Abstract Justice has long been central to geographic research but attention to the concept itself has been less explicitly theorized within the discipline. This article specifically traces the ways in which justice has been theorized within human geography. The review identifies commonalities among justice applications within geography, suggesting a shift beyond distributive and ideal theories of justice toward those explicating injustices coming more from bottom-up approaches. At the same time, it identifies the tendency of geographers to approach the concept of justice through normative-political approaches rather than normative-analytical justifications of socio-spatial phenomena. The paper illustrates the value of both approaches to justice theorizing but cautions that geographers should continue to justify the use of the concept within their work to avoid attenuating it. In ending, the paper illustrates how justice-oriented geographers can continue to identify why justice is central to their scholarship.