Global justice and the (Ir)relevance of indeterminacy

Abstract

Global justice is one of the most indiscriminately used notions in international debate, usually taken to reflect a moral imperative of securing fairness between differently positioned States. As such, global justice might accurately be described as a meta-principle, used here to refer to its universal scope and the overarching conceptual reach of its subject-matter, as well as possessing a high degree of conceptual indeterminacy. It is suggested that there are three levels of uncertainty: indeterminacy of scope (to what is it relevant?), of content (what does it require?) and of application (is justice something that can even be understood at the global level?). In recognizing this uncertainty, the paper nevertheless concludes that while the recourse to principle in political and legal debate can never anticipate the attainment of justice, this should not marginalize the significance - the relevance - of striving for fairness at the global level, particularly between economically divergent States.