Global Justice

Rousseau's Social Contract and a Theory for Global Citizenship

by Oscar de la Parra

Resources, Rights and Global Justice: A Response to Kolers

by Chris Armstrong

This is a response to Avery Kolers's paper 'Justice, Territory and Natural Resources.' Both that paper, and my response, are forthcoming in Political Studies.

Horizontal Democracy Now: From Alterglobalization to Occupation

by Marianne Maeckelbergh

Interface: a journal for and about social movements 4(1)

This article examines the 15 May movement in Barcelona to explore some continuities and discontinuities between social... more This article examines the 15 May movement in Barcelona to explore some continuities and discontinuities between social movement responses to the economic crisis and previous experiments with horizontal democracy within global social movement networks. Specifically, this article examines two meeting structures embodied in the occupied square in Barcelona to explore the mechanisms through which decision making within the 15 May movement foster diversity and embrace conflict. Based on a decade of involvement in the alterglobalization movement, attendance at meetings in the acampada in Barcelona at the height of the 15 May uprising, as well as follow up interviews and discussions with long-time activists in Barcelona, this article shows how the decision making practices used in the squares in Barcelona mimic, build on and expand on horizontal decision-making methods practiced within the alterglobalization movement. Some of the dilemmas created by the grounding of horizontal decision- making within local squares and the much larger scale of these meetings are explored.

Rawls's Duty of Assistance: Transitional Not Humanitarian or Sufficientarian

by Caleb Yong

Draft only; comments welcome.

Global Justice and Proposals for Distributive Institutions

by Chris Armstrong

This is a chapter forthcoming in Darrel Moellendorf and Heather Widdows (eds) Acumen Handbook on Global Ethics.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Journal Special Issue: Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies

by Karen Soldatic

CALL FOR PAPERS:
Journal Special Issue: Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies
more CALL FOR PAPERS:
Journal Special Issue: Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies

Disability and Colonialism: (dis)encounters and anxious intersectionalities

Guest Editors: Shaun Grech (Manchester Metropolitan University) & Karen Soldatic (University of New South Wales)

We are pleased to announce that we will be guest editing a special edition entitled Disability and Colonialism: (dis)encounters and anxious intersectionalities on behalf of the established refereed journal Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies.

The aim of this special issue is to position disability within the colonial (the real and imagined), through which to explore a range of (often anxious) intersectionalities as disability is theorised, constructed, and lived as a post/neocolonial condition. While postcolonial theory and associated fields (e.g. critical theory, cultural studies etc.) have engaged with race, gender and ethnicity in the exploration of themes of identity, representation, space, historicity and the neocolonial, they have almost wholly bypassed disabled people- paradoxically limited to the subjectification of the able-bodied, or rather disembodying colonialism. Westerncentric fields of study such as disability studies often remain detached from the global South, the histories, contexts and cultures of these specific geopolitical spaces, and how disability is ontologically constructed and lived through a history replete with signifiers of power and empire and that frame the global. While some have adopted colonialism as a metaphor for the experience of disability (see for example Shakespeare, 2000), of colonized bodies by the medical profession, the colonial encounter per se, its creation of and implications for the disabled subject, remains inadequately theorised. In turn, disability is persistently removed from history and any contemplation of the post or neocolonial and efforts (discursive or material) at decolonizing these spaces and those within.

The special issue aims to transcend disciplinary, epistemological, methodological, spatial and historical boundaries. Engaging indigenous, post/neocolonial, disability studies, critical theory, psychology, Latin American Cultural Studies, and a range of other perspectives and literatures, and prioritising voices from the global South, we invite authors to engage in critical debate around colonialism to explore a range of thematic concerns (not exclusively):

• Colonial representations and the construction of the disabled body and mind
• The violence and disablism of colonialism
• Intersections of race, ethnicity, culture, gender and disability
• Empire and the domestication of bodies: globalisation, economics and beyond
• Disabled identities, metaphors and language, and their roles in subjugation
• From the colonial to the post/neocolonial: disability and contemporary lineages of imperialism
• Social identities and visions of disability
• Colonial medicalisation: identifying, labelling and ‘treating’ the disabled body
• The Christianising mission, biblical renditions and the disabled subject
• Decolonizing epistemologies, practices and lives: renegotiating power and contemplating global justice

We encourage authors to engage work on Southern theory and movements and approaches prioritising and promoting Southern epistemologies and counter-hegemonic knowledges emerging from struggles for justice.

Those wishing to submit an article, please email your full manuscript to both Shaun Grech (S.Grech@mmu.ac.uk) and Karen Soldatic (ajks123@bigpond.com). Please insert ‘Submission for Disability and Colonialism Special Issue’ in the subject line. Manuscripts will be sent anonymously for double peer review, and comments and recommendations relayed to authors through the editors.

Articles should not exceed 8,000 words in length, and include a 300 word abstract. The journal style guide is available here: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=1369-801X&linktype=44.

Manuscripts should be submitted by no later than: 1st January 2013

Slavery and Colonialism: The Worst Terrorism on Africa

by Mohamed Eno

Co-authored with Omar A. Eno, Mohamed H. Ingiriis, and Jamal M. Haji; Published in African Renaissance, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2012.

Humans need not justify terrorism of any kind, regardless of whether one is Muslim, Christian or Jew, because it is... more Humans need not justify terrorism of any kind, regardless of whether one is Muslim, Christian or Jew, because it is the axis of evil and devastation of mankind. However, the deliberate use of the term terrorism in recent decades was carefully selected, mainly, against a certain religion (Islam). The idea was then globally politicized by the Western world. Leaving that scholarly view in its own right, we disagree with the opinion raising terrorism as the devil’s just-born child of evil, when in reality Africans had been terrorized for centuries as slaves and human chattel. Hence the basis for the concept of this thesis: conceptualizing the episode of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ from the broader perspective of its practice from the Middle Passage or the Atlantic Slave Trade. To portray that argument and broaden the scope of the debate over this critically sensitive subject, we divided the discussion into three sections: an examination of what constitutes terrorism and terrorist; history of terrorism and terrorists from an Africa perspective; and the ideological constraints within the subject of terrorism as practiced by the US and its Western allies.

The Free Market Economy and the Accessibility of Affordable, Quality Medicines from the Philosophical and Public Health Perspective (draft version)

by Marta Soniewicka

Forthcoming in: R. Bauer, D. Czybulka, W. Kahl, J. Stelmach, A. Voßkuhle (red.), Krakauer-Augsburger Rechtsstudien: Öffentliches Wirtschaftsrecht im Zeitalter der Globalisierung – Grundsätze, Methoden, Perspektiven, Wolters Kluwer 2012

The paper poses a question about the role of private companies in fulfilling social aims on the example of a global... more The paper poses a question about the role of private companies in fulfilling social aims on the example of a global pharmaceutical industry. The paper addresses the problem of aid in the context of availability of affordable and safe medicines in the developing countries, which is one of the aspect of fulfilling the right to health. The analyzed question is, whether the mechanisms of free market and philanthropic actions of pharmaceutical companies are sufficient to guarantee essential medicines to the most vulnerable inhabitants of the world. The paper poses a question, whether international pharmaceutical concerns are obliged to guarantee human rights only or to deliver human rights, in particular the right to health, as well. The paper presents the conflict of interests between profit-driven pharmaceutical industry and ethically-driven public health, which can be fully addressed only by certain legal regulations. The thesis argued in the article is that free market itself cannot solve its failures (such as undersupply of innovations, undersupply of non-beneficial medicines, monopolistic policies and pricing); to solve the problem it is required to set up public institutions and legal regulations of both local and global scope. Neither free market, nor benevolent aid actions of pharmaceutical companies are able to address the problem of health care in the developing countries, where the lack of medicines is a small aspect of a much broader and intricate problem of poverty and the weakness of state institutions which are not responsive to the basic needs of its citizens.

Repairing Historical Wrongs and the End of Empire

by Daniel Butt

Social & Legal Studies 21,1 (2012).
Please note that this is a pre-publication version of this article. The final version can be found at the Social & Legal Studies website:  http://sls.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/03/23/0964663911435932

This article addresses the claim that some contemporary states may possess obligations to pay reparations as a result... more This article addresses the claim that some contemporary states may possess obligations to pay reparations as a result of the lasting effects of colonialism. Claims about the harms
and benefits caused by colonialism must make some kind of comparison between the world as it currently is, and a counterfactual state where the injustice which characterized
so much of the historic interaction between colonizers and the colonized did not occur. Rather than imagining a world where there was no interaction between such communities, this article maintains that the appropriate counterfactual state is one whereby relations between different communities took place in a context characterized by an absence of domination and exploitation. The conclusion is that there are good reasons to go beyond a focus on symbolic reparations and hold that many affluent contemporary states possess extensive but unfulfilled duties of rectificatory justice to some of the world’s poorest peoples.

Political Equality and Global Poverty: An Alternative Egalitarian Approach to Distributive Justice

by Sagar Sanyal

PhD Dissertation; 2009; University of Canterbury

I argue that existing views in the political equality debate are inadequate. I propose an alternative approach to... more I argue that existing views in the political equality debate are inadequate. I propose an alternative approach to equality and argue its superiority to the competing approaches. I apply the approach to some issues in global justice relating to global poverty and to the inability of some countries to develop as they would like. In this connection I discuss institutions of international trade, sovereign debt and global reserves and I focus particularly on the WTO, IMF and World Bank.

US Military and Covert Action and Global Justice.

by Sagar Sanyal

International Journal of Applied Philosophy; 2009; vol 23 (2); pp213-234

US military intervention and covert action is a significant contributor to global injustice. Discussion of this... more US military intervention and covert action is a significant contributor to global injustice. Discussion of this contributor to global injustice is relatively common in social justice movements. Yet it has been ignored by the global justice literature in political philosophy. This paper aims to fill this gap by introducing the topic into the global justice debate. While the global justice debate has focused on inter-national and supra-national institutions, I argue that an adequate analysis of US military and covert action must focus on domestic institutions of the US. I describe many such institutions including industry lobbying, the ubiquity of US military bases abroad, US programs for training foreign militaries, secrecy of the intelligence and military agencies, pliant news media and government propaganda

What can we Learn from Althusius? Ontology, Pluralism and Globalisation

by Lucas Freire

Draft only. Global Awareness Society Conference: Krakow, May 2010.

There has been a recent renewal of interest in aspects of the political theory of Johannes Althusius (1563-1638),... more There has been a recent renewal of interest in aspects of the political theory of Johannes Althusius (1563-1638), particularly in the realm of European Studies. The mainstream treatment leans toward the position that Althusius may be counted as one of the founding fathers of modern federalism. Whilst this paper does not completely dismiss such view, it also points out to other aspects of Althusian theory that are of crucial importance for its contextualised understanding. These neglected aspects are also of a considerable interest to contemporary thinking on issues of globalisation, coexistence and political plurality. I suggest that, if we take both sides together – pluralism and federalism – we may be able to find more contemporary relevance to Althusian political thought than is usually expected from the prevailing interpretations. Of peculiar importance is the way Althusius connects deep philosophical assumptions of unity and diversity to their application in a pluralistic political ontology. It is pointed out that much of the distortion that occurs in alternative ideological models that attempt to account for globalisation and political systems in general, both domestic and international, stem from reductionistic ontologies. Althusian pluralism, on the other hand, avoids similar intellectual pitfalls, as well as their potential or actual political distortions. The resulting agenda is that of an interpretation of global politics that sees the nation-state as simply one manifestation of political association between many other possibilities, including non-public associations operating both at transnational and localised levels.

Global common resources and the just distribution of emission shares

by Megan Blomfield

Published in 'Journal of Political Philosophy'

A currently popular proposal for fairly distributing emission quotas is the equal shares view, which holds that that... more A currently popular proposal for fairly distributing emission quotas is the equal shares view, which holds that that emission quotas should be distributed to all human beings globally on an equal per capita basis. In this paper I aim to show that a number of arguments in favour of equal shares are based on a misleading analysis of climate change as a global commons problem. I argue that a correct understanding of the way in which climate change results from the overuse of a global commons shows those who defend equal shares using commons arguments to be harbouring more controversial commitments than might at first appear. I then discuss two options for equal shares theorists who wish to maintain the view in the face of my critique, and attempt to show that one approach holds more promise than the other.

Collective Agency Oct 11

by Fabian Schuppert

"Nussbaum's Feminist Critique of Rawls on International Justice"

by Eileen Hunt Botting

Submitted to Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls, ed. Ruth Abbey (under contract, Penn State Press).

In her book Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2006) , Martha Nussbaum has advanced a... more In her book Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2006) , Martha Nussbaum has advanced a feminist critique of Rawls’s theory of international justice. While she identifies herself as a student of Rawls and dedicates the book to his memory, Nussbaum seeks to show the insufficiency of his theory of international justice, particularly as found in his Law of Peoples (1999) , when it comes to defending the rights of women in developing countries. She contends that this insufficiency is mainly due to his use of social contract theory, and its attendant concepts of basic human rights, nationality, and the public-private distinction. In contrast, she offers an alternative human rights approach to global justice: the capabilities approach. The capabilities approach seeks to establish and defend a just and robust standard of human development across nation-states. While the capabilities approach gives Nussbaum an edge over Rawls in making strong, universalistic critiques of unjust patriarchal, religious, and familial practices toward women in developing nations, it runs the risk of seeming imperial and appearing as though it seeks to impose “Western” and “feminist” values on such nations. For this reason, the universalistic language of Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is more valuable for defending women’s human rights in situations of minimum cultural or religious conflict. Because of his stricter commitment to tolerating a reasonable pluralism of values across nations, Rawls’s basic human rights approach is more useful for defending women’s human rights in situations of cultural or religious conflict. Moreover, Rawls provides an argument for the just, emergency use of military force to defend women’s human rights, a hard case from which Nussbaum’s theory steers clear. Through the comparison of their theories of justice, both Rawls’s and Nussbaum’s human rights approaches emerge in different ways as useful resources for advancing feminist values in international and transnational relations.

Keywords: John Rawls, Law of Peoples, Martha Nussbaum, Capabilities Approach, Feminist Theory, International Justice

"Westernization and Women's Rights: Non-Western European Responses to Mill's 'Subjection of Women', 1869-1908"

by Eileen Hunt Botting

My co-author is Sean Kronewitter, an undergraduate student in political science at Notre Dame.

The article has been published online first by the journal Political Theory in May 2012; it will appear in print later in 2012.

The publication in 1869 of Mill's 'Subjection of Women' gave rise to philosophical and political responses beyond... more The publication in 1869 of Mill's 'Subjection of Women' gave rise to philosophical and political responses beyond Western Europe on the relationship between Westernization and women's rights in developing, colonial, and post-colonial countries. Through the first comparative study of the 'Subjection of Women' alongside the forewords to six of its earliest non-Western European editions, we explore how this book provoked local intellectuals in Russia, Chile, and India to engage its liberal utilitarian, imperial, Orientalist, and feminist ideas. By showing how Mill's Western European biases and instrumental reasoning establish problematic rhetorical models for women's rights arguments, we are able to explore the ethical dimensions of women's rights issues in the context of cultural and political imperialism. Most importantly, this reception history illustrates how cross-cultural and culturally sensitive dialogue on women’s rights can push us beyond Western bias and imperialism in advocating for the end of women's subjection around the globe.

Keywords:

John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, Non-Western Political Thought, Women's Rights, Westernization

Recension: BONIN. 2010. La justice internationale et la répartition des ressources naturelles.

by Simon Guertin-Armstrong

Consequentialist Cosmopolitanism and Global Political Agency

by Raffaele Marchetti

2005. in J.Eade and D.O’Byrne (eds.), Global Ethics and Civil Society, Aldershot: Ashgate, 57-73

W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz, Inclusive Values and the Righteousness of Life: Foundation of Global Solidarity, Ethical Theory and Political Practice, 13.3 (2010).

by W Julian Korab-Karpowicz

Many scholars have argued that unity of humankind can be established on the basis of some basic or core human values.... more Many scholars have argued that unity of humankind can be established on the basis of some basic or core human values. Instead of engaging in a comparative empirical research, compiling lists of core values derived from different cultures, discuss their relevance for human fellowship, I examine the simple values of life that during the 1980s united people in Poland and made them to form the powerful civic movement, which was Solidarity.

Global Solidarity can learn from Poland’s Solidarity. My contention is that it should not be grounded in any ideological thinking, but in inclusive values—values that do not divide but can potentially unite all human beings—and these values can be derived from basic human needs. In short, Global Solidarity should be based on what I call the “righteousness of life.” It can be achieved if there is a growing recognition of what is right for life and a growing interest in protecting and enhancing life.

Global Democracy

by Raffaele Marchetti

2010. in R.Denemark (ed.) ISA Compendium Project-Section on International Ethics, New York: Blackwell, 3007-3023