The cosmopolitan imperative: Global justice through accountable integration

Journal of Ethics

Volumn 9, Issue 1-2, 2005, Pages 171-199

  Cabrera, Luis ^a  

^a ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY WEST   (United States)

Author keywords

Cosmopolitan; Global poverty; Human rights; Sovereignty; World government

Indexed keywords

EID: 33646138334     PISSN: 13824554     EISSN: 15728609     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10892-004-3325-8     Document Type: Article

References (120)

1. For surveys of recent cosmopolitan thought, see Daniele Archibugi and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, "Globalization, Democracy and Cosmopolis: A Bibliographical Essay," in Daniele Archibugi (ed.), Debating Cosmopolitics (London: Verso, 2003), pp. 273-291;
2. Fred Dallmayr, "Cosmopolitanism: Moral and Political," Political Theory 31 (2003), pp. 421-442
3. Simon Caney, "International Distributive Justice," Political Studies 49 (2001), pp. 974-997;
4. Charles Beitz, "International Liberalism and Distributive Justice: A Survey of Recent Thought," World Politics 51 (1999), pp. 269-296;
5. For individual cosmopolitan arguments, see Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence and Morality," Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972), pp. 230-243;
6. Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979);
7. Thomas Pogge, Realizing Rawls (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989);
8. Martha Nussbaum, "Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism," in Joshua Cohen (ed.), For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996), pp. 2-17;
9. Brian Barry, "International Society from a Cosmopolitan Perspective," in David Mapel and Terry Nardin (eds.), International Society: Diverse Ethical Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 144-163;
10. Charles Jones, Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
11. Darrel Moellendorf, Cosmopolitan Justice (Boulder: Westview Press, 2002).
12. For the distinction, see especially Charles Beitz, "Social and Cosmopolitan Liberalism," International Affairs 75 (1999), pp. 125-140.
13. For a nuanced proposal seeking to increase international development aid through existing intergovernmental institutions, see George Soros, On Globalization (New York: Public Affairs, 2002).
14. See Beitz, "Social and Cosmopolitan Liberalism"
15. Martha Nussbaum, "Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid," Journal of Political Philosophy 8 (2000), pp. 176- 206;
16. Jason D. Hill, Becoming a Cosmopolitan: What It Means to Be a Human Being in the New Millennium (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2000). Most cosmopolitans do support the creation of some limited supranational institutions. Those described as moral cosmopolitans, especially Nussbaum, give emphasis to individual moral duties and relatively little attention to institutional design.
17. See Thomas Pogge, "Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty," Ethics 103 (1992), pp. 51-73;
18. Thomas Pogge, "Economic Justice and National Borders," ReVision 22 (1999), pp. 27-43;
19. Brian Barry, "Statism and Nationalism: A Cosmopolitan Critique," in Ian Shapiro and Lea Brilmayer (eds.), Nomos XLI: Global Justice (New York: New York University Press, 1999), p. 40;
20. Jones, Global Justice, pp. 227-232;
21. Moellendorf, Cosmopolitan Justice, pp. 171-176;
22. Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighborhood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). An example of a supranational institution is the World Trade Organization, which is able to achieve compliance from states with its trade rules in part through the threat of trade penalties.
23. See David Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995);
24. David Held, "From Executive to Cosmopolitan Multilateralism," in David Held and Mathias Koenig-Archibugi (eds.), Taming Globalization: Frontiers of Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003).
25. Beitz, "Social and Cosmopolitan Liberalism," p. 129.
26. Beitz, "Social and Cosmopolitan Liberalism," p. 127.
27. Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations;
28. Pogge, Realizing Rawls;
29. David Richards, A Theory of Reasons for Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).
30. Jones, Global Justice, p. 27.
31. See Stephen D. Krasner, "Compromising Westphalia (Nuclear Issues in Asia)," International Security 20 (1995), pp. 115-152;
32. How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), Chapters 1-2.
33. See UN, "Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations," Resolution 2625 (24 October 1970);
34. The UN Charter also includes a firm statement of the principle of nonintervention. Article 2, paragraph 7 states: "Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter" (http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/)
35. See Francis Kofi Abiew, The Evolution of the Doctrine and Practice of Humanitarian Intervention (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1999), pp. 137- 138. Abiew, like many commentators, notes the increasing frequency in the post- Cold War era of UN-sanctioned, multilateral humanitarian interventions: those in Northern Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda and Bosnia;
36. See also Martha Finnemore, "Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention," in Peter Katzenstein (ed.), The Culture of National Security, Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 153-185.
37. Harold Laski, A Grammar of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925), p. 64.
38. THE COSMOPOLITAN IMPERATIVE 177
39. Pogge, "A Global Resources Dividend," p. 536;
40. See also Brian Barry, "Statism and Nationalism," pp. 39-40. Barry calls for the creation of an international legal system with some power over state systems.
41. Jamie Mayerfeld, "Who Shall Be Judge? The US, the International Criminal Court, and the Global Enforcement of Human Rights," Human Rights Quarterly 25 (2003), p. 98.
42. The US became a signatory to the treaty on 31 December 2000, under the Bill Clinton administration, but did not ratify. In 2002, the George Bush administration formally withdrew, and the US has pursued bilateral agreements with numerous states exempting US citizens from possible ICC prosecution for acts committed in those states. In July 2003, the Bush administration suspended $48 million in aid to 35 countries that had failed to sign such agreements [Bert Wilkinson, "Guyana Signs Agreement Not to Hand over U.S. Troops for Prosecution Before International Court," The Associated Press (13 December 2003);
43. See also Jean Galbraith, "Humanitarian Law: The Bush Administration's Response to the International Criminal Court," Berkeley Journal of International Law 21 (2003), pp. 683-702].
44. Norma Greenway, "Judging Cases Trumps Politics at World Court," The Ottawa Citizen (12 October 2003), p. A-5.
45. Mayerfeld, "Who Shall Be Judge?," p. 123.
46. Stefanie Grant, "Matching Rhetoric with Action: The Challenge of an International Criminal Court," Criminal Justice Ethics 16 (1997), pp. 2-9.
47. See World Bank, Assessing Aid, What Works, What Doesn't and Why (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 1. The full report is available at http://www.worldbank.org/research/aid/aidtoc.htm. The report notes some states where billions in aid has made little noticeable difference, in large part because of corrupt leadership, as in Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) under Mobutu Sese Seko, 1965-1997.
48. But see Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, p. 111-113, where Pogge reserves his harshest criticism for an international system that continues to formally recognize corrupt leaders
49. Betsy Hartmann, and James Boyce, Needless Hunger: Voices from a Bangladeshi Village (Oakland: Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1982), p. 45; For an edifying discussion of the causes of the Bangladeshi famine of 1974,
50. see Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 131-153.
51. Judy Mayotte, "Civil War in Sudan: The Paradox of Human Rights and National Sovereignty," Journal of International Affairs 47 (1994), p. 505.
52. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Allusions (New York: Basic Books, 1977), p. 90. Walzer cites in particular cases of enslavement or massacre, but the allowing of preventable starvation can plausibly be included.
53. Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighborhood, p. 69.
54. The commission, initiated by former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, received some funding for its report from UN sources, among a range of other sources (pp. 376-377).
55. The Commission's work also was endorsed by former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (p. xv). For a separate, neorealist take on the duty of leaders to be "public regarding" in keeping foremost the interests of their own citizens, see Lea Brilmayer, "Realism Revisited: The Moral Priority of Means and Ends in Anarchy," in Ian Shapiro and Lea Brilmayer (eds.), Nomos XLI: Global Justice, p. 212;
56. For a nonrealist approach, see Gerard Elfstrom, Ethics for a Shrinking World (London: MacMillan, 1990), pp. 7-8.
57. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "A Project of Perpetual Peace," in Howard Kainz (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Peace (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1987);
58. Immanuel Kant, "Perpetual Peace," in Ted Humphrey (ed.), Perpetual Peace and Other Essays on Politics, History and Morals (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 107-143.
59. Kant, of course, argues for a "pacific federation" of states rather than a unified global government; Albert Einstein, "The Way Out," in Dexter Masters and Katharine Way (eds.), One World or None (New York: Whittlesey House-McGraw Hill, 1946);
60. Betty Reardon and Saul Mendlovitz, "World Law and Models of World Order," in Charles Beitz and Theodore Herman (eds.), Peace and War (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1973);
61. Sidney Axinn, "Loyalty and the Limits of Patriotism," in Kenneth Kipnis and Diana T. Meyers (eds.), Political Realism and International Morality: Ethics in the Nuclear Age (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987), pp. 239-250.
62. For a thorough survey of world government proposals, see Derek Heater, World Citizenship and Government: Cosmopolitan Ideas in the History of Western Political Thought (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996).
63. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, in Michael L. Morgan (ed.), Classics of Moral and Political Theory, 3rd edition (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2001), pp. 488-621, 546.
64. Rousseau, "A Project of Perpetual Peace," p. 63.
65. For example, under the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty, or "Moscow Treaty" of May 2002, the US and Russia agreed to reduce their nuclear warhead deployments by the year 2012: from 6144 to 2200 for the US, and from 5814 to 1806 for Russia. "A Farewell to Armaments," Economist (May 18, 2002), pp. 29-30;
66. For figures on the reductions of nuclear weapons arsenals that states have achieved through negotiation, see Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report (New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1997), p. 72;
67. See also Ralph M. Goldman, and Willard M. Hardman, Building Trust: An Introduction to Peacekeeping and Arms Control (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997).
68. The literature on why states cooperate, including why they form multilateral institutions, is extensive. For a cogent overview, see Robert O. Keohane, Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World (London: Routledge, 2002);
69. See also Jon Hovi, Games, Threats & Treaties: Understanding Commitments in International Relations (London: Pinter, 1998), Chapter 5;
70. For an exemplar rationalist argument, see Kenneth W. Abbot and Duncan Snidal, "Why States Act through Formal International Organizations, Journal of Conflict Resolution 42 (1998), pp. 3-32
71. Hedley Bull makes a broadly similar point in Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 261-264;
72. See also Andrew Linklater, "Cosmopolitan Citizenship," in Kimberly Hutchings and Roland Dannreuther (eds.), Cosmopolitan Citizenship (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), pp. 35-59;
73. Menno Kamminga, On Global Justice,CDSResearch Report Series, No.17, March 2003, University of Groningen (http://www.eco.rug.nl/ cds/pubs.htm). Kamminga essentially argues that it is inconsistent to advocate moral cosmopolitanism without also advocating institutional cosmopolitanism. However, the conclusion he draws, working within an explicitly neo-realist frame and citing the stewardship responsibilities of states' leaders in the Westphalian system, is that institutional cosmopolitanism is not feasible. The analysis fails to consider the ways in which stewardship may evolve and be broadened within an integration project.
74. See Barbara Geddes, Politician's Dilemma: Building State Capacity in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
75. For Immanuel Kant's treatment of a similar bias, see Jeremy Waldron, "What Is Cosmopolitan?" The Journal of Political Philosophy 8 (2000), p. 238; See also Jamie Mayerfeld, "The Myth of Benign Group Identity: A Critique of Liberal Nationalism," Polity XXX (1998), pp. 555-578.
76. See also Jamie Mayerfeld, "The Myth of Benign Group Identity: A Critique of Liberal Nationalism," Polity XXX (1998), pp. 555-578. Mayerfeld critiques liberal nationalism by demonstrating how Lockean own-case bias can fuel virulent nationalism.
77. Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998);
78. see also the exchange between Gertrude Himmelfarb, Walter Berns, Todd Gitlin and William Galston, "Symposium: Is Patriotism Compatible with Higher Education?," Academic Questions 15 (2002), pp. 21-36.
79. Singer, One World, p. 180.
80. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, "Table 1: Net Official Development Assistance in 2002" (http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/3/ 2/ 22460411.pdf, available at the OECD Web site http://www.oecd.org).
81. Singer, One World, p. 181.
82. Kofi Annan, "Make 2004 the Year of Kept Promises," The Toronto Star (30 December 2003), p. A-26.
83. Pogge, "A Global Resources Dividend."
84. Roy Godson, and Phil Williams, "Strengthening Cooperation against Transsovereign Crime," in Maryann K. Cusimano (ed.), Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda (New York: Bedford-St. Martin's, 2000), pp. 111-146.
85. Held, "Democracy and Globalization," p. 25.
86. For a similar proposal, see Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss, "Toward Global Parliament (Citizen Input on Globalization)," Foreign Affairs 80 (2001), pp. 212-218.
87. Amartya Sen, "Freedom and Needs: An Argument for the Primacy of Political Rights," The New Republic (10 January 1994), pp. 31-36;
88. see also Sen, Development as Freedom, pp. 147-149;
89. Andrew Kuper, "Rawlsian Global Justice, beyond the Law of Peoples to a Cosmopolitan Law of Persons," Political Theory 28 (2000), pp. 663-664.
90. The EU organizations long have been criticized as elitist and technocratic, rather than democratic. See Thomas Pogge, "Creating Supra-National Institutions Democratically: Reflections on the European Union's 'Democratic Deficit,"' Journal of Political Philosophy 5 (1997), pp. 177-178;
91. Amaryllis Verhoeven, The European Union in Search of a Democratic and Constitutional Theory (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002), pp. 57-74.
92. John McCormick, The European Union: Politics and Policies (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999), p. 68.
93. Steven P. McGiffen, The European Union: A Critical Guide (London: Pluto Press, 2001), p. 122.
94. See Andrew Geddes, The Politics of Migration and Immigration in Europe (London: Sage, 2003), Chapter 6. Full free movement - no passports must be shown at borders - is permitted within the Schengen region, which excluded only Britain and Ireland in the 15-member EU.
95. See Heide Ingeborg, "Supranational Action against Sex Discrimination: Equal Pay and Equal Treatment in the European Union," International Labour Review 138 (1999), pp. 381-420.
96. See Philip Alston, "An 'Ever Closer Union' in Need of a Human Rights Policy: The European Union and Human Rights," in Philip Alston (ed.), The EU and Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 3-66.
97. Andreas Follesdal, "Subsidiarity and Democratic Deliberation," in Erik Oddvar Eriksen and John Erik Fossum (eds.), Democracy in the European Union: Integration Through Deliberation? (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 86.
98. Jones, Global Justice, p. 229.
99. For a comprehensive overview, see Peter Levy, The Civil Rights Movement (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998).
100. A "convergence" has been documented among EU member-state economies, where per capita gross domestic product in less affluent member states has been moving toward the EU average. From 1986 to 1999, for example, per capita GDP rose from 65% to 78% of the EU average in the four poorest states: Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Robert A. Pastor, Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New (Washington: Institute for International Economics, 2001), p. 51.
101. See the EU web site: http://www.europa.int.
102. See Alec Stone Sweet, "The New GATT: Dispute Resolution and the Judicialization of the Trade Regime," in Mary L. Volcansek (ed.), Law above Nations: Supranational Courts and the Legalization of Politics (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997), pp. 118-141;
103. "Constitutional Dialogues in the European Community," in Alec Stone Sweet, Anne-Marie Slaughter and Joseph H.H. Weiler (eds.), The European Court and National Courts - Doctrine and Jurisprudence: Legal Change in Its Social Context (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 1998);
104. Alec Stone Sweet, and Thomas L. Brunell, "Constructing a Supranational Constitution: Dispute Resolution and Governance in the European Community," American Political Science Review 92 (1998), pp. 63-82;
105. Alec Stone Sweet, Wayne Sandholtz and Neil Fligstein (eds.), The Institutionalization of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
106. Alec Stone Sweet and Wayne Sandholtz, "Integration, Supranational Governance, and the Institutionalization of the European Polity," in Alec Stone Sweet and Wayne Sandholtz (eds.), European Integration and Supranational Governance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 4-5.
107. Stone Sweet, "Constitutional Dialogues in the European Community," p. 317.
108. Andreas Follesdal, "Subsidiarity and Democratic Deliberation," p. 86.
109. Office of the United States Trade Representative, "NAFTA: A Decade of Strengthening a Dynamic Trade Relationship" (October 2003), pp. 1-2 (http://www.ustr.gov).
110. Pastor, Toward a North American Community, p. 98;
111. see also "Mexico Leader Pushes Change," The Boston Globe [published in The Seattle Times, p. A-1 (6 September 2001)]
112. By early 2004, the George W. Bush administration had proposed a broad guest worker plan that also would allow many undocumented workers to obtain legal-resident status, though the plan was criticized for failing to include any citizenship option and for giving guest workers relatively brief work eligibility. Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, "Bush Would Open U.S. to Guest Workers," Los Angeles Times (8 January 2004) p. A-1.
113. For example, some NAFTA panels have agreed to admit amicus, or friend-ofthe- court, briefs from NGOs. See Duncan B. Hollis, "Private Actors in Public International Law: Amicus Curiae and the Case for the Retention of State Sovereignty," Boston College International and Comparative Law Review 35 (2002), pp. 241-242.
114. Notable among such decisions to admit amici include one in January 2001 in Methanex Corp. v. United States, and one in October 2001 in United Parcel Services of America, Inc. v. Canada. The NAFTA Free Trade Commission, at its October 2003 meeting in Montreal, Canada, affirmed that dispute panels have the authority to accept such briefs. The US and Canadian representatives, though not the Mexican representative, also announced an intention to open some dispute hearings to the public - if the parties to the dispute agreed. "NAFTA Commission Meets, Announces New Transparency Measures," Office of the United States Trade Representative, 7 October 2003 (http://www.ustr.gov).
115. For example, the AFL-CIO in 2000 created a Campaign for Global Fairness that aimed, in part, at building "international solidarity with our brothers and sisters in [economically] emerging nations as well as developed nations to create equitable, democratic and sustainable growth" (AFL-CIO, "Campaign for Global Fairness," 16 February 2000, available at http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/ecouncil). The union also has supported the International Labor Organization's global labor standards. Such public positions may be seen merely as disguised affluent-state protectionism intended to make developing-state labor less competitive globally. Even if that is the case, however, it represents significant pressure that, coupled with pressures for adjustment assistance from developing states themselves, could result in concrete positive change for workers in those states. On trans-state labor and other coalitions, see Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, Global Village or Global Pillage: Economic Restructuring from the Bottom up (Boston: South End Press, 1994).
116. See, for example, Robert Howse, "Membership and its Privileges: The WTO, Civil Society and the Amicus Brief Controversy," European Law Journal 9 (2003), pp. 496-510. Howse argues that, despite the resistance of some member states, there is sound basis in WTO jurisprudence for admitting amicus briefs.
117. See Adam Lynn, "Presidential Candidate Kucinich Vows to Leave WTO," The News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington), 6 October 2003, p. B-1.
118. Luis Cabrera, Political Theory of Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Case for the World State (London: Routledge, 2004). Chapter 5 addresses the objection that a supranational system, at the global level or well below, cannot be ruled democratically. Chapter 6 addresses the potential for tyranny by supranational bodies, including at the global level, in such a system.
119. In 1999, member states formally agreed to create a force of up to 60,000 troops, deployable within 60 days and capable of sustaining a deployment for at least one year. Neill Nugent, The Government and Politics of the European Union, 5th edition (New York: Palgrave, 2003), pp. 418-420;
120. In June 2003, members agreed to send a 1400-troop peacekeeping force to the Congo, replacing a smaller UN force there [Thomas Fuller "European Peacekeepers Go to Congo on Non-NATO Mission," International Herald Tribune (4 June 2003)].