As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated. I now work mainly on climate issues, especially in Brighton and Hove, and new work can be found on the website of Climate:Change, our independent think-tank on socially inclusive action in the City: www.climatechangebh.org.uk.
Meanwhile, however, this website has over 850 entries, mostly representing my work on international development from 2010-2025. Among much else, there are over 50 book reviews, more than 20 papers and training cases on bridging research and policy and on managing think-tanks, nearly 100 articles on climate change, and many papers on other topics, including aid, food security and nutrition, and the future of international development. See ‘Topics and Themes’ for more details. I can be reached at sm@simonmaxwell.net.
Global social justice as a new focus for development policy?
Global social justice as a new focus for development policy?, ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Opinion 96, March 2008
Douglas Alexander recently described climate change as an issue of ‘global social justice’. How does this concept relate to other values espoused by ministers and by the international community, and what are the implications for policy and programming?
Start with ‘social justice’, as opposed to ‘global social justice’. David Miller, from Nuffield College, Oxford, has identified four ‘principles’ of social justice: equal citizenship; entitlement to a social minimum; equality of opportunity; and fair distribution.
In development, our starting point would probably be the work of Amartya Sen and the human development paradigm his work inspired. The centrality of rights and freedom in Sen’s work links individual entitlements to wider conceptions of justice. In this vision, individuals and collectivities (communities, governments, businesses) share the obligation to deliver human rights................. (see link in title for full article)