Global Environment and International Inequality

Abstract

My aim is to establish that three commonsense principles of fairness, none of them dependent upon controversial philosophical theories of justice, give rise to the same conclusion about the allocation of the costs of protecting the environment. Poor states and rich states have long dealt with each other primarily upon unequal terms. The imposition of unequal terms has been relatively easy for the rich states because they have rarely needed to ask for the voluntary cooperation of the less powerful poor states. Now the rich countries have realized that their own industrial activity has been destroying the ozone in the earth’s atmosphere and has been making far and away the greatest contribution to global warming. They would like the poor states to avoid adopting the same form of industrialization by which they themselves became rich. It is increasingly clear that if poor states pursue their own economic development with the same disregard for the natural environment and the economic welfare of other states that rich states displayed in the past during their development, everyone will continue to suffer the effects of environmental destruction. Consequently, it is at least conceivable that rich states might now be willing to consider dealing cooperatively on equitable terms with poor states in a manner that gives due weight to both the economic development of poor states and the preservation of the natural environment. If we are to have any hope of pursuing equitable cooperation, we must try to arrive at a consensus about what equity means. And we need to define equity not as a vague abstraction but concretely and specifically in the context of both development of the economy in poor states and preservation of the environment everywhere. What diplomats and lawyers call equity incorporates important aspects of what ordinary people everywhere call fairness. The concept of fairness is neither Eastern nor Western, Northern nor Southern, but universal. People everywhere understand what it means to ask whether an arrangement is fair or biased toward some parties over other parties.