The history of international relations is characterized by widespread injustice. What implications does this have for those living in the present? Many writers have dismissed the moral urgency of rectificatory justice in a domestic context, as a result of their forward-looking accounts of distributive justice. Rectifying International Injustice argues that historical international injustice raises a series of distinct theoretical problems, as a result of the popularity of backward-looking accounts of distributive justice in an international context. It lays out three morally relevant forms of connection with the past, based in ideas of benefit, entitlement and responsibility. Those living in the present may have obligations to pay compensation to those in other states insofar as they are benefiting, and others are suffering, as a result of the effects of historic injustice. They may be in possession of property which does not rightly belong to them, but to which others have inherited entitlements. Finally, they may be members of political communities which bear collective responsibility for an ongoing failure to rectify historic injustice. Rectifying International Injustice considers each of these three linkages with the past in detail. It examines the complicated relationship between rectificatory justice and distributive justice, and argues that many of those who resist cosmopolitan demands for the global redistribution of resources have failed to appreciate the extent to which past wrongdoing undermines the legitimacy of contemporary resource holdings.
Author(s): Daniel Butt
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 248
0199218242......Page 1
Contents......Page 10
1.1 Rectifying International Injustice – The Real World Context......Page 12
1.2 Theory and Practice......Page 17
1.3 Terminology......Page 33
2.1 The Distinctiveness of International Rectificatory Justice......Page 42
2.2 Does History Have Ethical Significance?......Page 45
2.3 Departures from Initially Just Distributions......Page 48
2.4 Departures from Initially Unjust Distributions......Page 52
3.1 International Libertarianism as an Account of Distributive Justice......Page 69
3.2 The Principles of Just International Interaction......Page 76
3.2.1 Core Principles of Just International Interaction......Page 77
3.2.2 Further Principles of Just International Interaction......Page 78
3.3 Judging Historical International Interaction......Page 83
3.3.1 Historically Different Beliefs about Justice......Page 84
3.3.2 The Recent Development of International Law......Page 86
3.3.3 Justifiable or Excusable Departures from the Principles......Page 90
4.1 International Compensatory Justice......Page 108
4.2 Identifying the Morally Relevant Counterfactual......Page 113
4.3 Counterfactuals and Relational Justice......Page 126
4.4 Benefiting from Injustice......Page 128
4.4.1 Benefit and Duties of Assistance......Page 129
4.4.2 Benefit and the Effects of Injustice......Page 133
4.4.3 From Theory to Practice – Problems of Measuring Benefit......Page 141
5.1 The Inheritance Model of Rectificatory Justice......Page 151
5.2 The Justifiability of Inheritance......Page 152
5.2.1 Property and Possession (1)......Page 156
5.2.2 International Libertarianism and Historical Entitlement......Page 159
5.2.3 Property and Possession (2)......Page 171
5.3 Inheritance and Indeterminacy......Page 173
6.1 The Significance of National Identity......Page 185
6.2 The Nature of Rectificatory Duties......Page 187
6.3 Nations and Collective Responsibility......Page 189
6.4 Nations and Overlapping Generations......Page 194
6.5 Historic Justified Rights Infringements and Present Day Obligations......Page 199
Conclusion......Page 206
Bibliography......Page 210
C......Page 222
H......Page 223
M......Page 224
R......Page 225
T......Page 226
Z......Page 227
