Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-pvkqz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-12T12:56:05.379Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction: Legitimacy, justice and public international law. Three perspectives on the debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2010

By
Lukas H. Meyer  and
Pranay Sanklecha
Edited by
Lukas H. Meyer
Lukas H. Meyer
Affiliation:
Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria
Get access

Summary

In this introduction, we attempt to elucidate three theoretical perspectives that are helpful in framing the contributions to this volume. In the course of this elucidation we also attempt to indicate some important problems that the debate currently faces. We do this through discussions of international legitimacy, international justice and the relations between ideal and non-ideal theory.

International legitimacy. From normative authority by consent to instrumental legitimacy

Questions of legitimacy have long been central to both political philosophy and political practice. It is not merely vanity that leads dictators of virtually all stripes to first decide to hold elections and then announce that they have won 96 per cent of the vote in them. Saddam Hussein, for instance, held a referendum in 2002 on whether he should continue as ruler of Iraq for the next seven years, and after the election was held it turned out that out of 11,445,638 eligible voters, every single one voted in favour. The natural question to ask is: why bother? Why bother to hold sham elections with sham results when you hold power anyway? There are many possible answers, but two are especially relevant here. The effect of legitimacy is, or can be, twofold. First, it makes it easier to exercise the power one does possess. Second, and as important, it can often increase the scope of the power one possesses.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Legitimacy, Justice and Public International Law , pp. 1 - 28
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Applbaum, Arthur Isak 2004. ‘Legitimacy in a Bastard Kingdom’, John F. Kennedy School of Government Center for Public Leadership Working Papers, Spring 2004.
Barry, Brian 1982. ‘Humanity and Justice in Global Perspective’, in Pennock, J. and Chapman, J. (eds.), NOMOS XXIV, Ethics, Economics and the Law. New York, NY: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Barry, Brian 1995. Justice as Impartiality. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Beitz, Charles 1979 and 1999. Political Theory and International Relations. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Beitz, Charles 1999. ‘Social and Cosmopolitan Liberalism’, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944 –) 75: 515–29.Google Scholar
Blake, Michael 2001. ‘Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 30: 257–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blake, Michael 2008. ‘International Justice’, in Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter Edition), online, available at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2008/entries/international-justice.Google Scholar
Buchanan, Allen 2004. Justice, Legitimacy and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for International Law. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Caney, Simon 2006. Justice Beyond Borders. A Global Political Theory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Gerald A. 2008. Rescuing Justice and Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, Partha 1993. An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald 1975. ‘The Original Position’, in Daniels, Norman (ed.), Reading Rawls. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Farrelly, Colin 2007. ‘Justice in Ideal Theory: A Refutation’, Political Studies 55: 844–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodin, Robert E. 1995. ‘Political Ideals and Political Practice’, British Journal of Political Science 25: 37–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Leslie 1988. The Authority of the State. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hinsch, Wilfried, in press. ‘Justice, Legitimacy and Constitutional Rights’, in Matravers, Matthew and Meyer, Lukas H. (eds.), Justice, Equality and Democracy. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Hobbes, Thomas 1991. Leviathan. Tuck, R. (ed.). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Höffe, Otfried, 1995. Political Justice. Foundations for a Critical Philosophy of Law and the State. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Hume, David 1987 (1777). ‘Of the Original Contract’, in Essays, Moral, Political and Literary. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Classics.Google Scholar
Ladenson, R. 1990. ‘In Defense of a Hobbesian Conception of Law’, in Raz, Joseph (ed.), Authority. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 32–55.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas 1983. Legitimation durch Verfahren. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair 1984. ‘Is Patriotism a Virtue?’ (The Lindley Lecture), University of Kansas.
Mason, Andrew 2004. ‘Just Constraints’, British Journal of Political Science 34: 251–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, David 2007. National Responsibility and Global Justice. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Thomas 2005. ‘The Problem of Global Justice’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 33: 113–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Stephen 1989. ‘Second-Order Reasons, Uncertainty and Legal Theory’, Southern California Law Review 62: 913–94.Google Scholar
Plato, 2000. The Republic. Ferrari, G. R. F. (ed.), Griffith, Tom (trans.). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas 1989. Realizing Rawls. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Pogge, Thomas and Horton, Keith (eds.) 2008. Global Ethics. Seminal Essays. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.
Pogge, Thomas and Moellendorf, Darrell (eds.) 2008. Global Justice. Seminal Essays. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.
Rawls, John 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John 1993. ‘The Law of Peoples’, in Shute, Stephen and Hurley, Susan (eds.), On Human Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1993. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Rawls, John 1993. Political Liberalism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John 1999. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John 2007. Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Raz, Joseph 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sangiovanni, Andrea 2007. ‘Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 35: 3–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe To Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schauer, Fred 1991. Playing by the Rules. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Scheffler, Samuel 2001. Boundaries and Allegiances. Problems of Justice and Responsibility in Liberal Thought. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya 2006. ‘What Do We Want From a Theory of Justice?’, The Journal of Philosophy 103: 215–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya and Dreze, Jean 1989. Hunger and Public Action. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shue, Henry 1996. Basic Rights. Subsistence, Affluence and U.S. Foreign Policy. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Singer, Peter 1973. Democracy and Disobedience. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Swift, Adam 2008. ‘The Value of Philosophy in Nonideal Circumstances’, Social Theory and Practice 34: 366–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, Kok-Chor 2004. Justice without Borders. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vlastos, Gregory 1996. Studies in Greek Philosophy, Volume II: Socrates, Plato, and Their Tradition. Graham, Daniel W. (ed.). Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Waldron, Jeremy 1999. Law and Disagreement. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walzer, Michael 1983. Spheres of Justice. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Weber, Max 1968. Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Roth, Guenther and Wittich, Claus (eds.). New York, NY: Bedminster Press.Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×