On the very idea of cosmopolitan justice: Constructivism and international agency

Journal of Political Philosophy

Volumn 16, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 245-271

  Meckled Garcia, Saladin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 49749132352     PISSN: 09638016     EISSN: 14679760     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9760.2007.00281.x     Document Type: Review

References (76)

1. J. Rawls, 'The basic structure as subject', Political Liberalism (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1993); henceforth PL, p. 258.
2. J. Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); henceforth LoP.
3. E.g., S. Caney, 'Cosmopolitanism and the law of peoples', Journal of Political Philosophy, 10 (2002), 91-123;
4. T. Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002);
5. henceforth WPHR, esp. pp. 108 ff.; M. Nussbaum, 'Women and the law of peoples', Politics, Philosophy and Economics, 1 (#3) (2002), 283-306.
6. S. Meckled-Garcia, 'International justice, human rights and neutrality', Res Publica, 10 (#2) (2004), 153-174;
7. T. Nagel, 'The problem of global justice', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 33 (2005), 113-47;
8. Aaron James, 'Constructing justice for existing practice: Rawls and the status quo', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 33 (2005), 281-316;
9. S. Freeman, 'The law of peoples, social cooperation, human rights, and distributive justice', Social Philosophy and Policy, 23 (2006), 29-68.
10. Pogge, WPHR, pp. 105 ff.
11. Nagel, 'The problem of global justice', pp. 134 ff.
12. Ibid., pp. 115 ff., 137.
13. Meckled-Garcia, 'International justice, human rights and neutrality', pp. 171ff.; James, 'Constructing justice for existing practice'.
14. I explain below how this constructivist methodology differs from Aaron James's interpretation in 'Constructing justice for existing practice'.
15. Cf. Nagel's view which rests on an assertion that justice as a concept requires community under a coercive authority (Nagel, 'The problem of global justice', p. 113); my view rests on a general claim about the nature of moral principles and agency conditions.
16. Ibid., pp. 130 ff.
17. Rawls, PL, p. 258; LoP, pp. 85-6.
18. E.g., T. M. Scanlon develops the first kind of principle, explicitly rejecting the difference principle as appropriate for his sphere of concern; What We Owe Each Other (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999);
19. henceforth WWOEO, pp. 45, 228. Rawls's principles apply to the institutions of political community, but not to international relations, or other subjects;
20. 'The law of peoples', On Human Rights, ed. S. Shute and S. Hurley (New York: Basic Books, 1993), pp. 41-82 at pp. 43 ff., 46; LoP, pp. 69, 85 ff.
21. Rawls, 'Law of peoples', pp. 43 ff.; PL, p. 262.
22. This diversity in principles is distinct from the pluralism of reasonable comprehensive moral views addressed by Rawls's theory of domestic justice.
23. J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972); hereafter TJ, p. 108; PL, p. 258 ff.
24. Cf. Liam Murphy's 'dualism' versus 'monism' of principles. Constructivism is not limited to two subjects, and is a unified view, at the level of the method of construction of principles, rather than at the level of first principles, a possibility that Murphy doesn't discuss. See his 'Institutions and the Demands of Justice', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 27 (1999), 251-91.
25. Rawls, TJ, p. 108 ff.
26. Ibid, p. 108 ff.; also, Scanlon on assistance and promise keeping: Scanlon, WWOEO, pp. 224, 295 ff.
27. Scanlon, WWOEO, pp. 228, 245-6; and in 'Interview', Imprints, 8 (2005), p. 109.
28. E.g., Scanlon's principle of rescue; WWOEO, pp. 224-8.
29. Cf. ibid., pp. 224-6.
30. I am extending Rawls's use of this term (to describe the powers attributed to citizens); see PL, p. 104, cf. pp. 108, 202.
31. A. James, 'Constructing justice for existing practice', and 'Power in social organization as the subject of justice', Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 86 (2005), 25-49.
32. Rawls, PL, p. 262;
33. TJ, p. 29.
34. Some, but not all, politically relevant principles apply universally, irrespective of institutional affiliation; TJ, p. 115.
35. I shall take it here that, whilst the basic structure is composed of persons and can involve citizen representation, it does not reduce to that, but must involve practices generally accepted and followed by citizens, allowing for decisions regarding the assignment of specific rights and duties.
36. Thus, Rawls's proposal that different principles be developed for universities and churches; 'Law of peoples' n. 10; LoP, p. 85 ff.
37. Rawls, TJ, p. 115.
38. And indeed Rawls does not claim it is; TJ, p. 115.
39. See PL, pp. 262 ff., 264-5, on common public law;
40. see also PL pp. 108-109 on imposing obligations.
41. The moral powers of political society lie in the system of rules citizens recognise and adhere to; TJ, p. 4;
42. PL, p. 108.
43. TJ, P. 56.
44. PL, pp. 108-109, 258, 265.
45. The distinction between citizens and institutions of social cooperation as distinct subjects is explicitly made in TJ, pp. 54-5.
46. Scanlon calls these 'causal' and 'substantive' responsibility; WWOEO, pp. 248 ff.
47. C. Kutz, Complicity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 122, links responsibility to having a participatory intention.
48. Onora O'Neill distinguishes between types of right depending on whether institutional assignment of duties is present. Her distinction, however, is not based on any notion of 'background adjustment'. See for example, 'The dark side of human rights', International Affairs, 81 (2005), 427-39 at p. 4 ff.
49. C. Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 150-3;
50. Caney, Justice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 107;
51. Pogge, WPHR, pp. 92, 170.
52. E.g., Pogge, WPHR, p. 105 ff.
53. Agency and responsibility are given a mere one sentence which relegates the notion of responsibility to an unclear 'we' in Simon Caney, Justice Beyond Borders, p. 121;
54. Cf. D. Moellendorf, Cosmopolitan Justice (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2002), p. 31 ff.
55. E.g., 'How should the international system be structured? . . .' (Caney, Justice Beyond Borders, p. 1).
56. Nagel, 'The problem of global justice'; Freeman, 'The law of peoples, social cooperation'.
57. Caney, Justice Beyond Borders, p. 4; Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations, p. 144 ff.
58. Rawls, p. 4.
59. Consider state borders and territories: no specific right conferring authority controls these, and they certainly cannot be removed by any identifiable authority.
60. The limits of international (public) law, and certainly the ability to create and assign new duties, are notoriously statist and voluntarist. Treaty-based law is based on state consent which can be withdrawn; customary international law is based on voluntary state practice.
61. International criminal sanctions, jus cogens, and a subset of human rights obligations have complicated relationships with state consent.
62. Rawls, 'The law of peoples', p. 50.
63. This is different from agreements on fair terms between societies through an association which is only an 'analogy' to the basic structure, different in form from the domestic case; Rawls, LoP, p. 115.
64. Sanai Ito, 'From rice to prawns: economic transformation and agrarian structure in rural Bangladesh', Journal of Peasant Studies, 29 (#2) (2002), 47-70 at p. 48. Cf. the effect of liberalization of garment production on poor producing nations such as Mauritius;
65. G. Joomun, H. Jauch and R. Traub-Merz, eds, The Future of the Textile and Clothing Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2006).
66. S. S. Streifel and D. Gately, The Demand for Oil Products in Developing Countries (New York: World Bank, 1997).
67. Cf. Pogge, WPHR, p. 205.
68. Often cited here is the US subsidising domestic cotton producers at the expense of poor, unsubsidised cotton farmers elsewhere.
69. A good example of this effect is prawn production in Bangladesh; S. I. Barraclough and A. Finger-Stich, Some Ecological and Social Implications of Commercial Shrimp Farming in Asia, UNRISD Discussion Paper No.74 (Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1999).
70. T. Pogge, 'Severe poverty as a violation of negative duties', Ethics & International Affairs, 19 (#1) (2005), 55-84.
71. Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 195-200.
72. Pogge's 'institutionalist' conception of rights would seem to supply part of such a theory, however he extends responsibility to all members of a society, without regard to appropriateness of agency; WPHR, p. 64.
73. "This would include Pogge's proposal for a 'democracy panel' giving the legitimacy thumbs up to states for the purposes of loans and trading. WPHR, p. 156.
74. Rawls, LoP, pp. 61, 65 ff; PL, p. 109.
75. Rawls LoP, pp. 42, 61, 115.
76. LoP, p. 10.