This book addresses a set of questions focusing on the imperatives of
justice at the national, regional and international levels. The examination of
these imperatives is conducted through an analysis of civil, political,
economic, and social rights.
There are two reasons for this type of analysis. First, any search
for justice is based upon identifying values which are viewed as so critical to
the well-being of a person and the character of being human, including one’s
relationships with others, that they end up being institutionalized as rights.
Rights then become the basis upon which claims are made. Rights also become the
horizon of justice, the standard to which justice and the institutions try to
conform. Second, the international community embarked on an unprecedented effort
to map out the requirements of justice for all mankind, providing normative
guidelines as well as goals. The core of this effort was a more ethical
understanding and arrangement of relations between individuals and the
institutions governing them.
The end of the Cold War and the normative and political changes that
ensued at the international level in the past ten years or so reinvigorated the
critical importance of this effort.
About the Author:
Jean-Marc Coicaud is a senior fellow at the United States Institute
of Peace, Washington DC, while on leave from the United Nations University,
Tokyo, where he is a senior academic officer in the Peace and Governance
Programme.
Michael W. Doyle is special advisor to the executive office of the
Secretary-General at the United Nations.
Anne-Marie Gardener is a Ph.D. student in the Politics Department of
Princeton University.