This paper develops and defends the approach to distributive justice the author presents in his 2012 book On Global Justice. Characteristic of that approach is that the notion of distributive justice is understood as capturing the most stringent moral demands while at the same time being broadly...

In the last half a century, Singapore has gone through truly astonishing transformations. It has now arguably come of age as a First World country, as captured by the title of a recent book by the Founding Father of modern Singapore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. But First World countries are normally taken...

The author's 2012 book On Global Justice gives pride of place to the idea that humanity collectively owns the earth. Independently of this approach there has been a flourishing literature on the justification of rights to territory. Central to this discussion are a Kantian approach and a Lockean...

Economic theory teaches us that it is in every country's own best interest to engage in trade. Trade therefore is a voluntary activity among consenting parties. On this view, considerations of justice have little bearing on trade, and political philosophers concerned with matters of global...

Labor rights are the first to come up for criticism when accounts of human rights are offered in response to philosophical questions about them, and notoriously so Article 24, which talks about “rest and leisure” and “period holidays with pay.” This study first tries to make it plausible...

Why do we have human rights? What ought to be the function of such rights in the global order, and to what extent does this help define what they are? Who needs to do what to realize these rights? In response to such questions this paper develops a conception of human rights that thinks of them...

Subsidies and the Fair Trade movement are two topics central to reflection on fairness in trade. A common view is that support for Fair Trade is called for, whereas agricultural subsidies are unjustifiable. Yet there are curious similarities between these scenarios. On the face of it, both...

John Rawls's "Law of Peoples" has come in for a good deal of critical discussion recently, and most political philosophers seem to find it wanting for one reason or another. This study argues that Rawls's is a plausible view of what developed countries owe developing countries. Rawls formulates...

Racial profiling is a matter of considerable concern in the U.S., and mutatis mutandis in other countries. Yet, perhaps because of its sensitive nature, there is almost no philosophical reflection on this subject. This essay provides a normative assessment of racial profiling and invites more...

Many unjust relationships continue to exist among peoples as well as among individuals. Perhaps there are so many of them that their sum total supports the verdict that we live in an unjust world. Yet this study asks whether the "global order" as such is unjust, and seeks to give a partial...