Global Social Justice is an initiative aimed at producing, collecting and distributing information about social justice, global social development, social protection and redistribution, social commons and all items linked to this. Our aim is to promote global social justice that goes beyond poverty reduction and can tackle global inequality. It will imply to re-think development, solidarity and rights.
Today’s world has unsustainable income inequalities and globalization is thriving on them. They threaten political and social stability and are barriers to the free movement of peoples. Solutions will involve national as well as global responsibilities.
Social justice is a global public good for which the international community is responsible. National governments remain the major actors for concretely organizing social protection while local public authorities also play an important role.. This initiative should help to promote global income (re)distribution in a better way than the current development cooperation policies. Obviously, it is based on the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural rights, as well as the Right to Development.
To-day, all major international development organizations have adopted a social protection agenda, while many ideological differences remain. We more particularly welcome the ILO Recommendation on social protection floors, which is the initiative that best answers the real needs of workers and people in general.
There is a real risk however that only a minimal implementation will be possible, while the concept of social protection is being eroded by initiatives that hardly go beyond poverty reduction. We therefore want to work on a new concept, which is the ‘social commons’. This points to the fact that all human beings have identical needs, even if there solutions may be different. It also points to the necessary collective dimension of social protection, based on rights and solidarity. In this way, social protection can become a tool for systemic change. It is about so much more than redistribution.
Social protection consists, in the very first place, of social security (insurances), social assistance, labour rights and social services. But we also want to pay special attention to all sectors linked to social justice, whether they be macro-economics, ecology, democracy and peace.
We want to pay attention to all initiatives that can promote the emergence of a world where every human being not only has enough to eat, a roof over her head, education and health services, but also work, social protection and a healthy environment. It means that states should have the resources for implementing all necessary policies. Therefore, we need other global policies and it will be necessary to globalize solidarity.
We also want to pay attention to all new initiatives that go beyond traditional ‘development’ thinking and seek to achieve totally new policies and practices, such as the ‘buen vivir’ in Latin America.
Special attention will be paid to the issue of global taxes in order to organize a global redistribution of income.
This is what our programme is about: the sustainability of life, in all its forms, for nature and for humans.
This initiative has been taken, back in 2006, by Francine Mestrum, then researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, now a global activist, member of the International Council of the World Social Forum, member of the board of the World Social Forum on health and social security and active co-organiser of the Asia-Europe People’s Forum.
Membership of this group does not imply agreement with the ideas promoted on this website, but indicates a moral support for the search for global alternatives and social justice.