Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice, reviewed recently here on this blog, places great emphasis on the need to include the procedures and processes through which social outcomes are achieved – as well as the final outcomes themselves – in order to achieve social justice. He emphasises the distinction between this approach and the modern-day utilitarianism of the 'happiness' movement led by economists like Richard Layard (Happiness) and Robert Franks (Luxury Fever – chapter One available here), whose emphasis is on the outcomes per se. This of course makes paternalism one of the downsides inherent in their approach. I am wholly persuaded that Sen is right in this. My own experience on the BBC Trust establishing and running the Public Value Tests, the formal regulatory procedure for new BBC public services, has convinced me that a concern with participatory process is not just legalistic. It is an essential dialogue between decision-makers and those affected by the decisions. (The BBC Trust will be publishing in the next month or so a book setting out our approach to public value.)

It was against this background of my earlier reading and thinking that Rahim Kanani of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government brought my attention to a fascinating interview with Amaka Megwalu of Harvard Law School about an article she's written on participatory justice in Rwanda. It touches on both post-genocide justice and broader issues of social justice in development and the aid industry.

On the former, she discusses the need to include both local (for participation) and international (for objectivity) instutitions of justice for an effective reconciliation process. “Often, international justice mechanisms are better than local
initiatives at recognizing faults on both sides of a conflict. 
However, local initiatives are much better at encouraging public
participation and fostering reconciliation.  Combining both mechanisms
(and others where relevant) provides a powerful method of contributing
towards justice and reconciliation..” 

On the latter front, she makes some interesting points about the tensions inherent in the aid industry, in terms of its contribution to social justice. She concludes: “In my experience, the development industry is more successful where
there are fewer expatriate staff members and development agencies are
smaller and focused on one or two programs.  It is more successful
where national staff members are given more management responsibility
for development programs and expatriate staff members serve in more
support/advisory roles.”

Well worth reading the interview in full – I'll definitely look up the article.