Urettbare

Urettbare is a term used in Norwegian-language ethics and justice discourse to describe harms, injustices, or wrongs that cannot be remedied or undone within existing social, legal, or policy frameworks. The word blends elements associated with injustice with a suffix that signals capability, yielding a sense of something that is effectively beyond remediation. The concept is often invoked to distinguish harms that are considered irreparable from more ordinary forms of grievance that might be redressed through reparations, policy change, or legal remedies.

In practice, urettbare is applied to scenarios where standard mechanisms for remedy seem insufficient or inapplicable. Examples discussed in scholarly and public debates include chronic structural discrimination, large-scale harms with irreversible consequences, or violations whose effects persist despite remediation efforts. Proponents argue that recognizing urettbare helps foreground moral duties that go beyond liability and encourages transformative approaches, while critics caution against resigning to irreversibility or excusing accountability.

The term remains relatively niche within everyday language and appears most often in academic articles, policy discussions, and public debates about justice and human rights. It is used to frame questions about limits of remediation and responsibility, rather than to provide a definitive legal category.

See also: irreparable, irreversibility, reparations, restorative justice, transformative justice.