The consideration of justice has become a critical area of focus for researchers, as awareness is increasing that (perceived) injustices are a main barrier for effectively tackling the interconnected global grand challenges, such as the climate and the biodiversity crises. Insufficient attention to perceptions of justice is a major issue slowing progress on climate change and other major policy issues. Justice, however, is difficult to grasp as it is a multi-dimensional and culturally diverse term and is in many instances of global socio-environmental issues not formally institutionalized.
This working paper introduces the first version of the IIASA/EQU justice framework, which comprehensively outlines justice in its multiple aspects with the aim to facilitate justice assessment across diverse research and policy contexts. It is thus a descriptive framework with no normative objectives. The framework is grounded in philosophy and is applied and tested in a variety of applications, to be useful for research and decision-making. It is meant to be accessible across disciplines, powerful in terms of capacity to express a variety of justice ideas, and modular so researchers can select and deploy the aspects that are most appropriate or useful.
The framework as presented here serves as a baseline for further refinement, expansion, applications, and evaluation across disciplines, subject areas, and cultural backgrounds
