According to one prominent theory of development, a country’s wealth is primarily explained by the quality of its institutions. Leaning on that view, several political theorists have defended two normative conclusions. The first is that we have no reason for concern, from the point of view of justice, if some countries have greater natural resource endowments than others. The second is that proposals for redistribution across borders are likely to be superfluous. Advocates of global redistribution have not yet grappled with (...) these momentous arguments, or shown whether, and how, they might be rebuffed. This article does just that. (shrink)

According to one prominent theory of development, a country’s wealth is primarily explained by the quality of its institutions. Leaning on that view, several political theorists have defended two normative conclusions. The first is that we have no reason for concern, from the point of view of justice, if some countries have greater natural resource endowments than others. The second is that proposals for redistribution across borders are likely to be superfluous. Advocates of global redistribution have not yet grappled with (...) these momentous arguments, or shown whether, and how, they might be rebuffed. This article does just that. (shrink)

Transnational trade is at the heart of the global economy. Trade relations often transcend both ideological divides and regime type. Trading with autocratic regimes, however, raises significant moral issues. In their recent book, On Trade Justice, Mathias Risse and Gabriel Wollner argue that trade with autocratic regimes is morally permissible only under a very limited set of circumstances. This article discusses the morally permissible trade policies that liberal democracies ought to adopt toward autocratic regimes. Liberal democracies trading with autocratic regimes (...) have a special obligation to improve the human rights conditions in these regimes. This duty is partly based on their complicity in human rights violations and on the fact that the democracies benefit from these violations in their trading relationships. Their responsibility goes beyond the improvement of labor conditions and requires various strategies such as imposing trade sanctions and export controls, and making trade conditional on human rights performance. (shrink)