Justice and Authority in the Global Realm: The Reflexive Account and Its Implications

Our world is home to an increasing number of international institutions, creating norms that are said to be binding on both states and their citizens. But do these institutions have legitimate political authority? To answer this question, I consider three accounts of international authority, which differ with respect to the place they give to considerations of justice (i.e., considerations about people’s entitlements to resources and opportunities) in establishing an institution’s right to rule. I call them, respectively, the (i) purely procedural, (ii) purely instrumental, and (iii) reflexive accounts of political authority. The purely procedural account takes justice and authority to be altogether separate values, and does not establish an explicit link between them. The purely instrumental account also takes them as separate, but connects them by making attributions of legitimate authority dependent on institutions’ efficacy in realizing justice. Finally, the reflexive account sees justice and authority as mutually defining each other. On the reflexive account, there can be no justice without authority, and no authority without justice. On this account—whose roots may be found in Kant’s political writings—a stark distinction between justice and authority simply cannot be drawn. I argue that the latter account is superior to its two rivals, and conclude by sketching its implications for the question of international authority, specifically in relation to the International Court of Justice and the World Trade Organization.