Promoting a just society and preventing human rights violation : a post Nuremberg inheritance for the helping professions

The post-Nazi reckoning saw justice linked with the development of human rights standards. The lessons from this time and the inheritance of international human rights have had far-reaching implications for the helping professions and for civil society. This chapter focuses on responses that helping professionals are making or may make, as they reconfigure their practice in response to these developments. It follows these responses through a series of themes. After considering the relationship of science and technology to instrumental rationality and utility, particular attention is given to the burgeoning area of post-conflict interventions, including justice, forgiveness, and reconciliation processes. We examine professionals' role in programmes that promote a just society and prevent genocide, such as Holocaust education, anti-racism and discrimination programmes, and the cultivation of communities that care. The chapter begins and finishes with reflections on codes of ethics in medicine, psychiatry, and helping professions, and how professionals might deploy their skills and authority, adopt forms of practice that respect service users' rights, and realize social justice.