Overcoming Injustice

Abstract

Justice is an essentially contested concept, and so is injustice. The truth is that injustice is neither a static concept nor limited to legal or institutional analysis, but its complexity and dissection are defined according to the theoretical, philosophical, political or economic dimension which is explored. Moreover, some phenomena linked to (in)justice must be analyzed first as empirical problems. This implies taking into account their procedural character as well as the implicit power relations therein. Currently, political science and international relations have a broad theoretical-methodological repertoire of analytical tools that allow for a systematic approach to the different problems associated with the concept of justice. As a result of these assumptions, this panel aims to encourage a discussion about different theoretical and empirical research puzzles that are linked in one way or another to the notions of justice/injustice. Many of these puzzles contain direct policy relevance as well as overcoming injustice a societal, not just academic, challenge. The need to renew the debate on what constitutes justice and injustice acquires relevance at a time when the perception of injustice and inequality is shared by social actors whose demands range from repairing damages for human rights violations and crimes committed by authoritarian governments, to the efforts of some economic actors as well as states to contest the predominant status quo through the implementation of more inclusive economic development models or geopolitical projects that merely aim to increase their regional economic influence. At the same time, it is clear that the debate on overcoming injustice remains incomplete without providing space for a theoretical-philosophical reflection that allows, on the one hand, the reinterpretation of the intricacy of various theories of justice , and on the other hand, the study of the possible theoretical links between the theory of justice and other traditions of social thought more frequently associated with positivism and rationality.