"Basic Rights and Cosmopolitan Justice from an Enlightened Localist Perspective", Comparative Sociology (2010) (original) (raw)

Statism and cosmopolitanism on Global Justice and universal fundamental rights Fabio Coacci

Statism and Cosmopolitanism on Global Justice and Universal Fundamental Rights, 2020

This review paper critically assesses the two main theories of global justice, statism and cosmopolitanism, according to which fundamental rights, and their corresponding duties, ought to be differently upheld, and enforced, at the global level. Its main aim is to go beyond the limitations of these theories defending the equal relevance of both fundamental civil and political rights and socioeconomic rights, and their corresponding duties, at the global level and the need for the assessment of their implementation according to the level of their justification. To pursue this objective, the paper argues for the conceptualization of a fair (common) mean among these two categories of rights which can be morally and politically constructed on the very basic right to reciprocal and general justification. Accordingly, the focus is posed on the interconnection as well as conflicts between these two categories of rights, and their corresponding duties, establishing a 'measure' according to which their justification can be assessed, and their implementation and enforcement be ensured. This paper seeks also to prove that this conceptualization of fundamental rights and duties, which takes together Aristotle's conception of justice and Forst's critical theory of political and social justice, can provide a sketch on how a fair implementation and enforcement of peoples' and persons' rights and duties ought to be conceived at the global level.

Cosmopolitanism, sovereignty and human rights – In defense of critical universalism

Ethical Thought

What is a reasonable understanding of the relationship between human rights protection, on the one hand, and respect for people's sovereignty, on the other? In order to address this question this article utilizes the distinction between political cosmopolitanism on the one side, and moral cosmopolitanism on the other. Political cosmopolitanism implies that some form of global citizenship is needed for universal protection of human rights. Critics of this position stress the importance of self-governance and state sovereignty. In this article, it is claimed that rejection of political cosmopolitanism can be combined with embracement of moral cosmopolitanism, i.e. embracement a global moral community where respect for human dignity and therefore recognition of human rights of each individual is not limited by national citizenship and borders. In this article, I defend a non-violent form of moral cosmopolitanism. Such a cosmopolitanism demands a modification of universalism of human rights. I distinguish between descriptive and epistemological universalism on the one hand and pure normative universalism on the other. Descriptive and epistemological universalism, I demonstrate, are aggressive forms of universalism that tend to legitimize domination. Critical universalism, which is a form of pure normative universalism, is justified in that it inspires political liberation within different traditions without legitimizing cultural monopolism and violence of the Global North.

Human Rights, World Citizenship and the Cosmopolitan Question

A basic critique of modern cosmopolitanism through its overt humanist and covert imperialist pretensions. There are inherent tensions in cosmopolitanism that invite us to see it not as a solution but as a basic question of legal subjectivity. In one form it asks: Who is the ‘human’ of human rights? In another form: Who is the ‘citizen’ of citizenship?

Cosmopolitanism and Global Justice

The Journal of Ethics, 2005

Cosmopolitanism, argue its advocates, offers a philosophy of public governance suited to the global conditions of the twenty first century, Archibugi 2004). But, as John Maynard Keynes once remarked, what is necessary or appropriate is insufficient in itself to bring about a better world. Cosmopolitanism, despite its appeal, cannot be accepted uncritically.

Human Rights: From the Challenge of Relativism to the Possibility of Cosmopolitanism

Etica e Politica, 2022

The article presents a reflection on Corradetti’s distinctive position developed in Relativism and Human Rights. A Theory of Pluralist Universalism . It concentrates, in particular, on a detailed analysis of the development and deployment of the text’s argumentation in the final chapter. In this analysis, the article indicates aspects and elements of the argumentation which lead to potential difficulties with the elaboration of a theory of pluralist universalism.

New Rights for Old? Cosmopolitan Citizenship and the Critique of State Sovereignty

Political Studies, 2003

Cosmopolitan international relations theorists envisage a process of expanding cosmopolitan democracy and global governance, in which for the first time there is the possibility of global issues being addressed on the basis of new forms of democracy, derived from the universal rights of global citizens. They suggest that, rather than focus attention on the territorially limited rights of the citizen at the level of the nation-state, more emphasis should be placed on extending democracy and human rights to the international sphere. This paper raises problems with extending the concept of rights beyond the bounds of the sovereign state, without a mechanism of making these new rights accountable to their subject. The emerging gap, between holders of cosmopolitan rights and those with duties, tends to create dependency rather than to empower. So while the new rights remain tenuous, there is a danger that the cosmopolitan framework can legitimise the abrogation of the existing rights of democracy and self-government preserved in the UN Charter framework.

Global justice: a cosmopolitan account

Ethics & Global Politics, 2009

This is a review of Gillian Brock's new book, Global justice: a cosmopolitan account (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) which sets out the central theses of the book and then offers a critical appraisal of its central arguments. My specific concern is that Brock gives an insufficiently robust account of human rights with which to define the nature of global justice and thereby leaves cosmopolitanism too vulnerable to the normative pull of local and traditional moral conceptions that fall short of the universalism that cosmopolitans should be able to embrace.

Reconciling Universality and Particularity through a Cosmopolitan Outlook on Human Rights

Human rights are today criticized as not compatible with different cultural values and the debate has circulated around Asian values and Islamic values as in dichotomy with human rights as universal ethics (Ignatieff, 2003). The theoretical dichotomy between universality and particularity is questioned pragmatically in this paper through a historical study. The working process of drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1946-48, which included thousands of people, is explored as a cosmopolitan space in which individuals from different cultural contexts met to negotiate human rights through cultural narratives. The process where particular values were negotiated with universal notion on human rights resulted in a common proclamation (UDHR) without a common philosophical or ideological ground. This paper puts forth a thesis that human rights discourse can work as a cosmopolitan space, in which particular value systems meet in processes characterized by conflict and cohesion. Hence human rights can be understood as a master narrative compatible with different conflicting cultural narratives .