Theory of Social Justice and Involuntary Resettlement

Abstract

Rawls' theory of justice is about fairness involving the ideas of original position, the veil of ignorance and the derivation of two principles of justice (Theory of Justice, 1971); where he asks for commitment for the holders to a minimum level of standards in relation to other beneficiaries in society. He emphasise on egalitarianism and distributive justice. He favours the right to own private property as one of the basic liberties of the persons. These concepts have their relevance to the concepts of involuntary resettlement particularly when we argue for distributive justice, Land for Land and evaluation of pre and post development projects conditions under involuntary resettlement. In this backdrop, this paper seeks to examine critically the Rawls theory of Social Justice in the context of involuntary resettlement.

Keywords: social justice, involuntary resettlement

JEL Classification: D63