Fairness

Abstract

Abstract What can be learned from my historical survey? It is of course a limited survey and calls for some caution. I said at the start that it would be selective and that the selection depended to some extent on what had happened to interest me. It has also been confined to the tradition of Western civilization with its roots in Judaeo-Christian religion and Graeco-Roman culture. Attention to other traditions might disclose major differences in concepts of justice or of something analogous to justice. Like many other people I have some sketchy acquaintance with Islamic tradition on penal process, and I have in the past read a few relevant anthropological books on tribal societies. Both in Islamic and in tribal thought one sees a resemblance to the idea of justice as it has appeared in the Western tradition, so that the omission of them from my survey may not be a great loss for the purpose of understanding justice. I cannot, however, entertain a similar consoling supposition about Buddhism or the other indigenous religions of Asia, since I know nothing of what they have to say on this topic. Still, it is pertinent to note that the main features of the Western tradition have acquired a near-universal acceptance in international law;and if we hope to discern a future trend from past history, the history of the Western tradition is the place to look for it.