ABSTRACT
The term ‘global justice’ encompasses debates over human rights, the justification of military intervention and the international distribution of resources. In this chapter we focus on the last of these: the just, or fair, allocation of resources between nations, and between individuals across national boundaries. Among political theorists arguments over global justice emerged from, and took issue with, claims made in debates over ‘domestic justice’, which we discussed in Chapter 4. Three positions on global justice have been developed: ‘cosmopolitans’ maintain that it is incoherent to restrict justice to the sphere of the nation-state. Particularists (or partialists) argue that it is legitimate to show special concern for one’s compatriots and the claims of justice can justifiably be restricted. Defenders of the third position – the ‘political conception’ – also argue for differential treatment of the domestic and global spheres, but they do so by stressing the complexity of morality and the importance of the political.
