ABSTRACT
What should a political theorist have to say about the justice of the global distribution of natural resources? Any answer to this particular question will depend in part on what answer is assumed to hold for each of two more general questions. One is whether principles of distributive justice can or should be applied globally at all; the other is how the category of 'natural resources' is conceived in relation to other goods that may appropriately be distributed according to principles of justice. The former question has been quite widely discussed by political theorists, particularly as a debate between 'cosmopolitans' and 'nationalists' (see e.g. Caney, 2001; see also Caney, 2002; Miller, 2002), but the latter question has received relatively little attention. The priority given to the former question in the literature might be thought to correspond to a logical priority, for unless it can be shown, as cosmopolitans seek to show against nationalists, that any goods at all should be subject to principles of distributive justice globally, then the question of the just distribution of natural resources globally would appear not even to arise. However, if one does not simply assume that natural resources should be conceived as a sub-set of distributable goods in some more generic sense, then the logic of that priority may not apply. Certainly the question of how natural resources are to be understood in relation to other distributable goods can be addressed without making any initial assumptions about the proper scope of distributive justice. I shall in fact show that addressing it provides a route into the more general global justice
350 TIM HAYWARD
debate, illuminates it and highlights some critical issues that cut across the cosmopolitan/ nationalist opposition.
