From Human Rights to Global Justice

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From Human Rights to Global Justice

• Göran Collste
• Centre for Applied Ethics
• Linköping University, Sweden

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Aims

• (1) Establish a relation between
• human dignity human rights human
  needs/capabilities
• (2) Develop an argument for moral cosmopolitanism
  as a way to understand global justice

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What are Human Rights?

• Moral claims
• of particular importance,
• universal, i.e. they belong to every individual
  human being irrespective of nationality, race or
  sex,
• equal no human being has more human rights than
  any other.
• UDHR (1948)
• gap between ideal and reality!

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Human Rights and Human Dignity

• Why are human rights prescriptive? Why do they
  oblige us?
• What is of such significance for human life that
  it qualifies as HR?
• What conditions for HR fulfillment?

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• So, if rights make sense at all, then the
  invasion of relatively important rights must be a
  very serious matter. It means treating a man as
  less than a man, or as less worthy of concern
  than other men. (Dworkin, 1977)

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• The idea of human dignity that each human being
  is worthy of respect or concern - is justified in
  different ways in different moral traditions,
• most of the justifications come down to human
  traits of rationality, freedom and morality, or
  sacredness.
• human dignity, and as a consequence human rights,
  are justified through an overlapping consensus
  of different moral doctrines.

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What should count as human rights? What is of
such significance for human life?

• Answer from theories of
• Human needs
• Human capabilities
• Human flourishing
• Common human nature/ethical universalism but
  the way these needs etc will be fulfilled will
  differ depending on cultural context
• the need for nutrition will be met by rice and
  curry in India and by tapas in Spain!

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Critique of a thin theory of the good Amartya
Sen and Martha Nussbaum

• 1. Rawls primary goods (liberty and
  opportunity, income and wealth, bases of
  self-respect) necessary means to realise ones
  life plan
• 2. Neo-classical economic theory BNP/Capita,
  says nothing about level of
• education
• employment
• health
• equality

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Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum

• A theory of capabilities
• Necessary means for any human beings development
  and flourishing
• Capability represents freedom, whereas primary
  goods tell us only about the means to freedom
• health, education, work, liberty, influence,
  community

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UNDPHuman Development Index

• Composite measure of three dimensions of human
  development life expectancy (health) adult
  literacy (education) purchasing power (standard
  of living)
• But not democracy, equality, environment

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• Nussbaum
• Capabilities (health, education) universal
  rights (valid claims)

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Human Rights Minimalism vs Maximalism

• Human Rights as universal moral standards
• Minimalism. a limited number of urgent human
  rights (life, prohibition of slavery and torture)
  (RawlsThe Law of Peoples)

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• Maximalism an extended number of rights
• e.g. democratic participation(21),
• a standard of living adequate for the health
  and well-being.. (25) etc

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Rights correspond to Duties

• Interactional conception relation between
  right-holders and duty-bearers (individuals or
  social agent)
• Institutional conception focus on social
  institutions and basic structure do they protect
  and fulfil human rights?

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From human rights to global justice

• Two conceptions of global justice
• Statist/contractarian the concept of justice is
  tied to the idea of a political structure or a
  political community global justice global
  state. (Rawls, Thomas Nagel)
• Cosmopolitanindividual human beings are the
  ultimate unit of worth and entitled to equal
  consideration regardless of such contingencies
  like nationality and citizenship
• global justice global implementation of
  human rights

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Cosmopolitan global justice

• A global consensus on human rights as universal
  moral standards?
• The implications of globalisation for
  implementation of human rights?

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A global consensus on human rights as universal
moral standards?

• Which rights?
• Right to health care vs right to property
• Rawlss reservation
• liberal parochialism to start with human dignity
• Principle of tolerance minimum set of human
  rights proper

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What does it mean that a right is contextual?

• It has its origin in a specific culture
• There are more or less favourable conditions for
  its implementation
• It is more or less widely accepted
• It is valid in one culture but not in another

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Arguments for a global consensus

• P1 Universal human needs/capabilities -gt
  universal rights
• P2 So called liberal values can be found in
  most traditions
• P3 Social interaction creates common values
  globalisation implies extended encounter of
  moral traditions and value systems

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Who is responsible for implementation of human
rights?

• Globalisation challenge
• (1) that the nation states have the power and
  resources to fulfil human rights within their
  borders
• (2) that the nation states are the primary agents
  on the global arena.

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Implications of globalisation

• Nation states are losing control
• Strong corporations, financial institutions and
  global organisations
• New agents of justice NGO, MNF (Global
  Compact, CSR)

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New global institutional order

• Standards of justice/human rights makes a
  difference
• UN Millennium Goals
• conditions for loans and assistance provided by
  the World Bank may have beneficial or detrimental
  implications for public access to education and
  health care,
• Trade agreements within the WTO may or may not
  take into consideration the poorest nations
  interests.

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We sit in the same boat

• Shared views of basic human rights
• Shared responsibility for the universal
  implementation of human rights

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Rawls, 1999

• While realization is, of course, not unimportant,
  I believe that the very possibility of such a
  social order can itself reconcile us to the
  social world. The possibility is not a mere
  logical possibility, but one that connects with
  the deep tendencies and inclinations of the
  social world. For as long as we believe for good
  reasons that a self-sustaining and reasonable
  just political and social order both at home and
  abroad is possible, we can reasonably hope that
  we or others will someday, somewhere, achieve it
  and we can then do something towards this
  achievement. This alone, quite apart from our
  success or failure, suffices to banish the
  dangers of resignation and cynicism

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Thank you for your attention!