Integral Justice

I have previously written a "A Quick Sketch on Developmental Justice"... part of what I was exploring was multiple forms of justice which account for the multiple ways in which injustice and justice are both enacted and experienced by a diverse range of individuals, communities and societies, including those forms which are both "internally" and "externally" imposed upon any person or group.



I have been exploring this page on "Integral Justice"... feeling inspired:

"Integral Justice provides a holistic and integrated response to the complex and heterogeneous needs of ‘transitional’ or ‘post-conflict’ societies.


Transitional justice emerged as a field in the 1990s. It dealt with the legacy of war crimes and gross human rights violations committed by combattants and dictatorships. Transitional justice conventionally seeks to redress injustice and pursue accountability through truth commissions, trials, or vetting. It also seeks to restore the rule of law. Integral justice builds on transitional justice – but goes a step further to fill its gaps.
Integral justice recognizes that injustice is experienced differently by different people within a society. Injustice is also experienced at several levels, some visible and tangible and some invisible and intangible. Conventional transitional justice respond to the explicit or visible levels, through political, legal and social measures. TJ overlooks the invisible levels, which are often too sensitive to be addressed. This leaves a huge gap for victims and societies.

‘Integral’ justice is a holistic response to these diverse needs of survivors and societies for the injustices associated with war, violence, oppression and tyranny; it makes explicit all that has been implicit and overlooked. Integral justice comprises five deepening dimensions:

* Politico-Legal justice: including truth and reconciliation commissions, trials and reparations.
* Societal justice: including collective reparation, commemoration, education and memorials.
* Cultural justice: including symbolic reparation and revival of cultural meaning and tradition.
* Ecological justice: including healing the fractures between people and their environments.
* Ethical/Spiritual justice: including the revitalization of values, ethics and spiritual meaning.

An integral approach is fundamentally trans-border, trans-cultural and trans-disciplinary. We humans are complex beings. We are not only social or political animals, but also emotional, cultural, psychological, spiritual, natural and physical, creative beings. We have complex and changing needs and evolving levels of consciousness. Integral Justice transcends borders, penetrates and understands cultures, and combines disciplines to provide satisfactory responses to the injustice suffered by victims and the wounds inflicted upon society as a whole. Conventional political and legal measures of transitional justice like trials and truth commissions are more effective if they are built upon the foundations of ethical, ecological and cultural justice."