Socially Sustainable Development and Participatory Governance: Legal and Political Aspects

This paper explores the notion of “sustainable development” which has progressively evolved over the recent years from the environmental field in which it originated, to the social sphere and has been incorporated in its social dimension in the policy discourse of virtually all international organizations. This notion of “socially sustainable development” reflects therefore a rather general claim for integrating social justice in economic reasoning. Although (and perhaps because) it relies on considerations of equity and fairness, it does not provide a one-size-fits-all model as to how to reconcile the possibly conflicting goals of economic accumulation and sustainability. Thus, it does not dictate the exact blend of social and economic objectives that should prevail in each specific context.