Luck egalitarianism is a theory of distributive justice that aims to resist the distributive effects of luck. This article applies luck egalitarianism to global justice. As Kok-Chor Tan has argued, luck egalitarianism is best construed as having cosmopolitan implications when applied globally. However, on two other points Tan's 'institutional luck egalitarianism' is mistaken. First, it sees basic needs as being the preserve of (mere) humanitarianism, and outside the domain of distributive justice. But justice is intuitively very concerned with how basic needs are met. Second, and as its name suggests, institutional luck egalitarianism is only concerned with how institutions (including global ones) convert natural contingencies into disadvantages, not with direct disadvantaging effects of natural contingencies. But natural disasters and other non-institutional disadvantaging circumstances seem to raise issues of justice. Abandoning these elements of Tan's view leads luck egalitarianism towards an more ambitious, but nevertheless practically relevant position on global justice.
