Transformative justice

Transformative justice is a series of practices and philosophies designed to create change in social systems. Most alternatives to criminal justice in cases of interpersonal violence or to responses for dealing with socioeconomic issues in societies transitioning away from conflict or repression. Other fields of practice have adopted transformative justice, including to address groups work on other social issues and climate justice

Alternative to criminal justice

Transformative justice takes the principles and practices of restorative justice beyond the criminal justice system.[1] It applies to areas such as environmental law, corporate law, labor-management relations, consumer bankruptcy and debt, and family law. Transformative justice uses a systems approach, seeking to see problems, as not only the beginning of the crime but also the causes of crime, and tries to treat an offense as a transformative relational and educational opportunity for victims, offenders and all other members of the affected community. In theory, a transformative justice model can apply even between peoples with no prior contact.[2]

Transformative justice can be seen as a general philosophical strategy for responding to conflicts akin to peacemaking.[3] Transformative justice is concerned with root causes and comprehensive outcomes. It is akin to healing justice more than other alternatives to imprisonment.

In contrast to restorative justice, no quantification or assessment of loss or harms or any assignment of the role of victim is made, and no attempt to compare the past (historical) and future (normative or predicted) conditions is made either.[4] The victim is not normally part of the transformative process, but can choose to be. Participants agree only on what constitutes effective harms reduction, which may include separating or isolating perpetrator and victim.

In contrast to equity-restorative justice, there is no social definition of equity imposed on participants. Each is free to decide on some "new normal" state of being for themselves, and is not pressured to agree on it.[5] A victim may continue to seek revenge or desire punishment, e.g. as in retributive justice systems. A perpetrator may lack remorse and may say that they lack remorse.

As in transformative learning, one works from desired future states back to the present steps required to reach them. The issue is not whether the perpetrator may make a choice to do something similar again, but whether the community is willing to support the victim and perpetrator in some form of contact.[6] It is possible for the community to choose to support the perpetrator and not the victim as defined by the law, but if they do so they may be obligated to support some re-definition of "equity" so that law comes back into line with the social concept of equity. For example, it is possible for the community to support imprisonment as a means of isolation but not punishment.

This model for decarceration may have roots in the work of Samuel Tuke and B. F. Skinner but departs by relying on individual volunteers' caring and supporting capacity, not any socially imposed etiquette derived from civilization. Transformative justice theory has been advanced by Ruth Morris[7] and Giselle Dias of the Canadian Quakers.

Anarchist criminology tends to favour holistic transformative justice approaches over restorative justice, which it tends to argue is too beholden to the existing criminal justice system.[8]

Socioeconomic issues

Transformative justice also refers to policy and practice responses to socioeconomic issues in societies transitioning away from conflict or repression. It is closely associated with the scholarship and practice of transitional justice, and refers to "transformative change that emphasises local agency and resources, the prioritisation of process rather than preconceived outcomes, and the challenging of unequal and intersecting power relationships and structures of exclusion at both local and global levels"[9]

Climate change
This section is an excerpt from Climate justice[edit]
Children marching for climate justice in Minnesota, USA in April 2017.

Climate justice is a term used to frame global warming as an ethical and political issue, rather than one that is purely environmental or physical in nature. This is done by relating the causes and effects of climate change to concepts of justice, particularly environmental justice and social justice. Climate justice examines concepts such as equality, human rights, collective rights, and the historical responsibilities for climate change. Climate justice actions can include the growing global body of legal action on climate change issues.[10] In 2017, a report of the United Nations Environment Programme identified 894 ongoing legal actions worldwide.[11]

Historically marginalized communities, such as women, indigenous communities and communities of color often face the worst consequences of climate change: in effect the least responsible for climate change suffer its gravest consequences.[12][13][14] They might also be further disadvantaged by responses to climate change which might reproduce or exacerbate existing inequalities, which has been labeled the 'triple injustices' of climate change.[15][16][17]

Use and popularity of climate justice language has increased dramatically in recent years, yet climate justice is understood in many ways, and the different meanings are sometimes contested. At its simplest, conceptions of climate justice can be grouped along the lines of procedural justice, which emphasizes fair, transparent and inclusive decision making, and distributive justice, which places the emphasis on who bears the costs of both climate change and the actions taken to address it.[15]

A special focus is placed on the role of MAPA (Most Affected People and Areas,[18] ie groups disproportionately affected by climate change, such as women, BIPOC,[19] young, older and poorer people. [20] In particular with the rise of grassroots movements with the goal of climate justice - such as Fridays for Future, Ende Gelände or Extinction Rebellion - the connection of these groups in the context of climate justice became more important. [21]

Some climate justice approaches promote transformative justice where advocates focus on how vulnerability to climate change reflects various structural injustices in society, such as the exclusion of marginalized groups from decision-making and from climate resilient livelihoods, and that climate action must explicitly address these structural power imbalances. For these advocates, climate change provide an opportunity to reinforce democratic governance at all scales, and drive the achievement of gender equality and social inclusion. At a minimum, priority is placed on ensuring that responses to climate change do not repeat or reinforce existing injustices, which has both distributive justice and procedural justice dimensions. Other conceptions frame climate justice in terms of the need to curb climate change within certain limits, like the Paris Climate Agreement targets of 1.5C, otherwise the impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems will be so severe as to preclude the possibility of justice for many populations [22]

See also

References
  1. "Toward Transformative Justice: A Liberatory Approach to Child Sexual Abuse and other forms of Intimate and Community Violence" (PDF). Generation Five. June 2007. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
  2. Morris, Ruth (2000). Stories of Transformative Justice. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press and Women's Press. p. 3.
  3. "Creative Interventions Toolkit: A Practical Guide to Stop Interpersonal Violence" (PDF). Creative Interventions. 2012. p. Section 2, Page 12. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-10-11. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
  4. Morris, Ruth (2000). Stories of transformative justice. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press. ISBN 9781551301747. OCLC 43279287.
  5. Smith, Candace (2013-03-05). "Restorative Justice and Transformative Justice: Definitions and Debates". Sociology Lens. Retrieved 2019-10-11.
  6. Ritchie, Andrea (February 2019). "Expanding Our Frame: Deepening our Demands for Safety and Healing for Black Survivors of Sexual Violence, A Policy Brief" (PDF). Incite National. pp. 17–18. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
  7. "Ruth Rittenhouse Morris". www.quakersintheworld.org. Retrieved 2017-12-12.
  8. Nocella, Anthony J. II; Seis, Mark; Shantz, Jeff (2018). "Introduction: The Rise of Anarchist Criminology". In Nocella, Anthony J. II; Seis, Mark; Shantz, Jeff (eds.). Contemporary Anarchist Criminology: Against Authoritarianism and Punishment. Peter Lang. p. 3.
  9. "From transitional justice to transformative justice". 2014.
  10. See, for example the Climate Justice Programme's Climate Law Database Archived 9 April 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  11. (in French) Patricia Jolly, "Les Pays-Bas sommés par la justice d’intensifier leur lutte contre le changement climatique" Archived 12 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Le Monde, 9 October 2018 (page visited on 18 October 2018).
  12. Global Humanitarian Forum (1 October 2009) Kofi Annan launches climate justice campaign track Archived 15 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Global Humanitarian Formum, 1 October 2009.
  13. Wendy Koch, Study: Climate change affects those least responsible Archived 7 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine, USA Today, 7 March 2011
  14. Africa Speaks up on Climate Change Archived 19 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine This appeal states: "In wealthy countries, the looming climate crisis is a matter of concern, as it will affect the wellbeing of the economy. But in Africa, which is hardly contributing to climate change in the first place, it will be a matter of life and death."
  15. Peter Newell, Shilpi Srivastava, Lars Otto Naess, Gerardo A. Torres Contreras and Roz Price, "Towards Transformative Climate Justice: Key Challenges and Future Directions for Research," Working Paper Volume 2020, Number 540 (Sussex, UK: Institute for Development Studies, July 2020)
  16. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) (2016) Policy Innovations for Transformative Change: Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Geneva: UNRISD
  17. Routledge handbook of climate justice. Jafry, Tahseen, Helwig, Karin, Mikulewicz, Michael. Abingdon, Oxon. ISBN 978-1-315-53768-9. OCLC 1056201868.CS1 maint: others (link)
  18. "As young people, we urge financial institutions to stop financing fossil fuels". Climate Home News. 9 November 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  19. "Definition of BIPOC". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2021-01-31.
  20. Climate Change and LandAn IPCC Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. 2019. p. 17.
  21. "Selbstreflexion". Ende Gelände (in German). Retrieved 2021-01-31.
  22. Edward Cameron, Tara Shine, and Wendi Bevins, "Climate Justice: Equity and justice informing a new climate agreement," Working Paper (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute & Mary Robinson Foundation, September 2013)

Further reading
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