This essay seeks to understand the domain and demands of reparative justice in terms of moral vulnerability. Significant harms raise the question of whether victims stand in truly reciprocal practices of accountability; if they do, they enjoy the power of calling others to account as well as bearing the liability of being accountable to others. In the aftermath of harms, victims’ moral vulnerability is tested: they may be exposed to the insult and injury of discovering that they do not enjoy (...) the moral standing of holding others accountable. While the occasion of reparative justice is significant wrongs and wrongful harms and losses, this essay argues that the aim of reparative practices is not only or even primarily to redress those harms and losses, but to address the moral vulnerability of victims by affirming their status in accountability relations. (shrink)

The paper argues that there are resources within theories of corrective justice to make the case against the deportation of immigrants, including those accused of committing criminal actions. More specifically, the argument defended here is that a nation acts impermissibly by deporting criminal immigrants who belong to countries that the nation itself wronged in a manner that contributed to create the migratory flow that led the immigrants in question there. In that case, admission and, equally important, permanent residence in the (...) host nation must be understood as a form of compensation for past wrongs, the interruption of which represents a breach of its duties of rectification, and is therefore unjust. Put in slightly different terms, some migrants have a retributive right-claim against their host state (which they may or may not exercise) to be admitted into the host state and not be deported. (shrink)

Throughout history governments have neglected, mistreated, or intentionally harmed their own citizens. In Canada this includes the denial of equal rights, the internment of Japanese Canadians during and after WWII, and the forced expulsion of the Acadians in1755, as well as other events. In the literature on reparations, the most popular examples of harm perpetrated by a state is the capture and enslavement of Africans and the acquisition of Aboriginal lands during European exploration and colonization in North America. In this (...) paper I will examine the argument for reparative claims against nations. I will argue that when we closely examine the case for reparative justice, it becomes clear that a distributive justice account would be more effective and less problematic than appeals to corrective justice. Further, when looking at the claims of past versus present citizens upon the nation, distributive justice provides a method to determine where responsibility lies. (shrink)