• Decolonising Antarctica
    In Dawid Bunikowski & Alan D. Hemmings (eds.), Philosophies of Polar Law, Routledge. 2020.
    It has become a trope in the field of Antarctic humanities that the history of Antarctica was no exception to world politics (as once thought), but just another instance of the colonial project at the global level. However, the wrongs of colonialism are normally tied to the subjugation of native populations, and in Antarctica there were none. So what is wrong with Antarctic colonialism? In this article, I point to three such wrongs: first, the unilateral appropriation by a few states of extravag…Read more
  • Necessity Knows No Borders: The Right of Necessity and Illegalized Migration
    In Virpi Mäkinen, Jonathan William Robinson, Pamela Slotte & Heikki Haara (eds.), Rights at the margins: historical, legal and philosophical perspectives, Brill. 2020.
    In this paper, I argue that taking basic human rights seriously—and the basic right to subsistence in particular—requires acknowledging that, given certain conditions, people in need have a right of necessity to take, use and/or occupy the property of others in order to get out of their plight. I explore the implications of this for the phenomenon of illegalized migration for subsistence reasons, and suggest that receiving countries ought not to deny entry to these migrants. On the contrary, tho…Read more
  •  9
    When subsistence rights are just claims and this is unjust
    Social Philosophy and Policy 36 (2): 134-153. 2019.
    :Most of the liberal moral and political debate concerning global poverty has focused on the duties of justice or assistance that the well-off have toward the needy. In this essay, I show how rights-based theories in particular have unanimously understood subsistence rights just as claims, where all it means to have a claim—following Hohfeld—is that others have a duty toward us. This narrow interpretation of subsistence rights has led to a glaring omission; namely, there has been no careful exam…Read more
  •  12
    Greening Global Egalitarianism?
    Global Justice : Theory Practice Rhetoric 13 (1): 99-114. 2021.
    In Justice and Natural Resources: An Egalitarian Theory, Chris Armstrong proposes a version of global egalitarianism that – contra the default renderings of this approach – takes individual attachment to specific resources into account. By doing this, his theory has the potential for greening global egalitarianism both in terms of procedure and scope. In terms of procedure, its broad account of attachment and its focus on individuals rather than groups connects with participatory governance and …Read more
  • Book Reviews (review)
    Environmental Values 20 (3): 449-452. 2011.
  •  44
    Climate change and territory
    WIREs Climate Change 1 (Early View). 2023.
    he territorial impacts of climate change will affect millions. This will happen not only as a direct consequence of climate change, but also because of policies for mitigating it—for example, through the installation of large wind and solar farms, the conservation of land in its role as carbon sink, and the extraction of materials needed for renewable energy technologies. In this article, we offer an overview of the justice-related issues that these impacts create. The literature on climate just…Read more
  •  10
    From Sovereignty to Guardianship in Ecoregions
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 40 (4): 608-623. 2023.
    Recent scientific studies suggest that the destabilisation of the earth's climate and biodiversity loss are not separate, but interdependent phenomena. In this context, some have proposed the creation of a ‘Global Safety Net’ of ecoregions that should be preserved to stop further biodiversity loss, preventing at the same time the growth of CO2 emissions produced by deforestation and allowing natural carbon removal. In this article, I suggest that a first step to achieve this might be to replace …Read more
  •  25
    From Sovereignty to Guardianship in Ecoregions
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 40 (4): 608-623. 2023.
    Recent scientific studies suggest that the destabilisation of the earth's climate and biodiversity loss are not separate, but interdependent phenomena. In this context, some have proposed the creation of a ‘Global Safety Net’ of ecoregions that should be preserved to stop further biodiversity loss, preventing at the same time the growth of CO2 emissions produced by deforestation and allowing natural carbon removal. In this article, I suggest that a first step to achieve this might be to replace …Read more
  •  16
    From Sovereignty to Guardianship in Ecoregions
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 40 (4): 608-623. 2023.
    Recent scientific studies suggest that the destabilisation of the earth's climate and biodiversity loss are not separate, but interdependent phenomena. In this context, some have proposed the creation of a ‘Global Safety Net’ of ecoregions that should be preserved to stop further biodiversity loss, preventing at the same time the growth of CO2 emissions produced by deforestation and allowing natural carbon removal. In this article, I suggest that a first step to achieve this might be to replace …Read more
  •  20
    Occupancy rights: dynamic as well as located
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 23 (6): 765-772. 2020.
    Anna Stilz’s Territorial Sovereignty (2019) aims to be a revisionist account of territorial rights that puts the value of individual autonomy first, without giving up the value of collective self-determination. In what follows I examine Stilz’s definition of occupancy rights and her emphasis on the moral relevance of what she calls ‘located’ life plans. I suggest that, if it aims at being truly revisionist, her theory should work with a broader definition of occupancy. So long as it doesn’t, the…Read more
  •  19
    The human right to subsistence
    Philosophy Compass 14 (9). 2019.
    That there is a human right to subsistence is a basic assumption for most moral and political theorists interested in the problem of global poverty, but it is not one exempt from controversy. In this article, I examine four justifications for this right and suggest that it takes the form of a claim, that is, a right which creates correlative duties on others who are then taken to be the main agents in its fulfillment. I point to some criticisms made against this conceptualization and offer an al…Read more
  •  29
    The Moral Limits of Territorial Claims in Antarctica
    Ethics and International Affairs 32 (3): 339-360. 2018.
    By virtue of the Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959, the territorial claims to Antarctica of seven of the original signatories were held in abeyance or “frozen.” Considered by many as an exemplar of international law, the Antarctic Treaty System has come to be increasingly questioned, however, in a very much changed global scenario that presents new challenges to the governance of the White Continent. In this context, it is necessary to gain a clearer understanding of the moral weight of those ini…Read more
  •  109
    The Bridge of Benevolence: Hutcheson and Mencius
    Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 12 (1): 57-72. 2013.
    The Scottish sentimentalist Francis Hutcheson and the Chinese Confucianist Mencius give benevolence (ren) a key place in their respective moral theories, as the first and foundational virtue. Leaving aside differences in style and method, my purpose in this essay is to underline this similarity by focusing on four common features: first, benevolence springs from compassion, an innate and universal feeling shared by all human beings; second, its objects are not only human beings but also animals;…Read more
  •  16
    Rethinking Land and Natural Resources, and Rights Over Them
    Philosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche. forthcoming.
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  •  6
    Las poblaciones callampa como expresión del derecho de necesidad
    Revista de Ciencia Politica 37 (3): 755-65. 2017.
    My aim in this article is to present the formation of poblaciones callampa in Chile during the second half of the twentieth century (especially between 1950 and 1970), as an expression of the right of necessity of thousands of homeless persons. I suggest that this social phenomenon is the germ of the consequent tomas de sitio (illegal encampments), where the requisites to take part were “to be poor, to have children, three sticks and a flag”. The individual right of necessity is the foundation o…Read more
  •  675
    Doctors with Borders? An Authority-based Approach to the Brain Drain
    South African Journal of Philosophy 36 (1): 69-77. 2017.
    According to the brain drain argument, there are good reasons for states to limit the exit of their skilled workers (more specifically, healthcare workers), because of the negative impacts this type of migration has for other members of the community from which they migrate. Some theorists criticise this argument as illiberal, while others support it and ground a duty to stay of the skilled workers on rather vague concepts like patriotic virtue, or the legitimate expectations of their state and …Read more
  •  70
    The Right of Necessity: Moral Cosmopolitanism and Global Poverty
    Rowman & Littlefield International. 2016.
    What does the basic right to subsistence allow its holders to do for themselves when it goes unfulfilled? This book guides the reader through the morality of infringing property rights for subsistence, in a global context.
  •  450
    From the end of the twelfth century until the middle of the eighteenth century, the concept of a right of necessity –i.e. the moral prerogative of an agent, given certain conditions, to use or take someone else’s property in order to get out of his plight– was common among moral and political philosophers, who took it to be a valid exception to the standard moral and legal rules. In this essay, I analyze Samuel Pufendorf’s account of such a right, founded on the basic instinct of self-preservati…Read more
  •  46
    Avatar vs Mononoke
    Philosophy Now 85 44-46. 2011.
    "Avatar" and "Princess Mononoke" as representative of radically different positions in environmental ethics.
  •  1007
    At the basis of modern natural law theories, the concept of the suum, or what belongs to the person (in Latin, his, her, its, their own), has received little scholarly attention despite its importance both in explaining and justifying not only the genealogy of property, but also that of morality and war.1 In this paper I examine Hugo Grotius's what it is, what things it includes, what rights it gives rise to and how it is extended in the transition from the state of nature to civil society. I th…Read more
  •  40
    The Volcanic Asymmetry or the Question of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Disasters
    Journal of Political Philosophy 23 (1): 192-212. 2015.
    Why do we assign to countries rights to all the positive utilities from their natural resources, but hold them under no duty to bear costs for the negative utilities generated by those resources for those beyond their borders? In this paper I suggest that this ‘volcanic asymmetry’ has been overlooked by statist and cosmopolitan theories and that, despite of the arguments that might be given on its behalf, keeping this asymmetry requires further normative justification. I present two ways of gett…Read more
  •  72
    Review Article: The environmental turn in territorial rights (review)
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 19 (2): 221-241. 2016.
    Recent theories of territorial rights could be characterized by their growing attention to environmental concerns and resource rights (understood as the rights of jurisdiction and/or ownership over natural resources). Here I examine two: Avery Kolers’s theory of ethnogeographical plenitude, and Cara Nine’s theory of legitimate political authority over people and resources. While Kolers is a pioneer in demanding ecological sustainability as a minimum requirement for any viable theory of territori…Read more
  •  100
    Theories of Justice (edited book)
    Ashgate. 2012.
    Forty years ago, in his landmark work A Theory of Justice, John Rawls depicted a just society as a fair system of cooperation between citizens, regarded as free and equal persons. Justice, Rawls famously claimed, ought to be “the first virtue of social institutions.” Ever since then, moral and political philosophers have expanded, expounded or criticized Rawls’s main tenets, from perspectives as diverse as egalitarianism, left and right libertarianism, and the ethics of care. The most important …Read more
  •  567
    Nonhuman Animals in Adam Smith's Moral Theory
    Between the Species 13 (9). 2009.
    By giving sympathy a central role, Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) can be regarded as one of the ‘enlightened’ moral theories of the Enlightenment, insofar as it widened the scope of moral consideration beyond the traditionally restricted boundary of human beings. This, although the author himself does not seem to have been aware of this fact. In this paper, I want to focus on two aspects which I think lead to this conclusion. First, by making sentience the requisite to be taken i…Read more
  •  43
    What the Old Right of Necessity Can Do for the Contemporary Global Poor
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 607-620. 2017.
    Given the grim global statistics of extreme poverty and socioeconomic inequalities, moral and political philosophers have focused on the duties of justice and assistance that arise therefrom. What the needy are morally permitted to do for themselves in this context has been, however, a mostly overlooked question. Reviving a medieval and early modern account of the right of necessity, I propose that a chronically deprived agent has a right to take, use and/or occupy whatever material resources ar…Read more
  •  1271
    Veganism
    In Paul B. Thompson & David M. Kaplan (eds.), Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, Springer Verlag. 2012.
    Narrowly understood, veganism is the practice of excluding all animal products from one’s diet, with the exception of human milk. More broadly, veganism is not only a food ethics, but it encompasses all other areas of life. As defined by the Vegan Society when it became an established charity in the UK in 1979, veganism is best understood as “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude – as far as is possible and practicable – all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for …Read more
  •  24
    A can of tomato juice in the sea
    Philosophy Now 107 20-21. 2015.
    John Locke’s justification of property rights starts with the idea that mixing one’s labor with previously unowned (natural) physical objects entitles one to ownership of the resulting product. American philosopher Robert Nozick presents this idea in Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974), but notes that things are not as straightforward as they might seem. On the contrary, Nozick writes, there are instances where by mixing one’s labor with something in nature, one loses one’s labor without making any…Read more
  •  34
    Shared Sovereignty over Migratory Natural Resources
    Res Publica 22 (1): 21-35. 2016.
    With growing vigor, political philosophers have started questioning the Westphalian system of states as the main actors in the international arena and, within it, the doctrine of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources. In this article I add to these questionings by showing that, when it comes to migratory natural resources, i.e., migratory species, a plausible theory of territorial rights should advocate a regime of shared sovereignty among states. This means that one single entity should …Read more
  •  515
    Given the conceptual gap in the global justice debate today (where most of the talk is about the duties of the rich, but little is said about what the poor may do for themselves), in this article I reintroduce the idea of a right of necessity. I first delineate a normative framework for such a right, inspired by these historical accounts. I then offer a contemporary case where the exercise of the right of necessity would be morally legitimate according to that framework – even though illegal and…Read more