Global Justice in Modern World

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Works Cited

Introduction

This assignment is a discussion on the topic of global justice. In the discussion, it will be argued that global justice is a virtue. This will be illustrated using various issues which are related to global justice such as the international law, the universal declaration of human rights, realism and international institutions like the United Nations.

Discussion

Global Justice

This is a politically derived philosophy which is formed on the assumption that the world is generally unjust and unfair. What this means is that the world is full of biases when it comes to matters justice in the distribution of power, economic resources and opportunities.

Generally, the injustice is fuelled by the politics of domination between nations of the world whereby the rich deny the poor justice in various sectors. In terms of social relationships, the rich people are known to manipulate the process of justice in their favor thus making the poor unable to get justice because they cannot afford to purchase it.

The Concept of Globalization

Globalization can be defined as the minimization of the differences between people of the world and the maximization of their similarities through interactions, cooperation and communication. During the pre-world war period, the world was characterized by minimal interaction, communication, cross-border movements and language homogeneity.

However, after the world war, this situation changed. The changes were mainly triggered by the desire for nations of the world to unite in various spheres of development mainly the economy, education, employment, the environment and governance (Beck 45).

Globalization and Cultural Diversity

Cultural diversity is a variety of human cultures or societies which live in different parts of the world. It can also refer to the static representation of several cultures in a place and at a particular time, which must be interacting in carefully selected patterns.

Cultural diversity is characterized by the minimization of differences and inequalities as possible and the maximization of sameness and equality as much as possible. Due to globalization, todays society is becoming more culturally diverse day by day, meaning that we are moving towards sameness each day and moving away from differences as days move on (Chrysanthopoulos 13).

Realism and Global Justice

This is a state-centric international relations approach in that it looks at states as the key actors in international politics. The theory of realism is based on historical writers such as the works of Rousseau, Machiavelli and Thucydides (Edkins and Vaughan-Williams 124).

The main argument of realism is that international relations is characterized by anarchy, in which states interact for their selfish interests. Realism therefore negates the mutual understanding of states in their relations but rather puts more emphasis on the struggle of nations to amass as much resources as possible in order to advance their own interests. With realism, economic success is the leading interest in international relations (Booth and Smith 200).

International Law and Global Justice

International law refers to the set of laws or principles which govern the relationships between sovereign states (Fichtelberg 41). It was initially formed to govern the manner in which nation states related to each other with a view of improving their relationships in regard to specific issues. International law initially took the form of treaties and agreements between states, which were either bilateral or multilateral.

The treaties were on issues like trade, agriculture and other forms of cooperation between the signatories of the treaties. The world has been changing which has led to the emergence of a new international system whereby states interact more frequently than before. Globalization, terrorism and ethnic conflicts have been on the rise in the recent years (Scott 214). This has led to the adjustment of international law to take care of the issues in the new international system and how states treat their own citizens.

One of the ways in which international law has been changed is in regard to the issue of human rights. International law initially did not interfere with internal affairs of sovereign states and how states treated their own citizens.

But with the rising cases of atrocities committed by governments to their citizens like in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Liberia among others, international law has been widened in scope to address the issue of crime against humanity based on the universal declaration of human rights, which makes it illegal for any government to violate the so called civil and political liberties of its citizens (Darraj 92).

The protection of human rights moved the international law to create the international criminal court to try the perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Since its formation, the international criminal court has investigated several perpetrators of crimes against humanity like Charles Taylor of Liberia, the Yugoslavian leader Pinochet and has issued a warrant of arrest against Sudanese president Omar Al Bashir for the chaos and atrocities in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

However, the court cannot escape the eye of critics who have accused it of double standards in that it only targets the developing countries. The super powers of the world like the US, which refused to be a signatory to the Rome statute which formed the court, have never been subjected to the courts jurisdictions despite the fact that they have committed crimes of aggression against other states like the Iraq invasion in 2003.

The issue of environment has also made international law to be widened in its scope to include environmental protection. This is mainly due to climate change which leads to global warming. Several treaties have been formed to address the issue of climate change. Examples include the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Kyoto protocol on climate change, the United Nations convention to combat desertification and the Copenhagen talks (Deke 76).

However there seems to be some double standards in honoring the agreements in the protocols and treaties on climate change because the super powers of the world have refused to cut their greenhouse gases emissions as agreed in the treaties and have also refused to increase their contributions towards mitigation measures to match their greenhouse gas emissions which lead to global warming and climate change (Deke 76).

Universal Declarations of Human Rights

Every human being is endowed with certain inalienable rights and entitlements. These rights and entitlements exist as shared norms of human moralities and natural rights. The rights and entitlements underscore the importance of treating all human beings with dignity, fairness and equality irrespective of their cultural backgrounds.

These rights and entitlements are supported by strong reasons and legal basis at national and international levels. Human rights ideas emerged after the Second World War when the universal declaration of human rights was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 (The United Nations).

Many states in the world have routinely continued to violate the tenets of the international human rights declaration. Despite this fact, human rights laws to some extend remain credible as a reflection of a global commitment to human rights. Each state has the obligation to protect human rights for its citizens (Paul 8).

However, in the modern world, many states continue to deviate from the Universal declaration tenets, especially the major powers of the world. Evidence of declining commitment in observing and protecting this agreement has been rampant in the international community. Wars are waged by mighty powers on states perceived as security threats thus exposing millions of innocent civilians to humanitarian crisis.

It is surprising that these major powers like United States and its allies violate human rights yet they are always criticizing other nations on human rights abuse. Millions of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somali and Libya are facing critical humanitarian problems arising from war crisis.

Many developing states in Africa, Latin America, and Asia have also severely violated these tenets through their undemocratic governments and uncivilized policies. In all these cases, nation states have indicated their failure in global commitment to Universal Declaration of Human rights.

United Nations and Global Justice

The United Nations is an indispensable institution in the world. Through it, effective actions are taken to prevent and protect citizens of individual states against human rights abuse, deadly nuclear weapon proliferation and in addressing emergencies, national and international security.

Other institutions such as the International Criminal Court ensures justice prevails at national and international levels by indicting states or personalities alleged to orchestrate crimes against humanity. These international institutions play significant roles in building up democracies, checking into security issues that threaten international peace and ensuring that states cooperate in protection of human rights (World public opinion).

However, most of these international institutions have failed. The United Nations in particular has not being able to operate independently without influence from particular members of the international community. In most cases, United Nations efforts are blocked and undermined by powerful states. Politics in the United Nations Security council have prevented it from reacting to serious cases like the Darfur war in Sudan.

Major Powers like China watered down Security Council resolutions condemning Khartoum because of its economic interest with the government of Sudan. Lack of cooperation among democracies has also rendered these international institutions ineffective. Handfuls of non-democracies have actively defeated proposals and resolutions of United Nations on issues relating to terrorism and human rights.

Over years, United Nations has shown that its not capable of ending or preventing wars. Its credibility based on its founding principles to preventing war has been doubted especially after United Nation Security Council breakdown which led to Iraq invasion in March 2003.

United Nation has continued to fail in addressing critical challenges in the modern society like nuclear weapon proliferation, rising terrorist activities, failing to stabilize states like Somali, failing to intervene and prevent genocides like the one witnessed recently in Sudan, global warming, poor and selective response to emergencies as well as protection of human rights. United Nations needs critical structural reforms in order to operate and dispense its activities independently without interference (Lee 82).

International institutions are taken as convenient instruments for furthering interests and policies of particular states. United States in particular has always had the opinion that an effective United Nations can only be possible if it exists to serve Americas interests. For instance in one case, United States had the opinion that reforms in the United Nations were important and necessary but not sufficient in meeting its interests.

In March 2003, United Nations failed to prevent United States and its allies from invading Iraq, a clear indication that United Nations was not living to its full mandate of Universal equality and justice was but serving the interests of few nations. However, this approach to international institutions is slightly changing in America due to structural shifts in the geopolitical landscape of United States politics.

United Nations as an international institution has failed in its principle of formal equality of sovereign states and fairness in the international system. This institution has been operating on double standards principle of conditional and undifferentiated sovereignty to make distinctions among nations in its activities.

In this respect, it portrays its weakness of serving the interests of few states while leaving the rest. For instance, United States has always been involved in serious gross violation of human rights, yet its always the first in influencing the United Nations Security Council to sanction any nation perceived to be violating human rights (Lee 83).

The 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is another example where United Nations legalized the possession of nuclear weapons to five nations while ruling out nuclear option for the rest.

In another case, United States has sought unsuccessfully to accord itself special rights in the Security Council and the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court. This is a clear indication that international institutions have been adversely used by powerful states as their convenient instruments to pursue and protect their interests and policies (World public opinion).

Therefore, its apparent that international institutions exist as convenient instruments of pursuing interests and policies of powerful nations. All major powers in the world use major international institutions such as United Nations to protect and pursue their national interests as well as an instrument of punishing less powerful nations.

In this context, the international institutions do not act as convenient instruments for pursuing interests and policies of all participating states. In many international institutions and especially the United Nations, lack of equality in addressing all nations and lack of institutional independence will continue to limit its effectiveness as a global institution (Lee 85).

Works Cited

Beck, Ulrich. What is globalization? Oxford: Polity, 2000.45.Print.

Booth, Ken., and Smith, Steve. (eds). International Relations Theory Today. Oxford:Polity, 1995.200.Print.

Chrysanthopoulos, Mirium. Cultural Diversity and Education. New York, NY: Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010.13.Print.

Darraj, Sussan.M. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Paris: Infobase Publishing, 2010.92.Print.

Deke, Oliver. Environmental Policy Instruments for Conserving Global Biodiversity Volume 339 of Kieler Studien. Heidelberg: Springer, 2008.76.Print.

Edkins , Jenny., and Vaughan-Williams, Nick. (eds). Critical Theorists in InternationalRelations. London: Routledge, 2009.124.Print.

Fichtelberg, Aaron. Law at the Vanishing Point: A Philosophical Analysis of International Law. Farnham GU9 7PT: Ashgate Publishing, 2008.41.Print.

Lee, Feinstein. UN-Divided. Winter: National Interest press, 2005. 82-86.Print.

Paul, Guchteneire. Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing., 2007. 4-8. Print.

Scott, Gregory.M. 21 Debated: Issues in World Politics. Kingsway: Longman Publishers, 2002.214.Print.

The United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations, 2 June 2007. Web.7 Dec. 2011.

World public opinion. Giving Voice to Public Opinion around the World. World Public Opinion, 14 Jan. 2010. Web.7 Dec. 2011.

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