Debate: Obligations of Fair Play and Foreigners*

Abstract

THE principle of fair play is thought by at least some scholars to generate political obligations. My goal in this piece is to demonstrate that the principle must be amended to take foreigners into consideration if it is to successfully ground such obligations. By altering the requirements that states must meet to generate fairness-based political obligations in this way, it becomes much more difficult to construe existing states as obligation-conferring. After briefly summarizing the standard fair play argument for political obligations (Section I), I argue that the position is insufficiently attentive to nonmembers (Section II). In particular, the principle of fair play needs to account for the ways in which successful provision of public goods affects the ability of outsiders to develop similar schemes of provision (Section III). By failing to do so proponents risk overlooking unfair effects that such schemes may have on outsiders. Finally, I reformulate the principle of fair play in order to take this criticism into account (Section IV).