Analyzes the historic correlation of injustice and moral judgments. Universalizability in analyzing moral judgments; Role of payment of money in the embodiment of communal remembrance; Symbolic reparation.

Political theorists have begun to re-examine claims by indigenous peoples to lands which were expropriated in the course of sixteenth-eighteenth century European expansionism. In Australia, these issues have captured public attention as they emerged in two central High Court cases: Mabo (1992) and Wik (1996), which recognize pre-existing common law rights of native title held by indigenous people prior to European contact and, in some cases, continue to be held to the present day. The theoretical significance of the two Australian (...) cases is examined and the links drawn out between the current debate about Aboriginal land rights in Australia and the wider philosophical debate about indigenous land rights, property rights, and indigenous justice as characterized by Jeremy Waldron and James Tully. Justice towards indigenous groups requires substantial acknowledgement and recognition of the values and institutions of the relevant indigenous group; yet, these values and institutions may not readily fall under the framework of existing state structures. Attempts to redress injustice towards indigenous groups which do not question the justice of existing state institutions will therefore prove to be inadequate responses to indigenous peoples' demands for substantive justice. (shrink)

This is a defense of black reparations using the theory of reparations set out in John Locke''s The Second Treatise of Government. I develop two main arguments, what I call the ``inheritance argument'''' and the ``counterfactual argument,''''both of which have been thought to fail. In no case do I appeal to the false ideas that present day United States citizens are guilty of slavery or must pay reparation simply because the U.S. Government was once complicit in the crime.

This comprehensive analysis of the complex relationship of black political thought identifies which political ideologies are supported by blacks, then traces their historical roots and examines their effects on black public opinion.

There are two main sources of theoretical doubt regarding the validity of claims for reparation: the questions arising from the non-identity problem and those arising from the supersession thesis. Neither of them significantly undermines the Palestinian refugees’ claims to reparations and a right of return.

Exploring the global politics of restitution from 1945 Germany to present-day Bosnia.

: My aim in this essay is to remove some of the rubbish that lies in the way of an appropriate understanding of rectificatory compensation, by arguing for the rejection of the counterfactual conception of compensation. Although there is a significant extent to which contemporary theorists have relied upon this idea, the counterfactual conception of compensation is merely a popular assumption, having no positive argument in support of it. Moreover, it can make rendering compensation impossible, and absurd notions of compensation (...) can result from its use, results that may themselves constitute injustices. This latter difficulty is most troubling when the CCC is employed in large compensatory cases like the case of rectificatory compensation for the descendants of American slaves. I want to suggest that, taken together, the difficulties with the CCC yield sufficient reason for rejecting it as an acceptable rectificatory notion. (shrink)

There has recently been a surge of interest, theoretical and political, in reparations for slavery. This essay takes up several moral-political issues from that intensifying debate: how to conceptualize and justify collective compensation and collective responsibility, and how to establish a plausible connection between past racial injustices and present racial inequalities. It concludes with some brief remarks on one aspect of the very complicated politics of reparations: the possible effects of hearings and trials on the public memory and political culture (...) of a historically racist society. The hope is that these arguments, taken together, draft a coherent case for slavery reparations as pursued by the Reparations Coordinating Committee. (shrink)