This chapter sets out the logic of the practical pursuit of global justice through global democratization. The theory rests on the concept of formative agents of justice, who shape what justice should mean in specific contexts, and how it should be sought. The chapter analyses formative agents’ role in bridging the gap between democracy and justice, thereby situating this book’s contribution within existing debates on international ethics, global justice, global governance, and deliberative democracy, before outlining the ways deliberative democracy can promote global justice. This approach meets challenges arising from the irreducible disagreement over the content of justice in both theory and practice, and from the need to identify who exactly should be responsible for the advancement of justice. The theoretical arguments of the book will be informed by and applied to the process that yielded the Sustainable Development Goals, and to climate governance inasmuch as it takes on climate justice. These two cases are introduced, along with a discussion of the kinds of justice they promote, ignore, and obstruct. Chapter 1 concludes with a brief overview of the remaining chapters.

Chapter four demonstrates how the post-WWII liberal vision of international law feeds into the ideology of the postcolonial ‘liberal’ state in the form of ‘individualism’, thereby dominating the discourse on minority protection. One direct implication of the dominance of liberal individualism in the postcolonial constitutional architecture of rights is the denial of protection for minority groups. The liberal human rights regime is designed to diffuse cultural groups into individual units, so as to facilitate their assimilation into a homogeneous national (read majoritarian) identity. This chapter explains how international law, with its liberal underpinning, shrinks the scope of the right to self-determination and thereby perpetuates the vulnerability of, or in some cases even leads to the extinction of, minority groups. In this connection, I also highlight the peculiar challenge that postcolonial states face in reconciling the diverging forces of ‘liberal individualism’ and majoritarian ‘ethno-nationalism’. The former emanates from the liberal international legal order, the latter from the nationalist discourse of allegiance, entitlement, and legitimacy. The issue of citizenship and statelessness is also discussed in this context. My arguments in this chapter are supported by in-depth case studies on the Rohingya and the CHT hill people.

The United Nations (UN) Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) withdrew completely in October 2017 after thirteen years of deployment and was replaced by a smaller mission, the UN Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), mandated under Chapter VII of the UN Charter but comprised of police units and police officers with no military component. The draw down of MINUSTAH provides an opportunity to review the mission’s significance and legacy and to provide a candid examination of the conduct and responsibilities of the mission without risk of exacerbating the challenges faced by UN troops on the ground.

Money talks when it comes to global justice, no less than elsewhere. But what does money say? And does that have any legitimate role in realizing global justice? The persistence of injustice in a world dominated by the wealthy suggest they should not be relied upon. This chapter discusses the formative agency of the global rich, corporations, and foundations. The formative agency of the rich is exercised in both their political influence, in choosing recipients of their charity, and on what terms. Justice requires the democratic extension of formative agency beyond the rich and toward the poor. The influence of corporations is felt in the Sustainable Development Goals and in networked climate governance. So long as corporations are hard-wired for profit their formative agency should be restricted on questions of justice. Foundations are increasingly prominent in global governance; the Gates Foundation distributes over $4 billion per year. Embedding foundations in deliberative democratic relationships would advance democratic legitimacy and accountability, while bringing different sorts of knowledge to their activities. Deliberative accountability should apply to all wealthy actors, whose capacity to decide what global justice means and requires should be counterbalanced by an active role for citizens, the global poor, civil society, and international organizations.

This book has focused on three aspects of MINUSTAH’s human rights responsibilities: (i) accountability for the outbreak and spread of cholera, (ii) sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, and (iii) the use of deadly force against non-combatants. In all three studies the mission’s practice has been found wanting. We argue that MINUSTAH’s failure to uphold human right standards, together with its lack of transparency and poor accountability, are problems that are likely to arise again in future missions unless Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO)commits to applying IHRL standards to its own activities, changes its practices to reflect this, and puts in place effective measures to ensure transparency and accountability.

How can we include the affected interests of future generations and non-humans in deliberations about global justice given that they cannot exercise formative agency themselves? Starting from the role moral imagination plays in moral reasoning, and hence in formative agency concerning the meaning of justice as well, this chapter looks at ways in which deliberations can be enhanced so as to promote inclusion of these neglected interests. Visual and experiential prompts should complement talk-centric deliberative processes. This would expand the deliberators’ moral imagination, enabling them to internalize the interests of future generations, animals, ecosystems, and the Earth system, and reach decisions reflecting all affected interests, even those bound to be silent – though that seeming silence itself may reveal an incapacity to listen. These kinds of considerations can be reflected in institutional design. Currently these frontiers of justice are only weakly present in the Sustainable Development Goals, which look ahead only to 2030, turned down the chance to incorporate planetary boundaries, and say little or nothing about non-humans.

Chapter three deals with the role of international law in the ideology of the postcolonial ‘national’ state. With its ambition of achieving a homogeneous and unified sovereign entity, the postcolonial state essentially relies on international law principles for the continuity of colonial boundaries (uti possidetis), territorial integrity, sovereign equality, and non-interference in internal affairs. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that the uti possidetis principle helps in the maintenance of peace and order, I argue that uti possidetis is a key problem. Far from being a corrective mechanism halting potential ‘disorder’ emanating from decolonisation, the continuation of arbitrarily drawn colonial boundaries undermines the legitimate right to self-determination of numerous ethnic minorities in postcolonial states and often results in violent ethnic conflicts. The argument for uti possidetis in international law is also normatively inconsistent as it depends upon the capacity of the postcolonial state to efface ethno-nationalism while simultaneously allowing the state to produce its own sustaining nationalist ideology in majoritarian terms. The minority problem is thus embedded in the very ideological making of the postcolonial ‘national’ state in international law. My arguments in this chapter are substantiated with in-depth case studies on the Rohingya and the CHT hill people.

This chapter examines the use of deadly force by UN peacekeepers mandated under Chapter VII of the UN Charter but operating outside the context of hostilities. Such actions may occur, for example when peacekeepers are deployed to a country where there is no armed conflict or when they are conducting operations against persons or groups who do not belong to the armed forces of a party to an armed conflict. The chapter will draw on the practice of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), deployed from June 2004 to October 2017, during which time there was no armed conflict as defined in international law in Haiti.