Global social justice

Abstract

One of the strong justifications of global social policy (GSP) is the growing theory and practice of global justice. The latter is founded on the moral and political claim that, in today’s globalising world, our duties and obligations to other people extend beyond state borders. This implies that if people elsewhere (in other countries) find themselves in morally disturbing conditions due to unjust outcomes of globalisation or the dire consequences of global diseases such as COVID-19, we are obliged to act to mitigate existing injustices and prevent further injustice. International actions cannot be only by civil society mobilisations and advocacy campaigns. Rather, they can also take the form of institutional actions, including policies of global social redistribution, global social regulation and global social rights. These are GSPs that respond to global injustice, including health inequity and lack of social welfare (Deacon et al, 1997). Global justice marks the shift from a Hobbesian perspective on international political morality to a Kantian one. The latter is more cosmopolitan and less statist than the former (see the next section). This implies that a Kantian perspective does not presuppose sovereign power for obliging people to follow moral principles. Indeed, some commentators on global justice, such as Amartya Sen (1999), Martha C. Nussbaum (2000), Gillian Brock (2009), Charles Beitz (1999) and Thomas Pogge (2002), argue that although we have special connections with those in close relation to us, we also have relations to humanity as a whole. These relations raise the issue of our obligations to the global citizen.