3RD INTERNAL ASSESSMENT OF LAW & JUSTICE IN A GLOBALIZING

WORLD

SYMBIOSIS LAW SCHOOL, PUNE

CARE | COURAGE | COMPETENCE | COLLABORATION

“LAW & JUSTICE IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD”

INTERNAL ASSESSMENT III

TITLE OF ASSIGNMENT- ONLINE OPEN BOOK TEST

SUBMITTED BY –

NUPUR JHOD
I SEM, LLM (CRIMINAL LAW & SECURITY LAW)
PRN 20010143035 | ROLL NO. 035
SYMBIOSIS LAW SCHOOL, PUNE

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TABLE OF CONTENT

I. QUESTION 1…………………………………………………………
II. QUESTION 1…………………………………………………………
III. QUESTION 1…………………………………………………………
IV. REFERENCE…………………………………………………………

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QUESTION 1 : CAN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS BE TRULY

DEMOCRATIC? ANSWER WITH A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE
UNITED NATIONS AND ITS TRACK RECORD IN PROTECTING THE
RIGHTS OF THE GLOBAL CITIZENS FROM THE LENS
OF LAW AND JUSTICE. 

ANSWER:

The phase during which the third world countries tried to emerge and develop, ‘democracy’
and ‘global governance’ became buzzwords for scholars. Democratic credentials became a
prerequisite for countries to join or remain in international organisations such as the
European Union, or intergovernmental organisations. Now a days democracy has been
transformed into some sort of global benchmark and attempts have also been made to make
global governance more democratic, especially by reforming international organisations such
as the UN or the International Monetary Fund. Over the past 20 years, several attempts have
been made for making the international organisations more representative, efficient, and
accountable. In the meantime, in organisations like UN, emerging powers such as China,
India and Brazil have also begun to push for global governance reform, aimed at creating
more room for the demands of developing countries. The results have been mixed. Despite
calls for more democratic governance from states, global technocrats, scholars, activists and
politicians, most International Organisations have not been significantly transformed. As
noted by Thomas Zweifel that, "Democracy is on the rise as a core value and the dominant
governance principle worldwide […]. But international institutions have not necessarily
followed suit; as states transfer more and more rule making powers to them, they suffer from
a growing crisis of legitimacy."

In this regard Robert Dahl gave a hypothesis that can be called as endogenous explanation of
the same, he argues that IOs are intrinsically undemocratic. According to him though the IOs
based on democratic principles they would hardly be able to function, as they are opaque
‘bureaucratic bargaining systems’ in essence, thus they lack the mechanism of democratic
control and accountability. In his view, such IOs are not directly accountable to any electoral

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constituencies as a result of which citizens are unable to oppose, complain about or even fight
against the decisions and actions of IOs, lacking the powers to prevent IO officials from
implementing global public policies that are inimical to their individual or national interests.
In this view, IOs frequently go unchecked by other sources of democratic power, and are
virtually uncontrollable.

This contention of Dahl concerning why IOs can't be democratic is put together on the whole
with respect to the principal definition. The fundamental issue, he says, is that IOs have been
planned with such broad appointment methods – from residents to states, and from states to
global administrations – that the demos can't viably control significant ultimate conclusions .
This is so for three principle reasons:

(1) worldwide establishments need mainstream control, that is, there are no channels of
political cooperation, impact, and control 'generally equal in adequacy to those all around
existing in democratic nations' (Dahl 1999: 31); (2) agents of a speculative worldwide demos
would be inconsistent circulated among various nations; and 

 (3) gains and misfortunes of worldwide arrangements across specific gatherings, districts, or
nations would likewise be inconsistent in that their requirement and authenticity would need
to depend on a typical character or political culture. 

Though the Ios such as UN cannot be considerd as truely democratic institutions there are
some kind of growing pressures for more democratic global governance that have led to
improved mechanisms of representation in international institutions. Now the IOs like united
nation play three roles that may be thought of as potential niches for democratic
improvement. The first is the establishment of global norms and patterns of behaviour
through international regimes. Principles and rules developed within the UN to regulate civil
uses of the Internet is a glaring example of this. The second role played by IOs that may be
regarded as democratic is one of policy making at the global level. The third role is
maintenance of internal security.

If we look at the preamble of the UN charter is says ‘We the Peoples,’ but in my view it is a
lofty statement and not a meaningful one. After all, what really makes the UN happen is its
member states, represented by their respective governments and officials, and not the people
who live in those states. Further, the UN Security Council which is responsible for
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maintaining peace and security in the world consists of 15 members including 5 permanent
members. Its 5 permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the
United States) enjoy the real power and take all crucial decisions. Each permanent member
has veto power. It means that the council cannot take a decision if any permanent member
says no to that decision. This shows undemocratic nature of the Security Council. The other
ten other members are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms. In reality, they
enjoy no powers and are not decision makers. This system has led more and more people and
countries to protest and demand that the UN Security Council should be more democratic.

Conclusion:
Thus it can be concluded that democracy is an inescapable fate which the global system of
states will need to deal with in the coming years. This so for the main reason democratic
regimes have impressively multiplied around the world over the last decades. Though the UN
is performing certain democratic functions the same by performing its traditional political
functions is failing to act as a democratic institution. At the end it can be said that that new
institutional roles and forms need to be created in order to carry out its functions as a
democratic institution.

QUESTION 2 : IDENTIFY ONE ISSUE OF GLOBAL SOCIAL JUSTICE,

IDENTIFY CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES AND EVALUATE
VARIOUS APPROACHES TO REALIZE ITS SUCCESSFUL RESOLUTION

ANSWER:

There are various approaches in which the concept of social justice can be analyse and also
there are many challenges. First, we begin with understanding Social Justice in itself. So
Social Justice is a concept that is a newcomer and hence if we search through the great
philosophers like Plato, Aristotle etc and their school of thought in order to understand this
concept wasn’t one that was given much merit to be considered. S how this thought came into
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being was via the Western thought and the political situation that was birthed out of the
Industrial revolution and the coming of the “Socialist doctrine”. Here on emajor challenge
can be seen as social inequality.

Social inequality occurs when resources in a society are distributed unevenly, typically

through principles  of allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially
defined categories of persons in the society. It is the differentiation preference of access of
social good in the society brought about by power, religion, prestige, race, ethnicity, gender,
age, sexual orientation, and class divided in the society. Social inequality usually implies to
the lack of equality in the society of outcome, but may alternatively be conceptualized in
terms of the lack of equality of access to opportunity by the individuals. In history it cam be
seen that the best example is “the most extreme form of exploitation in employment is
slavery.” Also,the white and blacks, in India the cast system. Concept of reservation in India

In current scenario, “Social inequality” has been prevalent in Indian system for a long time.
Various measures were undertaken to reduce these inequalities. There are various laws and
provision like in the constitution as well as statutes that aim to reduce inequality in Indian
society system. Still, the rank of India in the global mobility index indicates that the
inequality is still present in the country. There are various types of social inequalities existing
in India like gender inequality, deprivations, etc. Some of the major inequalities areas follow:

1.Regional disparity increased in the 1990s with southern & western parts doing better than
northern or eastern parts in the country. The economic disparity also increased within states
that time.
2. The most persistent inequality in India is in the income and distribution of income and
resources among the people in India this problem has also been seen in USA. This is due to
factors like family influence and inheritance etc. also failure of proper government
framework and efficiency.
3. There exists a large scale difference between people employed in the formal & non-formal
sector in India. People received less money in the informal sector in comparison to formal
sectors employees.
4. There have been inequalities faced by various communities in the country for a long time
and still. This has often led to various conflicts within groups or between one social group
and the other like for reservations, for promotions and fair opportunities.

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5. People are still fighting on the basis of religion in India like hindu muslims issue is still
unsolved. There exists inequality between these groups on various fronts like employment
and education opportunities. For eg., upper-caste Sikhs and Christians are more affluent than
upper-caste Hindus in both urban & rural areas of the country.

6. The caste system followed in India has been abolished but only on paper in
practicality it is different. People still practice the same trend. There exist wide
inequalities between upper caste people & lower caste people in society.

Conclusion :

India is still facing social inequality in the country in the present scenario as well. The
government took various steps to abolish the concept of untoucahability and made policies
like reservations for special groups. However, these steps have not worked to a great extent
as per the results. Instead, it has led to more conflicts among the communities opposing the
policies on reservation. It can also be seen that Even various land reforms and wealth
redistribution could not help in eliminating the existing income inequality in the country. 

QUESTION 3 : NOZICK’S CRITICISM OF RAWLS IDEA OF JUSTICE

ANSWER:

John Rawls’ theory of “distributive justice” is based on the principle that society is a system
of cooperation for mutual advantage between individuals. While giving criticism of Rawls
theory, Nozick argues that Rawl’s theory, “justice as fairness,” invocate a group in his own
original position instead of considering individuals. He disregards Rawls’ theory on the
ground that the latter’s theory favours the lower spectrum of the society which leads
to inequality in terms of the average gain made by different peoples as less provided gain to
the more than the talented ones. Also, states that Rawls’ original position only lets one to
consider the results of distribution but not on how it came to begin. Rawls’ theories of
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redistribution or “patterned” theories as Nozick calls it in his criticism, he said, it involves

interference with individual liberties of people. On contrary, Nozick proposes distribution
according to intellect of each individual in the society more intelligent one more property on
gets. Any group or individuals that control resources and distribute shares interfere with the
recipient’s individual rights.
The Nozick’s strongest oppositions against redistribution and the very person who influenced
Nozick is, Locke, who suggests that taxes should be imposed in “proportion” to the property
that is protected by the state. As per, Adam Smith, “the subjects of every state ought to
contribute towards the support of the governmet in proportion to the revenue which they
subjectively enjoy under protection of the state”. Also, Epstein, a libertarian, states the idea
of broad-based income or comprehensive income tax on the basis of “everything of value
which is protected by government is subject to taxation”. Hence, it appears that libertarian
principles can be relied upon to support all major taxes that can be levied. Then the major
questions come is why not Nozick’s?

However, Stein argues that Nozick disregards any consideration of social utility in Anarchy
State and Utopia. Stein said Nozick’s redistribution as immensely burdensome, not providing
very great benefits and that he would object to redistribution even if it relieved enormous
suffering among the poor people & imposed only the most negligible of burdens on the richer
pat of society. He further criticises, Nozick on “does not present a precise theory of the moral
basis of the individual rights,” and he does not tell the origin of these stringent rights on
which he relies upon.

The Difference Principle is also criticized as a primary distributive principle on the grounds
that it mostly ignores claims that people deserve certain economic benefits in light of their
actions. It is been argue that some may deserve a higher level of material goods because of
their hard work to earn or contributions even if their unequal rewards do not also function to
improve the position of the least advantaged of themselves. It was also argue that the
Difference Principle ignores the explanations of how people come to be in the more or less
advantaged groups in the society, when such explanations are relevant to the fairness of these
positions of distribution.

The Original Position & the Veil of Ignorance may exclude some morally relevant
information. the theory excludes in order to promote rationality and is biased in favor of

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rationality hence criticised on this.  An argument can be put forth in the sense that Nozick
reaches universal conclusions from individual motivations without fully considering possible
universal implications and that he too easily reaches the point of arguing for absolute rights
for freedom of action and from coercion, yet with minimum safeguards for the community.

Conclusion

It is evident that Justice can be divided into social, economic, political and all are inteer
connected with each other. It is worth noticing that Rawls’ and Nozick’s theory speaks least
about their connections. Their theory is based upon certain principles. Nozick, tried to make
analysis of distributive justice intending to highlight a greater philosophy and wants to draw
the attention on politics which is popularly called liberalism.

But, liberal philosophy has many good aspects, its black spots and drawback aspects are not
to be ignored as such. The real picture of liberal political philosophy of USA, Britain, and
other states is not unknown to all & that’s why it can be said that neither Rawls’ nor Nozick’s
theory of justice attracts truley. They are meant for capitalism.

REFERENCE

 Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State and Utopia, New York: Basic Books Inc., Publishers,
(1974)
 Rawls, John “Justice as Fairness: Political, not Metaphysical”,reprinted in Papers, Ch.
18 (1985)
 Twining, William Globalisation and Legal Theory (London: Butterworth)(2000)
 Twining, William A Post-Westphalian Conception of Law”, in 37 Law andSoc’y Rev.
199-257(2003b)“
 Twining, William “Have Concepts, Will Travel: Analytical Jurisprudence in a Global
Context”, 1 Int. J. Law in Context 5-40.(2005a)
 Twining, William “Diffusion of Law: A Global Perspective”, 49 J. LegalPluralism 1-
49University Press, (1946) (2005c)

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