty to care for vulnerable and displaced

How wealthy western states owe obligations to displaced peoples

Obligations for states and Christians to do justice beyond their borders

Obligations of wealthy countries to poorer countries

Parental obligations to children trump rights to personal fulfilment

Rights in relation to duties

Sociolinguistic duty to "give voice" and to hear

The need for international relations to engage justice and moral obligation

Three reasons Christians should widen their justice horizons

First-Order Justice

As an important consideration in interdisciplinary research itself

Economic rights considered in terms of human needs for food, fuel, housing, clothing, education, health care in Britain until the mid-20th century

Epistemic and epistemological justice in the universities of the Global South

Erosion of first-order justice approaches to the UK economy after WWII

First order jnustice in the economy

First-order justice concerns individuals and institutions acting justly in their ordinary affairs

First-order justice in environmental economics

First-order justice in transnational legal orders

First-order justice is often central to psychiatric treatment

First-order justice renders to others their rights and dues grounded in the excellence of the rights-bearer

In economic and social policy

In the economy according to Mosaic law and the prophets

Second-Order Justice

Accountability as second-order justice in international relations

Administrative rulemaking in response to market failures

As social policies of compensation and redistribution to redress poverty and inequality

Disaster planning and relief

Examples of second order justice: Biden’s American Rescue Plan, US Earned Income Tax Credit, and Child Tax Credit

In response to atrocities committed by state or organized militia groups against civilians

Mechanisms for pursuing accountability for systematic human rights violations

Negative Income Tax

Second-order justice concerns the laws, sanctions and systems that secure first-order justice

Second-order justice in environmental economics

Second-order justice in family relations is not always about rights

Trends in human protection in situations of armed conflict and past atrocities

Universal Basic Income

Why second-order economic justice may not work

Justice Cognates

Mercy

Centrality of mercy for ancient, medieval, and modern Christian theologians

God’s justice is merciful

Justice is integrally related to mercy

On the challenge of balancing providing kindness (mercy) and doing justice

Shalom/Peace

Health as wholeness in community may be seen as shalom

Justice as the grounding of shalom

Justice is God’s concern for the shalom of all

OT writers connect justice with shalom

Restorative justice as an element in a unifying vision of shalom

Love

Contra Wolterstorff love supersedes justice in the NT

Health and wholeness require love

Jesus situates justice on love and calls for the superiority of love-based justice

Justice integrally related to love

Justice requires love in interpersonal relations

Love and justice in public health

Love as the overarching normative moral category governing interactions among persons considered apart from the exercise of judgment, not justice

Love does not supersede justice but incorporates justice

On just mercy as an expression of God’s love

On love and peace-making: loving instead of suing your enemy, relationships sometimes matter more than rights

On St Augustine of Hippo’s two cities which are characterized by two sorts of love: the love of self and love of God

On the challenge of balancing being loving and doing justice; the need to avoid paternalism in disaster-relief

The end of health requires justice and love

The missional purpose of Christianity is to bring justice to the end of reconciliation with God

Virtues

On justice being both a normative state of affairs and a personal virtue

On the relationship between virtues and justice: just action requires the exercise of other virtues

The relationship of justice to other virtues

Mishpat/Judgment

On feminine tsedaqah (justice) and masculine mishpat (judgment)

On no separation between justice and judgment

What Wolterstorff refers to as the act of justice is what Aquinas refers to as judgment

“Correct Justice” and the Pauline Dilemma: the relationship between judgment, grace and works

Righteousness

On the biblical understanding of righteousness

On what righteousness (tzedek/dikaiousune) mean in the OT: neither a legal concept nor religious observance, but a relationship with God which leads to flourishing

Peace, Peacemaking

As an alternative to a justice and rights orientation in family separations which involve children

Dignity

A feminist understanding of sexual dignity in relation to sexual violence

Stewardship

On humans' duty of care and stewardship towards creation because of its intrinsic worth

On OT language of dominion (‘rule over’) implies the responsibility of kingship, which involves a particular concern for the poor and disadvantaged

Wholeness requires healing from injustice and forgiveness is needed

Theologies of Justice

A contextual response to the Reformation debate of faith versus works and their relation to justice

A Pauline Dilemma on justice, mercy and works

Does God abide by the standard of giving each his due?

Does God render to each according to his right?

First-order justice concerns individuals and institutions acting justly in their ordinary affairs

First-order justice renders to others their rights and dues grounded in the excellence of the rights-bearer

Justice and mercy

Justice and personhood

Justice as fundamental to Christian scriptures

Justice central to teachings and ministry of Jesus

Justice, often poorly translated as righteousness, pervasive in NT

Love does not supersede justice but incorporates justice

Second-order justice concerns the laws, sanctions and systems that secure first-order justice

Three forms of justice

Why the recognition of rights is important

“Correct Justice" in the OT

Classical Tradition

Justinian’s Digest on Roman law & influence on Christian tradition

Roman and medieval jurisprudence

Aristotle

Aquinas, Aristotelian and Ulpian definitions of justice may be equivalent under some interpretations

Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics says not what justice is but rather what it constitutes

Aristotle views justice as equity

On the relationship between justice and friendship and love

Plato

Plato and the Gorgias: knowledge and investigation into justice requires knowledge and investigation of the nature of human beings

Plato compared to Biblical writers on the vulnerable

Ulpian

Aquinas, Aristotelian and Ulpian definitions of justice may be equivalent under some interpretations

Ulpian viewing justice as rendering to each their due

Wolterstorff correcting his interpretation of Ulpian

Christian Tradition

Catherine of Siena

Early modern Protestant theologians and jurists on theories of natural law and natural rights

On justice and the holy eucharist

On the Christian grounding of individual rights

On the principle of subsidiary and personalism and sphere sovereignty, giving rise to basic rights

Pope Gelasius I

Pope John Paul II

Roman Catholic social thought on the principle of subsidiarity, resistance of the duality between the individual and the state

The Catholic Church and principles of special attention and care for the worst

Aquinas, Thomas

Aquinas on justice and equality

Aquinas, Aristotelian and Ulpian definitions of justice may be equivalent under some interpretations

Aquinas’s conception of love as a disposition to desire the good for the other and union with the other

On first determining what humans are before evaluating their ethical nature

On justice and mercy

What Wolterstorff refers to as the act of justice is what Aquinas refers to as judgment

Augustine

On first determining what humans are before evaluating their ethical nature

On justice and mercy

On St Augustine of Hippo’s two cities which are characterized by two sorts of love: on love of self and love of God

Economic Justice

Achieving economic justice through social order and structure as well as social ethics

Climate change justice

Distributive justice through redistribution and transfer

Economic justice as grounded in respect for other human beings and recognition of own's reliance on God

Economic rights in human needs of food, fuel, housing, clothing, education, healthcare

Economic solutions for climate change

How economic inequality limits responses of poor countries to pandemics

In rule-making by government agencies

Inequalities in global lawmaking for national economies and global markets

Justice in transnational legal orders that govern global markets

Justice in work, public finance, and economic security

Response to market failure in advanced economies

The science and economics of climate change justice

Three challenges for estimating costs of climate change

Wealth inequality and climate change impacts

Global South, Justice in

Challenges to academic publishing in the Global South

Climate change differential impacts

Displaced persons in Colombia

Epistemic injustice as a failure to recognize and enter into dialogue about neglected forms of traditional knowledge

Government incapacity to deliver second-order justice in Colombian armed conflict

Government incapacity to restore violated first-order rights in Colombian armed conflict

Human rights violations in civil armed conflict, Colombia

Justice in global lawmaking for developing economies

Justice in the academies of the Global South

Language naming, grading, identifying, mapping as integral to colonialism

Post-colonial residues of unjust linguistic ideologies

Tensions between academic work and the pursuit of justice through activism in societies of the Global South

Traditional knowledge in Latin America considered primitive, mythical, and infantile

Universities in the Global South

Do academics in the Global North have obligations to repair injustices experienced by their colleagues in the Global South

Epistemic injustice as a failure to recognize and enter into dialogue about neglected forms of traditional knowledge

First-order justice in the academy of the Global South

How do academics, especially in the Global South, balance academic pursuits with activism in their local and national institutions?

In Latin America traditional knowledge, such as ethnobotanical medicines, not taken as valid knowledge

Unjust conditions in academic publishing in the Global South

International Organizations and Governance

Getting IR beyond a reductionism that excludes justice and individual agency

How justice can be rendered in global lawmaking for global markets

How should wealthy states prioritize aid among competing needs, threats and rights violations

How wealthy western nations should care for refugees and the displaced

Human rights accountability in the pursuit of justice in international relations

Human rights and anti-discrimination laws

Justice in lawmaking for global markets by the UN and international organisations

Mechanisms for pursuing accountability for systematic human rights violations

Nationalism versus Globalism

Rights and global governance in public health

The need for IR (international relations) to engage justice and moral obligation

Trends in human protection for civilians in armed conflict and mass atrocities

Who does justice? States and their citizen

Why transnational legal orders warrant theological appraisal in terms of justice and rights

Justice in Science & Technology

A duty of care is owed to nature

For-profit communication private goods, accessible unequally at a price

Government-supported communications public goods, accessible to everyone

How to act justly in the design and develop large-scale satellite systems for global communication infrastructure and space-based architecture

Justice in science focused more on scientific social practice and applications, not the content of scientific knowledge

Justice towards nature is a compelling, Christ-worthy, ethical priority

Natural science has priorities that can be considered matters of justice

Pure science is valuable because it recognizes the excellence, worth, dignity, and praise-worthiness of God’s creation

Sabbath rest for land, animals, people, is a biblical principle of acting justly

Scientific work involves morality and virtues, notably truthfulness

Technology as a method to and arena for injustices: hate speech, terrorism communication and coordinate

The natural world has excellences that call for just recognition and celebration

We are called to do justice, to give just due to nature

Health and Justice

Conflicting health rights

Defining public health

Divergent goals with the public health community

Health as wholeness

Health as wholeness requires healing from injustice

Health as wholeness requires love

Individual rights versus the common good in public health

Inequalities in vaccine allocation

Intrinsic and instrumental goals of health

Love and justice in public health

Relationship and mental health

Rights to the "highest attainable standard of health"

Shared goals with the public health community

Tension between traditional Christian teachings and public health communities

The end of health requires justice and love

The fair distibution of health and health-related resources

The impact of unequal vaccine allocation on poor countries

Vaccine nationalism

Who is responsible for rights to health?

World Health Organization

Linguistic Justice

Colonization, the monolingual impulse of empire, and rating of indigenous languages

Ideologies of language and denigration, erasure of local voices, social prejudice

Justice and speech

Language as a site of struggle over standardization of languages and vernacular languages

Language as sociopolitical, a component of nationalism

Respecting language and ‘voice’ is a core component of doing justice

Social production of linguistic inequities and injustice through political construction of languages

Sexual Justice

Rape as a violation of human dignity

Sexual dignity as an affirmation of an inalienable right derived from Imago Dei

Justice in the Disciplines

Architecture and urban planning

International relations, organizations and governance

Medicine, psychiatry

Political science

Sciences, biology and natural sciences

Sociolinguistics

Justice in the Academy / Academic Practices

The relationship between justice and the academy

Justice in the academy as an institution

Justice on the scholarly frontiers of the academy

Questions on the pursuit of justice in academic institutions

Questions on the pursuit of justice in research and scholarship

Scholarly pursuit of justice

The obligations of scholars in the pursuit of justice?

The duty and calling of Christian academics

A Christian voice on justice should be a key issue for the university

Christian scholarly practice for the prevention of mass violations of human rights

In favor of Christian scholars contributing understandings and assumptions on what is just and how to combat injustice

Research on mass human rights violations as a Christian academic response to mass social injustice

Should Christian scholars in social sciences, business and management and health care pursue research questions that do not speak explicitly to issues of justice and rights?

Speaking justice to the whole academy

What is the calling of Christian scholars in global governance?

Why questions of justice and rights should motivate Christian scholars

Practical advice on the scholarly pursuit of justice

How to foster trust and justice in research teams: mutual recognition of competencies and expertises; fair co-authorship policies; transparency and equity in funding

Justice applied to the academy: the rules of engagement: the need for humility, constructive engagement, and owing the debt of love to others

Justice principles in human subjects research

On the importance of history to argue for policy choices based on their historical research

The role of interdisciplinary research

Challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration

First-order justice is a pillar of trust in collaborative interdisciplinary research

Fostering creative pluralism through in interdisciplinary research

Inter-disciplinary research as first-order justice in the academy

The interdisciplinary implications of a biblical understanding of justice: three frames for interdisciplinary conversation

The need for interdisciplinary activity to reduce complex risks that lead to disasters

Peoples and Places

African Americans

African countries

China, Non-Han and Han Chinese

Maori and Pasifika

Moroccans, in France

Peru, Quechua speakers