Global Equality of Opportunity and National Self-Determination

Global equality of opportunity and national self-determination are two central principles of a liberal theory of international justice, but the relationship between them remains contested. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a sound understating of the contention – where the tensions and possible contradiction between self-determination and global equality of opportunity lie – and then propose a way forward. To this end the chapter reviews the main approaches to this issue in contemporary political theory: the incompatibility thesis, the trade-off thesis, and moves on to lay out the possibility of reconciliation between self-determination and equal opportunity.