<P> While the concept of social justice can be traced through the theology of Augustine of Hippo and the philosophy of Thomas Paine , the term `` social justice '' became used explicitly from the 1840s . A Jesuit priest named Luigi Taparelli is typically credited with coining the term , and it spread during the revolutions of 1848 with the work of Antonio Rosmini - Serbati . In the late industrial revolution , progressive American legal scholars began to use the term more , particularly Louis Brandeis and Roscoe Pound . From the early 20th century it was also embedded in international law and institutions ; the preamble to establish the International Labour Organization recalled that `` universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice . '' In the later 20th century , social justice was made central to the philosophy of the social contract , primarily by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice ( 1971 ) . In 1993 , the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action treats social justice as a purpose of human rights education . </P>
when was the term social justice first used
1840s