Global justice (short note)

Global justice

Meaning. Justice was long discussed only within the state; interest in its international side grew with the revival of normative political philosophy from the 1960s, with globalisation, and with a move away from state-centred views of world politics. IGNOU separates two ideas. International justice takes the state as the unit and asks about justice among states. Global justice puts human beings at the centre and asks what the world's rich owe the world's poor, its key theme being redistribution of wealth to reduce poverty and inequality. NCERT supplies the background of glaring inequality between rich and poor countries, in income and in the use of energy and water.

Views. (1) Cosmopolitan, drawing on Kant: every human being is a basic unit with an equal claim to a decent life, so national borders matter little and global institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF should be reformed. Pogge blames a global institutional order kept in place by powerful Northern governments, authoritarian rulers and business elites; Beitz would apply Rawls's difference principle across the world; Singer argues that if we can prevent something bad without giving up anything of comparable worth we must, whether those in need are fellow nationals or foreigners. Rawls himself, in The Law of Peoples (1999), asks for respect for human rights and a duty to assist deprived peoples but remains a statist, separating domestic from global society. (2) Realist: states put their own security first in an anarchic system, so poverty is given little weight. (3) Communitarian: justice belongs to a political community; Nagel ties it to shared institutions under a sovereign, and Miller to nationality and citizenship, so for both global justice is not a coherent goal.

Issues. Climate change, where India backs common but differentiated responsibility, built on the polluter-pays principle; migration and refugees, such as the Rohingyas; globalisation, which has lifted millions out of poverty in India and China but also raised the price of medicines in poor countries; and gaps in health and gender equality.

Assessment. The idea is limited by a world organised as nation-states, by the absence of global institutions able to enforce justice, and by a debate carried on mainly by Western scholars, which leaves out the developing world.