Global Institutions and Human Rights

Thomas Pogge has famously argued that the present
arrangement
of international institutions that allows for human
rights violations
to occur on an ongoing basis is unjust, and further,
that powerful
states that create and maintain these institutions
are responsible for
the resulting human rights violations. Pogge
concludes that this
implication of responsibility creates a moral
requirement for
powerful nations to take immediate steps to reform
the global
institutional order in such a way as to minimize the
number of
foreseeable human rights violations that occur within it.
I believe that Pogge is only partly correct in his
analysis. In this
book, I outline my argument that the global
institutional order is not
"unjust" as Pogge suggests. However, even if the
maintenance of
these institutions does not constitute an injustice,
I conclude that
that there remains an important sense in which
powerful states that
support the present arrangement of international
institutions are
responsible for ongoing subsistence rights
violations, and thus have
a strong moral responsibility to support
institutional remedies for
systematic human rights violations.

Autorentext

Jordan Shaw-Young is a graduate of Queen's University inKingston, Ontario, Canada with an M.A. specializing in Political Theory. Jordan also holdsa B.A. from the University of Toronto specializing in Philosophy.

Klappentext

Thomas Pogge has famously argued that the presentarrangement of international institutions that allows for humanrights violations to occur on an ongoing basis is unjust, and further,that powerful states that create and maintain these institutionsare responsible for the resulting human rights violations. Poggeconcludes that this implication of responsibility creates a moralrequirement for powerful nations to take immediate steps to reformthe global institutional order in such a way as to minimize thenumber of foreseeable human rights violations that occur within it.I believe that Pogge is only partly correct in hisanalysis. In this book, I outline my argument that the globalinstitutional order is not "unjust" as Pogge suggests. However, even if themaintenance of these institutions does not constitute an injustice,I conclude that that there remains an important sense in whichpowerful states that support the present arrangement of internationalinstitutions are responsible for ongoing subsistence rightsviolations, and thus have a strong moral responsibility to supportinstitutional remedies for systematic human rights violations.