Dr Carmen Lawrence: What is social justice?

The UN ... has added crucial social, economic and cultural rights, including the right to an adequate standard of living; the right to education; the right to work and to equal pay for equal work; and the right of minorities to enjoy their own culture, religion and language. These are all objectives of social justice policies.

In this formulation, poverty itself is a violation of human rights. Poverty and inequality can also be seen to undermine human rights by fuelling social unrest and violence and increasing the precariousness of social, economic and political rights.