Can the global poor wage a just redistributive war against the global rich? The moral norms governing the use of force are usually considered to be very strict. Nonetheless, some philosophers have recently argued that violating duties of global justicecanbe a just cause for war. This paper discusses redistributive wars. It shows that the strength of these arguments is contingent on the underlying account of global distributive justice. The paper focuses on the “doing harm argument,” under the assumption that the (...) alternative “allowing harm argument” is a more difficult route to justify redistributive wars. After highlighting several preliminary problems, the paper breaks down and assesses in depth the “doing harm argument”: the empirical premise, the rights violation that constitutes the wrong, liability and degrees of responsibility, and the conditions for justified self-defense. By drawing on principles reflected in criminal law, this paper argues that a general “doing harm argument” for redistributive wars is unconvincing, while a reinterpretation of that argument could theoretically give rise to a just cause for war. (shrink)

Enforcing Global Justice: War, Necessity and Rights of Armed Resistance of the World’s Poor Global justice theorists have long focused on the nature and grounds of duties of the affluent to alleviate the plight of the global poor and to realize justice worldwide. The last few years has seen a flurry of work that shifts perspective to the agency and remedial rights of the global poor. Suppose due assistance is not forthcoming. Could this give the severely deprived a just cause (...) to secure their basic rights by armed force? If so, under which conditions is it all-things-considered morally permissible for them to resort to violence? This article contrasts two possible ways of grounding and conceptualizing remedial rights of armed resistance against economic injustice. Some modern global justice-based accounts endow the global poor with limited rights to wage defensive war to force the affluent to comply with duties of global justice. The old right of necessity conditionally entitles the severely deprived to use armed force to secure access to privately-owned resources and spaces to meet urgent needs. While lethal force will on both accounts be seldom all-things-considered morally permissible in practice, my analysis reveals that the old right of necessity is, for better or worse, a more capacious ground for armed resistance than modern human rights of subsistence, as it sidesteps the issues of indeterminate and underdetermined moral liability. (shrink)

This article revisits theologian Ulrich Duchrow’s three-decade-old use of the Protestant notion of status confessionis to denounce the capitalist global economy. Scholars quickly dismissed Duchrow’s argument; however, philosopher Thomas Pogge has developed a remarkable “negative duty”—based critique of the current global economic order that might help revitalize Duchrow’s position. The article argues that sound reasons exist for the churches to declare the contemporary world economy a—provisionally termed—status confessionis minor. After explaining the inadequacy of Duchrow’s original position and summarizing Pogge’s account, (...) the article develops a twofold argument. First, Pogge’s in-depth inquiry into the world economy gives Duchrow’s call for a status confessionis a strong yet narrowing economic foundation. Second, to declare the world economy a status confessionis minor is theological-ethically justifiable if the limited though indispensable “prophetic” significance of doing so is acknowledged. Thus, Duchrow’s approach is justified, but only partially. (shrink)