Global justice
Norwegian philosopher Henrik Syse claims that global ethics and international justice in the western tradition form part of the tradition of natural law: the topic has been organised and taught within Western culture since Latin times of Middle Stoa and Cicero, and the early Christian philosophers Ambrose and Augustine.
[citation needed] Cosmopolitans, reportedly including the ancient Greek Diogenes of Sinope, have described themselves as citizens of the world.
[7] Over the same period political philosophers' interest in justice focused almost exclusively on domestic issues: how should states treat their subjects, and what do fellow-citizens owe one another?
[10] In the contemporary global justice debate, the general issue of impartiality centres on the moral significance of borders and of shared citizenship.
Are there, as the moral universalist argues, objective ethical standards that apply to all humans regardless of culture, race, gender, religion, nationality or other distinguishing features?
A Moral Conception of Social Justice is only Universalistic if: Gillian Brock asks "Do we have an obligation to ensure people have their basic needs met and can otherwise lead “decent” lives, or should we be more concerned with global socio-economic equality?".
[19] 130 Civil Society groups in Africa have recognized that the ICC operates unevenly but in the interest of reaching global justice remain supportive of it.
Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle of the Global Justice Ecology Project have noted that in 2007 industry insiders were given preferential treatment over "civil society observers and delegates from poorer countries whose visas were delayed.
[24] Five main positions—realism, particularism, nationalism, the society of states tradition, and cosmopolitanism (in two forms) — have been taken by contributors to the global justice debate.
Realists, such as Charles Yeo, Hashim Tilab argue that there are no global ethical standards, and that to imagine that there are is a dangerous fantasy.
[26] The theoretical roots for this realist view are found in the tradition including Machiavelli and extending back to Glaucon's challenge to Socrates.
[28] Particularists, such as Michael Walzer and James Tully, argue that ethical standards arise out of shared meanings and practices, which are created and sustained by discrete cultures or societies.
Nation-states that express their peoples' shared and distinctive ethical understandings are the proper institutions to enable local and different justices.
"[30] Nationalists, such as David Miller and Yael Tamir, argue that demanding mutual obligations are created by a particular kind of valuable association, the nation.
When Rawls applied this method in the case of domestic justice, with parties in the original position representing individual members of a single society, he argued that it supported a redistributive, egalitarian liberal politics.
Cosmopolitans argue that some form of moral universalism is true, and therefore that all humans, and not merely compatriots or fellow-citizens, fall within the scope of justice.
This means that the fact that some people are suffering terrible deprivations of welfare, caused by poverty, creates a moral demand that anyone who is able to help them do so.
[37] Others defend neoconservative interventionist foreign policy from a view of cosmopolitanism for the added benefits to human rights that such intervention could bring.
Some defended the 2003 invasion of Iraq from this motive due to the human rights abuses Saddam had inflicted on countless members of the Kurdish and Shiite communities.
Realists complain that states that pursue utopian moral visions through intervention and humanitarian aid, instead of minding their own strategic interests, do their subjects harm and destabilise the international system.
[42] Cosmopolitans believe that the contemporary world badly fails to live up to their standards, and that doing so would require considerable changes in the actions of wealthy individuals and states.
