© Copyright 2008 by Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 34, No. 3 (July 2008) 411 Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 1. Introduction This paper explores the problem of how to think about the fulfillment of an ideal-theoretical conception of basic global justice demanding the eradication of global poverty given the recognition of two facts or nonideal circumstances: (a) the absence of robust international institutions and (b) the lack of a strong ethos of cosmopolitan solidarity.1 The paper has three parts. Section 2 presents an account of central concepts involved in the discussion of global justice, such as basic and nonbasic global justice, ideal and nonideal theory, and the different dimensions of a political conception and their justification. Section 3 clarifies the exact relevance of (a) and (b) for a theory of basic global justice. I argue that it is a mistake to think that a recognition of (a) and (b) justifies the claim that there are no stringent duties of global distributive justice. Institutional structures and motivational mechanisms should track basic normative principles, not the other way around. What a recognition of (a) and (b) provides is, instead, grounds for demanding serious consideration of nonideal issues of practical feasibility affecting the implementation of such principles. The final section advances some positive suggestions as to how to move the theoretical and practical agenda of global justice and poverty relief forward with respect to the problems of feasibility identified in section 3. I argue, first, that discussion in political philosophy regarding global justice should take what I call a transitional standpoint. This is the standpoint of political agents that are in the process of changing central features of the institutional and cultural environment in which they act. A transitional standpoint focuses on the identification of dynamic trajectories of political action, which set into motion a sequence of political reforms passing through successive thresholds of feasibility. This approach 1More than a billion people face severe poverty worldwide, lacking access to basic health care, education, food, or housing. This fact is not under debate. There are, however, interesting debates about how to properly describe and measure poverty. See Ingrid Robeyns, "Assessing Global Poverty and Inequality: Income, Resources, and Capabilities," Metaphilosophy 36 (2005): 30-49. 412 Pablo Gilabert is sensitive to both ideal-theoretical and nonideal-theoretical considerations. Second, I illustrate this approach by discussing the central importance of agents' political empowerment through dynamic practices of public deliberation, protest, and institutional experimentation. 2. Basic Global Justice and Nonideal Theory To be fully defensible, a political conception of justice must propose principles, institutions, and strategies of reform that are both morally desirable and practically feasible.2 It is, however, not always clear how considerations of moral desirability and practical feasibility operate in the development and evaluation of the different dimensions of a political conception. I present in section 2.a a general account of these notions, and apply it in section 2.b to the domain of discussions on global justice. 2.a. Moral desirability and practical feasibility in the development and assessment of political conceptions of justice (i) Dimensions of a political conception and their justification. Considerations of moral desirability and practical feasibility apply to three central dimensions of a political conception of justice. The following chart may be useful for the discussion that follows. Kinds of justification Dimensions of a political conception Kinds of theory Abstract DI. Fundamental principles Ideal theory moral Initial DII. Institutional schemes Full political implementing principles from DI political DIII. Processes of reform leading to Nonideal theory realization of schemes from DII Dimension DI includes a set of fundamental principles. These principles identify the most general kinds of rights and duties that individuals in a just society have. Their defense involves appeal to fundamental moral ideas and the identification of general facts that make their application practically necessary and possible. Take, for example, the two principles of Rawls's theory of "justice as fairness," the first demanding a set of equal civil and political liberties and the second economic schemes that work to the greatest benefit of the worst off against the background of 2See Robert Goodin and Philip Pettit, "Introduction," in A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), pp. 1-4, at p. 1. Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 413 fair equality of opportunity.3 These principles are defended as morally desirable by appeal to fundamental normative views of persons as free and equal, rational and reasonable cooperators, and are seen as practically feasible by noting that people have the moral powers and general capacities, and the need, to effectively address unavoidable facts of moderate material scarcity and conflict of interests arising in their social life (what Rawls calls the "circumstances of justice").4 Dimension DII involves the identification and defense of institutional schemes implementing the principles provided in DI. While a fundamental principle is defended by showing that it is better than the alternatives in catering to fundamental moral ideas when dealing with the most general facts of human social existence, an institutional scheme is defended by showing that it is better than the alternatives in implementing the principles selected in DI. Considerations of feasibility and desirability operate here through the operation of two filters. The first (regarding feasibility) distinguishes between sustainable or stable and unsustainable or unstable institutional schemes. An institutional scheme is sustainable or stable when its continued presence is not incompatible with general empirical truths about how people are or can be in their social life. The second filter identifies morally optimal institutional schemes. An institutional scheme is morally optimal when it is better than the alternatives at implementing the principles from DI.5 What I will call the initial political justification of a political conception consists in showing, for a certain context, that the schemes it proposes pass the two filters (i.e., that they are the morally optimal ones among those sustainable). Thus, in the case of his principles of justice, Rawls thinks that their best institutional implementation in a contemporary society would be through the institutions of either a "property-owning democracy" or a "liberal democratic socialism," not through the institutions of a "welfare state capitalism" or a "laissez-faire capitalism." Even though the latter might be sustainable, they would not, as the former, provide the best feasible instantiation of the demands of political freedom and economic equality.6 A third dimension of a political conception, DIII, is focused on identifying and defending strategies of political reform leading to the realization of the institutional schemes from DII when these are not in place. 3John Rawls, Justice as Fairness. A Restatement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 42-43. 4Ibid., pp. 84-85. 5The demand of optimality may be too strong, as we may sometimes be unable to identify complete orderings of alternatives. When this is so, a more relaxed demand of maximality (calling for a selection of schemes that are at least as good as any of the alternatives) would be more appropriate. This cautionary remark applies also to DIII below. 6Rawls, Justice as Fairness, pp. 135-40. 414 Pablo Gilabert Again two filters concerning feasibility and desirability operate here. The first distinguishes between accessible and inaccessible institutional schemes. Following Allen Buchanan, we can see an ideal conception of justice as accessible to certain agents when "there is a practicable route from where [they] are now to at least a reasonable approximation of the state of affairs that satisfies its principles."7 This means that institutional schemes satisfying the fundamental principles of justice can realistically be reached by agents in a certain context. Accessibility can thus be seen as a more context-specific form of feasibility. The second filter identifies morally optimal reforms. These are the ones that, when compared to the alternatives, are the best at approximating the realization of the just schemes while imposing acceptable moral costs to those affected. The second filter demands, in fact, a double moral test. It tests reforms for the moral value of both their results and the process leading to them. To use the helpful terminology proposed by Amartya Sen, we are here assessing "comprehensive outcomes."8 Political judgment is always needed to determine the appropriate balance between process-related and result-related considerations. The ideals and principles from DI normally provide guidelines with which this can be done. Returning to the example of Rawls's conception of social justice, reforms introducing egalitarian economic schemes might not be appropriate if they involve tampering with people's civil and political rights (which have, according to Rawls, priority over economic ones). The full political justification of a political conception would then involve not only the proposal and defense of certain fundamental principles and institutional schemes, but also the exploration and defense of political strategies through which the latter can realistically be accessed.9 7Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 61. Buchanan helpfully distinguishes between feasibility, accessibility, and moral accessibility. The latter two cover the same ground I cover in my discussion of DIII. There are, however, two differences. I present accessibility as a more context-specific form of feasibility. And I see moral accessibility in terms of evaluation of "comprehensive outcomes." 8"There is a distinction between 'culmination outcomes' (that is, only final outcomes without taking any note of the process of getting there, including the exercise of freedom) and 'comprehensive outcomes' (taking note of the process through which the culmination outcome came about)." Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), p. 27. In the essay "Process, Liberties and Rights" of his Rationality and Freedom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 623-58, Sen discusses the appropriateness of trade-offs between "result" and "process" considerations, and recommends a flexible approach that is sensitive to contextual specificities. 9"Full justification" does not mean that the results are not fallible or revisable in ongoing inquiry. Justification is "full" in the sense that it covers all the relevant items in the list given. I do not deny that the list itself might be expanded. One could, for example, add a dimension of inquiry focused on desirable principles that is not at all concerned with feasibility constraints. See on this G.A. Cohen, "Facts and Principles," Philosophy and Public Affairs 31 (2003): 211-45; and Andrew Mason, "Just Constraints," British Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 415 Three comments about this account are necessary. First, it sees both considerations of feasibility and of moral desirability as crucial. Demanding considerations of desirability are necessary if a political conception is to avoid a cynical realism that fails to criticize social injustices. Considerations of feasibility are also necessary if a political conception is to avoid the impotent idealism of merely extending injunctions that are very unlikely to be fulfilled. Second, this account does not conflate feasibility and desirability. The following two claims are perfectly consistent: (1) The institutional scheme S1 is just. (2) S1 is infeasible. The truth of (2) does not entail the falsity of (1). S1 may not be accessible or sustainable in a certain context. This does not make S1 unjust. We can still see S1 as just while noticing that we cannot realistically expect to have it. Another scheme, S2, may be, on the other hand, feasible but not just. Normative political argument looks for the intersection between desirability and feasibility, without conflating the two. These considerations certainly apply to DIII: a reform may successfully lead to a just scheme (and thus render the latter accessible) and yet be morally unacceptable (due to high moral costs involved in the process).10 Notice, finally, that as we move from DI to DII to DIII, considerations of feasibility become more context-specific and involve a greater deal of contingency and uncertainty. The relevant empirical considerations involved in the defense of a strategy of reform are more specific than those involved in the defense of institutional schemes, and the latter are more specific than the very general empirical assumptions backing fundamental principles of justice. Accurate claims about what people can realistically be expected to do depend not only on general facts about human psychology and social organization, but on the specific ways in which these operate in different cultural and institutional settings. This makes the notion of practical feasibility imprecise. This imprecision is frustrating, and the philosopher has the natural tendency to eliminate it by stipulating a more precise definition. But we Journal of Political Science 34 (2004): 251-68. 10Thus, I disagree with Juha Räikkä's recommendation that we "reinterpret the notion of feasibility so that judging whether a social ideal is feasible would involve judging the necessary moral cost of changeover to the ideal," that "it becomes partly a normative matter to decide which institutional arrangements are feasible and which are not." Juha Räikkä, "The Feasibility Condition in Political Theory," Journal of Political Philosophy 6 (1998): 27-40, pp. 38-39 and 37. The moral costs of transition may render a process of reform unacceptable without making it infeasible. Of course, if a significant number of the agents needed to introduce the reform hold such reform morally unacceptable, then perhaps they will choose not to pursue it. But this need not make the reform infeasible. Agents may fail to recognize the moral costs; or they may recognize them and fail to act on this recognition; or a powerful handful of agents might successfully impose the reform on the rest. 416 Pablo Gilabert should recognize that there are strong intuitions pulling in different directions here. Both have significant bearing on the idea of responsible moral and political judgment, but they construe the obviously correct dictum "Ought implies can" in different ways. The first intuition leads to a very minimal definition of practical feasibility in terms of logical and physical possibility. This view clears the path for morally desirable action in the face of seemingly fixed social obstacles. Political history shows that indeed there are moments in which political agents (including, in particular, inspired leaders) reshape and correct perceptions of what is politically possible by pursuing ambitious projects that turn out to be realizable despite initial general dismissal. The second intuition leads to an expansive definition in terms of historical possibility rooted in contextually specific psychological and social mechanisms. This view is supported by sobering experiences of voluntaristic plans that fail in the face of strong psychological and social tendencies. While an expansive definition of feasibility may lead to conservative narrowness, a minimal one may lead to voluntarism and wishful thinking. Responsible moral and political judgment needs to steer clear of both. But there is no obvious way to do it. And this, I think, is what makes the notion of feasibility imprecise. Notice, however, that attention to specific social and psychological mechanisms need not be paired with conservative narrowness. Identifying mechanisms that stand in the way of the realization of normative demands, and mechanisms that foster their realization, can be equally relevant for critically lucid practical judgment. I will explore this point in more detail as we proceed. (ii) Temporal variation and transitional standpoint. Contextual considerations of feasibility loom particularly large in DIII. These considerations may involve temporal variation and be significantly agentdependent. Imagine the following scenario: (a) a certain scheme S2 is considerably more morally desirable than another, S1; (b) S2 is accessible in a context C2 but not in C1; (c) we are, here and now, in C1, not C2; (d) S1 is accessible in C1; and (e) S1 is very likely to generate C2. If (a)-(e) are true, and the moves to S1 and from S1 to S2 do not involve unacceptable moral costs, then it makes sense to say that we have a duty of justice to pursue the trajectory of reform leading to S1 in C1 and from S1 to S2 in C2. Notice that the second segment in the trajectory contributes to the justification of the first, and that the trajectory involves making feasible (accessible), at a later time, what may not be feasible (accessible) here and now. What I call a transitional standpoint focuses on precisely this kind of scenario, where we envisage temporal variation of conditions of feasibility through our political action. An important feature of political action and thought is that some conditions of feasibility can be not only found, but also made, by us. The domains of practical feasibility can be Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 417 shaped historically, and moral reasons may spur action to move social history beyond the bounds of current injustices. The intersection between desirability and feasibility is thus best seen as a moving target.11 2.b. Basic global justice and nonideal theory Dimensions DI and DII make up the domain of ideal theory, including both desirability and feasibility considerations. DIII belongs to nonideal theory. Nonideal theory tells us how to respond to injustice, how to reframe our political world in order to approximate the realization of the conditions identified by ideal theory. In what follows I consider the application of these notions to current debates on global justice. I will do this through a partially critical discussion of their deployment by Rawls. (i) Ideal and nonideal theory. Rawls has coined the distinction between ideal and nonideal theory. He refers to two features of an ideal theory: (a) it assumes strict or general compliance with its demands, under favorable circumstances; and (b) it presents a picture of "what a perfectly just society would look like."12 I think that (a) and (b) need not, however, go together. General compliance under favorable circumstances can be seen as relative to the norms of a perfectly just society or as relative to the norms of a less than perfectly just society. I suggest that we distinguish between two senses of ideal theory. Though both involve condition (a), they differ with respect to (b). The first, maximalist, sense tracks the distinction between perfectly and nonperfectly just social worlds. The second, nonmaximalist, sense tracks social worlds that involve improvements in terms of justice but does not assume that they exhaust the range of desirable moral achievements. According to this second view, (b) is not a necessary condition for something to be an ideal theory. What makes a theory ideal is that it points beyond certain social settings towards morally more desirable ones. Whether the latter are ones with respect to which no moral improvements are possible is a separate (though important) matter. This distinction is 11This is a point emphasized by writers in the socialist tradition. See Jon Elster, Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 201; and Erik Olin Wright, "Compass Points: Towards a Socialist Alternative," New Left Review 41 (2006): 93-124. See also the distinction between feasibility "right now" and feasibility "in the best possible circumstances" in Harry Brighouse, Justice (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), p. 27. As Rousseau said, we should take people as they are and laws as they might be, but we should also notice that laws and political action can transform people's ethos. See on this Joshua Cohen, "Taking People as They Are?" Philosophy and Public Affairs 30 (2002): 363-86. 12John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, revised ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 8, 216; Justice as Fairness, p. 13. 418 Pablo Gilabert significant for moral and political judgment, as we may be reasonably certain that an ideal theory T1 involves morally important and practically feasible improvements with respect to our current social world even if we are uncertain as to whether another ideal theory, T2, which presents morally more demanding (and perhaps perfectly just) social arrangements, is really sustainable or accessible. Keeping the two senses of ideal theory separate is crucial when we move to considerations of global justice. In The Law of Peoples, Rawls presents, as an ideal theory of international justice, a set of principles and institutional schemes that fall significantly short of what a global liberal egalitarianism would demand. Rawls does not think his two principles of social justice should apply globally. He thinks, for example, that the only principle of international redistribution would be a "duty of assistance" on the part of well-ordered liberal and "nonliberal decent societies" to help burdened societies to achieve conditions enabling them to become wellordered.13 An important reason why Rawls's picture of international justice is weaker than his picture of domestic justice is that he thinks that an ideal theory must be a "realistic utopia." A realistic utopia advances a conception of justice that "extends what are ordinarily thought to be the limits of practicable possibility" (it is utopian), while also making sure that the institutional schemes proposed are likely to be "stable" and "workable" (it is realistic).14 A global extension of the principles of domestic liberal justice would, according to Rawls, be utopian without also being realistic. A realistic utopia tracks considerations of practical feasibility no less than considerations of moral desirability. Rawls recognizes, however, that identifying realistic utopian principles and schemes is not simple: I recognize that there are questions about how the limits of the practically possible are discerned and what the conditions of our social world in fact are. The problem here is that the limits of the possible are not given by the actual, for we can to a greater or lesser extent change political and social institutions and much else. Hence we have to rely on conjecture and speculation, arguing as best we can that the social world we envision is feasible and might actually arise, if not now then at some future time under happier circumstances.15 A natural question then is whether Rawls's conception of international justice really presents a maximalist ideal theory. Perhaps the "conjectures" and "speculations" he relies on are not sufficient for dismissing a more demanding cosmopolitan egalitarian account of distributive justice. For all we know (which is very little), the social world envisaged by the latter "might actually arise, if not now then at some future time under 13John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 37, 105-20. 14Ibid., pp. 11, 12-13. 15Ibid., p. 12, see also p. 128. Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 419 happier circumstances."16 Rawls says that "the specific conditions of our world at any time-the status quo-do not determine the ideal conception" of international justice we must endorse but do, instead, "affect the specific answers to the questions of nonideal theory."17 This seems correct. But it is not clear that aspects of the status quo do not creep into Rawls's ideal theory of international justice, with its flat rejection of global egalitarianism. One could also see aspects of the program of The Law of Peoples as an initial move in the development of a more radical ideal theory of global justice. The latter would be cosmopolitan, and would include something like Rawls's Law of Peoples (pace Rawls) as an initial step in a longer, ultimately more demanding, trajectory of reforms. (ii) Basic and nonbasic global justice. I suggest that we distinguish between basic and nonbasic global justice. Even though theories proposing both would be ideal theories, the ones focused on basic justice would not need to make any claim as to whether the social world they demand would amount to a "perfectly just" one (i.e., they need not present an ideal theory in the maximalist sense). Consider the contrast between the following two kinds of principles with global scope: (A) General Global Egalitarianism: We should pursue institutional schemes under which everyone has equal access to important advantages.18 (B) Basic Global Justice: We should pursue institutional schemes under which everyone has access to what they need for their fundamental human rights to be fulfilled. Both principles demand countering people's disadvantage in their access to important goods (at least when it results from morally arbitrary factors 16Samuel Freeman claims that a global version of the difference principle cannot be acceptable, because the difference principle presupposes democratic social and political cooperation, which "does not exist at the global level, and never will." Samuel Freeman, "Distributive Justice and The Law of Peoples," in Rex Martin and David Reidy (eds.), Rawls's Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), pp. 243-60, at p. 255. This categorical statement seems to me to be an exaggeration. Can we really claim to know that global democratic cooperation will "never" exist? 17Rawls, The Law of Peoples, p. 90. 18Following G.A. Cohen, I assume that "a person enjoys access to something which he does not have only if he has both the opportunity and the capacity to obtain it, in the ordinary senses of these words." G.A. Cohen, "On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice," Ethics 99 (1989): 906-44, p. 941. I use "important advantages" as a placeholder for whatever items are significant for a nonbasic egalitarian conception of social justice. There are of course several options here, but it is beyond the scope of this paper to decide which one is the most appropriate. An example of (A) would be a global extension of Rawls's principles of justice as fairness. 420 Pablo Gilabert beyond their control, such as their initial natural and social endowments, and also their national membership). (A) is a principle of nonbasic global justice. It is wider than (B), which is a principle of basic global justice. (B) focuses on a set of fundamental and indeed urgent claims (human rights) to goods without access to which people cannot live a minimally decent life. (B) can, of course, be seen as a part of (A). But this need not be so. It can instead be seen as a restricted demand of sufficient access to certain basic advantages. Someone might accept (B) but have serious concerns regarding (A). This may be because they think that the fulfillment of (A) is not morally desirable, that institutional schemes implementing (A) are in some respect infeasible, or that they involve unacceptable moral costs of transition. In this paper I develop (B). I do not thereby reject (A); I simply put (A) aside. As we will see, articulating (B) already proves quite taxing. I will consider two specific principles flowing from (B): (C) Global Poverty Relief: We should pursue institutional schemes under which everyone has access to what they need to avoid severe poverty. (D) Political Articulation of (C): We should support institutional schemes implementing (C) when they exist, and help create them when they do not. I assume that avoiding severe poverty involves access to certain goods such as food, housing, education, and health care. In section 4, I will also emphasize political empowerment. A theory of basic global justice focused on poverty relief must develop and defend (C) by showing that the duty to eradicate global poverty is a duty of justice rather than a merely humanitarian goal, and by exploring its political articulation (D) through institutional schemes and political reforms that are morally defensible and practically feasible. Before undertaking these tasks, let me first briefly explain how my approach to basic global justice differs from Rawls's "duty of assistance," or at any rate from some interpretations of it. The first difference is that I conceive duties to secure the fulfillment of (C) in a cosmopolitan way. The fundamental ground of duties of poverty relief (and of other duties regarding human rights), is that they meet claims that persons have on other persons and on institutions (national or international). Rawls takes peoples rather than persons as the primary units of normative analysis regarding international justice, seeing the latter as only indirectly relevant.19 Second, I see assistance to the global poor as unambiguously a matter 19On the contrast between "liberal cosmopolitan" approaches taking individuals as basic and "social liberal" approaches taking peoples as basic, see Charles Beitz, "Rawls's Law of Peoples," Ethics 110 (2000): 669-96. I agree with Beitz that Rawls's endorsement of social liberalism is a mistake. Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 421 of distributive justice. Rawls is not fully clear in this respect. He seems reluctant to call the duty of assistance a duty of justice because it, unlike duties focused on something like a global version of the difference principle, has a specific "target" and a "cutoff" point.20 I think, however, that since the beneficiaries of (C) can be said to be entitled to what it demands, and such demands can be legitimately imposed on agents with resources, through legal coercion, then it makes sense for the duties involved to be considered duties of justice. Duties of poverty relief have a target and a cutoff point, and are in this sense different from duties associated with a more demanding distributive principle, but they are still duties of basic global distributive justice. Third, I do not assume that considerations of international distributive justice must stop once the conditions necessary for fulfilling human rights have been secured for all peoples. As I said above, endorsement of (B) can be disentangled from endorsement or rejection of (A).21 Finally, I do not assume that duties grounded in human rights must presuppose preexisting facts of cooperation among those to whom they apply. It is not clear whether Rawls thinks that the duty of assistance, and other demands regarding human rights, apply only to those who engage in social cooperation (or that, when they do, they do it because this would be a precondition for such a cooperation). In a recent article, Samuel Freeman argues that Rawls sees social cooperation as the justificatory basis of human rights.22 Rawls does say that human rights "are recognized as necessary conditions of any system of cooperation," that when they are "regularly violated," there is "no cooperation of any kind."23 But this does not entail, as Freeman seems to assume, that Rawls must also see social cooperation as the only, or the crucial, justificatory basis of human rights. In any case, the latter claim seems implausible. It would be morally awkward to say that the crucial reason why I should not torture you is that doing such a thing would make it impossible for us to cooperate. Your claim against torture is more fundamental. It would be gravely wrong for me to torture you even if we do not engage in a mutual scheme of social cooperation or even care about doing so in the future. 20Rawls, The Law of Peoples, p. 106. Rawls's text is not fully clear. It says that "most" principles of distributive justice "do not have a defined goal, aim, or cut-off point, beyond which aid may cease." But this is consistent with seeing some principles with a defined goal (e.g., (C)) as principles of distributive justice. 21Sufficientarian principles can be seen as supplementing rather than substituting more demanding egalitarian or prioritarian principles. See Paula Casal, "Why Sufficiency is not Enough," Ethics 117 (2007): 296-326. 22Samuel Freeman, "The Law of Peoples, Social Cooperation, Human Rights, and Distributive Justice," Social Philosophy and Policy 23 (2006): 29-68, pp. 35-36. 23Rawls, The Law of Peoples, p. 68. 422 Pablo Gilabert (iii) Nonideal theory of basic global justice. A general defense of (C) and (D) can be given by appealing to different moral considerations. I have argued elsewhere that a contractualist framework of moral reasoning of the kind developed by T.M. Scanlon can yield a compelling account. I will not rehearse the argument here, but the core of it is quite simple. Principles of justice, and institutions implementing them, are morally binding when no one affected by them could reasonably reject them. Reasonable rejection draws on generic reasons shared by those engaging in contractualist argument. Human rights claims concern fundamental interests shared by all human beings. Since principles and institutions securing human rights, including basic socioeconomic rights, would serve these fundamental interests in appropriate ways, it is warranted to claim that they yield obligations worthy of institutional enforcement. When an institutional scheme fulfilling the human rights of all is in place, everyone should support it. When that scheme is absent, everyone has a natural duty to help create it. The duties of poverty relief are, I claim, both negative and positive: their structure is such that they demand not only refraining from deprivation, but also providing protection and assistance, in relation to others' access to the objects fulfilling their human right to escape avoidable severe poverty.24 My goal in this paper is not to give a general moral defense of (C) and (D), but to account for their status and role when two nonideal circumstances are directly addressed. First, robust international institutions that can secure the fulfillment of socioeconomic human rights are largely absent; and second, it is not clear that global duties of poverty relief have sufficient motivational traction on those who are called to discharge them. In section 3, I argue that these circumstances affect the feasibility (in particular the accessibility) of (C), but not its status as a principle of global justice. In section 4, I make some suggestions as to how these unfavorable circumstances can be addressed in theory and practice. This amounts to an exploration in the nonideal theory of basic global justice. 3. Two Nonideal Circumstances 3.a. Institutional concerns An obvious problem for any conception of global justice is that there seem to be no robust international institutions capable of implementing 24See Pablo Gilabert, "Contractualism and Poverty Relief," Social Theory and Practice 33 (2007): 277-310. This paper elaborates on the contractualist view presented by T.M. Scanlon in What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998). See also Elizabeth Ashford, "The Demandingness of Scanlon's Contractualism," Ethics 113 (2003): 273-302. Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 423 its demands. There is nothing analogous to the state at the global level. And international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the United Nations depend, for their functioning, on the authorization and enforcement provided by nation-states. What is the exact significance of this fact for thinking about global justice? Does it affect basic justice claims as much as it does principles of nonbasic justice? A common argument (which I will call the "Institutional Argument") against the very idea of global justice has the following structure: (E) Duties of justice can exist only among those who already share a political community. (F) There is no global political community. (G) Therefore, There are no duties of global justice. A version of this argument is presented by Thomas Nagel in a recent essay. Nagel endorses a version of (E), claiming that "justice ... requires a collectively imposed social framework, enacted in the name of all those governed by it, and aspiring to command their acceptance of its authority even when they disagree with the substance of its decisions."25 Nagel also endorses something like (F) when he claims that existing international institutions (such as the WTO or the UN) do not amount to a political community because for the moment they lack something ... crucial for the application and implementation of standards of justice: They are not collectively enacted and coercively imposed in the name of all the individuals whose lives they affect; and they do not ask for the kind of authorization by individuals that carries with it a responsibility to treat all those individuals in some respect equally.26 This argument, if sound, is quite damaging for strong conceptions of global distributive justice of the kind flowing from (A). It is possible, however, to challenge both of its premises. The second premise can be rejected by showing that international institutions such as the WTO do not only have a pervasive impact on peoples' life-prospects around the world, but the international situation is also such that there is little reasonable room for national governments to withdraw from them. Given this, it is plausible to say that such institutions are illegitimate if they are not reformed in such a way that their procedures involve more democratic accountability and their outcomes become more equitable. (It would not do to respond that these institutions do not act "in the name of" the people they affect. Since they affect them significantly and inescapably, they 25Thomas Nagel, "The Problem of Global Justice," Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (2005): 113-47, p. 140; see also p. 133. 26Ibid., p. 138. 424 Pablo Gilabert should be accountable to them.) The first premise can, on the other hand, be challenged by a cosmopolitan conception for which the presence of international political institutions must be seen in a partially instrumental way, as implementers of independent norms of global distributive justice (so that if these institutions do not exist, there is an obligation of justice to create them). Either response would preempt the conclusion (G), demanding instead that new institutions be created, or that existing ones be reformed to satisfy procedural and distributive concerns.27 I will not focus my discussion on whether the Institutional Argument defeats claims of nonbasic global justice. I ask instead what its impact might be on basic global justice. Nagel recognizes that there are some duties grounded in human rights that are not conditional upon membership in a shared political community. Among them, he includes duties of poverty relief. He catalogues them, however, as weak "humanitarian duties." This falls short of the view emerging from (B), which demands that we see duties focused on human rights (including poverty relief) as enforceable duties of justice. Nagel recognizes that the realization of human rights would be more secure if international institutions with power to limit national sovereignty were created. But he mentions the worry that these institutions would become the focus of demands for legitimacy and distributive justice. This may be the reason why the U.S. has, for example, refused to join the International Criminal Court.28 We can add that this may also be why the U.S. has failed to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. How should a defender of (C) react to the Institutional Argument? We should, first, identify a possible ambiguity of (E) when applied to claims of basic global justice. There may be two possible senses in which the fact of shared political community might be said to be essential for the existence of duties of justice of poverty relief. The first is the following: (H) X has a duty of justice to help relieve Y's poverty only if Y's poverty is (at least in part) the result of shared institutions that are coercively imposed on Y that X has helped create or sustain. The important intuition behind (H) is that contributing to the causation of someone else's human rights deficit is a serious wrong that merits immediate redress.29 But there is no need to see causal responsibility for depri- 27For further discussion, see Joshua Cohen and Charles Sabel, "Extra Rempublicam Nulla Justitia?" Philosophy and Public Affairs 34 (2006): 147-75; and Mathias Risse, "What to Say About the State," Social Theory and Practice 32 (2006): 671-98. Nagel recognizes that the first premise would not convince cosmopolitans. 28Nagel, "The Problem of Global Justice," pp. 144-45. 29It can thus be argued that the global rich have been involved in creating and sustaining international institutions that contribute to the causation of severe poverty around the world, Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 425 vation as a necessary condition for normative responsibility for alleviation. Human rights norms demand not only that our existing institutions do not violate anyone's rights, but also that we create institutions fulfilling them.30 Human rights have universal scope and are partially pre-legal demands (as Nagel recognizes). A natural corollary is that something like (D) is correct. Where international institutions fulfilling the human rights of all do not exist, they should be created. (H) then fails to state a necessary condition for the existence of duties of justice of poverty relief. Another possibility is that (E) involves the following claim: (I) X has a duty of justice to help relieve Y's poverty only if there is a set of shared institutions that can efficiently and legitimately allocate claims (of people like Y) and responsibilities (of people like X) regarding poverty relief. This claim is more plausible than (H). The most charitable interpretation of it is to say that it does not, like (H), focus on the moral justification of global principles of justice regarding poverty relief, but on whether they can be properly implemented. The important intuition behind (I) is that norms of justice cannot be properly implemented without institutions identifying, in legitimate and efficient ways, duty-bearers and right-holders instantiating their demands. Defenders of (C) would recognize the power of this point. Their response would be to say that indeed institutions are necessary to implement (C), and this is why (D) is also proposed. The problem with (I), however, is that it assumes that the relevant institutions must already be present for duties of justice to be triggered. Actually, the duties antecede the institutions; the latter should be created precisely in order to articulate the specific implementation of the former. The dialectic continues, however, because a challenger of (C) may not only say (along the lines of (F)), that robust international political institutions are absent, but that it is not realistic to expect that they will exist, at least in the foreseeable future. This would move the discussion to the feasibility aspects involved in a political conception (at DII and DIII). One possibility is that international institutions implementing (C) are not feasible in the sense that they would not be stable in an international environment where powerful nations and corporations would worry about institutional mechanisms limiting their power or imposing significant burdens on them. Since most defenders of (C) are not committed to the pursuit of a and thus that they have, under (H), a duty of justice to support efforts to eradicate global poverty. See Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002). 30This seems to be the idea expressed in Article 28 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration [which, in Articles 22-26, include socioeconomic rights] can be fully realized." 426 Pablo Gilabert world state (at any rate not in the foreseeable future), it is not clear what ongoing international scheme of global poverty relief able to curb the "claims" of the powerful and the wealthy they could propose that is feasible in this sense. Another possibility is that international institutions implementing (C) are not feasible in the sense that they are not accessible. Even if they could be stable once created, it may be unrealistic to expect that political agents pursuing their creation will succeed at doing so. These two concerns about feasibility are important and need to be answered. The more challenging is the concern regarding accessibility. The concern about stability is not very serious for two reasons. First, the resources needed to eradicate global poverty, if all developed nations do their fair share, are relatively limited.31 Second, the rationale for poverty relief, grounded in basic human rights, is one whose moral point is very powerful and quite easy to recognize, and it is not unrealistic to expect that individuals educated under basically just national and international institutions will come to accept and honor it. The focus of my discussion will then be on the nonideal theory considerations of accessibility pertaining to DIII. To repeat: It is important to notice that these feasibility concerns do not affect the moral justification of the fundamental principle of global poverty relief. Representatives of wealthy countries and corporations cannot reasonably say to the global poor, "Sorry, but a principle of global poverty relief is wrong because the international institutions implementing it would make a dent in my economic and political power." The interest of the global rich to retain or increase their economic and political power cannot be morally weightier than the interest of the global poor to avoid severe poverty. Catering to the former cannot justify that we continue to allow 18 million people to die each year due to poverty-related causes. 3.b. Motivational concerns (i) The Problem. Another common concern about global distributive justice focuses on motivational deficits. An example is what we can call the "Motivational Argument:" (J) Duties of distributive justice exist only among those who share a sense of mutual commitment or solidarity with each other. (K) People normally do not share a sense of mutual commitment or solidarity with distant strangers. (L) Therefore, It is not reasonable to claim that there are duties of global distributive justice. 31According to Pogge's calculation, by giving up 1.2 percent of their annual aggregate income for some years, the global rich can provide sufficient funds for eliminating global poverty. See World Poverty and Human Rights, p. 7. Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 427 This argument claims that responsibilities of distributive justice do not hold among distant strangers. Unlike, perhaps, negative duties not to harm others, positive duties to provide them with resources they lack only makes sense when there is a common bond uniting agents and recipients. In the words of Michael Walzer, "the idea of distributive justice presupposes a bounded world, a community, within which distribution takes place, a group of people committed to dividing, exchanging and sharing first of all among themselves."32 (J) is usually supported by noting that people who do not share strong bonds of solidarity will not be motivated to make the sacrifices normally required by distributive justice. This is an important point, but its precise significance needs to be clarified. It certainly cannot be used to justify claims about the existence of duties of distributive justice. This would be to conflate normative reasons with motivating reasons. X may not feel motivated to assist Y, but may still have normative reasons to do so. Our duties to others do not depend on our feeling motivated to do what they demand. Motivation should track justification, not the other way around. This applies to distributive justice no less than to any other area of moral reasoning.33 As a claim about what duties there are, (J) therefore fails. But the point about motivation still has significance, and can perhaps be put as follows: (M) An institutional scheme implementing duties of distributive justice is feasible only if those to whom it applies share a sense of mutual commitment or solidarity with each other. The focus of (M) is not on whether duties of global distributive justice exist, but on whether their implementation is feasible given motivational deficits. The (reasonable) worry here is, to put it in David Miller's words, that "it has yet to be demonstrated that a purely cosmopolitan ethics is viable-that people will be sufficiently motivated to act on duties that are likely to be very demanding in the absence of the ties of identity and solidarity that nationality provides."34 The Motivational Argument 32Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 31. 33For a general discussion on the relation between motivation and justification, see Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, chap. 4. Similarly, popular opinion about justice must track independent normative reasons, not the other way around. (See in this respect chap. 1 of Scanlon's book, which distinguishes between the reasons we happen to acknowledge-reasons in the operative sense-and the reasons we should acknowledge- reasons in the normative sense.) For a critical discussion of the claim that popular opinion must ground principles of justice, see Adam Swift, "Public Opinion and Political Philosophy: The Relation Between Social-Scientific and Philosophical Analyses of Distributive Justice," Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 2 (1999): 337-63. 34David Miller, "Reasonable Partiality Towards Compatriots," Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 8 (2005): 63-81, p. 79. 428 Pablo Gilabert can then be reformulated as a concern about feasibility. We can retain (K), substitute (M) for (J), and reformulate the conclusion as follows: (N) Therefore, It is not reasonable to advocate schemes of global distributive justice. This conclusion does not say that global distributive justice is not morally justifiable, but that a political conception centered on it would not be feasible and should then not be the focus of our political advocacy. Put this way, the Motivational Argument poses a serious challenge to a conception of global justice. This is especially so for demanding nonbasic conceptions of the kind flowing from (A). Even though I am not convinced by any such argument against nonbasic global justice, my focus here is on basic global justice targeting poverty relief. What is the force of the reformulated Motivational Argument in this case? (ii) Motivational mechanisms leading to mutual aid. To ponder the force of the Motivational Argument, it is helpful to consider three possible sources leading people to engage in mutual aid, and to see their bearing on considerations of stability and accessibility. Even if in actual practical situations more than one of these is present, they can be distinguished analytically.35 The three mechanisms I have in mind are the following: (a) In the case of instrumental prudence, I am actively concerned for the wellbeing of someone else when (and because) I believe that doing so will have salutary effects on my ability to achieve my own well-being. The typical example here is when I am disposed to contribute to your wellbeing because if I do so you would contribute to mine. (b) In the case of sympathy, I am concerned for the well-being of someone else because I see their well-being as partly constitutive of my own. I suffer when they suffer, and rejoice when they do well. Sympathy is different from instrumental prudence because in the former the description of my own well-being does, and in the latter it does not, essentially include reference to the well-being of the other. The typical example here is the kind of concern one has for friends and family members. (c) Finally, in the case of the sense of justice, I am concerned for the well-being of others simply because I acknowledge the impartial principle that in some respects everyone's well-being matters, and matters equally. The distinction from prudence and sympathy is that I may be concerned for the well-being of 35The distinction between instrumental prudence, sympathy, and justice is common. For similar ways of drawing it, see Sen, Development as Freedom, pp. 270-72; and Rawls, The Law of Peoples, pp. 112-13. Rawls helpfully identifies a possible progression from a prudentially shaped "modus vivendi" to expanding domains of "affinity" to political associations based on "ideals and principles" of justice. Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 429 someone even if its presence or absence has no significant effects on my own well-being or is not partially constitutive of it.36 An example is voting in a referendum in favor of a tax scheme supporting the congenitally handicapped. I see that I have a duty to do this even if I will never be amongst the handicapped and even if I do not have any warm feelings towards them. Here consideration of the well-being of others constrains or weighs against consideration of my own.37 It seems that (a) is not, in general, a reliable mechanism: it is not always clear that helping others will improve my well-being. (c) is, on the other hand, the best mechanism if it could only be expected to work strongly and frequently enough. In diverse societies and in international relations, when most of the others whose well-being we must attend to are strangers, something like (c) would provide the most robust approach. But it is obvious that our sense of justice does not operate strongly and frequently enough. This is why schemes of justice are normally supplemented by incentives mobilizing (a) and (b). At the domestic level this is feasibly done, for example, through legal sanctions triggering (a), and through the generation of a sense of patriotism and national identity triggering (b).38 Are there analogues at the global level? Is serious engagement of (a), (b), and (c) at the global level feasible? It is clear that schemes of nonbasic justice will prove harder to pursue than schemes of basic justice, as the level of sacrifice of one's well-being associated with the former is higher than the one associated with the latter. It would then be wise if strategies of reform start with basic global justice. A feasible conception of basic global justice should, then, identify ways in which the three grounds of mutual aid can be mobilized in the generation and maintenance of institutions and practices protecting the basic socioeconomic rights of everyone in the world. Some speculative remarks in this respect follow. Though prudential considerations may not on their own secure the feasibility of a global scheme implementing (C), they can be quite crucial 36The attitude involved in (c) can also arise in beneficence. We can indeed define (c) more broadly as impartial moral concern, and include both beneficence and justice as specific forms. My focus here is, however, on justice. 37The difference between (b) and (c) shows itself in their emotional correlates. The suffering of others may produce compassion. When one has harmed them, or could have helped them but failed to, one may feel guilt. When one witnesses others failing their negative or positive duties, one may feel indignation. The achievements of those towards whom one feels sympathy may produce pride, and their failures may produce shame. 38For an exploration of "nation-building" within the boundaries of liberal political theory, see Will Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), Part III. For an argument that liberal nationalism is compatible with cosmopolitan justice, see Kok-Chor Tan, Justice without Borders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), Part III. 430 Pablo Gilabert in the early moves towards its creation (making it accessible). Citizens in wealthy societies have much to fear from poverty in distant countries, as the latter contributes to the generation of massive illegal immigration, the spread of lethal diseases, and international terrorism. Furthermore, most consumers and producers of goods in developing countries would gain from reducing global poverty, as this would make new markets possible. Prudential considerations may even be significant in securing the stability of institutional schemes implementing (C) once these have been introduced. A world that is safer and wealthier is one that it is not prudent to undermine. Furthermore, if international institutions implementing (C) are in place, then there will be penalties that generate disincentives for "defectors" (thus deflecting collective action problems). Regarding sympathies, we should not overestimate the prospects of a thick sense of common identity in securing the stability of social arrangements. Contemporary multicultural and multinational societies increasingly lack thick cultural cohesion, and people's sympathies are often centered on identity groups crossing state boundaries (such as women, workers, language, and other identity groups).39 On the other hand, just as thinner forms of national identity (evoking a common political history) supporting traditional territorial states can and have been created, so thinner forms of supranational identity supporting institutional structures overlying territorial states can be generated. Witness the ongoing construction of the European Union and the Mercosur in Latin America. These processes of creation of supranational political identities may also contribute to the accessibility of the implementation of (C) in interesting and complex ways. For example, the strengthening of regional blocks in the developing world limit the power of developed countries to shape international institutions in ways that harm poorer nations. Finally, it is clear that a universal human solidarity based on people's sense of justice would be the strongest cement of a just world order. There is nothing inherently problematic with the idea of universal human solidarity. The common complaint that it would make no sense because there is nothing common to all human beings on which to base it can be countered by noting that human rights provide a ground for universal solidarity, as their fulfillment addresses certain interests and vulnerabilities common to all humans. There is, for example, nothing absurd in the initiative recently introduced by the UN General Assembly declaring December 20 "International Human Solidarity Day."40 Universal human 39See Philippe Van Parijs, "Global Distributive Justice," in Robert Goodin, Philip Pettit, and Thomas Pogge (eds.), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), pp. 638-52. 40The UN construes this initiative as part of the fight against global poverty. See "Marking Human Solidarity Day, UN Officials Stress Collective Responsibility to Help Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 431 solidarity is also not unrealistically utopian. Empirical studies suggest that new generations increasingly endorse cosmopolitan ideas and support a stronger role for supranational institutions.41 The growing global consensus on the discourse and practice of human rights protection is evidence of this. A robust, transnational culture of human rights associated with international institutions geared to poverty relief is not inaccessible. As mentioned above, the sacrifices that developed nations would have to make, collectively, to enact that culture and honor such institutions would be relatively small, and the normative reasons backing them are extremely strong. For the same reasons, the tension between domestic duties of distributive justice and global responsibilities of poverty relief would not be dramatic. Seeing the fulfillment of the latter as limiting the fulfillment of the former is not only right, but eminently so. 4. Poverty Relief and the Transitional Standpoint In the framework of the UN Millennium Development Goals, the governments of developed countries pledged 0.7 percent of their GDP to halve global poverty by 2015. With some exceptions, the richest countries have failed to honor their pledge by a significant margin. But the very fact that the pledge was made is a symptom of the changing contemporary political environment. We are neither in the Westphalian world in which national states and their members did not recognize robust obligations of justice towards foreigners, nor in a fully globally just world in which such obligations are systematically and fairly enforced. We are situated in a period of transition. The current trends of economic globalization seem both unstoppable and in need of moral constraints. Paramount among them is the demand to eradicate global poverty flowing from (C). In this final section, I explore processes of political reform rendering the implementation of (C) accessible. My purpose is not to provide any blueprint, but to reflect on the kind of approach that we need to take towards such political processes in order to address, in a productive way, the concerns about feasibility identified in section 3. 4.a. Transitional standpoint and basic political empowerment I want to emphasize two points. The first is the need to take a transitional standpoint. This is the standpoint taken by political agents in the process of changing central features of the institutional and cultural envi- Poor," UN News Service at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=21020&Cr =general&Cr1=assembly. 41See David Held, Global Covenant (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), pp. 92-93. 432 Pablo Gilabert ronment in which they act. It differs from a conservative standpoint fixated on institutional and cultural frameworks that are both unjust and becoming increasingly ineffective. It is also different from an approach that assumes that we already have a full blueprint for desirable and feasible institutional schemes. The transitional standpoint is evidently appropriate in the context of global issues. Agents taking the transitional standpoint see that they inhabit a "political limbo" in which fundamental aspects of their social life are undergoing change. They acknowledge that the political future is uncertain and that many practical possibilities are open to them. They also see that they cannot simply rely on institutional and cultural mechanisms of previous times. In this context, political agents ought to try to approximate, as much as it is reasonably possible, the implementation of the principles of justice that they have reason to honor. In the case of (C), the task is to introduce a political articulation of poverty relief (D). A crucial aspect of the transitional standpoint is that agents envisage trajectories of reform passing through successive thresholds of feasibility. Certain political practices and institutional frameworks that are inaccessible now may turn out to be accessible in the near future as a result of the introduction of other political practices and institutional frameworks that are accessible now. The transitional standpoint helps recognize the partially agentdependent nature of considerations of feasibility. Whether a certain institutional scheme turns out to be accessible partly depends on how we choose to think and act with respect to the issues it would address. For example, a reduction of our epistemic uncertainty as to which reforms would be effective and morally defensible partly depends on whether we choose to engage in empirical research and moral reflection on past and ongoing political experiments. The same goes for concerns about institutional and motivational deficits. Premises describing such deficits can lend support to skeptical conclusions about the prospects for global justice, but whether these premises turn out to be true partly depends on us, as we can choose to reshape our institutions and political culture. A second (and related) point concerns the importance of political empowerment for the pursuit of basic global justice: (O) Basic political empowerment: Everyone should have the political capabilities necessary to participate effectively in the identification, justification, and implementation of institutional schemes affecting the fulfillment of their human rights. This principle says that individuals around the world should have the power to shape political processes that affect the extent to which their human rights are fulfilled. As we will see below, this principle can be applied in different ways. But two general points about it should be menGlobal Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 433 tioned first. One is that (O) has an important role in the evaluation of "comprehensive outcomes" related to strategies of global political reform. Such an evaluation must, as we saw, track both the value of results and the value of the processes leading to them. The significance of (O) is here threefold. First, (O) supplements (C) by saying that it is important not only that we have international institutions introducing poverty relief, but also that such institutions engage the autonomous agency of those they affect. The moral costs of transition involved in reforms implementing (C), other things equal, increase when these reforms bypass the will of those to whom they apply. Empowerment is also significant in two indirect ways. When a decision-making body is accountable to those it affects, its decisions are more likely to cater to their fundamental interests. Furthermore, political empowerment as construed here also provides opportunity for those affected to identify and justify their claims through public reasoning. These three potential features of basic political empowerment are very important for the practice of poverty relief, as conditions of disempowerment can plausibly be seen as part of the explanation of poverty and their removal as part of its end.42 A second general point about (O) is that it helps give a first practical approximation to the difficult issue of identifying the proper "constitution of the demos" when it comes to decision-making structures with international effects. At least in one respect the demos may have to be truly global, because human rights are universal claims made by everyone on everyone else. The commonly invoked "all affected principle" (according to which all those affected by a decision should have a say or a vote on it, either directly or through their freely chosen representatives), may seem too expansive, as one can imagine ways in which any possible decision may affect everyone else in some respect. (O), which focuses on fundamental interests underlying human rights, is more circumscribed. Whatever our view about other cases, it seems reasonable to say that decision-making structures that can, but fail to, include those the fulfillment of whose human rights they affect are deficient from the point of view of legitimacy.43 42The three aspects of political liberty (intrinsic value, accountability, and constructive role through public reasoning) are clearly identified by Sen, Development as Freedom, chap. 6. The third role is elaborated further by David Crocker, "Sen and Deliberative Democracy," in Alexander Kaufman (ed.), Capabilities Equality: Basic Issues and Problems (New York: Routledge, 2006). Sen emphasizes public reasoning in "Elements of a Theory of Human Rights" Philosophy and Public Affairs 32 (2004): 315-56. See also Rainer Forst, "Towards a Critical Theory of Transnational Justice," Metaphilosophy 32 (2001): 160-79. 43For discussions on the "all affected principle," see Robert Goodin, "Enfranchising All Affected Interests, and Its Alternatives," Philosophy and Public Affairs 35 (2007): 40-68; and Carol Gould, Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), chap. 7. I agree with Held (Global Covenant, pp. 99-100) 434 Pablo Gilabert One should proceed cautiously here. Imagine a situation in which the participation of some in a feasible inclusive structure could only be very weak, for example, lacking in information or real influence, and a less inclusive feasible structure would be significantly more effective in delivering outcomes fulfilling the basic human rights of everyone (even the rights of the excluded). In these cases, the less inclusive structure might be, all things considered, more just. An interpretation of (O) that makes this kind of judgment unacceptable a priori would be too strong, especially in nonideal theory. Perhaps what we should do is construe the demand for political inclusion as a presumption. Given the significance of the three potential aspects of political empowerment mentioned above, we can take inclusion as the default position. But, being presumptive, this demand is defeasible: if and when we encounter situations like the one mentioned, when the importance of the real deliverances of a more inclusive structure is clearly outweighed by the importance of the real deliverances of a less inclusive structure, the latter may be selected. This selection should, if possible, be only a temporary device. In transitional processes oriented by (B) and (O), temporary exclusions can be envisaged as steps enabling more robust inclusion in the future.44 4.b. Institutional experimentation, protest, and public deliberation We can, as an illustration, identify at least three ways in which trajectories of political empowerment may render the implementation of (C) accessible, addressing the institutional and motivational deficits mentioned in section 3 above. To do this, we need to take a perspective on global politics that is wider than the focus on states' foreign policy. We need to focus also on how citizens of various states, nongovernmental organizations, corporations, and other actors contribute to shaping the global political environment. Consider, first, institutional experimentation. Certainly there is no world state, and such a thing may even be morally undesirable.45 But we that we can make progress in the identification of relevant demoi by first focusing on the impact of decision-making bodies on fundamental interests (among which I emphasize those protected by human rights). 44I realize that these remarks are insufficient, and that the role of legitimacy within a theory of justice needs further discussion. I thank Adam Swift and Ingrid Robeyns for pressing me on this point. The suggestion that political inclusion be seen as presumptive is inspired by Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 45 Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 435 can imagine multiple paths of reform developing new national and international institutions and policies addressing the implementation of (C). Let me just mention some examples from the current literature, emphasizing a transitional reading of their significance. Two very demanding proposals include the creation of a Global Parliament and (within the UN) of an Economic and Social Security Council coordinating and enforcing international policies of poverty reduction and development.46 These may be inaccessible now. But they may become accessible as a result of other reforms that can be pursued now. Examples are the creation (already under way) of regional institutions (such as the EU and the Mercosur). Other, less ambitious reforms may be more immediately available. One example concerns changes in policy in wealthy nations, as with Jeffrey Sachs's proposal for introducing taxation of the richest in the U.S. to secure the funds necessary for this country to honor its pledge within the Millennium Development Goals.47 Another example concerns the reform of international institutions such as the WTO. A number of short-term and long-term proposals in this direction have been recently introduced by Joseph Stiglitz. Changes in the WTO to secure fair trade benefiting rather than exploiting developing nations are particularly crucial, as "rich countries have cost poor countries three times more in trade restrictions than they give in total development aid."48 These examples of institutional experimentation suggest that trajectories of reform that gradually move the international order towards the eradication of global poverty are practicable. Their pursuit and public assessment can be bolstered by two other mechanisms of political empowerment: protest and public deliberation. The first hardly needs emphasis. One of the obvious reasons why institutional reforms of the kinds mentioned are becoming salient in the political agenda of wealthy societies is that many of their own citizens have been engaging in noisy protests against several features of the current global economic order. Consider, for example, the mobilizations from Seattle to Cancún and beyond targeting the meetings of the WTO, and the "Make Poverty History" mobilizations and live concerts around the world making demands on the G8 meeting in Gleneagles in 2005. These protests are significant in at least two ways. First, they show that a sense of justice focused on global issues is not merely a philosophical idea, but a politically efficacious disposition. Second, protests trigger further mechanisms of political empowerment. (O) Global Governance," Social Theory and Practice 32 (2006): 725-56. 46For the former, see Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss, "Toward Global Parliament," Foreign Affairs 80, no. 1 (2001): 212-20. For the latter, see Peter Singer, One World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 200; and Held, Global Covenant, pp. 111, 164. 47Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty (New York: Penguin, 2005), pp. 307-8. 48Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work (New York: Norton, 2006), p. 78. 436 Pablo Gilabert has its own trajectories of implementation. One way of securing greater political empowerment for oneself or for others when it is denied by the status quo is by engaging in protests against the shape of that status quo. This is of great significance in developing countries as well. Consider Argentina. Largely as a result of implementing the neoliberal policies pushed by the IMF (and more or less directly by governments of wealthy countries), Argentina faced, towards the end of the last century, one of the worst economic crises in its history. This produced massive destitution, unemployment, and the partial dissolution of its populous middle class. Beginning in December of 2001, large protests forced a change of course. The Argentine government is now negotiating in much more aggressive terms with the WTO, transnational corporations, and the governments of developed countries, has greatly reduced its dealings with the IMF, and is beginning to cater once again to the demands of its poor citizens. This change cannot be understood independently of the massive protests of 2001 and 2002. The renewed efforts by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela to deepen and expand the Mercosur (including proposals for a common currency and a regional bank-"el Banco del Sur") are also partly explained by the impact of the ongoing political mobilization of their citizens. The generation of arenas of public deliberation in which affected agents argue with each other, with an impartial attitude, about what global frameworks would be equally good for all can also play a role in making new just institutional schemes accessible. These arenas may be formal or informal. They may emerge in governmental and intergovernmental organizations or in the more diffuse "global public sphere" as it arises in some media outlets, the Internet, academic and scientific fora, and diverse meetings and campaigns of nongovernmental organizations and social movements. Public deliberation across borders can be connected with universal solidarity.49 I think that this may happen in three ways. First, practices of public reasoning about global injustices may already mobilize, or express, a solidaristic concern among strangers. Being willing to engage in serious argumentation (as opposed to strategic bargaining or manipulation) with others usually involves recognizing them as agents whose needs and opinions deserve our active and noninstrumental concern. Second, public deliberation can also help elaborate existing solidaris- 49See Henry Shue, "Thickening Convergence: Human Rights and Cultural Diversity," in Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), The Ethics of Assistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 217-41, at pp. 227-28; and Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence (New York: Norton, 2006), pp. 122-24. For explorations of the role of international deliberation in cementing allegiance to human rights, see Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.), The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances 437 tic practices in reasonable ways. These practices often have epistemic and political defects. Epistemic defects arise when some agents lack reliable information about the specific circumstances of other agents. Since human rights can be secured in different ways in different contexts, this problem is important. Political defects arise when some agents impose their agenda on other agents without proper recognition of the latter's will. These defects can be corrected, at least to some extent, through practices of public deliberation. These practices give mutually concerned agents an opportunity to check their views about each other's needs and values in actual dialogical encounters. It is important that the consciousnessraising involved in these encounters can lead to critical challenges of the views of every agent involved. The point of public reasoning is not just to discover, in an empathic way, existing preferences and valueorientations and their current points of intersection, but also to generate new ones. The objective is to identify, through shared critical reflection, what we have reason to prefer and value. Finally, public deliberation can sometimes help in the creation of new solidaristic bonds. Agents who engage in mutually helpful activities sometimes do so, initially, for merely prudential reasons. If such activities come to include deliberative problem-solving, the initial dispositions may gradually be changed or supplemented by more solidaristic ones. Given the inherent impartiality and constraints of mutual respect and inclusion, deliberative practices can produce mutual trust among those engaged in them, and thus generate new forms of mutual allegiance. This is particularly important in international contexts, where it is common for members of certain nations (usually the poorest ones) to feel resentment as a result of perceiving, often accurately, international negotiations as contexts in which they are bullied, treated in patronizing ways, and manipulated. Institutional experimentation, protests, and public deliberation can then foster the accessibility of schemes of basic global justice by developing the political capabilities of agents. They also can, and often do, affect each other in interesting ways. New institutional frameworks can enable protests and deliberation by creating occasions for them and a focus of demands regarding their form and policies. Protests can precipitate the introduction of institutional experiments blocked by minoritarian yet powerful interest groups, and force deliberative practices to be more inclusive with respect to their agenda and participants.50 Public deliberation, finally, provides fora for the impartial assessment of institutional 50See Archon Fung, "Deliberation before the Revolution. Toward an Ethics of Deliberative Democracy in an Unjust World," Political Theory 33 (2005): 397-419. For the role of protest in the struggle for socioeconomic human rights, see Roberto Gargarella, "The Right of Resistance in Situations of Severe Deprivation," in Thomas Pogge (ed.), Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 359-74. 438 Pablo Gilabert experiments and demands made by protests. Of course, these mechanisms of political empowerment provide no guarantees. Trajectories of reform can always fail. A typical objection in this respect is to say that since we cannot be certain or know that reforms making a scheme S1 accessible will then make another more demanding scheme, S2, accessible, we should not engage in sequential planning or exploration. But this objection cannot be right. Certainly political experimentation must be cautious, and public deliberation is in this respect crucial as a continuous form of collective self-criticism and evaluation. But full certainty is not something we can secure in political practice. Reasonable, defeasible forms of certainty are all we can, and must, look for. Let me make two concluding points. The first is that considerations of reasonable certainty have to be coupled with appraisal of the moral costs of the status quo. We may not be very certain that trajectories of reform will make robust schemes of global poverty relief accessible; but we can be quite sure that the status quo is morally catastrophic. In this context, to engage in reasonable exploration of alternatives, including "uncertain" sequences of reforms, is something that we have good reason to do. Even if the departures from the status quo in the direction of basic global justice do not eliminate global poverty, any decisive approximation to that goal (without imposing unreasonable moral burdens in the transition) is morally desirable, and indeed obligatory. Second, to reiterate a point I made before, whether new institutional schemes are accessible partly depends on what we choose to do now. The extent of our empirical knowledge, the depth of our moral judgments, and the shape of our institutions and cultural mechanisms are all, to some extent, subject to change. In this sense, something like the slogan used by the World Social Forum that "another world is possible" might be interestingly selffulfilling. If we act on the idea that another, more just, world is practically feasible, then it might actually turn out to be so.51 Pablo Gilabert Department of Philosophy Concordia University, Montreal pablo.gilabert@concordia.ca 51For valuable comments and conversations I thank Arash Abizadeh, Elizabeth Ashford, John Baker, Simon Caney, Bob Goodin, Carrie-Ann Kloda, Colin Macleod, Kai Nielsen, José Noguera, Ingrid Robeyns, Adam Swift, Jesse Tomalty, Lea Ypi, and an anonymous referee. I also thank participants at the ECPR workshop on "Social Justice: Ideal Theory, Non-Ideal Circumstances," Helsinki, May 2007; and the Canadian Philosophical Association Congress, Saskatoon, June 2007. My research has been supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and an H.L.A. Hart Visiting Fellowship at the Centre for Ethics and Philosophy of Law, University of Oxford.