Global Justice

Global justice refers to a congeries of progressive causes exported from national politics into the global arena. They included environmentalism, climate change, humanitarian intervention, debt relief, and the impact of global capitalism on local affairs. At its core, the impetus for global justice is egalitarian.

Transnational spillovers feature prominently in global justice issues. Spillovers present built-in incentives to both export costs and free-ride benefits. Further, powerful states may be in a position to offload costs onto weaker states, violating the principal of vertical equity. Power, fairness, constraints, norms, and incentives are thus key aspects of global justice.

The concept of justice lies at the heart of the issue. It revolves around to whom justice is owed and by whom, whether it should be measured by process or outcome, and whether justice is exogenous (implying universality) or endogenous and therefore relative. An equal-regard standard that rejects asymmetric valuing of human life is global in its conception, independent of parochial concerns.

Both in practice and theory, the structure of world politics makes the universal-regard standard difficult to apply. It demands fair trials, the rule of law, enforcement of contracts, respect for the environment, action against genocide, and toleration for diversity. These require courts, police, military capability, and ways to choose leaders, all of which are directly connected to national sovereignty, and some of which represent values that are highly contested.

Stark differences in living standards, life expectancies, institutional arrangements, and cultural norms have led to different approaches to the demands for global justice. There are, however, some common threads. There is hesitance to embrace globalization, suspicion of liberal free-market economies, and a tendency to favor direct democracy. Global justice [Page 354]political activists have tended toward grassroots organizing and strategic alliances with other likeminded groups. But some groups such as Medecins Sans Frontieres describe their humanitarian work as apolitical and have expressed concern about being coopted by politics. Churches have incorporated and adapted traditional social-justice teachings into missionary work. At the institutional level, governments have formed international policy regimes that offer mutual legal assistance and enforce and monitor agreements.

The concept of global justice, and its mechanisms, has only recently begun to take shape. At one end of the spectrum, it resembles a loosely defined social movement, galvanized by the disruptions of globalization, fearful of corporate economic dominance. At the other, it represents cross-border legal arrangements between governments. In the middle are efforts by charities offering services to marginalized groups.