John Rawls’ Notion of Justice as
Fairness and the Global Society

by: Ginka Tchervenkova

Table of Contents

Introduction  3

1. The notion of justice in an international context – formulation of the research question  3

2. John Rawls’ vision on justice  4

3. The notion of justice in the circumstances of a global society   7

Conclusions  13

Bibliography   17

Introduction

The political changes in Europe from the years 1989-1991 and onwards are often referred to as the starting point of the world market expansion and the establishment of a globalised world of states for first time in the modern history. This poses both new challenges before the societies and new needs of respecting the same universal values and rules by all its members. How that can be effectively ensured is, thereby, a crucial issue. Only if all members of our globalised reality perceive the rules of conduct as just, fair and equal to everyone it can be expected that these rules will be respected and will remain into force as indicators outlining the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad. In today’s globalised wo rld, however, there is a great variety of moral, religious, social and political doctrines that deal in quite a different way with the notions of right vs. wrong and good vs. bad. As states in their function as basic entities and members of nowadays globalised society are represented in the latter by individuals who have in turn their own perceptions shaped in accordance with the values of the environment the individuals have grown up it can be easily outlined how speculative can be a discussion on norms like right and wrong, good and bad if extended on an international scale. The other way round, our globalised world that, as such, is still in its child age of development needs some clear principles on which to build on its structure and its institutions that in turn will be called to perform and employ the same universal values and rules to all its members. If there is no universal perception on these values and rules then what can serve as an orientation light when the international community develops its international institutions and sets its principles? Should the misbalance in the economic development and the political power of some states over the rest of the countries be used as a basis for outlining the parties who have ‘right’ and those who are ‘wrong’? Or these issues will be dealt with and decided on also in the future within the presently existing international bodies the way of functioning of which dates back to the post World War II. and the Cold War periods of time when there was no globalised world yet (at least not in the way it exists today) and much of the challenges of nowadays did not exist?

1. The notion of justice in an international context – formulation of the research question

Deficiencies in the United Nations system of world order have many times missed an effective and timely solution of a problem. As the international law develops as a rule from the ‘gap areas’ in the relations between states, which areas outline the scope and the depth of the conflicts between the latter as well as their willingness, ability and power to provide a reasonable solution to certain problems in order to create a basis for a long lasting stability in international matters, it can be argued that keeping international organisations, like e.g. the UNO, unchanged would make them better meet the altered challenges of today and tomorrow. In the contrary, this can be easily disproved if having in mind that the point of departure in the international law notions on justice have also altered in the course of the time. Thus, while the classic conflicts between states as a basis for development in international affairs seem to be decreasing in relevance, there are new global threats that are emerging. Environmental crises, pandemics, global economy sustainability, and world peace are thereby key endangered areas in the global order. The structure of international organisations prove itself inefficient for solving these problems. The other alternative, that became especially easily distinguishable upon the multinational endeavours from the last years in fighting against international terrorism and dictatorial regimes, is the one of assigning one powerful state the role of an international guarantor for peace. That, however, would question the universality of the so enforced international values and rules and strongly contradicted to the democratic and egalitarian principles that nowadays globalised world pretends to have emerged on.

It also would question to what extent the rest of the states would respect the rules of international behaviour as developed accordingly to the notion on justice of one state only. The fundamental question that stands before the international society is therefore: Can the notion of international justice be extracted from a certain regime of socio-political systems that are currently existing in the world and thus, be successfully extended and applied to the global society, too and this in a way, in which to satisfy the principles of justice as suggested by Rawls? There are, therefore, three key aspects that should be analysed in more detail in order to be able to offer a reasonable answer to the fundamental question as it was defined above. These aspects are: 1) What the fair principles of justice do indeed encompass? 2) What kind of regimes of social systems can be identified as forming today’s global society? And finally: 3) What should be the perspectives, from which justice as fairness is to be approached in order to analyse the notion of justice in the light of a global society?

2. John Rawls’ vision on justice

[...]