“To think clearly is a necessary first step towards political regeneration” – George Orwell

The Las Casas Institute for Social Justice is a vibrant centre for research, dialogue, and policymaking on the common good of humanity and nature in the world today.

We are grounded by Catholic Social Teaching and the example of Bartolomeo Las Casas who argued for the humanity and rights of all peoples in the Americas in the sixteenth century, and is one of the early pioneers of universal human rights.

Our Inspiration

Present-day Dominicans take inspiration from the 16th-century friar Bartolomé de Las Casas who championed the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas in part by drawing on the academic fire-power and support of fellow friars at the University of Salamanca.

About the Las Casas Institute

Our Oxford home

We are based at Blackfriars Hall which is the Permanent Private Hall run by the Dominican Order of Preachers at the University of Oxford. In the spirit of Oxford and the Dominicans, we are committed to bring light and truth to the study of social justice in Britain and the world.

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Catholic Social Teaching

Catholic Social Teaching is the great body of doctrine agreed by the Roman Catholic church which sets out Catholic commitments on contemporary questions of social, economic, and ecological justice.

Based in faith and scripture, Catholic Social Teaching is generally understood to have started with Pope Leo XIII’s encylical Rerum Novarum in 1896, which challenged the economic injustice of the modern industrial world.

Since then, Catholic Social Teaching has continued to be developed and updated in many Papal Encyclicals and the important documents produced by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Two recent examples are Pope Francis’ Laudate Si on climate and environment in 2015, and Pope Benedict’s Deus Caritas Est in 2006 on the importance of love in human society.

The sense of justice and truth found in Catholic Social Teaching guides the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics and is often the basis for their engagement with government policies, inter-faith relations, and multilateral organizations like the European Union, the African Union, and the United Nations.

The rich array of Catholic Social Teaching merits academic study in its own right and as part of wider discussions of public policy and international relations with society at large.

Current Research and Policymaking

Women Religious Project

Recovering the voices of sisters who have conducted challenging ministries in conflict zones

Re-thinking Economics

Why has classical economics failed us? How do we put morality at the heart of economic reasoning?

Peace-building and democracy

What happens after the protests end? How do we build a more just and peaceful society?

Climate Justice

How do we safeguard human dignity, sustainable access to resources, and the natural environment?

Human Rights Education

What empowers us to defend Human Rights disregarded or at threat in a fast-changing world?

War and Humanitarian Aid

How can we best help those afflicted by the varying forms of modern warfare and armed conflict?

Defending the Vulnerable

What does it take in today’s world to take proper care of the vulnerable? With whom does the buck stop?

Human Dignity in the Religious Traditions

How do different religions understand human dignity? Where do they challenge secular values and vice versa?

A Future for the Humanities

How can Arts and the Humanities help promote social justice and human dignity?

Politics and Freedom of Speech

How do we advance free debate in the age of information wars?

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Events Calendar

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U Dhammaloka: the Irish Buddhist

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War, Peace and Shakespeare

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