The mirage of global justice

• Main Author: KUKATHAS, Chandran
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2006
• Subjects: Political Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2929; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4186/viewcontent/mirage_of_global_justice__1_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The political pursuit of global justice is not a worthy goal, and our aims in establishing international legal and political institutions should be more modest. The pursuit of justice in the international order is dangerous to the extent that it requires the establishment of powerful supranational agencies, or legitimizes greater and more frequent exercise of political, economic, and military power by strong states or coalitions. The primary concern in the establishment and design of all legal and political institutions should be not to secure justice but to limit power. It is a mistake to think that a distinction can be drawn between power created to do good and power created to do evil, or that we are capable of devising institutions that can honor the distinction.