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1370World Trade OrganizationIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Wiley. 2022.The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a multilateral trade organization that, at least partially, governs trade relations between its member states. The WTO (2011a) proclaims that its “overriding objective is to help trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly and predictably.” The WTO is a “treaty-based” organization – it has been constituted through an agreed, legally binding treaty made up of more than 30 articles, along with additional commitments by some members in specific areas. At present, 153 s…Read more
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107Do Democratic Societies Have a Right to Do Wrong?Journal of Social Philosophy 42 (2): 111-131. 2011.Do members of democratic societies have a moral right that others not actively prevent them from engaging in wrongdoing? Many political theorists think that they do. “It is a feature of democratic government,” Michael Walzer writes, “that the people have a right to act wrongly—in much the same way that they have a right to act stupidly”. Of course, advocates of a democratic right to do wrong may believe that the scope of this right is limited. A majority in a democratic society, for example, may…Read more
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110The regulation of harm in international trade: a critique of James's Collective Due Care principleCanadian Journal of Philosophy 44 (2): 255-263. 2014.In his important recent book, Aaron James has defended a principle ? Collective Due Care ? for determining when a form of economic integration is morally objectionable because it causes unjustified harm (including unemployment, wage suppression and diminished working conditions). This essay argues that Collective Due Care would yield implausible judgements about trade practices and would be too indeterminate to play the practical role for which it is intended
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664Global PovertyIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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1223A Challenge to the Reigning Theory of the Just WarInternational Affairs 87 (2): 457-466. 2011.Troubled times often gives rise to great art that reflects those troubles. So too with political theory. The greatest work of twentieth century political theory, John Rawls's A theory of justice, was inspired in various respects by extreme social and economic inequality, racialized slavery and racial segregation in the United States. Arguably the most influential work of political theory since Rawls—Michael Walzer's Just and unjust wars—a sustained and historically informed reflection on the mor…Read more
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735The Ethics of International TradeIn Darrel Moellendorf & Heather Widdows (eds.), The Handbook of Global Ethics, Acumen Publishing. 2013.
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92Fairness in Sovereign DebtEthics and International Affairs 21 (s1): 41-79. 2007.When can we say that a debt crisis has been resolved fairly? An often overlooked but very important effect of financial crises and the debts that often engender them is that they can lead the crisis countries to increased dependence on international institutions and the policy conditionality they require in return for their continued support, limiting their capabilities and those of their citizens to exercise meaningful control over their policies and institutions. These outcomes have been viewe…Read more
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1023Are trade subsidies and tariffs killing the global poor?Social Research: An International Quarterly (4): 865-896. 2012.In recent years it has often been claimed that policies such as subsidies paid to domestic producers by affluent countries and tariffs on goods produced by foreign producers in poorer countries violate important moral requirements because they do severe harm to poor people, even kill them. Such claims involve an empirical aspect—such policies are on balance very bad for the global poor—and a philosophical aspect—that the causal influence of these policies can fairly be characterized as doing sev…Read more
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112Sovereign Debt, Human Rights, and Policy ConditionalityJournal of Political Philosophy 19 (3): 282-305. 2011.International policies often make the conferral of aid, debt relief, or additional trading opportunities to a country depend upon its having successfully implemented specific policies, achieved certain social or economic outcomes, or demonstrated a commitment to conducting itself in specified ways. Such policies are conditionality arrangements. My aim in this article is to explore whether conditionality arrangements that would make the conferral of debt relief depend on whether the debtor countr…Read more
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85International Trade and Labor Standards: A Proposal for LinkageColumbia University Press. 2008.In this book, Christian Barry and Sanjay G. Reddy propose ways in which the international trading system can support poor countries in promoting the well-being of their peoples.
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2188Young on Responsibility and Structural Injustice (review)Criminal Justice Ethics 32 (3): 247-257. 2013.Our aim in this essay is to critically examine Iris Young’s arguments in her important posthumously published book against what she calls the liability model for attributing responsibility, as well as the arguments that she marshals in support of what she calls the social connection model of political responsibility. We contend that her arguments against the liability model of conceiving responsibility are not convincing, and that her alternative to it is vulnerable to damaging objections.
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200Associative Duties, Global Justice, and the ColoniesPhilosophy and Public Affairs 37 (2): 103-135. 2009.No Abstract
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270Is Global Institutional Reform a False Promise?Cornell International Law Journal 39 (3): 523-536. 2006.
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3668What Is Special About Human Rights?Ethics and International Affairs 25 (3): 369-83. 2011.Despite the prevalence of human rights discourse, the very idea or concept of a human right remains obscure. In particular, it is unclear what is supposed to be special or distinctive about human rights. In this paper, we consider two recent attempts to answer this challenge, James Griffin’s “personhood account” and Charles Beitz’s “practice-based account”, and argue that neither is entirely satisfactory. We then conclude with a suggestion for what a more adequate account might look like – what …Read more
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2608Responding to global poverty: Review essay of Peter Singer, the life you can saveJournal of Bioethical Inquiry 6 (2): 239-247. 2009.
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235How Much for the Child?Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (1): 189-204. 2013.In this paper we explore what sacrifices you are morally required to make to save a child who is about to die in front of you. It has been argued that you would have very demanding duties to save such a child (or any adult who is in similar circumstance through no fault of their own, for that matter), and some examples have been presented to make this claim seem intuitively correct. Against this, we argue that you do not in general have a moral requirement to bear more than moderate cost to save…Read more
Acton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
PhilPapers Editorships
Justice |