1.1 Keynote Address – “What is Justice and Why Does it Matter?”

Nicholas Wolterstorff

In the Western tradition there are two fundamentally different ways of thinking about justice; I call them "the right order conception" and "the inherent rights conception."  After explaining the distinction and arguing in favor of the latter conception, I will then explore the concept of rights, and argue against the prevalent idea that natural rights are guarantees of autonomy and in favor of the idea that one's natural right to being treated a certain way is what is required by due respect for one's worth or dignity.

1.6 Session on “Perils and Promises: Tensions between Justice and Other-Norms”

Pamela Couture, James Christie, Lowell Ewert

This panel will address the tensions that sometimes occur between ideals of justice and other social norms, such as memory and tradition, cultural expression, global security, and peace between religious and cultural communities. Are there instances when honouring particular cultural heritages should mitigate concerns for universal human rights? What roles should civil society play in addressing questions of rights, as compared to strong emphases on government obligations? What is the significance of social memory in public concerns about justice? Should there be limits to religious and cultural diversity in order to promote a common good?

1.8 Evening Public Lecture “Must Love and Justice Forever be at Odds?”

Nicholas Wolterstorff

The dominant theme in almost two millennia of discussions in the West about the relation between love and justice is the theme of tension or incompatibility: if one treats someone as one does because justice requires it, one is not acting out of love, and if one acts out of love toward someone, one is not treating them as one does because justice requires it. I will point to the paradoxes that this view yields, and then present a way of understanding love (and justice) such that love incorporates justice rather than being in tension with it, while also often going beyond what justice requires.

2.1 Keynote Address “Linking Fates Together: Toward New Political Imaginaries of Justice and Democratic Rights”

Melissa Williams

The popular movements that have erupted around the globe, from Tahrir Square to the demonstrations in the Eurozone to the Occupy movements, are simultaneously movements for social justice and movements for democratic reform. Popular protest has stimulated a renewed – and now, more than ever, a truly global - public sphere that consciously links failures of democratic legitimacy on the national scale with failures of economic justice on the global scale. At the same time, the global economic crisis hastens the unraveling of the social welfare state whose stability has been the presupposition of our most powerful theories of social justice. Those theories, though enriched and deepened through the critiques from difference that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, may rest on Westphalian assumptions about the boundaries of justice that are difficult to sustain in the context of neoliberal globalization. Looking to the practices and rhetoric of those who are acting on behalf of "globalization from below," the lecture will explore alternative political imaginaries for linking aspirations to justice and claims for democratic rights in our dynamic and interconnected world.

2.3 Session on “Restoration or Retribution: Tensions in the Adjudication of Justice”

Bruce Schenk, Marie Wilson, Harry van Harten

Many legal proceedings follow an adversarial model, based on the assumption that legal justice requires retribution and that retribution requires both winners and losers.  This model seems at odds with a more recent emphasis on restorative justice, as witnessed in South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and in recent innovations within criminal and juvenile justice systems, where restoring the victim, the perpetrator, and the community have more weight than simply upholding the law and meting out punishment.  This panel brings together a provincial court judge, an advocate for restorative justice and a commissioner from Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission to discuss the pros and cons of the restorative justice model for the adjudication of justice.