Principles for The Law of Peoples

In The Law of Peoples John Rawls gives a list of eight principles for the law of peoples. I argue that the force of the principles depends in large part upon their being lexically ordered, and I attempt such an ordering. However, the lexically ordered list makes it clear that the duty of non-intervention obtains only after the duty to honor human rights is satisfied. Also, I point to certain “practical” difficulties with intervention on behalf of human rights. Rawls writes that additional principles are needed, and I make two suggestions. I conclude that the problems arising from intervention and the need for additional principles show that the “second Original Position” is like the first Original Position: both involve, Rawls notwithstanding, the selection and ordering of principles of justice.     

The Ethics of NIMBY Conflicts

NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) refers to an oppositional attitude from local residents against some risk generating facility that they have been chosen to host either by government or industry. The attitude is claimed to be characteristic of someone who is positive to a facility but who wants someone else to be its host. Since siting cannot be provided if everyone has this attitude, society ends up in a worse situation. The attitude is claimed to be egoistic and irrational. Here it is argued that the NIMBY critique rests on questionable assumptions about the rightness of weighing total benefit against total cost. This weighing-principle will sometimes have to yield so that the rights of individuals can be acknowledged.

AN ENGAGED BUDDHIST RESPONSE TO JOHN RAWLS'S THE LAW OF PEOPLES

In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls proposes a set of principles for international relations, his “Law of Peoples.” He calls this Law a “realistic utopia,” and invites consideration of this Law from the perspectives of non‐Western cultures. This paper considers Rawls's Law from the perspective of Engaged Buddhism, the contemporary form of socially and politically activist Buddhism. We find that Engaged Buddhists would be largely in sympathy with Rawls's proposals. There are differences, however: Rawls builds his view from the idea of independent nation–states, while the Buddhists see the world more in terms of a single humankind, the members being highly interdependent with one another, and also with the physical world. The Buddhists would also push harder than Rawls for global structures building multilateralism, restrict more severely justifications for war and behavior in war, stress economic justice more heavily, and insist on all the human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.     

GLOBAL ETHICS AND HUMAN RIGHTS: A REFLECTION

This paper examines the contributions that the international human rights community can make to the definition and framing of a practically effective global ethic, especially in light of ongoing concerns about social and economic justice, environmental issues, and systematic abuses of vulnerable populations. The principal argument is that the human rights movement in all of its dimensions (moral, legal, political) provides the pivotal foundation for a practicable global ethic now and for the foreseeable future. Evidence for the truth of this claim is discerned in the movement's contemporary efforts to intersect explicitly with other areas of international law and politics. Examples adduced include developments with respect to the rights of indigenous peoples, decision making about the environment, and transitional justice.     

Muslim Governance and the Duty to Protect

In this response to Johnson, Oh reaffirms the scholarly vision of Kelsay and Twiss, elaborates upon Muslim perspectives on human rights, and questions the emphasis on violent humanitarian interventions as part of the Responsibility to Protect mandate. Oh suggests that, in light of the historical relationship between Muslim and non‐Muslim states and the aftermath of the second Iraq War, more consideration be given to the rebuilding of Muslim‐majority societies. Oh also highlights the concept of duty as a religiously based ideal to which governments of Muslim nations ought to be held.     

Children's rights and school psychology: Children's right to participation

The Convention on the Rights of the Child detailed an international imperative to fulfilling, protecting, and respecting the rights of every child. In particular, the Convention set out a clear mandate for guaranteeing opportunities for children to be heard on all matters of concern to them. The attainment of these goals involves respecting and valuing children as active participants in the educational process. If fully implemented, the right of children to express views and have them taken seriously, throughout the school environment, would represent one of the most profound transformations in moving towards a culture of respect for children's rights, for their dignity and citizenship, and for their capacities to contribute significantly towards their own well-being. These values and principles are consistent with those of the school psychology profession, thus, school psychologists are encouraged to be at the Center of the process advocating and actualizing the Convention in schools throughout the world.     

Pakistan Federal Shariat Court's Collective Ijtihād on Gender Equality,Women's Rights and the Right to Family Life

This article argues on the basis of recent case law that the judges of the Pakistan Federal Shariat Court (FSC) have asserted their right to ijtihād and have indeed engaged in collective ijtihād. While in some areas, such as freedom of religion, Islamic law has been interpreted rigidly in a non-human-rights-friendly fashion in Pakistan, in some other areas, the flexibility and pluralism of Islamic law has been used to improve gender equality, women's rights and the right to family life. By using its constitutional powers, with its collective ijtihād, the FSC has been tackling the traditionally illiberal interpretation and application of Muslim laws in these areas. Regardless of the methodology and process of this ijtihādic endeavor, the output shows that the FSC has been either modifying the traditional ijtihāds or coming up with totally new ijtihāds to answer contemporary questions faced by Islamic law. The findings of the article once again challenge the views of scholars such as Schacht, Coulson and Chehata, who have argued that, by the fourth/tenth century, the essentials of Islamic legal doctrine were already fully formulated and that the doctrine remained fixed.     

French MEPs and religion: Europeanising ‘laïcité’?

What French members of the European Parliament (MEPs) believe and what they do as a result of these beliefs can be understood in comparison with what we know about MEPs from other member-states on the one hand, and about French national members of Parliament (MPs) and citizens on the other hand. French MEPs do not diverge much from MEPs of other nationalities in the way they deal with religion at the policy level. Significant French specificities remain regarding religion as a cultural and memory reference. The heritage of ‘laïcité’ leads to an emphasis on the separation between religion and politics and may be reactivated as a symbolic material to reassert French national identity in confrontation with other political traditions. Religious issues do not make for consensus and are still used as markers of ideological and party boundaries, between right and left and within each side, as they are a relatively costless resource to build a distinctive political profile. Beyond these distinctions, a ‘French way’ of handling religion is commonly acknowledged and ‘laïcité’ works as an encompassing and resilient framework. The European Parliament (EP) may offer a structure of opportunities and constraints to reformulate slightly the national narrative about religion, but it does not alter the beliefs and practices of French MEPs, who appear largely similar to French MPs and citizens to the extent that they are largely secularised and consider religion as a secondary purpose submitted to political rules and individual choice.     

Global ethics and human responsibility: challenges for the theory and the discipline

The aim of this article is to identify the main challenges for global ethics as an academic discipline. This article assesses the moral and practical justifications for common global principles. Individual and institutional responsibility on the supranational level is connected with the standard of human rights and the relational aspects of the globalised world. It also points out two separate problems which global ethics should aim to solve. The first is metatheoretical and methodological and concerns the discipline's lack of self-reflexiveness. The second is essential and concerns the clash of values (human rights and sovereignty). Regarding the second problem, the main future challenge of global ethics is to construct a measurement to bring political decisions closer to morality and more strongly connect rights with responsibilities.     

Global ethics: dimensions and prospects

Global ethics is an emerging discipline which has not yet reached maturity. The main tasks before it to gain maturity are: first, to achieve a greater integration of various domains of enquiry all of which are concerned with global normative issues. At a general level this includes integrating global ethics with cosmopolitanism, global justice and human right discourse. At the level of areas of concern, there needs to be greater integration of various areas such as development, trade, environment and climate change. And it must grapple with the question of diversity within universality: how far can diversity of practices be accommodated within a culturally sensitive universal framework? Second, there is the question of finding a shared normative framework with respect to the diverse worldviews that may lie behind this: what degree and kind of convergence/consensus are worth working for? Third, there is the task of creating the conditions for its own wider acceptance, which should include taking the idea of global citizenship seriously.