Legacies of Historical Injustice: What is Owed to the Victims of Past Injustices? Introduction to the Special Issue

Res Publica https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-024-09693-9 Legacies of Historical Injustice: What is Owed to the Victims of Past Injustices? Introduction to the Special Issue Santiago Truccone1 Accepted: 8 October 2024 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2024 Abstract This introduction and the contributors to this volume advance the debate on the normative relevance of historical injustice. This introduction shows that discussions on this topic should consider four aspects: first, the temporal dimension of justice; second, the connection between current claimants for reparations and the putative duty-bearers with the original perpetrators and victims of historical injustice; third, how changes in circumstances might affect what is considered just; and fourth, the appropriate form of reparation. The introduction provides an overview of the contributions made by Zara Goldstone, David Heyd, Daniel Loewe, Michael Luoma and Margaret Moore, Macarena Marey and Alejandro de Oto, and David Miller. Michael Luoma and Margaret Moore argue that historical territorial injustice is somehow unique, and present a comprehensive comparison between forward-looking and backward-looking approaches. Macarena Marey and Alejandro de Oto argue that historical injustices should be seen as contemporary issues. David Heyd’s contribution posits that the non-identity problem cannot be circumvented by appealing to groups. Daniel Loewe contends that the legitimate expectations of contemporary citizens should take precedence over historical claims for the restitution of territory. David Miller assesses when and why the way in which victims of historical injustice respond to its effects is relevant to the calculation of compensation. Finally, Zara Goldstone argues that migration rights should be considered part of the reparations offered by former colonising countries to their former colonies. Keywords Compensation · Expectations · Historical injustice · Non-identity problem · Reparation · Supersession Santiago Truccone 1 Department of Philosophy, University of Graz, Graz, Austria 13 S. Truccone Introduction Historical injustices have shaped the contemporary world and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Colonisation and the slave trade were inseparable components of the industrialisation process that led to the world we know today. Many modern states were founded on the enslavement and killing of indigenous peoples and other local populations, as well as the theft of their territory and natural resources. Furthermore, many of these same states did not grant women the right to vote and participate in politics until well into the 20th century. Many of the institutions that govern our lives today, as well as the current distribution of resources and power, have strong links to historical injustices. In this context, the task of redressing historical injustices seems not only imperative but urgent. Typically, historical injustices are serious and generalised moral wrongdoings perpetrated by past members of a particular community against past members of a different community, resulting in an unjust state of affairs or structure that endures into the present.1 The Conquest of the Desert in Argentina exemplifies these characteristics. In the late 19th century, members of the Argentine state engaged in a series of military campaigns with the aim of extending the Argentine frontier into Patagonia. However, the area referred to as the “desert” was not, in fact, a desert, but a vast region inhabited by indigenous peoples and communities. One notable consequence of the Conquest of the Desert was the expansion of Argentine territory by approximately 50 million hectares (Radovich 2003, p. 88; Hasbrouck 1935, p. 195). Those indigenous people who were not killed, were forcibly relocated to regions that were considered unproductive, infertile, and unsuitable for cattle ranching or agriculture (Aguirre 2017, p. 80). The situation in which indigenous peoples lost not only their lands but also the possibility of governing their own affairs continues to this day, as their historical territory has never been returned and their sovereignty has never been restored. Not all cases of historical injustice share the same features. There are historical injustices in which members of a particular community have in the past engaged in actions and policies that are contrary to the requirements of justice, but the adverse consequences of those actions and policies do not become apparent until several years or even decades have passed. Moreover, some historical injustices are at least partly constituted by blameless behaviour. Climate change is a case in point. On the one hand, by emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs), former members of the industrialised world did not harm former members of countries in the Global South. They have, however, harmed their current and future members (Meyer and Roser 2006, p. 230). On the other hand, as most climate scholars have argued, it is difficult to hold those who emitted GHGs before 1990 morally responsible. The International Panel on Climate Change did not publish its first report until this year, and they were arguably excusably ignorant of the harmful effects of emitting GHGs 1 For other conceptions of historical injustice see Ivison (2006, p. 509), Huseby (2023, pp. 1–2), Luoma and Moore (2024, n.1), Meyer (2022), and Nuti (2019, pp. 27–28, 44). 13 Legacies of Historical Injustice: What is Owed to the Victims of Past… (Posner and Weisbach 2010, pp. 117–118; Gosseries 2004, p. 360).2 The existence of victim-perpetrators, also known as “collaborators”, illustrates not only that cases of historical injustice can include situations in which members of a particular group have committed injustices against members of their own group, but also that victims need not be understood as completely innocent and powerless (see Lu 2017, pp. 70–73). Not all past wrongs should be considered historical injustices. If, in the 19th century, the neighbour of one of my ancestors stole some property from him, it would be inaccurate to automatically describe this event as an instance of historical injustice. This is despite the fact that the descendants of the thief may still be in possession of the land that I should have inherited.3 It is evident that the circumstances would have been considerably different had the theft and lack of appropriate response been attributed to the existence of an institutional system that generally favoured individuals with characteristics similar to those of the thief, to the detriment of individuals with characteristics similar to those of my family. In this scenario, the theft and lack of appropriate response could be considered as part of historical injustice. Most cases where we intuitively think we are dealing with historical injustice seem to be cases of serious past wrongdoing or a series of wrongdoings with a gen (...truncated)