Law, Justice and Globalisation

Abstract

Law and justice are inter-related and interconnected concepts. More often, the concept of justice is perceived from the lens of the administration of justice, where the state institutions are responsible for guaranteeing justice. Justice is an important virtue of all social institutions and significant part of law and justice system. Indeed, securing justice is the ultimate aim and purpose of the law.
Justice as an individual virtue guides legal and moral theory and acts as the framework for ethical behaviour. The conception of justice is widely based on what is morally acceptable behaviour that conforms to the socially acceptable principles. Justice is an evolving idea that has the potential to produce harmony between different groups and communities in the society. Today, globalisation has transcended the world and integrated human beings and societies. It is in this context, it is pertinent to explore the relationship between law, justice and globalisation and analyse the role of law as a means to secure justice with the advent of globalisation.
In this article, I will briefly explore four ideas centred on law, justice and globalisation. The first part will discuss the notion of justice and its interrelationship with law. The second part will analyse the different dimensions of justice. The theories of justice are explained in third part introducing John Rawls, Robert Nozick and Amartya Sen and preliminary reflections on globalisation by Santos, William Twining and Upendra Baxi. The last part will look at the ameliorative aspect of justice which is access to justice.