SOCIAL JUSTICE

Social justice is a value concept which focuses on the relationship among human groups. It is a measure for assessing how power, wealth, and resources in a society are distributed and used. In a just society, power and wealth are used for the benefit of all groups; they are not used by any particular group to control other groups. Thus social justice is a value concept which stands in opposition to the violence on quality of life that is inflicted by unjust and inequitable social structures, in other words, structural violence. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and subsequent extensions of this document (e.g., the Convention to Eliminate Racial Discrimination 1965; the Covenant on Social and Political Rights 1966; the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966; the Convention to Eliminate all Forms of Discrimination against Women; 1979; and the Rights of the Child, 1989) provide a blueprint for achieving a just society. A society’s progress toward that goal would be measured by the extent to which its members are ensured equitable access to what these human rights allow. When social justice fails to inform social institutions and dictate social norms, when social conditions and practices condone social injustice, the context is set for conflict that may lead to physical violence between groups and individuals, and through the impact of this violence on Earth’s life-supporting processes, social injustice indirectly contributes to environmental degradation.

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