Global Responsibilities: Who Must Deliver on Human Rights?

309 Pages·2005·1.36 MB·English

by  Andrew Kuper

Global Responsibilities

Global Responsibilities
Who Must Deliver on Human Rights?
Edited by
ANDREW KUPER
Published in 2005 by Published in Great Britain by
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
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NewYork, NY 10016 MiltonPark,Abingdon
Oxon OX14 4RN
© 2005 by Andrew Kuper
Routledge is an imprint oftheTaylor & FrancisGroup
Transferred to Digital Printing 2008
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-95126-7 (Hardcover) 0-415-95127-5 (Softcover)
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-4159-5126-5 (Hardcover) 978-0-4159-5127-2
(Softcover)
No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Global responsibilities : who must deliver on human rights? / edited by Andrew Kuper.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-95126-7 (hb : alk. paper) – ISBN 0-415-95127-5 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Human rights. 2. Justice. 3. Responsibility. 4. Globalization. 5. World politics. I. Kuper,
Andrew.
JC571.G5825 2005
323–dc22
2004022283
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
and the routledge Web site at
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: The Responsibilities Approach to
Human Rights ix
ANDREW KUPER
Part I The Nature of Responsibility
1 Human Rights and Human Responsibilities 3
THOMAS W. POGGE
2 Agents of Justice 37
ONORA O’NEILL
3 Open and Closed Impartiality 53
AMARTYA SEN
Part II Allocating Responsibilities
4 Realizing Rights as Enforceable Claims 79
SUSAN JAMES
5 Distributing Responsibilities 95
DAVID MILLER
6 Institutional Responsibility for Moral Problems 117
MICHAEL GREEN
7 Applying the Contribution Principle 135
CHRISTIAN BARRY
v
vi •Contents
Part III Individual Responsibility for Poverty Relief
8 Global Poverty Relief: More Than Charity 155
ANDREW KUPER
9 Poverty, Facts, and Political Philosophies: A Debate
with Andrew Kuper 173
PETER SINGER
Part IV Accountability of Actors in the Global Economy
10 Globalization, Corporate Practice, and Cosmopolitan
Social Standards 185
DAVID HELD
11 Corporate Codes of Conduct and the Success of
Globalization 205
S. PRAKASH SETHI
12 The Moral Dimension of Corporate Accountability 229
MELISSA LANE
13 Held to Account: Governance in the World Economy 251
NGAIRE WOODS
Contributors 267
Appendix 273
Index 275
Acknowledgments
As editor, I thank all the contributors for their thoughtful work, swift
cooperation, and willingness to tolerate editorial chutzpah. I am especially
grateful to Onora O’Neill, Thomas Pogge, and Christian Barry for discus-
sions that did much to shape this volume and for their inspiring friendship
over the years.
All of the chapters that follow were written or published in the past
three years. Most of the contributors refer to each other’s work, often at
length. As such, the volume represents the latest, most self-conscious and
interconnected work on obligations, rights, and globalization.
The editor, contributors, and publisher are grateful to several journals
and editors for kind permission to reprint original or revised versions of
the articles listed in the Appendix. We are also indebted to Robert Tempio
at Routledge, who immediately recognized and amplified the value of the
book, even while ensuring speedy publication. I am personally indebted to
Trinity College, Cambridge University. This volume would not have been
possible without the unstinting support of the other Fellows and the staff
of the College. Finally, I am grateful to my family and close friends,
whohave taught me much about the global reach of responsibility and
humanity.
The “responsibilities approach” to human rights explored in these
pages is in its relative infancy. It will develop and have a great impact only
as a collective project. I warmly invite comments and criticisms, which
may be sent to: [email protected]
Andrew Kuper
vii

Introduction:
The Responsibilities Approach to
Human Rights
ANDREW KUPER
One moral discourse now dominates international law and politics: the
language of rights. It is the basic normative currency for addressing politi-
cal, social, and economic injustices and insecurity. There are many benefits
to this common currency. On its own, however, it is prone to spirals of
devaluation. When we call something a right, we are at least claiming that
it is urgent and deserving of priority in reasoning and action; but when
almost every personal and political demand is couched as a right, this
sense of overriding importance is lost, and the meaning and value of
rights-talk can be undermined. We care about human rights because we
understand them to be more than careless rhetoric or gestures that are so
vacuous as to be “a bitter mockery to the poor and needy.”1 Human rights
must be practical entitlements that potentially make a difference to the
people who hold them.
Why is the language of rights so vulnerable to profligacy and devalua-
tion, and how can it be brought under control? Few questions are more
important. A number of theorists have recently converged on a striking
answer: The proliferating language and politics of rights has often
obscured the need to specify who bears the counterpart obligations to deliver
on those rights. In a world of severe deprivation, in which absolute poverty
ix