David Miller's theory of redress and the complexity of colonial injustice

Abstract

David Miller has provided one of the most fully-fledged and sophisticated theories of redress for historical injustice. In this paper we analyse his view and we demonstrate how his account of redress reveals some difficulties when it comes to offering redress for past injustices that are characterised by complex and interrelated structures, such as colonialism. This is because Miller would repair the colonial injustice through a ‘correspondence model of redress’, according to which redress should be obtained by identifying the type of reparations that corresponds to the nature of the past injustice at stake. By focusing on the case of colonial injustice, we show how a correspondence model of redress, like the one developed by Miller, is not fully equipped to theorise what redress for colonialism should amount to. The aim of the paper is not to prove Miller's theory true or false, but rather to point at some of the shortcomings that its application to real cases of historical injustice would run into. Despite its sophistication, Miller's theory does not acknowledge with sufficient depth the complexity of colonial injustice and its implications for thinking about redress. Such a complexity not only makes redress more difficult to be achieved through Miller's correspondence model but also it brings to the forefront concerns about the process whereby redress is reached.