Global Distributive Justice

Abstract Distributive justice, in its broadest sense, is about how benefits and burdens ought to be distributed among a set of individuals as a matter of right and entitlement. Political philosophers have traditionally assumed that principles of distributive justice apply only within the bounds of a given political community. However, this assumption has been rigorously challenged in recent years, as evidenced by the recent work on global distributive justice. Students of global distributive justice have paid considerable attention to how certain facts about the global domain might affect the grounds of their normative judgments. Therefore, it is important to focus on the application of distributive justice to certain global issues, including reparations for historic injustice, climate change, transnational trade, and natural resources ownership. These issues are inevitably global in scope, and they tend to have profound impacts on the well-being of individuals around the world.