Table Of ContentStudies in Global Justice
Series Editor: Deen K. Chatterjee
Michael Allen
Civil
Disobedience in
Global Perspective
Decency and Dissent over Borders,
Inequities, and Government Secrecy
Studies in Global Justice
Volume 16
Series Editor
Deen K. Chatterjee, University of Utah, U.S.A.
Editorial Board
Elizabeth Ashford, University of St. Andrews, U.K.
Gillian Brock, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Thom Brooks, Durham University, U.K.
Simon Caney, Oxford University, U.K.
Hiram E. Chodosh, President, Claremont McKenna College, U.S.A.
Jean-Marc Coicaud, Rutgers University, U.S.A.
Michael Doyle, Columbia University, U.S.A.
Andreas Follesdal, University of Oslo, Norway
Carol Gould, Hunter College, U.S.A.
Virginia Held, City University of New York, U.S.A.
Alison Jaggar, University of Colorado, U.S.A.
Jon Mandle, SUNY, Albany, U.S.A.
Richard W. Miller, Cornell University, U.S.A.
Sanjay Reddy, The New School for Social Research, U.S.A.
David Rodin, University of Oxford, U.K.
Joel H. Rosenthal, President, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
Kok-Chor Tan, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Leif Wenar, King’s College London, U.K.
Veronique Zanetti, University of Bielefeld, Germany
Aims and Scope
In today’s world, national borders seem irrelevant when it comes to international
crime and terrorism. Likewise, human rights, poverty, inequality, democracy, devel-
opment, trade, bioethics, hunger, war and peace are all issues of global rather than
national justice. The fact that mass demonstrations are organized whenever the
world’s governments and politicians gather to discuss such major international
issues is testimony to a widespread appeal for justice around the world.
Discussions of global justice are not limited to the fields of political philosophy
and political theory. In fact, research concerning global justice quite often requires
an interdisciplinary approach. It involves aspects of ethics, law, human rights, inter-
national relations, sociology, economics, public health, and ecology.
Studies in Global Justice takes up that interdisciplinary perspective. The series
brings together outstanding monographs and anthologies that deal with both basic
normative theorizing and its institutional applications. The volumes in the series
discuss such aspects of global justice as the scope of social justice, the moral signifi-
cance of borders, global inequality and poverty, the justification and content of
human rights, the aims and methods of development, global environmental justice,
global bioethics, the global institutional order and the justice of intervention and
war.
Volumes in this series will prove of great relevance to researchers, educators and
students, as well as politicians, policymakers and government officials.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6958
Michael Allen
Civil Disobedience in Global
Perspective
Decency and Dissent over Borders,
Inequities, and Government Secrecy
Michael Allen
Department of Philosophy
East Tennessee State University
Johnson City, TN, USA
ISSN 1871-0409 ISSN 1871-1456 (electronic)
Studies in Global Justice
ISBN 978-94-024-1162-1 ISBN 978-94-024-1164-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-024-1164-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017945329
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017
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Contents
1 I ntroduction: A Global Practice of Civil Disobedience ............... 1
1.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 1
1.2 Decency as a Shared Standard of Global Justice ...................... 2
1.3 Decency as Grounding a Global Practice
of Civil Disobedience ............................................................... 5
1.4 The Approach ........................................................................... 11
1.5 The Limits of Liberalism and the Positive Contribution
of Non-liberal Viewpoints ........................................................ 14
1.6 Outline of Chapters................................................................... 15
References ........................................................................................ 17
2 D ecency, the Right to Disobey, and Non-domination .................. 19
2.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 19
2.2 Peoples and Decency ................................................................ 22
2.3 Decency as the Basis of Moral Considerability
for the Right to Disobey ........................................................... 25
2.4 Decency, the Rule of Law, and Non-domination ...................... 30
2.5 A Note on Democracy, Egalitarianism, and Hierarchy ............ 32
2.6 Conclusion ................................................................................ 34
References ........................................................................................ 34
3 U ndocumented Disobedients as a Special Class
of Civil Disobedients ....................................................................... 37
3.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 38
3.2 Undocumented Migration as a Special Case
of Non- citizen Civil Disobedience ........................................... 41
3.3 The Undocumented Are Not Refugees ..................................... 43
3.4 Are the Undocumented Civil Disobedients Proper?................. 45
3.5 Why the Undocumented Have a Moral Right to Disobey:
Internal Domination and Persecution ....................................... 49
v
vi Contents
3.6 The Plenary Powers Doctrine and Uptake for Dissent
and Contestation ....................................................................... 53
3.7 Conclusion ................................................................................ 56
References ........................................................................................ 57
4 I nstitutionalizing the Human Right of the Undocumented
to Be Domestic Political Participants ............................................ 59
4.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 59
4.2 Interdependency of Human Rights and Political Participation 62
4.3 The Insecurity of Rights, and Power-Asymmetries
Between Citizens and the Undocumented ................................ 63
4.4 The Urgent Human Right to Be a Political Participant,
Wherever One Is ....................................................................... 66
4.5 Institutionally Embedding the Right to Be a Political
Participant, Wherever One Is .................................................... 69
4.6 A Proposal for Transitory Hierarchical Mini-Publics .............. 74
4.7 Conclusion ................................................................................ 78
References ........................................................................................ 79
5 U nfair Terms of Global Cooperation and the Fair Equality
of Liberty Between Peoples ............................................................ 81
5.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 82
5.2 Civil Disobedience and Representation .................................... 87
5.3 Disobedience by Multinational Cosmopolitan Citizens
from Liberal- Democracies ........................................................ 89
5.4 Disobedience by Multinational Cosmopolitan Citizens
Without Egalitarianism ............................................................. 92
5.5 Disobedience by Peoples of Different States ........................... 94
5.6 Ongoing Controversy over Global Inequities ........................... 97
5.7 Conclusion ................................................................................ 98
References ........................................................................................ 101
6 E xecutive Prerogative and Disobedient Disclosure
of Government Secrets ................................................................... 103
6.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 103
6.2 Lockean Prerogative ................................................................. 107
6.3 Reinterpreting Civil Disobedience as Disobedient Disclosure 110
6.4 Some Problems for the Reinterpretation .................................. 112
6.5 Reclaiming the Recursive Reinterpretation .............................. 116
6.6 Transparency and Leniency ...................................................... 118
Contents vii
6.7 Extending the Analysis to Traditional-Hierarchical Societies . 122
6.8 Conclusion ................................................................................ 125
References ........................................................................................ 126
7 D isobedience as an Expression of Global Solidarity
and Redefining Disobedience in a Global Perspective ................ 129
7.1 Introduction .............................................................................. 129
7.2 A Global Civil Disobedience Practice and Global Solidarity .. 131
7.3 Redefining Civil Disobedience in a Global Perspective ........... 134
7.4 The Addition to the Minimal List of Human
Rights in Law of Peoples of the Human Right
to Be a Political Participant, Wherever One Is ......................... 137
7.5 The Recognition and Acceptance Among
the International Community of the Entailments
of the Fair Value of Liberty Between Rich and Poor Peoples,
as Prescribed by the Law of Peoples ......................................... 138
7.6 The Recognition and Acceptance Among the International
Community of the Entailments of Competing Valid Claims
Based on Decency and the Ends of Government Made
by Executives and Disclosers ................................................... 139
7.7 Conclusion ................................................................................ 141
References ........................................................................................ 143
Chapter 1
Introduction: A Global Practice of Civil
Disobedience
Abstract This introductory chapter, I lay out the idea of a global perspec-
tive on civil disobedience by appeal to Rawls’ Law of Peoples. Indeed, I
argue for an extension of the theory of civil disobedience from the peoples
of liberal-democratic nation states to the international community of decent
peoples. Here, the international standard of decency replaces the principles
of liberal social justice as justification for diverse cosmopolitan citizens and
states disobeying domestic or international law. Decency thus lays the foun-
dation for a global practice of civil disobedience. The chapter offers brief
discussions of the three cases of such a disobedient practice that I take up in
detail in the subsequent chapters, along with the different issue that they
raise for global justice. It also lays out my general approach to civil disobe-
dience in a global perspective. I stress both the limits of liberal theory in
light of diverse conceptions of justice capable of supporting a global disobe-
dience practice, and the positive contribution of non-liberal viewpoints to
advancing important global justice causes.
1.1 Introduction
In this monograph, I explore a hitherto unexamined possibility of justifiable
disobedience opened up by Rawls’ Law of Peoples (2001). This is the pos-
sibility of disobedience justified by appeal to standards of decency that are
shared by peoples who do not otherwise share commitments to the same
principles of justice, and whose societies are organized according to very
different basic social institutions. Justified by appeal to shared decency stan-
dards, such disobedience undertaken by either state or non-state actors
would challenge injustices in the international system of states. Rawls him-
self do not consider such a possibility of disobedience. Indeed, Rawls limits
his discussion of civil disobedience in Theory of Justice (1971) to actions
undertaken by the citizens of liberal states that are also, at least, minimally
democratic. In this respect, he appeals specifically to the premises of
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017 1
M. Allen, Civil Disobedience in Global Perspective,
Studies in Global Justice 16, DOI 10.1007/978-94-024-1164-5_1
2 1 Introduction: A Global Practice of Civil Disobedience
liberalism, such as the moral equality of persons as free and equal citizens,
along with majoritarian democratic mechanisms, such as ‘one person, one
vote.’ Nevertheless, peoples worldwide do not share these liberal and demo-
cratic premises, as Rawls forthrightly acknowledges in Law of Peoples.
I want to argue that grounding civil disobedience in the Law of Peoples is
a coherent possibility of justifiable political dissent in the international
arena. This, however, is a possibility of justifiable dissent that entails detach-
ing the moral right to disobey from its familiar moorings in liberalism and
democracy. Such a possibility is one of considerable importance for achiev-
ing international or global justice. Indeed, urgent cases of injustices crossing
the territorial boundaries of states that may be appropriately addressed
through justifiable disobedient acts. These cases include (1) the plight of
undocumented migrants; (2) the unfairness of international trade rules for
the poorest and least powerful countries of the world; (3) the threat posed to
international order and stability by government secrecy. In each of these
cases, the moral right to disobey is defensible quite independently of the
premises of liberalism and democracy. To be sure, it is also defensible in
terms of these premises. Moreover, a defense given in these terms would be
more compelling to the peoples of liberal-democratic states.
Nevertheless, the global scope of civil disobedience depends on ground-
ing it in a standard appealing to peoples whose fundamental commitments
to justice are neither liberal nor democratic. At any rate, this follows as long
as global politics constitutes a system of peoples and states (Beitz 2011;
Miller 2012; Nagel 2005) not all of whom are committed to the premises of
liberal-democracy. In what follows, I first consider the idea of decency from
the Law of Peoples as offering an alternative to the dichotomy of domestic
social justice and international justice in Rawls’ earlier Theory of Justice
(1971). I then consider it as potentially grounding shared practices of dis-
obedience, uptake, and reconsideration beyond the liberal-democratic state,
in the cases (1) – (3) above.
1.2 Decency as a Shared Standard of Global Justice
Here, I turn to Rawls’ concept of decency. Some political philosophers
malign this concept as representing only a commitment of sovereign peoples
to an unduly minimalist conception of human rights (for example, Buchanan
2007). These minimalist contents, for instance, include, without being lim-
ited to, international legal guarantees against servitude and guarantees of the
satisfaction of subsistence need (Rawls 2001). Nonetheless, the decency
