Cosmopolitanism, originally a doctrine of world citizenship, has come in recent political philosophy to mean simply an ethical outlook in which every human being is equally an object of moral concern. However ethical cosmopolitans slide from this moral truism to deny, controversially, that as agents we have special duties of limited scope. Political communities create relations of reciprocity between their citizens and pursue projects that reflect culturally specific values and beliefs, generating special duties among fellow-members. Strong cosmopolitanism would require the (...) creation of a world government, and this could only be an imperialist project in which existing cultural differences were either nullified or privatised. (shrink)

The human right to health has been established in international law since 1976. However, philosophers have often regarded human rights doctrine as a marginal contribution to political philosophy, or have attempted to distinguish ‘human rights proper’ from ‘aspirations’, with the human right to health often considered as falling into the latter category. Here the human right to health is defended as an attractive approach to global health, and responses are offered to a series of criticisms concerning its demandingness.

This paper discusses justice as an inherent aspect of life in traditional African societies. It further examines the degree to which constitutions of African countries recognise and promote the traditions and customary practices. It is noted that of late, in the desire to contextualise justice, human rights has to a large extent become the yardstick. This universal idea often creates conflicts with African customary practices which indeed represent the expectations of individuals or groups within such customary traditions. It is therefore (...) possible in the modern context to have customary practices that are at variance with the contents of human rights. The paper cautions that any effort therefore to transform customary practices to fall in line with the universal human rights imbued idea of justice could result in a situation where traditional societies are forced to conform to standards of justice that become impositions. (shrink)