Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations
the Anglo-Saxon culture and remains the dominant approach, though positivism and divine and revealed law have experienced a revival that has challenged the status quo. Further reflection and debate on the nature and foundations of justice are relevant to the question of universalism and pluralism but are also important from the perspective of building knowledge and creating a better understanding among people. It has been said that the opposite of violence is not benevolence but thought. If justice, consisting of social justice and international justice, can once again be established as a key organizing principle of society and the world, some sort of common understanding of the values and virtues that support it or at least are not incompatible with it will have to be achieved. Is frugality, simplicity or (to use a concept dear to Hume) moderation a virtue that will help bring more justice to the world? Moderation is probably useful in protecting the environment and can therefore contribute to the achievement of justice for future generations. However, among other questions that should be addressed candidly in the United Nations setting, what will become of economic justice if simplicity is a value and moderation a moral norm applied to economic activities? It is often maintained that humankind urgently needs to expand, deepen and enrich its spiritual, moral and political horizons, and the findings of this limited inquiry indicate that such an assertion is not unfounded. The potential role of the United Nations in facilitating this process must not be underestimated. The relationship between freedom and justice has always been problematic. Their reconciliation is at the heart of all theories of justice based on secular premises, and their antagonism is at the core of most personal and political conflicts. This is an issue that can be "perfectly" settled only through the suppression of one (and sometimes both) of the protagonists, but it is also an issue that the world has a duty to address-relentlessly-with the hope of finding a reasonable compromise. Such a compromise, if achieved, will always be fragile, for justice and liberty exist in the realm of passion and are affected, in their conception and exercise, by virtually all the elements that make up a society and shape international relations. The current terms of this conflict are not all that different from those of the past, but the stakes are perhaps higher, as the world is becoming both smaller and increasingly fragmented. To risk a possibly imprudent generalization, freedom appears to have gained the "upper handnubut what does this mean? Is freedom still a luxury, and are injustices still the cross the multitude must bear? How is freedom understood and lived? Has it retained, for the average citizen of today, some of its traditional links with the quest for moral and professional excellence? As a working hypothesis, one would have to assume that those who are promoting freedom as an endorsement af crude competition between perpetually dissatisfied and greedy individuals and nations