Let us Revisit: What Is

JUSTICE?
• Fair, Virtuous and moral act or arrangement?
• Giving each person his due- fair share to all
• Justice implies something which is not only right to do and wrong not
to do but also which someone can claim from us as their moral right
• Niti – just rules, institutional fairness, behavioral correctness, Naya-
realized justice, Dharma- moral duty (of Justice) (Amartya Sen’s Idea
of Justice)
• Sources: Religion, tradition, customs, natural law, reason and
rationality
• Justice is the pillar on which values of equality, liberty, rights rests
Global Justice: Meaning
• Concept that seeks to find solution to problem of how best to secure a just life
for all individuals on Planet Earth, regardless of who we are, what’s our
nationality or status
• Widening of the scope of justice to the global level, beyond the boundary of
state
• In the real of international relation it means just and fair distribution of global
resources, benefits and responsibilities and equal status to all nations
• Attempt to theorize the concept to propose principles and institutions which is
agreed by all and ensure just global order
• Problems as diverse as gender justice, immigration, refugees, hunger and
poverty, migration, climate change, rights of minority and indigenous people,
warfare, terrorism are tackled in the ambit of justice.
Need for Global Justice
• Many burning issues/ problems have global scope
• Global problems can only be tackled by cooperation by people across
the globe
• Unethical to talk about justice in domestic affairs but overlook global
unjust order
• Globalization has made world a global village, hence we need to have
global justice
• Cosmopoli. Our responsibility towards people not limited by territory
of nation-state. Allegiance to worldwide community, Nussbaum
• Fairer and just global governance, and fair distribution of benefits and
burdens and fair equality of opportunities justifies at global level
Key Issues and Debates
• What Justice means at global level?
• Conception of Justice depends on culture (to culture, time to time) eg. Slavery
so its dynamic in nature.
• Can there be global theory of justice? Can there be global difference
principle? (eg. Rawls, Nozick) (can there be global resource distribution and
benefit the worst-off) (Global Resource Tax/ Dividend as Pogge argues) (and
should the world rich pay to the poor)
• What is the range and scope of our duty of justice for people of other
countries?
• Does it mean global equality of opportunity and equality of outcome
(Rawls)?
• Is prosperity of a state due to enterprise and political culture (system) and
hence solely belong to it? Or everyone has equal right on global resources?
Contd. from the lasts page….
• What should be the social unit for consideration of Global Justice?
• State? People? Individual?
• Interrelation between them in the context of global justice?

How and who to enforce global justice? Issue of global governance:

• to implement and dispense Justice Authority- state/govt., Judiciary-required
• Absence of any global government or supra-national authority
Rawl’s Law of People: Introduction
• By a “law of peoples”, Rawls means a “political conception of right and justice
that applies to the norms and principles of international relation among people of
the world”
• People: Politically organized society having sufficient commonality of culture,
tradition, history, world view, way of life. They may have one or more state or
none. People are represented by their Legitimate government. (For eg. There are
many people that do not have state eq. Kurds (are an Iranian ethinic group native
to mountainous region of Western Asia known as Kurdistan which spans
southeastern, Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq and northern Syria.)
• Three kinds of People Rawls talks about: Liberal, Decent non-liberal (Kazajistan),
outlaws and burdened people.
Contd. from the last slide…
• Characteristics of Decent Non-liberal People:
1. Society must not be aggressive; it must conduct its affairs in ways
that are peaceful and respectful of other societies.
2. It must provide basic human rights-life, liberty, property, right to
formal equality-to all its members
3. Those who administer the law must believe that law incorporates a
common good idea of justice
4. Must have a decent consultation hierarchy (deliberation) in which
the interest of all members of the society are taken into
consideration.
Rawl’s Law of People
By the undermentioned four principles Global Justice could be realized:
• 1st step: social contract among citizen of each liberal society/people.
• 2nd step: agreement on 8 principles and 3 organizations among
representatives of liberal people in original people and under the ‘veil
of ignorance’
• 3rd step: Decent non-liberal people would also accept the law of
people-why?
• Because it would be rational choice consistent with their commitments to be
well ordered decent people
• 4th step: Decent people will help non-decent liberal people, burdened people
develop into well-ordered decent people and accepting Law of people.
Rawl’s law of people: 8 principles, 3 organization
Eight principles governing ‘Law of Peoples’ are:
1. People as organized by their governments are free and independent and their
freedom and independence is to be respected by other people.
2. People are equal and parties to their own agreements.
3. People have the right of self- defence but no right to war.
4. People are to observe a duty of nonintervention.
5. People are to observe treaties and undertakings.
6. People are to observe specified restrictions on the conduct of war (assumed to
be in self- defence)
7. People are to honour human rights.
8. People have a duty to assist other people living under unfavorable conditions
that prevent their having a just or decent political and social regime.
Three Global Organizations
1. One for ensuring trade among people.
2. Cooperative banking institution from which people may borrow
3. A confederation of people like UN
Features of Rawl’s Law of People
• Attempt to propose just principles and institutional order on which
widest possible agreements among people across globe can be
realized
• Based on core liberal principles of tolerance
• “People”- unit of social interaction at global level
• Assumptions
• Prosperity of people are due to local factors-culture, values, character, and
industriousness of the people
• Obligation of limited assistance: no global difference principle
• Proposes it as “Realistic Utopia”
Critique of Rawl’s Law of people
• Notion of People is not clear- is it nation? State? What about multi-state people
or people without state or many people in one state?
• Outdated views on relation among state, people, and individuals
• Cosmopolitans- Pogge, Naussbaum, Caney, etc..- critize it for very limited
obligation to help burdened or worst-off; no global difference principle
• Allows tyrannical govt. deny rights to its citizen and plunder and loot the
resources of the nation/people
• Why both liberal and non-liberal agree on paired down list of human rights?
• Gave more weightage to cultural pluralism, leaving out individual pluralism-
undermine individuality
• Many unrealistic assumptions: not realistic; sacrifices full justice for wider
agreement; hence not utopic
Amartya Sen’s view on Global Justice (2009)
• Sen gives a non- contractarian theory of justice. Most contractarian theories of Justice given
by modern and contemporary political philosophers depends upon ideal institutional order,
rules, procedure which must be fair and just and to implement them an authority is needed,
therefore it cannot go beyond nation-state. That’s why at global level there has be a non
contractarian theory of justice in which no authority should be needed.
• His theory of justice has three components
• First, uses elements of social choice theory and practical public reasoning (delibrate) to
arrive at agreed upon issues to realize justice at global level- no need to search for (a
perfect institutional) ideal order
• Second, instead of Niti- just rules and institutional fairness, focus on Naya/Justice- how
justice can be realized for people across the globe
• Third, instead of building ideal global institutions, try to realize justice by drawing
strength from multiple sources-Media, NGO’s, global movements, regional associations,
international treaties/conventions, global leaders, UN and other international
organizations
• So, instead of aiming at perfectly just order and institution, we may attempt to reduce
injustice and advance justice by practical reasoning
Key points
• Notion of global justice raises fundamental questions on our responsibilities and
rights as world citizens and the nature of relationship among individual, societies
and states in global arena
• Justice cannot be bounded by state boundaries, neither it is preserved for some
privileged people / culture
• John Rawls, having given nost persuasive theory of justice, attempted to propose,
through his “Law of People”, principles and institutions regulating socio-political
interactions among people in global arena
• Rawls proposed 8 principles and 3 institutions which shall be agreed upon by
rational liberal and non-liberal but decent people. He also suggested limited
assistance to non-decent and burdened people to being them into world federation
of people
• But in pursuit of wider agreement and his conviction about limited responsibilities
towards people of other nations, his law of people have more critique than admirer
Contd….
• Amartya Sen in his book “The Idea of Justice” gave an alternative
outlook to global justice based on social choice theory and practical
public reasoning. His focus is on channelizing multiple global avenues
to minimize injustice and realize justice on which agreement is
possible through public reasoning
• The world we live in is grossly unjust, unfair and unequal; there is no
universal theory practicing which global justice can be realized. Hence
pursuit of global justice is perpetual and we all as world citizens need
to contribute our bit towards it.