Conceptualizing Justice

What justice is, and how we can achieve it, is a persistent academic question. Today, it seems that justice is even more contested by the appearance of all different kinds of justice: transitional justice, climate justice, criminal justice, future justice, etcetera. The thesis, aims to uncover the processes of constructing notions of justice within the biggest international court of the world, the International Court of Justice (ICJ or Court), asking the following question: How were concepts of justice contested and deployed in key ICJ cases, and how did these contestations reflect and shape broader political transformations across different historical moments? Applying a conceptual history to the materials produced by the Court, particularly majority judgments and individual opinions, the thesis analyzes two specific cases: the Corfu Channel case (1949) and the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) case (1971). Within the first case, the concept of justice illuminates competing conceptions of international justice, shaped by individual understandings of history, perceived authority, and Cold War dynamics. International justice is particularly contested across the bench with regard to the Court's use of indirect evidence to accuse Albania. The concept implies the idea of pursuing equality among states. Advocated by Judge Alvarez, the idea of social justice also appears, having a broader scope and implications for international arbitration. In this case, the existence of two different law-making attitudes is argued: present-oriented and future-oriented. In the former perspective, international law should continually adapt to the present; for instance, given the acknowledgment of interdependence among states by Judge Alvarez, international law should entail duties towards the community of states itself. In the latter attitude, the future is embedded and taken into account in legal reasoning. In the majority judgment as well as in Judge Krylov's opinion, the law is thought to avoid an event from happening in the future. In the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) case, time plays the most prominent role in shaping the idea of justice. The majority of the Bench supports a progressive conception of justice, which argues that law should adapt to the present by rejecting discriminatory policies and supporting self-determination and decolonization. Another example of a present-oriented way of reasoning. Aligned with this idea, the position of Judge Padilla Nervo advocates social justice, which is associated with the principles of freedom, equality, and independence. On the other side, this progressive idea of justice is contested by a more static one, where a strict separation between law and politics is argued, and justice is not affected by the passing of time. In this case, the negotiation of justice reflects broader shifts within the Court itself, as its composition and authority evolved in response to global political change.