This chapter introduces the idea of global distributive justice, and looks at some arguments in favour of it. Although some people might think that the gulfs in income or living standards across the various countries of the world are regrettable, this does not commit us to thinking that they are unjust. Similarly, while we might think that more privileged people – such as citizens of developed countries – have some kind of responsibility to respond to the fact that other people lack access to clean water, adequate nutrition or basic education, this does not necessarily imply that they have obligations of justice. Theories of global distributive justice do, though, pick out some such facts – say, that many people lack access to basic education, or that some have a great deal more than others simply because of the country they happen to have been born into – and declare them to be unjust. They also tell us that, at least sometimes, we have obligations of justice to respond to such facts.

This chapter sets the scene, in section 1.1, with some brief facts about global poverty. How we respond to these kinds of fact, from a normative point of view, determines whether we shall be convinced by theories of global distributive justice. Section 1.2 then examines the idea of global distributive justice. Just what is a theory of global distributive justice? When is something a principle of justice as opposed to something else, like a principle of charity or humanitarianism? Although there are a number of different approaches to defining principles of distributive justice, theorists tend to converge on the idea that duties of justice are especially firm or stringent, and that they are also enforceable. So, for many theorists of global justice, saying that someone has an entitlement (to clean drinking water, say, or to a fair wage) as a matter of justice, means that we should also be prepared to say that someone else is acting unjustly if that entitlement is not delivered on. Section 1.2 also distinguishes between two important types of duty: positive and negative duties of justice.