Introduction

Global justice has been one of the salient themes in contemporary political philosophy and normative ethics. Philosophers, ethicists and policymakers have devoted a great deal of energy to discussing the normative and causal relationships between the citizens of different nationalities, the nature of duties in transnational contexts, the instances and severity of transnational harms, and strategies for the effective discharge of these duties. The moral and practical grounds for the claims of justice and the allocation of duties stemming from global problems, such as poverty, pollution and climate change, have kindled the global justice debate. Notwithstanding the widening horizons of justice beyond the national borders and the rich theorisation of global justice, a growing chorus of theorists are daring to ask the critical question: how global is global justice? This disenchanting spirit of critical scholarship has created ripples across the domain, with scholars contesting the intellectual contours of the debate, its discursive boundaries, the geographical and intellectual location of its theorists and the key agents that comprise its subject matter. This chapter problematises the contemporary theorisation of global justice and sets the agenda of deparochialisation in global justice research by positing the questions of agency, culpability and harm in the ongoing global poverty debate beyond the developed world or in the context of rising powers within the developing world (India).