In ‘Colonialism, territory and pre-existing obligations,’ Cara Nine argues that Lea Ypi’s account of the wrongness of colonialism has a hole in it: Ypi leaves open the possibility of justified settler colonialism. Nine suggests that we can patch this hole by attaching value to existing political associations. But Nine’s solution has its own hole. Many political associations exist due to settler colonialism, and thus if we endorse the value of these associations we seem to endorse colonialism. In response, we could (...) say that past colonial injustices have been remediated or superseded. Or, we could leave the hole open: colonialism is sometimes justified. I argue that, surprisingly, the second option is likely preferable, because it does not require us to say that the injustices of colonialism are gone, and because it points towards a better theory of colonialism’s wrongness than Ypi’s: cosmopolitan instrumentalism, according to which colonialism is wrong only when it is unjust according to one’s overall theory of cosmopolitan justice. (shrink)

Is it fair to leave the next generation a public debt? Is it defensible to impose legal rules on them through constitutional constraints? From combating climate change to ensuring proper funding for future pensions, concerns about ethics between generations are everywhere. In this volume sixteen philosophers explore intergenerational justice. Part One examines the ways in which various theories of justice look at the matter. These include libertarian, Rawlsian, sufficientarian, contractarian, communitarian, Marxian and reciprocity-based approaches. In Part Two, the authors look (...) more specifically at issues relevant to each of these theories, such as motivation to act fairly towards future generations, the population dimension, the formation of preferences through education and how they impact on our intergenerational obligations, and whether it is fair to rely on constitutional devices. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that a principle of rectification for past wrongdoings could and should be added to Rawls's Law of Peoples on the ground that unrectified past injustice undermines the notion of equality of peoples. I base this work on a conception of rectification that includes apologies as well as economic compensation, and I focus on the step of compensation. To do so, I briefly discuss how the maximin decision rule can adapt to the second original position. To (...) address the compatibility of rectificatory justice with Rawls's work, I focus on the strains of commitment and consider Rawls's account of peoples' fundamental interests. Rawls's conception of international justice needs to be responsive to peoples' fundamental interest in equality, which calls for proper protection of their means of self‐respect. Although the moral imbalance stemming from past injustice is overlooked in The Law of Peoples, I show that Rawls's theoretical framework can ground a principle of rectification. (shrink)

To avoid the disastrous effects of climate change, a rapid and drastic transition toward a low-carbon society and economy is required. This transition imposes significant transitional losses on some agents given the benefits they can no longer realize. In economic terms, it leads to the stranding of their assets. This article investigates whether fossil fuel owners could refer to their expectations about the benefits of producing their reserves to justify transitional measures such as exemptions from new rules or financial compensations. (...) It criticizes forward-looking views on the normative relevance of expectations and defends a backward-looking view, which justifies limited claims. It contends that states that are responsible for creating false expectations about regulatory stability should provide compensations to fossil fuel companies for the costs of relying on those expectations. States can be held responsible if they caused this expectation-related harm in a foreseeable and avoidable way, which is only the case if the expectation is reasonable and if they were not put under pressure by the lobbying activities of the fossil fuel industry. (shrink)

While the energy transition is needed more than ever, for some agents it brings significant losses. This article investigates whether fossil fuel owners could refer to promises to avoid having their assets stranded. It explains how authors, in the context of just transitions, have argued for the normative relevance of Rawlsian legitimate expectations, which refer to promissory entitlements. However, it argues that the normative relevance of promises towards fossil fuel owners is limited, because there are only few promises about what (...) will be permissible in the future and because these promises should be just before they can lead to entitlements. (shrink)