3 - Human Rights Tools in the Pursuit of Justice

Summary

Theorizes three facets of global justice that were introduced in the preceding chapter. Each is addressed in different aspects of human rights practice, and each has its own repertoire, or set of tools, for justice seeking. Although they overlap, they are also time-ordered and somewhat cumulative. The first aspect of justice is the development of Samaritan-like care and concern for the conditions that prevent people from living free and full lives. Human rights actors linked human rights action to a notion of care that broadens the appropriate subject of care to a global neighborhood. The second aspect pertains to an institutional structure in which legal norms offer independent standards of justice. Human rights actors generated arguments based on law and concern that transformed rights into a language of legal justice and accountability that can be employed in appeals to power holders. The third aspect calls for the integration of social justice into politics as human rights standards upholding economic, social, and cultural equity, including gender and racial inclusion.