Simon Caney

To whom do we owe obligations of distributive justice? In the last decade a number of distinguished political theorists — such as David Miller and Yael Tamir — have defended a nationalist account of our distributive obligations. This paper examines their account of distributive justice. In particular, it analyses their contention (a) that individuals owe special obligations to fellow‐nationals, (b) that these obligations are obligations of distributive justice and (c) that these obligations are enforceable. Miller and Tamir's justifications, I argue, do not support these claims. Moreover, I argue, (a) and (c) should only be accepted in a greatly qualified form and (b) should be rejected altogether. The paper thus concludes that the nationalists' preferred account of distributive justice is untenable.

The last 35 years have seen the emergence and defense of “cosmopolitan” accounts of justice and political institutions. This chapter examines the relationships between three leading cosmopolitan accounts of distributive justice and the environment. It further aims to explore at a more general level how cosmopolitan accounts of distributive justice need to consider both the environmental impacts of realizing their principles of justice and the environmental preconditions of realizing them, so as to ensure that their vision of the just society is sustainable and that humanity is not living beyond its means. Having examined the relationship between cosmopolitan accounts of justice and the environment, the chapter concludes by analyzing the relationship between cosmopolitan accounts of political institutions and the environment, exploring the implications for sovereignty and the scope of democratic institutions.

In recent years a powerful case has been made in defence of a system of global governance in which supra-state institutions are accountable directly to the citizens of the world. This political vision- calling for what is commonly termed a ‘cosmopolitan democracy‘- has been defended with considerable imagination by thinkers such as Daniele Archibugi, Richard Falk, David Held, and Tony McGrew. At the same time, a number of powerful arguments have been developed in favour of cosmopolitan principles of distributive justice. Philosophers such as Brian Barry, Charles Beitz, Onora O'Neill, Thomas Pogge, Henry Shue, and Peter Singer have developed formidable arguments against wholly local theories of distributive justice and have argued for cosmopolitan conceptions of distributive justice.

: Many societies are now having to live with the impacts of climate change and are being confronted with heat waves, wildfires, droughts, and rising sea levels. Without radical action, future generations will inherit an even more degraded planet. This raises the question: How can political institutions be reformed to promote justice for future generations and to leave them an ecologically sustainable world? In this essay, I address a particular version of this question; namely: How can supra–state institutions and transnational political processes be transformed to realize climate justice for future generations? The essay seeks to make two contributions. First, it considers what criteria should guide the evaluation of proposals for reform. It proposes four criteria, and analyzes how they should be interpreted and applied. Second, it considers a raft of different proposals, commenting on their strengths and weaknesses. It presents ten proposals in all, including, among others, establishing a UN high commissioner for future generations, appointing a UN special envoy for future generations, creating a UN agency mandated to protect future generations, instituting representatives for the future in all key UN bodies, ensuring greater youth participation in transnational political decision-making processes, and further developing a global citizens’ assembly. In short, my aim is to outline some of the options available and to defend a normative framework that we can use to evaluate them.

This paper defends a global principle of equality of opportunity, which states that it is unfair if some have worse opportunities because of their national or civic identity. It begins by outlining the reasoning underpinning this principle. It then considers three objections to global equality of opportunity. The first argues that global equality of opportunity is an inappropriate ideal given the great cultural diversity that exists in the world. The second maintains that equality of opportunity applies only to people who are interconnected in some way and infers from this that it should not be implemented at the global level. The third, inspired by Rawls's The Law of Peoples, maintains that it is inappropriate to thrust liberal ideals (like global equality of opportunity) on nonliberal peoples. Each of these challenges, I argue, is unpersuasive.

It is widely recognized that changes are occurring to the earth’s climate and, further, that these changes threaten important human interests. This raises the question of who should bear the burdens of addressing global climate change. This paper aims to provide an answer to this question. To do so it focuses on the principle that those who cause the problem are morally responsible for solving it (the ‘polluterpays’ principle). It argues thatwhilethishasconsiderable appeal it cannot provide a complete account of who should bear the burdens of global climate change. It proposes three ways in which this principle needs to be supplemented, and compares the resulting moral theory with the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’.

Cap-and-trade systems for greenhouse gas emissions are an important part of the climate change policies of the EU, Japan, New Zealand, among others, as well as China and Australia. However, concerns have been raised on a variety of ethical grounds about the use of markets to reduce emissions. For example, some people worry that emissions trading allows the wealthy to evade their responsibilities. Others are concerned that it puts a price on the natural environment. Concerns have also been raised about the distributional justice of emissions trading. Finally, some commentators have questioned the actual effectiveness of emissions trading in reducing emissions. This paper considers these three categories of objections – ethics, justice and effectiveness – through the lens of moral philosophy and economics. It is concluded that only the objections based on distributional justice can be sustained. This points to reform of the carbon market system, rather than its elimination.

This paper examines explore the issues of intergenerational equity raised by climate change. A number of different reasons have been suggested as to why current generations may legitimately favor devoting resources to contemporaries rather than to future generations. These - either individually or jointly - challenge the case for combating climate change. In this paper, I distinguish between three different kinds of reason for favoring contemporaries. I argue that none of these arguments is persuasive. My answer in each case appeals to the concept of human rights. It maintains that a human rights-centered perspective to climate change enables us to address each of these reasons.

It is a commonplace that in many societies people adhere to profoundly different conceptions of the good. Given this we need to know what political principles are appropriate. How can we treat people who are committed to different accounts of the good with fairness? One recent answer to this pressing question is given by Brian Barry in his important work Justice as Impartiality. This book, of course, contains much more than this. It includes a powerful and incisive discussion of several accounts of distributive justice, a critique of other attempts to defend liberal neutrality and a rebuttal of those who are critical of the ideal of impartiality. In this paper I wish, however, to focus on Barry's defence of liberal neutrality. The paper falls into three parts. Section I outlines the thesis that Barry wants to defend and gives a brief sketch of the argument he employs to defend it. Barry's argument makes two claims – what I have termed the Sceptical Thesis and the Agreement Thesis. Section II therefore critically assesses Barry's defence of the sceptical thesis and Section III examines the agreement thesis

This paper examines what agents should do when others fail to comply with their responsibilities to prevent dangerous climate change. It distinguishes between six different possible responses to noncompliance. These include what I term (1) 'target modification' (watering down the extent to which we seek to prevent climate change), (2) ‘responsibility reallocation’ (reassigning responsibilities to other duty bearers), (3) ‘burden shifting I’ (allowing duty bearers to implement policies which impose unjust burdens on others, (4) 'burden shifting II’ (allowing some to protect peoples rights in ways which impose otherwise unjustified burdens on the duty bearers, (5) 'compromising moral ideals' (permitting agents to compromise non-justice ideals that they are otherwise bound by); and (6) ‘promoting compliance (implementing policies and creating institutions which reduce noncompliance). It concludes by outlining a methodological framework for evaluating these options, and by setting out my tentative and provisional evaluation of which responses are the least bad.

To whom do we owe obligations of distributive justice? In the last decade a number of distinguished political theorists — such as David Miller and Yael Tamir — have defended a nationalist account of our distributive obligations. This paper examines their account of distributive justice. In particular, it analyses their contention (a) that individuals owe special obligations to fellow‐nationals, (b) that these obligations are obligations of distributive justice and (c) that these obligations are enforceable. Miller and Tamir's justifications, I argue, do not support these claims. Moreover, I argue, (a) and (c) should only be accepted in a greatly qualified form and (b) should be rejected altogether. The paper thus concludes that the nationalists' preferred account of distributive justice is untenable.

Michael Blake’s excellent book 'Justice and Foreign Policy' makes an important contribution to the ongoing debates about the kinds of values that should inform the foreign policy of liberal states. In this paper I evaluate his defence of the view that egalitarianism applies within the state but not globally. I discuss two arguments he gives for this claim - one appealing to the material preconditions of democracy and the other grounded in a duty to justify coercive power. I argue that neither argument succeeds. I then identify a general problem with his approach. If states adopted Blake’s principles for their foreign policy we would have a much better world than currently exists. But it would not – I submit - be a fair world.