Beyond Sustainable Development: A Critique and the Framework of Civilizational Justice
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: For decades, the world has pledged to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet emissions keep rising, temperatures break records every year, and inequality deepens. This is not a failure of implementation – it is a failure of the model itself. This first part of a two‑part study introduces the concept of Civilizational Justice as a radical alternative. Drawing on critical literature and real‑world cases, I show that sustainable development rests on three fatal paradoxes: green growth, carbon markets, and displacement by well‑meant sustainability projects. These are not glitches but systemic features of a growth‑driven system. I then build an alternative framework on four pillars – post‑growth economics, rights of nature, participatory democracy, and a culture of sufficiency and solidarity – and outline its philosophical roots, core elements, and dual strategy of disruption and prefiguration. The second part applies this framework to education, civil society, and the Arab world.
Source: SocArXiv (OSF Preprints)
Author: Hamdy Ahmed Hassan Elhawary
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7154746501