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International Liberalism and Distributive Justice: A Survey of Recent Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Charles R. Beitz
Charles R. Beitz
Affiliation:
Government at Bowdoin College
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Abstract

In recent years there has been a renewal of interest in the liberal tradition in international thought, with particular attention being paid to liberal conceptions of international distributive justice. This article describes and criticizes three different approaches to international distributive justice represented in the recent literature: (1) social liberalism, which takes the nation-state as basic and argues for international transfers to the extent necessary to sustain just domestic institutions; (2) laisser-faire liberalism, which, in its redistributivist variant, aims to rectify injustices arising from the unequal appropriation of natural resources; and (3) cosmopolitan liberalism, which takes each individual's interests as equally deserving of concern in the design of global (and sectional) institutions.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , January 1999 , pp. 269 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1999

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References

1 The literatures are vast and for the most part well known. For the dispute about realism, see Baldwin, David A., ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia versity Press, 1993Google Scholar). On the democratic peace, see Michael W. Doyle's important two-part article, “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs,” pts. 1 and 2, Philosophy and Public Affairs 12 (Sumer and Fall 1983Google Scholar). For a recent effort to formulate a liberal analytical perspective on international affairs, see Moravcsik, Andrew, “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics,” International Organization 51 (Autumn 1997CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

2 Waltz, Kenneth N., Man, the State, and War: A TheoreticalAnalysis (New York: Columbia Univer sity Press, 1959Google Scholar); the discussion of liberal theories appears in chap. 4.

3 Moravcsik (fn. 1), for example, is clear about this (p. 548). This is not to say that the analytical literature lacks normative motivation; see, e.g., , Robert O.Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984Google Scholar), chap. 11; and “International Liberalism Reconsidered,” in Dunn, John, ed., The Economic Limits to Modern Politics(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Michael Doyle's recent book examines liberal as well as realist and Marxist perspectives on an array of normative questions; see Doyle, , Ways of War and(New York: W. W. Norton, 1997Google Scholar).

4 Rawls, , A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 7Google Scholar.

5 See, for example, Bull's distinction between “international,” “individual,” and “cosmopolitan” conceptions of international justice in The Anarchical Society, 2d ed. (London: Macmillan, 1995), 81Google Scholar.

6 Miller, , On Nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995Google Scholar); Rawls, , “The Law of Peoples,” in Shute, Stephen and Hurley, Susan, eds., On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993 (New York: Basic Books, 1993Google Scholar); Vincent, R. J., Human Rights and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986Google Scholar). Although she refers to international distributive justice only in passing, Yael Tamir's comments in LiberalNationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993Google Scholar) are interesting for the particularistic foundations adduced for the view; see pp. 117–21,160–63.

7 Miller (fn. 6), 75–77,107–8. All forms of social liberalism must specify some such threshold, but views may differ about its character and severity. For example, compare the passages cited from Miller with Vincent (fn. 6), 143–50; and Rawls (fn. 6), 76–77.

8 Rawls (fn. 6).

9 See particularly Rawls (fn. 4), sec. 58.

10 I leave aside many other parts of “The Law of Peoples.” I note also that Rawls has set forth the theory in greater detail in a monograph also entitled The Law of Peoples (forthcoming). It is a rich and stimulating work that will repay close study. Regrettably, I must limit myself here to the already published paper.

11 The idea of a well-ordered, hierarchical society is intended to represent societies based on “comprehensive” (e.g., religious) doctrines. Such a society, although neither liberal nor democratic, seeks the common good of its people and respects basic human rights. Rawls (fn. 6), 60–62.

12 The law of peoples is prior to domestic justice in that it limits the authority of individual states, not only in their foreign relations but also, through the requirement to respect human rights, in regard to their own people. Human rights, therefore, establish the limits of acceptable pluralism in international society. Rawls (fn. 6), 70–71.

13 Ibid., 56. The passage refers explicitly to the principles that would be agreed to by representatives of liberal societies. Rawls later claims that the same principles would be accepted by representatives of well-ordered nonliberal societies (pp. 64–65).

14 Ibid., 42.

15 Of the latter there are two nonexclusive kinds: “outlaw” states, which do not respect the law of peoples (e.g., by failing to respect the integrity of other states or their own peoples' human rights), and societies subject to unfavorable economic and social conditions, which for that reason are unable to sustain well-ordered institutions. Rawls (fn. 6), 72.

16 Ibid., 73.

17 Ibid., 75.

18 For a recent example of the standard view, see Gewirth, Alan, The Community of Rights (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996Google Scholar).

19 Rawls (fn. 6), 68, 78.

20 Ibid., 71. Rawls holds that there may be a right of forcible intervention, for example, when necessary to defend the well-ordered societies against “outlaw regimes” or (“in grave cases”) to defend individuals subject to outlaw regimes that threaten their human rights (p. 73).

21 Ibid., 227–28 n. 46. But Rawls also holds that all well-ordered regimes should aim to satisfy their people's basic needs and that therefore the rights to liberty and security imply rights to subsistence (p. 225 n. 26). Though as a matter of political theory this seems correct, there is some tension with the language of the declaration, which plainly presupposes a distinction between liberty and welfare. For the 1948 declaration, see Brownlie, Ian, ed., Basic Documents in International Law, 4th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 255Google Scholar–61.

22 See Teson, Fernando R., “The Rawlsian Theory of International Law,” Ethics and International Affairs 9 (1995CrossRefGoogle Scholar); and Jones, Peter, “International Human Rights: Philosophical or Political?” in Caney, Simon, George, David, and Jones, Peter, eds., National Rights, International Obligations (Boulder, Colo.:Westview, 1996Google Scholar).

23 The difference principle requires social and economic inequalities be to the greatest benefit of those least advantaged by them. See Rawls (fn. 4), 83.

24 Rawls (fn. 6) suggests in a footnote that international justice might require redistribution of benefits derived from unequal resource endowments (p. 228 n. 52). The point is not developed in the text and there is no clear foundation for such a requirement in the theory.

25 This idea is shared by other social liberals. Thus Michael Walzer: “I am inclined to think that, for now at least, ordinary moral principles regarding humane treatment and mutual aid do more work than any specific account of [international] distributive justice.” “Response,” in Miller, David and Walzer, Michael, eds., Pluralism, Justice, and Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995CrossRefGoogle Scholar), 293. Compare Donelan, Michael, Elements ofInternational Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 196Google Scholar–97.

26 The point is made several times in Rawls (fn. 6), e.g., 46–47,48, 65–66, and particularly 75–76.

27 Ibid., 75.

28 Ibid., 77 and 228 n. 52. Although this point is made in the context of a discussion aimed at showing why there is no international analog of the difference principle, it may not be meant to explain why this should be so. I discuss the relevance of the observation below.

29 Arguments for a global difference principle are worked out in Beitz, , Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 143Google Scholar–53; and in Pogge, Thomas, Realizing Rawls (Ithaca, N.Y.:Cornell University Press, 1989Google Scholar), chaps. 5–6.

30 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993Google Scholar), 15.

31 Those “who do their part... are to benefit in an appropriate way”; Rawls (fn. 30), 16.

32 Ibid., 15. On the parallel requirement for well-ordered hierarchical societies, see Rawls (fn. 6), 69.

33 Recall Rousseau's admonition: “The boundaries of what is possible in moral matters are less narrow than we think. It is our weaknesses, our vices and our prejudices that shrink them”; Rousseau, , On the Social Contract, trans. , Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis, Ind.:Hackett, 1983Google Scholar), IIL xii.

34 Rawls (fn. 6), 75.

35 Rawls (fn. 6) grants that in other respects the parties might apply a different principle in the international case than they would in the domestic case. For example, in explaining why hierarchical societies would insist on equal treatment in the international original position, even though they have inegalitarian domestic institutions, he writes: “Though a society lacks basic equality, it is not unreasonable for that society to insist on equality in making claims against other societies” (p. 65).

36 Ibid., 54,64–65.

37 Thomas Pogge gives an account of the reasoning in Pogge, , “An Egalitarian Law of Peoples,” Philosophy and PublicAffairs 23 (Summer 1994), 211Google Scholar–14.

38 Ibid., 77. Analogously,). S. Mill held that a people could expect to sustain free institutions only if they struggled to achieve these institutions for themselves; Mill, , “A Few Words on Non-intervention,” in Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1867Google Scholar), 3:175.

39 Rawls (fn. 6), 77.

40 See the text preceding fn. 59,

41 See Hurrell, Andrew and Woods, Ngaire, “Globalisation and Inequality,” Millennium 24 (Winter 1995CrossRefGoogle Scholar); and Haggard, Stephan and Maxfield, Sylvia, “The Political Economy of Financial Internationalization in the Developing World,” in Keohane, Robert O. and Milner, Helen V., eds., Internationalization and Domestic Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996Google Scholar).

42 Rawls (fn. 6), 56.

43 There are illuminating discussions of Rawls's international theory in Hoffmann, Stanley, “Dreams of a Just World Order,” a review of On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993, New York view of Books 42 (November 2, 1995Google Scholar); and Moellendorf, Darrel, “Constructing the Law of Peoples,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (June 1996CrossRefGoogle Scholar). See also the works by Jones and Teson (fn. 22); Pogge (fn. 37).

44 Nozick, , Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 153Google Scholar.

45 Nozick (fn. 44) is the best-known contemporary defender of this view.

46 I must forgo an explanation why. There is a good discussion in Cohen, G. A., Self-ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995CrossRefGoogle Scholar), chaps. 3–4.

47 Steiner, , An Essay on Rights (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994Google Scholar); and idem, “Territorial Justice,” in Caney, George, and Jones (fn. 22).

48 See, e.g., Luper-Foy, Stephen, “Justice and Natural Resources,” Environmental Values 1, no. 1 (1992CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

49 Why this should be so is controversial. The controversy is best approached in the literature on Locke's theory of property acquisition, particularly in commentary on his proviso that any appropriation of unowned things should leave “enough, and as good … in common for others”; see Locke, , Two Treatises of Government, ed. Laslett, Peter, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967Google Scholar), II, sec. 27. For commentary, see Simmons, A. John, The Lockean Theory of Rights (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 288Google Scholar–98 and the references cited there.

50 Steiner (fn. 47,1994), 268.

51 Ibid., 271, emphasis in original.

52 Ibid., 275. Human germ-line genetic information is not to be confused with ability as we commonly understand it, because ability depends not only on genetic endowment but also on what might broadly be called upbringing.

53 For the argument developed, see ibid., 262–65.

54 Locke (fn. 49) may have held such a view (II, sees. 117,120–21).

55 Steiner (fn. 47,1994), 269–70.

56 Ibid., 270 n. 9, emphasis in original. On the valuation of resources, see Tideman, T. Nicolaus, “Commons and Commonwealths: A New Framework for the Justification of Territorial Claims,” in Andelson, Robert V., ed., Commons without Tragedy (London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1991Google Scholar).

57 Of course, nothing in either version of laissez-faire liberalism precludes charitable transfers to help avoid or relieve human-rights deprivations.

58 I made such an argument in Beitz (fn. 29), 136–43. For a similar view, see Barry, Brian, “Humanity and Justice in Global Perspective,” in Barry, , Democracy, Power andJustice: Essays in Political(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 448Google Scholar–52.

59 Ranis, Gustav, “Toward a Model of Development,” in Krause, Lawrence B. and Kihwan, Kim, eds., Liberalization in the Process ofEconomic Development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 100Google Scholar, emphasis in original; and Sachs, Jeffrey D. and Warner, Andrew M., Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth, NBER Working Paper no. 5398 (Cambridge, Mass.:National Bureau of Economic Research, 1995CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

60 Laertius, Diogenes, Diogenes, in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. Hicks, R. D., Library, Loeb Classical (London: William Heinemann, 1925Google Scholar), vol. 2, vol. 6:63.I rely here and in the next paragraph on my article, “Cosmopolitan Liberalism and the States System,” in Brown, Chris, ed., Political Restructuring in Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 1994Google Scholar). On the idea of the cosmopolitan and national sentiment, see Martha Nussbaum's leading essay in Martha Nussbaum and respondents, For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, ed. Cohen, Joshua (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996Google Scholar).

61 Pogge, Thomas W., “Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty,” Ethics 103 (October 1992), 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 O'Neill, Onora, TowardsJustice and Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 172Google Scholar

63 The application of such a view to questions of global distributive justice is perhaps clearest in the encyclical letter of Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio (Of the development of peoples), Ada Apostoli cae Sedis 59:257–99 (1967), reprinted in Carlen, Claudia, ed., The Papal Encyclicals (Wilmington, N.C. McGrath Publishing, 1981Google Scholar), 5:183–201.

64 Goodin, Robert E., “What Is So Special about Our Fellow Countrymen?” Ethics 98 (July 1988CrossRefGoogle Scholar), 685. For the application to international distributive justice, see Goodin, , Protecting the Vulnerable(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 154Google Scholar–69.

65 For the globalized Rawlsian view, see Beitz (fn. 29), pt. 3; and Pogge (fn. 29), chaps. 5–6. On the global basic income, see van Parijs, Philippe, Real Freedomfor All: What (If Any thing) Can Justify Capitalism? (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 223Google Scholar–28.

66 Shue, Henry, Basic Rights, 2d ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996Google Scholar); Pogge (fn. 61); idem, “How Should Human Rights Be Conceived?” Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik 3 (1995Google Scholar); and idem, “Standards of Living within a Global Discourse about Justice: Moral Philosophy and Social Systems,” Zeitschriftfiir Philosophische Forschung (1997). Because discontinuous views resemble the social liberalism of Rawls, it might be asked whether they are really forms of cosmopolitanism at all. The answer is that they are, because they explain the discontinuity in ways consistent with cosmopolitan impartiality.

67 For example, Jeremy Waldron argues that the right to “periodic holidays with pay” (Universal Declaration, art. 24) states a universal human interest that should be recognized in a plausible doctrine of human rights; Waldron, , Liberal Rights: Collected Papers, 1981–1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 12Google Scholar–13. Both Shue and Pogge argue that there is a human right to political participation: Shue (fn. 66), chap. 3; Pogge (fn. 66,1997).

68 Pogge (fn. 61), 50–51. There is an extended discussion in Pogge (fn. 66,1995).

69 Pogge (fn. 66,1995), 116.

70 Shue (fn. 66) argues for a complex allocation of duties, the most salient falling on institutions at both domestic and international levels. See the 1996 afterword, esp. 224 nn. 21 and 25 and p. 225 n. 27.

71 Pogge (fn. 61), 53.

72 Shue (fn. 66), chap. 2 and the 1996 afterword.

73 For a further discussion, see Shue, , “Mediating Duties,” Ethics 98 (July 1988CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

74 A subtle and complex exploration of this idea can be found in a series of papers by Schef-fler, Samuel: “Families, Nations and Strangers,” The Lindley Lecture (Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas, 1995Google Scholar); “Individual Responsibility in a Global Age,” Social Philosophy and Policy 12 (1995Google Scholar); “Liberalism, Nationalism, and Egalitarianism,” in McKim, Robert and McMahan, Jeff, eds., The Morality of Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997Google Scholar); and “Relationships and Responsibilities,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 26 (Summer 1997Google Scholar). There is an extensive further literature on the question of special responsibilities; for a recent discussion, see Mason, Andrew, “Special Obligations to Compatriots,” Ethics 107 (1997CrossRefGoogle Scholar), including the references cited.

75 Political as well as economic conditions on development assistance are now common. The ethical issues are serious, as Nelson, Joan M. and Eglinton, Stephanie J. observe: Global Goals, Contentious Means: Issues of Multiple Aid Conditionally (Washington, D.C.:Overseas Development Council, 1993), 83Google Scholar.

76 Pogge (fn. 43); and idem, “A Global Resources Dividend,” in Crocker, David A. and Linden, Toby, eds., Ethics of Consumption: The Good Life, Justice, and Global Stewardship (Lanham, Md.:Rowman Littlefield, 1997Google Scholar).

77 Few students of international institutions and regimes have systematically explored their distributional effects. The importance of such empirical work cannot be overstated. For a start, see Hasenclever, Andreas, Mayer, Peter, and Rittberger, Volker, Justice, Equality, and the Robustness of International Regimes: A Research Design, Tiibinger Arbeitspapiere zur Internationalen Politik und Friedens-forschung, no. 25 (Tubingen: Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Universität Tübingen, 1996Google Scholar).

78 Reichman, J. H., Implications of the Draft TRIPS Agreement for Developing Countries as Competitors an Integrated World Market, UNCTAD Discussion Papers no. 73 (UNCTAD/OSG/DP/73, November 1993Google Scholar); Oddi, A. Samuel, “TRIPS: Natural Rights and a 'Polite Form of Economic Imperialism,'” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 29 (May 1996Google Scholar).

79 Rawls (fn. 4), 288. See also Barry, , Theories of Justice: A Treatise on SocialJustice (Berkeley: Univer sity of California Press, 1989Google Scholar), 1:193.

80 The task is complicated by dispute about the extent to which technology can be expected to substitute for exhaustible natural resources. For an accessible discussion, see Stern, David I., “The Capital Theory Approach to Sustainability: A Critical Appraisal,” Journal of Economic Issues 31 (March 1997CrossRefGoogle Scholar). I am grateful to David Vail for instructive discussion on this point.

81 There is an eloquent discussion in Best, Geoffrey, “Justice, International Relations, and Human Rights,” InternationalAffairs 71 (October 1995Google Scholar), esp. 794–98.

82 Vincent (fn. 6) argued more than a decade ago for what he called “the priority of subsistence rights” in contemporary international policy, noting, inter aha, the possibility of solutions that do not engage major ideologies in conflict (p. 147).