Abstract

In the era of globalization, persons often cause harm to persons in other states. I argue that global justice requires supranational legal institutions to provide reasonable protection against these transnational interpersonal harms. Such institutions should be created when sufficient transnational solidarity obtains to support their stable functioning. ;In Chapter 1, I lay out some fundamentals of political liberalism to demonstrate harm's pertinence to justice. I then argue against statist theories of global justice, such as Rawls' Law of Peoples, as unacceptable because they fail to account for the diversity of agents, victims, and phenomena in global affairs. ;In Chapter 2, I acknowledge that the conventional notions of state sovereignty include a right to exclusive dominion. I argue that the two best arguments in favor of exclusive dominion fail to prohibit supranational law enforcement, as the self-determination of peoples and the protection of individuals from harm both depend on contingent factors which do not always obtain. ;In Chapter 3, I offer an affirmative theory of one aspect of global justice, based on the notions of harm and solidarity. The notion of harm provides a normative foundation as harm prevention is one of the essential requirements of any just institutional system. I draw on the notion of solidarity to offer a description of the socio-politics that facilitate the establishment and stabilization of legal institutions. Solidarity makes national legal institutions possible, and if there is sufficient transnational solidarity in the world, then it can likewise legitimate and stabilize supranational institutions. ;In Chapter 4, I offer some preliminary thoughts about how liberal states may conceive of, and then ultimately fulfill their special responsibilities for global justice. Drawing on social constructivist theories of international affairs and the example of the International Criminal Court, I argue that states may act collectively to design and invest their trust in supranational legal institutions. At some point, for the sake of preventing harms, I argue that it will be necessary to expand the jurisdiction of these institutions so as to include the territory of even those states that withhold consent.