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Global justice is an issue in
political philosophy arising from the concern about unfairness. It is sometimes understood as a form of internationalism.
History
Henrik Syse argues that global ethics and international justice in western tradition is part of the tradition of
natural law.
It has been organized and taught within Western culture since Latin
times of Middle Stoa and Cicero and the early Christian philosophers
Ambrose and Augustine. Per Syse "This early natural-law theorizing
teaching centered around the idea of a ius naturale, i.e., a system of
right which is natural and as such common to all people, available to
humankind as a measuring stick of right and wrong."
Context
Per the American political scientist
Iris Marion Young
"A widely accepted philosophical view continues to hold that the scope
of obligations of justice is defined by membership in a common political
community. On this account, people have obligations of justice only to
other people with whom they live together under a common constitution,
or whom they recognize as belonging to the same nation as themselves."
English philosopher
David Miller agreed, that obligations only apply to people living together or that are part of the same Nation.
What we owe one another in the global context is one of the questions the global justice concept seeks to answer. There are positive and negative duties which may be in conflict with ones moral rules.
Cosmopolitans, reportedly including the ancient Greek
Diogenes of Sinope, have described themselves as
citizens of the world. Ín 1976,
William Godwin a
utilitarian thinker and
anarchist
argued that everyone has an impartial duty to do the most good he or
she can, without preference for any one human being over another.
The broader political context of the debate is the longstanding
conflict between more and less local institutions: tribes against
states, villages against cities, local communities against empires,
nation-states against the
UN. The relative strength of the local versus the global has waxed and waned over recorded history. From the
early modern period until the twentieth century, the preeminent political institution was the
state, which is
sovereign,
territorial, claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in its
territory, and exists in an international system of other sovereign
states. Over the same period, and relatedly, political philosophers' interest in
justice focused almost exclusively on
domestic issues: how should states treat their subjects, and what do fellow-
citizens
owe one another? Justice in relations between states, and between
individuals across state borders was put aside as a secondary issue or
left to
international relations theorists.
Since the
First World War, however, the state system has been transformed by
globalization and by the creation of
supranational political and economic institutions such as the
League of Nations, the United Nations, and the
World Bank. Over the same period, and especially since the 1970s, global justice became an important issue in political philosophy.
In the contemporary global justice debate, the general issue of
impartiality centers on the moral significance of borders and of shared
citizenship.
Realists,
particularists,
nationalists, members of the
society of states tradition, and cosmopolitans take contesting positions in response to these problems.
Central questions
Three related questions, concerning the scope of justice, justice in the
distribution of wealth
and other goods, and the institutions responsible for justice, are
central to the problem of global justice. When these questions are
addressed in non ideal circumstances, they are part of the "ethics of
process," a branch of
political ethics.
Scope
Are there, as the moral universalist argues, objective ethical standards that apply to all humans regardless of
culture,
race,
gender,
religion,
nationality or other distinguishing features? Or do ethical standards only apply within such limited contexts as
cultures,
nations, communities, or voluntary associations?
A Moral Conception of Social Justice is only Universalistic if:
- It subjects all persons to the same system of fundamental moral principles
- These principles assign the same fundamental moral benefits and burdens to all: and
- These fundamental benefits and burdens do not privilege or disadvantage certain groups arbitrarily.
Distributive equality
Gillian Brock
asks "Do we have an obligation to ensure people have their basic needs
met and can otherwise lead “decent” lives, or should we be more
concerned with global socio-economic equality?". 1.1 billion people — 18% of humanity — live below the
World Bank's $2/day.
Is this distribution of wealth and other goods just? What is the root
cause of poverty, and are there systemic injustices in the
world economy?
John Rawls has said that international obligations are between states as long as "states meet a minimal condition of decency" where as
Thomas Nagel
argues that obligations to the others are on an individual level and
that moral reasons for restraint do not need to be satisfied for an
individual to deserve equal treatment internationally. Peter Singer argues in
Famine, Affluence, and Morality that the rich have a moral obligation to give their money away to those who need it.
Institutions
What
institutions—
states, communes,
federal entities, global financial institutions like the
World Bank, international
NGOs,
multinational corporations,
international courts, a
world state—would best achieve the ideal of global justice?
How might they gain our support, and whose responsibility is it to
create and sustain such institutions? How free should movement between
the jurisdictions of different territorial entities be?
Thomas Pogge says that States can not achieve global justice by
themselves "It has never been plausible that the interests of
states—that is, the interests of governments—should furnish the only
considerations that are morally relevant in international relations."
Organizations like the World Trade Organization have advocated free
trade but allow protectionism in affluent developed countries to this
point according to Pogge and Moellendorf.
Public polls have shown that there is support for the
International Criminal Court.
130 Civil Society groups in Africa have recognized that the ICC
operates unevenly but in the interest of reaching global justice remain
supportive of it. In Cambodia the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia,
some observers had said "the court will not truly be effective unless
it can properly address the crucial issue of how reparations will be
given to victims of the regime" while others supported it, "I think the
case is going to be the most important trial in Cambodian history." said
Youk Chhang the director of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, One worldwide institution, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
responsible for creating agreements on climate change has been
criticized for not acting fast enough. by Truthout. Anne Petermann and
Orin Langelle of the Global Justice Ecology Project have noted that in
2007 industry insiders were given preferential treatment over "civil
society observers and delegates from poorer countries whose visas were
delayed."
Minimum criteria
Nayef Al-Rodhan
Philosopher
Nayef Al-Rodhan argues in his 2009 book,
Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man: A Philosophy of History and Civilisational Triumph, that
human well-being is dependent on the preservation and promotion of
human dignity
and that human dignity is directly linked to global justice. In order
to achieve global justice, eight minimum criteria must be met. These are
1)
dialogue, 2) effective and representative
multilateral institutions, 3) representative
decision-making structures, 4) fair treatment, 5)
empathy, 6)
accountability, 7)
transparency, and 8) adherence to
international law.
Because interconnectedness between peoples and geo-cultural domains is
becoming increasingly common, Al-Rodhan maintains that the fate of one
geo-cultural domain will affect the fate of others.
Justice is central to human dignity, individual geo-cultural triumph, and the overall well-being of human
civilization.
Thus, according to Al-Rodhan, meeting the minimum criteria of global
justice is a prerequisite to the triumph of human civilization.
Global justice is the paramount to global security, because
injustice can lead to feelings of
anger,
humiliation, and alienation, which can undermine human dignity. Al-Rodhan argues that humans are primarily driven by emotional
self-interest
and that protecting humans’ emotional needs is fundamental to human
well-being and human dignity. When people feel that they have been the
victim of unjust decisions, they may try and seek justice by less
conventional means such as violence. This, in turn, can promote
insecurity. Therefore,
justice and not just
military power,
is essential to maintaining global security. Some obstacles might
however arise. Al-Rodhan identifies the disparity in power that exists
between states in the current global order as a major obstacle in
achieving global justice. Calls for greater global justice are thus
likely to continue from disadvantaged societies because they often feel
that they are unjustly subjected to the rules set by more powerful
players. However, dominant states that benefit from the current
status quo are unlikely to want to alter established institutions or governance structures.
Al-Rodhan therefore recommends that
fairness in terms of the participants in
dialogue is a prerequisite for the promotion of universal justice. Similarly, he argues that diplomacy must be based on
openness
to hearing and acknowledging the concerns and positions of others.
Empathy and an acknowledgement of the grievances and past pains of
others are crucial, as is giving all stakeholders a voice in the
decision-making process. Finally, Al-Rodhan argues that all states, no matter how powerful, must be bound by international law and its obligations.
Thomas Pogge
Thomas Pogge
has contended that an "institutional order can not be just if it fails
to meet the minimal human rights standard". That standard is based on
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Mathias Risse has argued that an injustice is not present, "While
indeed 1.2 billion people in 1998 lived below the poverty line of $1.08
PPP 1993 per day, it is also true that there is now less misery than
ever before," Less Misery is his standard for justice. He wrote in 2005,
that "progress made over the last 200 years is miraculous".
Main positions
Five
main positions—realism, particularism, nationalism, the society of
states tradition, and cosmopolitanism (in two forms) — have been taken
by contributors to the global justice debate.
Realism
Realists, such as
Charles Yeo,
Hashim Tilab argue that there are no global ethical standards, and that to imagine that there are is a dangerous fantasy. States are the main actors in an
international anarchy,
and they either will or should always attempt to act rationally in
their own interests. So, in response to the three central questions
above: moral universalism is either false, or merely says that nothing
is forbidden to any state in pursuit of its interests. There is no
obligation to help the poor, unless doing so helps to further a state's
strategic aims. And the state system is taken as the fundamental and
unchallengeable global institutional arrangement.
Particularism
Particularists, such as
Michael Walzer and
James Tully,
argue that ethical standards arise out of shared meanings and
practices, which are created and sustained by discrete cultures or
societies. Moral and social criticism is possible within the boundaries
of such groups, but not across them. If a society is
egalitarian,
for instance, its citizens can be morally wrong, and can meaningfully
criticise each other, if they do not live up to their own egalitarian
ideals; but they cannot meaningfully criticise another,
caste-based
society in the name of those ideals. "A given society is just if its
substantive life is lived in a certain way—that is, in a way faithful to
the shared understandings of [its] members."
It is unjust if not. Each society has its own, different standards, and
only those inside it are bound by those standards and can properly
criticise themselves. So, moral universalism is false, because objective
ethical standards vary between cultures or societies. We should not
apply the same criteria of distributive justice to strangers as we would
to compatriots.
Nation-states
that express their peoples' shared and distinctive ethical
understandings are the proper institutions to enable local and different
justices.
For
Charles Blattberg, however, there exists a particularist approach to global justice, one based upon what he calls a "global patriotism."
Nationalism
Nationalists, such as
David Miller and
Yael Tamir, argue that demanding mutual obligations are created by a particular kind of valuable association, the
nation. We may have
humanitarian
duties to aid the particularly badly off worldwide, but these are much
less stringent and pressing than our duties to our fellow-
citizens.
Nationalism has traditionally included this assumption of differing
moral obligations to those within and those outside the nation,
reflected for example in the fact that the benefits of the
welfare state
are not available to citizens of other countries. So, moral
universalism is too simple, because the ethical standards that apply
between compatriots differ from those that apply between strangers
(although some nationalists argue for the universal ethical standard
that nations should have their own states). Distributive justice is an
issue within nations but not necessarily between them. And a
world-system of nation-states is the appropriate organiser of justice
for all, in their distinct associational groups.
Society of states
In
the society of states tradition, states are seen as individual entities
that can mutually agree on common interests and rules of interaction,
including moral rules, in much the same way as human individuals can.
Often, this idea of agreement between peers is formalised by a
social contract argument.
One prominent exemplar of the tradition is
John Rawls. In
The Law of Peoples, Rawls extends the method of his
A Theory of Justice
to the question of global justice. His argument is that we can justify a
global regime by showing that it would be chosen by representatives of
Peoples in an imagined
original position,
which prevents them knowing which particular People they represent.
This decision-in-ignorance models fairness because it excludes selfish
bias. When Rawls applied this method in the case of domestic justice,
with parties in the original position representing individual members of
a single society, he argued that it supported a
redistributive,
egalitarian liberal politics. In contrast, Rawls argues that when his
method is applied to global justice, it supports a quite traditional,
Kantian international ethics: duties of states to obey treaties and strict
limits on warmaking,
but no global repossession of private property. So, different justices
apply to the domestic and international cases. Even if justice
requires egalitarianism within states, it does not do so between them.
And a system of cooperating but independent states is the just global
institutional arrangement. Rawls describes this ideal as a 'realistic
utopia'. Apart from
Rawls, other notable exponents of this position include
Hedley Bull.
Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitans argue that some form of moral universalism is true, and
therefore that all humans, and not merely compatriots or
fellow-citizens, fall within the scope of justice. Their arguments
typically appeal to consistency, as follows:
- The moral standing of individuals is based on some morally significant characteristics.
- These characteristics are shared by all humans (and not only by the members of some nation, culture, society, or state).
- Therefore, all humans have moral standing (and the boundaries between nations, cultures, societies and states are morally irrelevant).
Cosmopolitans differ, however, over which shared human characteristics are morally significant.
Consequentialist cosmopolitans, amongst whom
Peter Singer
is prominent, argue that the proper standard of moral judgement for
actions, practices or institutions is their consequences, and that the
measure of consequences is the
welfare of humans (or even of all
sentient
creatures). The capacity to experience welfare and suffering is
therefore the shared basis for moral standing. This means that the fact
that some people are suffering terrible deprivations of welfare, caused
by poverty, creates a moral demand that anyone who is able to help them
do so. Neither the physical distance between the rich and the poor, nor
the fact that they are typically citizens of different countries, has
any moral relevance.
Others defend neoconservative
interventionist foreign policy
from a view of cosmopolitanism for the added benefits to human rights
that such intervention could bring. Some defended the 2003 invasion of
Iraq from this motive due to the human rights abuses Saddam had
inflicted on countless members of the Kurdish and Shiite communities.
Individual cosmopolitans also differ considerably in how they
understand the requirements of distributive justice and the legitimacy
of global institutions. Some, for instance
Kai Nielsen, endorse world government; others, such as
Simon Caney,
do not. The extent to which cosmopolitans advocate global
redistribution of resources also varies. All cosmopolitans, however,
believe that individuals, and not states, nations, or other groups, are
the ultimate focus of universal moral standards.
Demands
None of
the five main positions described above imply complete satisfaction with
the current world order. Realists complain that states that pursue
utopian moral visions through intervention and
humanitarian aid, instead of minding their own strategic interests, do their subjects harm and destabilise the international system. Particularists object to the destruction of traditional cultures by cultural
colonialism, whether under the guise of economic
liberalism or defence of human rights.
Nationalists deplore the fact that so many people are
stateless or live under inefficient and tyrannical regimes. Advocates of the society of states are concerned about
rogue states and about the
imperial ambitions of the powerful.
Cosmopolitans believe that the contemporary world badly fails to live
up to their standards, and that doing so would require considerable
changes in the actions of wealthy individuals and states.
It might, for instance, require them to transfer most of their wealth
to the poor. It might require the building of international institutions
able to limit, or even replace, the self-interested action of powerful
states and corporations. It might require each of us to do much more
than most now do.
