Ensuring social justice is a human right

Introduction
The philosopher Friedrich Hayek stated many years ago that it took him ten years to realise there is no such thing as social justice. It’s only a mirage (Hayek 1978: 57). Nevertheless, social justice is one of the “buzz words” in the field of human rights today, some 40 years later. This does not imply that it is a clearly defined and settled idea at this point. In reality, social justice can mean diverse things to people from different backgrounds, including the authors of this essay collection. The phrase frequently refers to “the relative distribution of rights, opportunities, and resources within a given society, and whether it deserves to be viewed as fair and just,” though (Cramme & Diamond 2009: 3).

Equally controversial is the idea of human rights. The phrase can apply to either moral rights or legal rights protected by domestic or international law. When human rights are recognised as having legal standing, they are backed by the law, which has an impact on the people, groups, and movements who assert to defend and advance them. Human rights advocates stand up for the law, and if required, a higher international law, rather than just their own moral or political beliefs. (Of course, this does not imply that the scope and content of human rights as legal rights are unchanging. It does, however, imply that there are accepted processes for interpreting a document’s content and scope.)

On the other hand, if human rights are viewed as moral rights, their definition and application are more open-ended. A simultaneous instrumentalization of human rights and a shift toward or, as David Petrasek notes in his reflection on the other contributions to this volume, a return to a moral view of human rights appear to fit together very well. For a very long time, organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had human rights realisation as both their goal and their vision (their ideal state).

In other words, whether they concentrated on the achievement of civil and political rights or on the complete spectrum of human rights, human rights were their objective, their tool, and their language. In the modern day, human rights are once again often seen as means of achieving other objectives like social justice, equality, or dignity.

The potential of human rights to deliver social justice

On the issue of whether a legal interpretation of human rights is or can be beneficial in achieving social justice, authors’ opinions are more divided. According to David Petrasek, this difference is partly a result of their divergent perspectives on social justice.

According to them and other scholars, the activity of social justice organisations may and should be complemented by that of human rights organisations. For instance, Dan Chong claims that despite “limiting ways of attaining social justice that fail to meet human rights criteria [e.g. violent revolutions],” “advocating for human rights can help overcome the narrow identity politics and selective anger that often plague social movements.”

Although she cautions that this requires a more profound shift in language and the development of forums for activists to speak for themselves, Sara Burke supports further cooperation between the two groups.
But a lot of authors also make note of how difficult it is to pursue social justice using only legal means, at least initially. While some social justice can be attained, according to Eduardo Catalán, Koldo Casla, Dan Chong, and others, a legal rights approach to social justice is ultimately too constrained to address more severe kinds of economic injustice.

The legal rights approach is perceived as falling short in addressing systemic governmental failings and structural factors underpinning violations and abuse, in addition to the ambiguity and indeterminacy of international law with regard to specific (economic) policy solutions and the inherent drawbacks of court-based methods like litigation (expensive, technical, relatively narrow in scope). A legal rights approach fails to provide any meaningful protection and has “in some cases [even] become instrumental to legitimising and guaranteeing capitalist expansion,” according to Eduardo Catalán, who sees global capitalism as the primary factor contributing to today’s social rights degradation.

What role for human rights groups in the pursuit for social justice?

Human rights organisations must exert every effort to be (considered as) politically unbiased in order to stay effective, according to scholars who reject the moralization and potential politicisation of human rights in the pursuit of social justice. From it, one author draws the conclusion that these groups should exclusively aim to protect civil and political rights, such as the freedoms of peaceful assembly, speech, and trial by jury.

Any suggestion that human rights organisations participate in the political process of (re)distributing society’s resources, as an apparent means of defending social and economic rights, will undercut their political objectivity and, as a result, their credibility to criticise oppressive governments that perform well in terms of economic development.

Some people also think that human rights organisations can be successful without necessarily supporting social justice causes. They can assist secure the space to gather public support for social justice causes, which may finally crystallise into the required political power to create a (global) welfare state, by preserving the civil and political rights of activists. Although this will be of little value for more extreme social justice objectives, they do feel that limited work on economic and social rights can be done in tandem with this line of work.

Others contend that human rights organisations and activists need to engage in social justice on a more profound level. They recommend that groups like Amnesty International begin analysing the economic and political systems that underlie rights breaches and dealing with them through system-oriented political solutions.

The authors appear to agree that human rights organisations can and should advocate for social and economic policies, despite having different opinions on how strongly they think such organisations should advocate for resource allocation or take positions that are only marginally supported by international law.

Some claim that determining which policies, from the perspective of human rights law, are most effective at achieving social justice is feasible, consistent with objectivity, and useful if done in conjunction with an investment in the necessary knowledge, use of new techniques (including quantitative techniques), and partnerships. By offering genuine remedies to rights denials that are based on the lived experience, needs, and desires of oppressed groups rather than merely addressing violations of human rights law, such work is considered as contributing to the improvement of human rights’ effectiveness and local relevance.