Global Distributive Justice

Theorists of distributive justice have often assumed that the obligations it generates stop at state borders. At the same time, many international political theorists have tried to distinguish the concerns of global justice from the concerns of just distributions, arguing that global justice does not require global distributive justice. This chapter first challenges the three most common reasons for rejecting global distributive justice, showing that Arguments from Cost, Arguments from Competing Values, and Arguments from Political Association are not convincing. Any political institution is liable to assessment in terms of justice and injustice. This is because all political institutions, those that structure international as much as domestic politics, are created by some people and imposed on others. Consequently, the more or less unequal distributions of goods and accesses to goods that they produce and maintain reflect the choices of some persons about who gets what and whose interests count. Injustices persist because choices have been made about institutional priorities that either create injustice or refuse reform to address existing injustice. The chapter concludes that the language of distribution and of distributive justice must be central to any conception of global justice.