Global Justice and Human Rights: A Brief Overview
Developing a Basic Theoretical Roadmap
Finding one's way into contemporary discussions of human rights and global justice can be a daunting task. Few texts cover both fields extensively and in tandem, even though disciplinary outsiders might find this persistent lack of cross-fertilization puzzling. Moreover, some of the best collections of essays on global justice or human rights are not easily read without some roadmap that explains how the various essays fit together. To make matters worse, philosophers disagree among themselves about how the roadmap might be constructed. That said, what follows initially is a brief roadmap, as I see it. In a very important sense, the shift from discussions of justice within a single society to discussions of justice on a global scale represents not merely the newest theoretical work in political philosophy. Our perspectives on justice in one society are being transformed as we reflect on three possibilities. First, it might be that the rationales that underlie claims of social justice within the domestic sphere have no application to the global sphere at all, and that the very idea of global justice is, at best, an ideal of a world of many internally just nation-states. Second, perhaps the arguments that support various requirements of social justice within the domestic context can be extended globally. Third, problems arising within the global arena may call for quite different principles of justice than ones that are appropriate for the domestic context. For more detailed discussions of the issues see the entries under "Current Theoretical Disagreements." Also, to the left are additional special topics that figure within the debates regarding human rights and global justice, but which nonetheless merit some separate discussion because of their additional, independent normative significance. |
Theories of Social Justice
Theories of social justice have their origins in the late 19th century, and but it is only since John Rawls’ theory was published in 1971 that significant attempts have been made to work out in detail answers to questions about permissible inequalities within a society. Unlike human rights theory that emerged shortly after War War II, social justice theories have focused on questions regarding the special duties citizens owe one another.
Rawls, for example, as well as many philosophers following in his footsteps rely upon a number of features of nation-states to justify the role of the state in restricting inequalities. Common citizenship, membership in scheme of mutual cooperation, submission to a set of shared political and economic institutions that function authoritatively under the color of law, the requirements of democratic equality, and the profound and pervasive effect a society's institutions have on the life prospects of its citizens are among the central lines of argument.
Many theories about what justice requires in the way of the design of the basic institutions having have tended to be broadly egalitarian, or concerned about the reduction of a variety of social and economic inequalities within a society. In addition to some social guarantee of state protection of various civil and political liberties, justice is said to require restraints on permissible inequalities of opportunity and limits on tolerable disparities in resources or in the well-being among citizens within a democratic political order. Egalitarianism, as the term is understood here in its broadest sense, includes strict egalitarians - or simply "egalitarians" as some use the term - who argue for equality of well-being, resources, or opportunity, etc, while other inequality-sensitive theories argue for weaker claims, such as a requirement that society assign some priority to the worst-off or for a social guarantee of a sufficient level of well-being, resources, opportunities, and so on.
Debates within the social justice literature therefore have focused first and foremost on how extensive the limits on various forms of social and economic inequality may be within a just society, and only secondarily with whether inequality-sensitive conceptions of justice can be extended beyond national borders. Given the kinds of arguments used to justify state intervention in the lives of its citizens for the sake of inequality reduction, the focus on justice as a purely domestic matter is of no surprise.
The issue of extending egalitarian social justice theories arises most prominently, for example, when forms of economic and political interaction among nation-states or rich and poor people within the global order have similarly profound and pervasive effects on the life prospects on non-nationals.
Rawls, for example, as well as many philosophers following in his footsteps rely upon a number of features of nation-states to justify the role of the state in restricting inequalities. Common citizenship, membership in scheme of mutual cooperation, submission to a set of shared political and economic institutions that function authoritatively under the color of law, the requirements of democratic equality, and the profound and pervasive effect a society's institutions have on the life prospects of its citizens are among the central lines of argument.
Many theories about what justice requires in the way of the design of the basic institutions having have tended to be broadly egalitarian, or concerned about the reduction of a variety of social and economic inequalities within a society. In addition to some social guarantee of state protection of various civil and political liberties, justice is said to require restraints on permissible inequalities of opportunity and limits on tolerable disparities in resources or in the well-being among citizens within a democratic political order. Egalitarianism, as the term is understood here in its broadest sense, includes strict egalitarians - or simply "egalitarians" as some use the term - who argue for equality of well-being, resources, or opportunity, etc, while other inequality-sensitive theories argue for weaker claims, such as a requirement that society assign some priority to the worst-off or for a social guarantee of a sufficient level of well-being, resources, opportunities, and so on.
Debates within the social justice literature therefore have focused first and foremost on how extensive the limits on various forms of social and economic inequality may be within a just society, and only secondarily with whether inequality-sensitive conceptions of justice can be extended beyond national borders. Given the kinds of arguments used to justify state intervention in the lives of its citizens for the sake of inequality reduction, the focus on justice as a purely domestic matter is of no surprise.
The issue of extending egalitarian social justice theories arises most prominently, for example, when forms of economic and political interaction among nation-states or rich and poor people within the global order have similarly profound and pervasive effects on the life prospects on non-nationals.
Human Rights Debates
A purely state-centered approach departs significantly from other prominent accounts of justice. Cosmopolitan justice theories, including most human rights theories, deny the deep moral relevance of national borders in determining the rights and duties of human beings. Justice involves rights of all persons, and for many cosmopolitans, it is simply because of their common humanity. (But see entry below for the distinction between relational and humanitarian justifications for cosmopolitan theories).
Theories of human rights tend to endorse a bundle of individual rights claims said to be doubly universal: they are moral claims of special urgency that all human beings have against all other human beings. The trend within human rights theories developed since the late 20th century has been toward the inclusion of certain positive rights – e.g. rights to education and health care, minimum social provision of basic necessities, etc - alongside negative rights protecting against threats to life and liberty through slavery, torture, and other forms of harm to persons.
Debates within the human rights literature have focused first, on how extensive is the set of rights, including positive rights and rights protecting the equal status of women and minority populations, that are truly universal in scope, and second, the role of the nation-state in securing rights of all sorts, given the assumption that the justification for human rights lies in one’s standing as a human being, not one’s standing as a citizen of any particular country. Nor do the rights of individuals, for most human rights theories, depend on the existence of forms of economic and political interaction among nation-states (or interactions between rich and poor people within the global order) through which the life prospects of non-nationals are profoundly and pervasively effected in ways somewhat analogous to the substantial impacts that government polices and laws have on citizens.
Theories of human rights tend to endorse a bundle of individual rights claims said to be doubly universal: they are moral claims of special urgency that all human beings have against all other human beings. The trend within human rights theories developed since the late 20th century has been toward the inclusion of certain positive rights – e.g. rights to education and health care, minimum social provision of basic necessities, etc - alongside negative rights protecting against threats to life and liberty through slavery, torture, and other forms of harm to persons.
Debates within the human rights literature have focused first, on how extensive is the set of rights, including positive rights and rights protecting the equal status of women and minority populations, that are truly universal in scope, and second, the role of the nation-state in securing rights of all sorts, given the assumption that the justification for human rights lies in one’s standing as a human being, not one’s standing as a citizen of any particular country. Nor do the rights of individuals, for most human rights theories, depend on the existence of forms of economic and political interaction among nation-states (or interactions between rich and poor people within the global order) through which the life prospects of non-nationals are profoundly and pervasively effected in ways somewhat analogous to the substantial impacts that government polices and laws have on citizens.
The Libertarian Challenge
A common complaint regards the curious lack of overlap between the human rights and social justice literature. An important exception comes from the libertarian camp. Libertarians, or classical liberals as they are also known, are moral cosmopolitans as well, but they tend to reject all positive rights in favor of a set of short list of negative rights of everyone against everyone else, thus viewing human rights as limiting only the kinds of harm that states and individuals may impose on individuals and other nations.
Libertarians also engage broadly egalitarian social justice theories by arguing against any morally legitimate role of the state in policing social and economic inequalities. They also reject the idea of any other transnational institutional entities having the remit to enforce globally applicable distributive duties. Global justice for the libertarian is thus co-extensive with the narrowly negative rights view of justice requires in the domestic context, except, of course, for the unique authoritative role of the nation-state in coercive enforcement of negative liberties.
Robert Nozick's classic book remains the definitive statement of the libertarian position, both in articulating the underlying rationale for the primacy of individual freedom over any distributive concerns, and in its direct engagement with both Rawls's theory and modern rights theory.
Libertarians also engage broadly egalitarian social justice theories by arguing against any morally legitimate role of the state in policing social and economic inequalities. They also reject the idea of any other transnational institutional entities having the remit to enforce globally applicable distributive duties. Global justice for the libertarian is thus co-extensive with the narrowly negative rights view of justice requires in the domestic context, except, of course, for the unique authoritative role of the nation-state in coercive enforcement of negative liberties.
Robert Nozick's classic book remains the definitive statement of the libertarian position, both in articulating the underlying rationale for the primacy of individual freedom over any distributive concerns, and in its direct engagement with both Rawls's theory and modern rights theory.
Puzzles for Strong-Statist Egalitarians and Cosmopolitan Human Rights Theorists
The underlying rationales for human rights theories reflect their cosmopolitan origins. However, they face the task of figuring out the proper place of nation-states within their scheme, especially to the extent that they concede that the nation-state has a unique role in guaranteeing rights of both sorts, and is therefore entitled to a degree of national self-determination such that the choice in the design of political and economic institutions is, for the most part, a matter of domestic decision.
The primary rationales underlying many prominent egalitarian social justice theories rest upon “strong statist” assumptions. They hold that genuine obligations of justice of the sort that set moral limits of social and economic inequalities or inequalities in social relationships are applicable only within the domestic political context. Strong statists, who in varying degrees exhibit their egalitarian opposition to social and economic inequalities among citizens in the domestic context, thus share a broadly libertarian attitude toward global inequalities in wealth, power, opportunity, and well-being.
Rawls's Law of Peoples provides additional arguments on behalf of the strong-statist position. Rawls goes beyond the earlier arguments that underlie his restriction of egalitarian duties to citizens by claiming that respect for national self-determination also limits the application of any egalitarian duties to reduce social and economic inequalities to the domestic context.
The upshot is that both human rights theorists and egalitarian social justice theorists have quite a lot of work to do. Human rights theorists struggle to reconcile their commitments to positive rights and equality rights woven into the fabric of their cosmopolitanism with a real-world recognition of the rights of self-determination of nation-states. Egalitarian social justice theorists struggle to reconcile their moral unease with undeserved and deeply disadvantaging social inequalities among human beings generally with their theoretical commitments to inequality-mitigating rationales that are rooted firmly in their beliefs regarding the unique moral characteristics of membership in nation-states.
The primary rationales underlying many prominent egalitarian social justice theories rest upon “strong statist” assumptions. They hold that genuine obligations of justice of the sort that set moral limits of social and economic inequalities or inequalities in social relationships are applicable only within the domestic political context. Strong statists, who in varying degrees exhibit their egalitarian opposition to social and economic inequalities among citizens in the domestic context, thus share a broadly libertarian attitude toward global inequalities in wealth, power, opportunity, and well-being.
Rawls's Law of Peoples provides additional arguments on behalf of the strong-statist position. Rawls goes beyond the earlier arguments that underlie his restriction of egalitarian duties to citizens by claiming that respect for national self-determination also limits the application of any egalitarian duties to reduce social and economic inequalities to the domestic context.
The upshot is that both human rights theorists and egalitarian social justice theorists have quite a lot of work to do. Human rights theorists struggle to reconcile their commitments to positive rights and equality rights woven into the fabric of their cosmopolitanism with a real-world recognition of the rights of self-determination of nation-states. Egalitarian social justice theorists struggle to reconcile their moral unease with undeserved and deeply disadvantaging social inequalities among human beings generally with their theoretical commitments to inequality-mitigating rationales that are rooted firmly in their beliefs regarding the unique moral characteristics of membership in nation-states.
Hybrid Theories
Click image for link
There are, of course, hybrid views, and indeed, much of the current debate is driven by the desire to resolve the tensions between: (1) the broadly cosmopolitan roots of their egalitarian moral intuitions, especially the sense of the moral arbitrariness and humanly avoidable nature of the deprivations and indignities of poverty; and (2) a real-world recognition shared with the strong-statists regarding the potential value of nation-states in meeting human needs and protecting against external domination.
The hallmark of hybrid views is their rejection of the strong statist's claim that no broadly egalitarian norms of justice - e.g., inequality-sensitive distributive requirements - extend beyond national borders. Unlike cosmopolitans, however, they do not necessarily endorse the claim that the norms of distributive justice that do extend beyond national borders are identical in every respect to domestically applicable norms of justice. To put matters another way, it may be the case that the existence of a nation-state adds new duties of justice to the ones that are universally applicable or universal duties are specified differently and more demandingly because of contingent factors affecting the life prospects of citizens under state control in a way that is not the case globally.
Hybrid theorists thus tend to acknowledge the likely persistence of the system of nation-states in which some states assert moral claims to sovereignty that, in the worst of circumstances, insulate despotic regimes from humanitarian interference and provide supporting arguments for richer states to pursue their own national interests with a high degree of indifference to the plight of the global poor.
Hybrid views also acknowledge that while the nation-state system may be non-ideal, as long as such a system is in place, there are persuasive arguments for recognizing a special moral responsibility of states toward their own citizens. But they nonetheless recognize significant limits on permissible global inequalities in well-being, reasons for as well as moral constraints on the kinds of impediments that states (or other entities) may impose upon others - support or benefit from - when doing so undermines the ability of non-nationals to live decent human lives. Some hybrid views also argue that inequalities of some kinds and of some degree may also be unjust on a global scale even if, for the sake of argument, global justice does not demand the same level of concern for inequalities morally required within the purely domestic setting. For an example of one of the leading hybrid theories, see David Miller's National Responsibility and Global Justice.
For those who wish to pursue in greater detail some of the issues raised in this introductory section, see the additional entries under Current Theoretical Disagreements.
The hallmark of hybrid views is their rejection of the strong statist's claim that no broadly egalitarian norms of justice - e.g., inequality-sensitive distributive requirements - extend beyond national borders. Unlike cosmopolitans, however, they do not necessarily endorse the claim that the norms of distributive justice that do extend beyond national borders are identical in every respect to domestically applicable norms of justice. To put matters another way, it may be the case that the existence of a nation-state adds new duties of justice to the ones that are universally applicable or universal duties are specified differently and more demandingly because of contingent factors affecting the life prospects of citizens under state control in a way that is not the case globally.
Hybrid theorists thus tend to acknowledge the likely persistence of the system of nation-states in which some states assert moral claims to sovereignty that, in the worst of circumstances, insulate despotic regimes from humanitarian interference and provide supporting arguments for richer states to pursue their own national interests with a high degree of indifference to the plight of the global poor.
Hybrid views also acknowledge that while the nation-state system may be non-ideal, as long as such a system is in place, there are persuasive arguments for recognizing a special moral responsibility of states toward their own citizens. But they nonetheless recognize significant limits on permissible global inequalities in well-being, reasons for as well as moral constraints on the kinds of impediments that states (or other entities) may impose upon others - support or benefit from - when doing so undermines the ability of non-nationals to live decent human lives. Some hybrid views also argue that inequalities of some kinds and of some degree may also be unjust on a global scale even if, for the sake of argument, global justice does not demand the same level of concern for inequalities morally required within the purely domestic setting. For an example of one of the leading hybrid theories, see David Miller's National Responsibility and Global Justice.
For those who wish to pursue in greater detail some of the issues raised in this introductory section, see the additional entries under Current Theoretical Disagreements.