Patterns of Participation and Complicity in Global Injustices

Abstract

This panel invites normatively-focused papers on the nature of participation and complicity in global injustices. Almost all global injustices that concern scholars of international political theory today - from the environment crisis, to unfair international trade conventions, exploitative global labour chains, and global economic injustice more generally - are of a collective nature: they are wrongs that are created and maintained by the coordinated and uncoordinated actions and omissions of individual and collective agents across the globe. Indeed, according to one common line of argument, the way to identify the agents who are most responsible and liable for these and other global injustices is by focusing on patterns of participation in them: e.g. the participation of individuals and states in an unjust global basic structure, or the contributions of corporations and individual consumers in developed countries to exploitative labour conditions in developing countries. It may well be the case that patterns of participation in global injustices should play a central role in determining which agents are responsible to resolve these injustices, as well as the scope of their responsibility. However, patterns of participation in global injustices are extremely varied and complex. Individuals and collectives may be participating in activities which indirectly lead to unjust outcomes without their knowledge; they may end up being involved in injustices committed by others simply by virtue of sharing certain institutions with them. Their participation is often coerced or at least unavoidable. These empirical facts raise questions about the nature of participation in global injustices, and about the responsibilities and liabilities that different types of participation generate. For example, are citizens of developed states equally responsible and liable for all of their governments’ unjust acts towards developing states? Can collectives other than states be agents of global injustice? Which ones, and in what different ways? And how do responsibility and liability get assigned to their members? We invite papers that address these and related questions on the nature of participation and complicity in global injustices.

Title	Details
Responsibility for Remedying Global Climate Change	View Paper Details
Distributing Reparation Costs within a Democratic State	View Paper Details
Consumers’ Participation in Global Injustices	View Paper Details
Individual Duties not to Harm in Non-Institutional Circumstances: A Kantian Analysis	View Paper Details
Procedural Justice and Fair Participation in Climate Change Governance	View Paper Details
Complicity in Structural Injustice	View Paper Details
Individual Liability for Institutional Outcomes	View Paper Details
Complicity, responsibility, and care in global injustice	View Paper Details
A critical enquiry into practices of collective ir/responsibility	View Paper Details