Just Global Governance: Review Essay.

• Date: 01 January 2015
• Author: Hibbert, Neil

Works Reviewed

Globalization and Global Justice: Shrinking Distance, Expanding Obligations

Nicole Hassoun

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012. 235pp.

Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy

Aaron James

Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012. 365pp.

On Global Justice

Mathias Risse

Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2012. 465pp.

Introduction

The problem of justice beyond the state has, in recent decades, become a central area of debate in political theory. Much of the debate has been characterized by disagreements between statist and cosmopolitan theorists. On statist approaches, the relations between members of a state exhaust the scope of justice (Miller 1995; Nagel 2005; Rawls 1999). Cosmopolitans, in contrast, hold some form of the view that state membership should not be relevant to the application of justice and that its requirements apply globally regardless of current institutionalized relationships (Beitz 1979; Caney 2005; Jones 1999; Pogge 1992; Tan 2004). Recent work in global justice, exemplified here by the contributions of Nicole Hassoun, Aaron James and Mathias Risse, has begun to move the debate beyond statist and cosmopolitan positions by treating global governance institutions as freestanding sites of justice.

In attempting to move global justice debates beyond the statist and cosmopolitan divide by bringing global governance in, Risse offers a conception of 'pluralist internationalism', according to which there are different 'grounds' of justice 'associated' with different principles of justice (5). Pluralist internationalism fits between statism and cosmopolitanism by identifying justice-generating global political relations between members of different states based on shared membership in the 'global order' (17). James, similarly, argues against the 'parochial egalitarian' statist view, that because global economic practices remain international, there is 'no intrinsic concern for the fact ... that different societies face quite different relative prospects in a common global economy' (9). Nevertheless, cosmopolitan theories 'obscure the distinctly international structure of the central class of fairness arguments' in global justice (13). While domestic and global institutions have important moral differences both, he argues, give rise to distinctive concerns of 'relative socioeconomic distribution across societies' (99). Hassoun also situates her account of global justice between statist and cosmopolitan approaches, though, of the reviewed approaches, comes closest to statist accounts of justice by identifying the ground of justice commonly associated with states--subjection to coercive institutions--and expanding it globally. Justice, she argues, emerges from the requirements of legitimating coercive authority and 'there are many coercive international institutions' (68).

The aim in reviewing these works is to present the recent development in global justice literature towards global institutional analysis and application that should be of interest to both those doing empirical and normative work in global governance. The first section discusses how each approach interprets the justice generating elements of global institutions. The second section contrasts the different principles of justice drawn from institutional interpretation of global governance. The paper concludes with a critical assessment that outlines possible grounds for synthesis based on connections between global legitimacy and justice.

Justice generating features of global governance

This section identifies the distinctive interpretations of global governance as grounds for justice offered by Hassoun, James and Risse. James and Risse advance a largely international understanding of the global political order, whereas Hassoun develops a conception of global governance as a more autonomous space of coercive governance. For James and Risse, global institutions primarily treated as means of securing the benefits of cooperation between states, namely enhanced national income. Institutionally sustained and impactful global interaction creates new justice generative practices and relations beyond the state, the legitimacy of which requires regulative principles for the distribution of international cooperative benefits and burdens. However, because the justice-generative elements of global governance are significantly distinct than practices and relations within states they, as discussed in the following section, yield distinctive principles of justice.

Under Hassoun's more autonomous conception of global governance, global institutions do more than regulate international cooperation and exercise distinct coercive authority across a wider range of issues that impacts persons' autonomy. According to Risse, 'the global order is a system of territorial states ... (making) ... claims to resources and spaces by excluding others' (147). The global order has 'arisen through a history of interferences' by states that have 'generated institutions charged with global problem solving' (138). The primary implication of the global order for states is that it creates sustained interconnectedness such that they increasingly influence 'each other's trajectories through political and economic interaction as well as through legal or cultural channels' (138). In addition to identifying a structured global order, Risse makes the further claim that persons are members of it, creating new political relations and therefore 'new entitlements of people vis-a-vis each other' (139). Membership here is a relatively thin concept--being 'a member means to live in the territory covered by it and to be subject to those bits of this interlocking system of jurisdictions that apply to one's situation.. .(t)oday all humans are members (of the global order) in this broad sense' (138). Distinctive features of membership in different political orders create unique moral requirements for making authoritative structures 'acceptable' to their members.

A further ground of global justice identified by Risse is the system of global trade. The basic justification of trade, he argues, is development of national societies and economies. As a ground of justice, trade is interpreted as a 'structured and repeated exchange involving markets and bodies of law' oriented towards mutual benefits for the 'involved countries as a whole' (272). Additionally, it has 'significance for people's ability to make a living' and could be alternatively structured so as to differently impact persons' prospects (273). Justification of a system of structured and impactful global trade grounds a principle of justice oriented towards 'regulating the distribution of gains from trade among countries' (274).

Institutionalized trade is also the principal justice-generating element under James'...