Beyond Sustainable Development: A Critique and the Framework of Civilizational Justice

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.