Human Rights and Justice: Philosophical, Economic, and Social Perspectives

The relationship between human rights and justice is significant, deep, and ultimately contested. The two terms themselves – human rights and justice – have experienced both conceptual and operational pushback from many quarters in recent years.

Although an understanding of justice is inherent in broad human rights discourses, there is no clear consensus on how to integrate and reconcile these concepts – both as a means of advancing knowledge and as a mechanism for the development of sound and effective policy at the global, regional, and national levels. Further, expansions of the boundaries of both human rights and justice make any clear and settled understanding of the relation difficult to ascertain. This volume tackles these issues in a coherent and complementary manner. It examines a range of philosophical, economic, and social perspectives that are key to understanding the nature of the linkages between human rights and justice, written by scholars who are at varying stages of their careers, and whose ongoing work has sparked dialogue and exchange within and across these fields.

This work will be of interest to students and scholars of human rights, international relations and ethics.

Melissa Labonte is Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of Political Science at Fordham University. She received her A.B. in International Relations from Syracuse University and her A.M and Ph.D. in Political Science from Brown University. Her research and teaching interests include the United Nations system, humanitarian politics, peacebuilding, multilateral peace operations, conflict resolution, human rights, and West African politics. She is the author of Human Rights and Humanitarian Norms, Strategic Framing, and Intervention: Lessons for the Responsibility to Protect (London: Routledge, 2013).

Kurt Mills is Professor of International Relations and Human Rights at the University of Dundee. He previously taught at the the University of Glasgow, the American University in Cairo, Mount Holyoke College, James Madison University and Gettysburg College, and served as the Assistant Director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College. He is also the founder and Convenor of the Glasgow Human Rights Network. His work is addresses questions related to humanitarianism, international criminal justice and the responsibility to protect, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan African. He is the author of two books - Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order: A New Sovereignty? (Macmillan 1998) and, most recently, International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa: Responsibility to Protect, Prosecute, and Palliate (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) – co-editor of Human Rights Protection in Global Politics: Responsibilities of States and Non-State Actors (Palgrave, 2015) and co-editor of the Human Rights section of the International Studies Encyclopedia (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).