In a modern era where ethics and law, historically having been disparate across societies, have become not just non-insular but instead inseparably international, the idea of a universal judicial system has been gaining traction in the last half-century. This system, proponents proclaim, would allow for international justice against the culturally normalized violation of human rights, no matter relativist conceptions of morality, codifying a layer of ethics as tied to humanity itself. Whatever noble intention universal justice is paired with, without recognizing ethics as a product of culture and social custom in an international context, the (almost always Western) civilizations touting this system will make sweeping judgements based on a skewed sense of justice. Considered through a historical perspective, universal justice becomes an alarming prospect, projected as inevitably dangerous and is intrinsically neoliberal in its conception. In this context, it’s realized that a universal justice system will serve only as a vehicle for neocolonialism and interventionism.

The notion of moral superiority from a Western perspective is an old one, founded upon imperialism, missionary colonialism, and the schools of thought regarding cross cultural contact. To elaborate, it’s a given how different communities will have diverging moral systems and techniques for resolving conflict. Often, in the disparity, to a narrow-minded culture, these differences will be bewildering, even alarming, to a point of concern and often of fear. This story plays out in various iterations—what results frequently enough however is a national sense of superiority, on cultural, technological, and moral scales. Think of African missionaries, of Canadian residential schools, weapons of cultural suppression and abuse, formed directly from the idea of a culturally-transcendent code of ethics. While said to be universal, these justice systems are very specific in their origins, that of being the West. Proponents will often argue for this, gaping over examples of human injustice in non-Western countries. Of which though are understandably reprehensible, it is the blithe ignorance to the specific cultural and historical contexts surrounding them that makes universal justice so unforgiving in its application. This Western foundation is most found in how it approaches justice in the first place. Compared to Indigenous-styled restorative justice, the Western punitive system being used in international courtrooms is exemplary of the rigidity and cultural dissonance in its methodology. Without the empathy, context, or understanding of the intercultural histories and relationships of the countries they’re affecting, the Western universal justice system is bound to create more violence than it resolves.

Moving from history to the present, international domination has been recontextualized under neoliberal movements. It’s become subtler, more coercive, and fronts under the guise of virtue. It is through this that universal justice is used as a cover for interventionism, the practice of interfering in another country’s political and economic affairs. Arguments for interventionism fall in the same convention for those in support of universal justice, and so predictably falls short in practice. Interventionism is a form of neocolonialism. It is a minor terror when facing the sheer amount of examples to pull from. In his 2001 book The Assasination of Lumumba, Ludo de Witte describes UN interventionism in the 1960 Congo Crisis, where—to the cries of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba—they allowed him to be assassinated before any worthwhile action was taken against the Belgium-backed Katanga rebels. This was notably in the five years after Belgium lost imperial control over the Democratic Republic of the Congo. De Witte writes in detail of how the UN overthrew the DRC’s first democratically elected prime minister, blockaded communications, and eventually created more influence for themselves. Jasbir K. Puar has been writing about homonationalism since 2009, in her book Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times, creating an analyst framework for how the neoliberalist tolerance of homosexuality is used as a measure for national sovereignty, most especially against the Middle East. Using queer bodies as a serviceable population while ignoring continued internal oppression as a means of justifying occupation points at the very heart of neocolonial moral superiority. All of this covert control and implicit oppression for the sake of human morality is the essence of liberalism. It is the mode in which it functions, coercing power with false consent and financial exploitation, by a global north that is supposedly past its colonial history, through a purported moral superiority used to legitimize its means. Universal justice is simply a weapon for that.

Universal justice may still yet be a salvageable endeavour. After all, it’s just an argument against injustice around the world, right? However, no matter the intention behind it, when considering the historical and even present day usages, capacities, and connotations carried by universal justice, especially without addressing or acknowledging ways to improve or excise more problematic elements of its construction, universal justice as a system will serve as an extension of a colonial past, rather than a rejection of it. Ultimately, universal justice will not work against injustice, but instead contribute to it.