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I argue that there are two concepts of distributive justice in play in debates on whether principles of distributive justice apply to the global sphere. Critics of the idea that the scope of distributive justice is restrictedassume, without argument, a particular conception of justice in which justice-based evaluations apply to basic structural institutional actions onlyinstrumentally, whilst applying intrinsically to distributive outcomes for people. I call these outcomes-focused views. I show that at least one view in the literature on global justice, theagency argument, appeals to a distinct concept of social distributive justice where the descriptors ‘justice’ and ‘injustice’, intrinsically apply to the actions of certain types of institutional agents, and only derivatively to the description of states of affairs such as distributive outcomes. This alternative view is treatment-focused and deontological. It focuses on special goods that are only available as a matter of how one is treated by political institutions: relational-goods. It is also sensitive to considerations of fairness in practical reason in ways that outcomes-focused views are not. I show why, on this agency-focused approach, the scope of principles of distributive justice is restricted to how people who are subject to special institutional authority are treated. My main aim in this paper is to demonstrate that on a competitor approach to justice the anti-scope restriction arguments fail, and that the competitor approach is not obviously incoherent. Thus, criticising scope restriction by assuming an outcomes-focused approach to distributive justice begs the question against agency-focused arguments. This shows the real dispute is at a more fundamental level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global justice is, at its core, about moral obligations to distant others. But which obligations ought to be included is a matter of considerable debate. In the discussion that follows I will explicate and challenge two objections to the inclusion of foundationally positive obligations in our account of global justice. The first objection is based on the proposition that negative obligations possess and positive obligations lack a property necessary for a moral demand to be a matter justice. The second objection is that even the most trivial positive obligation becomes overly burdensome when applied to the global arena. And, though I do not offer any particular substantive account of positive obligations to distant others; I assess some of the implications that would arise were positive obligations to distant others to be included in our account of global justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational effects are identified as those economic effects which cross state boundaries. Where these effects are negative, as illustrated by the 'transnational case,' it is asked what the appropriate ethical analysis of such a case might be. If we leave aside a social-distributive justice analysis, for reasons given, then a typical move is to claim that transnational economic effects are analyzable as human rights violations. The paper examines this claim and identifies the specific view of human rights which motivates it; the 'outcomes view of human rights.' It is then shown how the outcomes view of human rights ultimately collapses into social-distributive justice-type standards and so suffers from the same problems raised against using those standards for transnational effects. An alternative approach to human rights is sketched, although a complete theory of human rights is not offered. Finally, a different type of justice analysis for transnational cases is offered in which a form of international justice proper is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]