Papers by Chris Armstrong
Ethics & International Affairs, 2022
In recent years, the target of reaching "net zero" emissions by 2050 has come to the forefront of... more In recent years, the target of reaching "net zero" emissions by 2050 has come to the forefront of global climate politics. Net zero would see carbon emissions matched by carbon removals and should allow the planet to avoid dangerous climate change. But the recent prominence of this goal should not distract from the fact that there are many possible versions of net zero. Each of them will have different climate justice implications, and some of them could have very negative consequences for the world's poor. This article demonstrates the many ambiguities of net zero, and argues in favor of a net zero strategy in which those who can reasonably bear the burden adopt early and aggressive mitigation policies. We also argue for a net zero strategy in which countries place the lion's share of their faith in known emissions reduction approaches, rather than being heavily reliant on as-yet-unproven "negative emissions techniques." Our overarching goal is to put net zero in its place, by providing a clear-sighted view of what net zero will achieve, and where the "net" in net zero needs to be tightened further if the world is to achieve climate justice.
Conservation Biology, 2022
Opportunity costs can represent a significant portion of the costs associated with conservation p... more Opportunity costs can represent a significant portion of the costs associated with conservation projects (Green et al 2018), frequently outstripping other kinds of cost (Balmford and Whitten 2003). They are typically understood to refer to the benefits someone could or would have obtained if conservation projects had not required them
Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric, 2021
Oxford Handbook of Intergenerational Ethics, 2021
European Journal of Political Theory, 2021
Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, 2021
Journal of Political Philosophy, 2020
In 2013, the Bangladeshi media reported that at least forty fishermen had been bound hand and foo... more In 2013, the Bangladeshi media reported that at least forty fishermen had been bound hand and foot and tossed into the sea to drown. Despite video evidence, no prosecutions followed.
Journal of Global Ethics, 2020
The ocean is central to our lives, but many of our impacts on the ocean are highly unsustainable,... more The ocean is central to our lives, but many of our impacts on the ocean are highly unsustainable, and patterns of resource exploitation at sea are deeply inequitable. This article assesses whether the objectives encapsulated in the UN's Sustainable Development Goal for the ocean are well equipped to respond to these challenges. It will argue that the approach underpinned by the SDG 14 is largely compatible, unfortunately, with 'business as usual.' SDG 14 is undoubtedly intended as a starting point rather than a final destination; but it is nevertheless important to be clear about how far we still need to travel on the road to oceanic justice. Most significantly, SDG 14 leaves several key challenges inadequately addressed or simply unaddressed. It fails to specify adequate principles for the fair sharing of benefits and burdens flowing from the ocean, including the burdens of tackling pressing environmental problems. Neither does it address the underlying causes of inequality in the ocean economy. It neglects to properly address, furthermore, the fragmented institutional context which significantly impedes effective action to advance the goals of justice and sustainability at sea. Finally, whereas SDG 14 correctly identifies a series of necessary reforms to the ocean economy, it fails to engage with important issues of transitional justice which will arise if these policies are implemented. Vital first step though it is, promoting a just and sustainable ocean will require us to set our sights considerably higher than the targets endorsed as part of SDG 14.
Global Environmental Politics, 2020
Predicted sea level rise caused by anthropogenic climate change threatens to drastically alter co... more Predicted sea level rise caused by anthropogenic climate change threatens to drastically alter coastlines around the world. In the case of low-lying atoll states it threatens to expunge them from the map. This potential scenario has engendered considerable discussion concerning the fate of climate refugees. There has been relatively little attention, however, given to the impact of sea level rise on existing maritime zones and how these zones, and the resources they represent, might continue to benefit displaced communities. This article builds on the small body of legal scholarship that has taken this matter seriously, to provide a normative analysis, based on principles of global justice, of the best ways of responding to the plight of atoll states. The article thus makes a dual contribution: it extends legal scholarship by applying the principles of global justice to the problem of maritime boundaries, and contributes to the literature on global justice by investigating a salient but hitherto neglected case.
Journal of Political Philosophy, 2020
our governments ought to forbid citizens and corporations from buying goods from societies blight... more our governments ought to forbid citizens and corporations from buying goods from societies blighted by dictatorship. Leif Wenar has recently argued that we should stop buying natural resources from countries where governments are not accountable to citizens in even a minimal sense. 3 Thomas Pogge has argued that our willingness to trade no-questions-asked with dictatorships serves to protectand even incentivise the emergence ofbrutal regimes, and as such violates a negative duty not to harm the global poor. In at least some circumstances, we are morally obliged to break off tradeincluding cases where initially legitimate governments in vendor countries slide away from democracy. 4 Shmuel Nili has claimed that democracies should not trade with dictatorships at all, since doing so would be a hypocritical violation of our liberal and democratic commitments. 5
Stephen Gardiner (ed) Oxford Handbook of Intergenerational Ethics
In this chapter I will examine a variety of views about the nature of our putative duties to cons... more In this chapter I will examine a variety of views about the nature of our putative duties to conserve natural resources for the future. Our primary focus will be upon the contested idea of ‘sustainability.’ For many, this idea plays an important role in capturing our duties with regards to the natural world. For others, as we will see, the idea is a slippery one which resists any precise specification. In this chapter I will begin by clarifying the general concept of sustainability, and showing how it has figured in debates about intergenerational justice. It will become clear that, whilst sustainability has often been thought to be a good thing, the stuff of sustainability – the answer to the question ‘sustainability of what?’ – remains deeply contested. This is amply illustrated in the debate between what have been called ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ conceptions of sustainability – though, as I will argue, that distinction may be of rather limited usefulness. In the final section of the chapter, we will shift attention to the global distributive implications of the search for sustainability. Preserving the world’s natural resources may be an urgent priority – but which resources should be preserved, where, and with what consequences for the world’s people? This rather neglected dimension of the ‘sustainability of what?’ question turns out to have significant ramifications for the prospects of people both now and in the future.
Political Studies, 2019
If dangerous climate change is to be avoided, the majority of the world’s fossil fuel supplies ca... more If dangerous climate change is to be avoided, the majority of the world’s fossil fuel supplies cannot be burned. Fossil fuel exporting countries will therefore lose out on a significant source of revenue – among them some of the world’s poorest countries. Might they have a claim to assistance from the international community if these losses come to pass? If so, on what basis? I examine two distinct arguments for assistance. The first is based on the claim that when our expectations are thwarted by public policy, compensation for those affected may be morally required. The second is premised upon the right to development – a right which is jeopardised when some fossil fuel assets must go unexploited. I argue that the second argument enjoys better prospects. I also discuss several mechanisms which would allow the international community to assist countries incurring losses arising from the need to stabilise our global climate.
Conservation Biology, 2018
We examined how, from the point of view of justice, the burdens of paying for conservation should... more We examined how, from the point of view of justice, the burdens of paying for conservation should be shared. I resisted simple answers to the question of who should pay for conservation that lean on a single moral principle. I identified 3 relevant principles that relate to who causes conservation challenges, who has greater capacity to carry burdens, and who stands to benefit from conservation. I argue for a distinctive pluralist framework for allocating conservation burdens that grants a proper role to all three principles, and describe a multistep process for putting the framework into practice.
Natural resources have frequently been depicted as sources of advantage, with the key normative q... more Natural resources have frequently been depicted as sources of advantage, with the key normative question therefore being how to share access to the benefits they provide. But they can also be sources of disadvantage. Entire communities can be endangered by volcanoes and hurricanes. The presence of stagnant ponds in which mosquito larvae grow may cause communities to be exposed to malaria, dengue and yellow fever (mosquito-borne diseases are associated with over a million deaths per year, with most of them occurring in parts of the world which are already disadvantaged). Even life-giving resources such as freshwater can bring terrible burdens in tow. In one infamous case, Bangladeshis were for many years exposed to water-borne diseases via the surface-water they relied upon for drinking and cooking. During the 1970s the national Department of Public Health, with the assistance of Unicef, engineered a wholesale shift towards the extraction of water from groundwater sources which were presumed to be safer. The result was that millions fell victim to the abnormally high levels of arsenic contained in the local groundwater. The largest mass-poisoning in history has left a brutal legacy of skin lesions, cardiovascular disease and cancer. 1 Indeed the human need for continual access to water all too often generates threats to people's (and especially women's) health, physical security, and access to education and labour-markets. 2 For all that we have tended to represent the world's resources as a cornucopia, the image of a poisoned chalice is sometimes more accurate. I have suggested from the outset that a theory of natural resource justice should concern itself with the distribution of the benefits and burdens flowing from the world's resources, because each can have a significant impact upon human wellbeing. Since Beitz, egalitarians have often suggested that it is unjust if one community is able to live a life of comparative luxury because of the resources contained within its territory, whereas others must work hard to make the most of more meagre spoils. But on that logic, it must be no less objectionable if one community's children are systematically exposed to diseases and developmental disorders
and Keywords Understanding the complex set of processes collected under the heading of climate ch... more and Keywords Understanding the complex set of processes collected under the heading of climate change represents a considerable scientific challenge. But it also raises important challenges for our best moral theories. For instance, in assessing the risks that climate change poses, we face profound questions about how we ought to weigh the respective harms it may inflict on current and on future generations, and on humans and other species. We face, in addition, difficult questions about how to act in conditions of uncertainty, in which at least some of the consequences of climate change – and of various human interventions to adapt to or mitigate it – are difficult to predict fully (Gardiner, 2006). Even if we agree that mitigating climate change is morally required, furthermore, there is room for disagreement about the precise extent to which it ought to be mitigated (insofar as there is room for underlying disagreement about the level of temperature rises which are morally permissible). Finally, once we determine which actions we ought to take to reduce or avoid climate change, we face the normative question of who ought to bear the costs of those actions, as well as the costs associated with any climate change which nevertheless comes to pass. The primary focus of this chapter will be upon this final issue. On the assumption that limiting climate change is morally required, our mitigation efforts are likely to prove costly for some if not all of us. Moreover, even if we mitigate now, some people will incur losses as a result of greenhouse gas emissions to date. We therefore require guidance on exactly how, from the point of view of justice, the associated burdens ought to be shared.
Proposals for resource taxes and associated transfers have played a very prominent role in contem... more Proposals for resource taxes and associated transfers have played a very prominent role in contemporary debates about global justice, from Beitz's 'resource redistribution principle,' to Steiner's Global Fund, to Pogge's Global Resources Dividend. But such proposals have also attracted some important criticisms, including the claim that resource taxes are unmotivated, or that their impact would be regressive. This paper responds to these challenges, and at the same time it seeks to clarify the role resource taxes should play in an egalitarian project. Still, when we evaluate their potential impact much may turn out to hang on just which resources should be taxed, and which of the ways in which we engage with resources – owning them, extracting them, or consuming them – should render us liable to paying taxes. I will have rather less to say in response to this question, but I shall suggest that in light of the diverse goals which resource taxes are likely to be charged with advancing, a single undifferentiated global tax on natural resources (undifferentiated, that is, either in the sense that it targets all resources, or in the sense that it is exclusively targeted at for instance ownership or consumption) is unlikely to promote justice most effectively. On the assumption that a more fine-grained approach may be desirable, the paper ends with a discussion of several proposals for specific resource taxes.
Politics, Philosophy and Economics (Online Early, 2014), 2014
The doctrine of permanent sovereignty over natural resources is a hugely consequential one in the... more The doctrine of permanent sovereignty over natural resources is a hugely consequential one in the contemporary world, appearing to grant nation-states both jurisdiction-type rights and rights of ownership over the resources to be found in their territories. But the normative justification for that principle is far from clear. This article elucidates the best arguments that might be made for permanent sovereignty, including claims from national improvement of or attachment to resources, as well as functionalist claims linking resource rights to key state functions. But it also shows that these defences are insufficient to justify permanent sovereignty, and that in many cases they actually count against it as a practice. They turn out to be compatible, furthermore, with the dispersal of resource rights away from the nation-state which global justice appears to demand.
Justice and Natural Resources - A Global Egalitarian Theory (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
A brief Introduction and plan for my book Justice and Natural Resources, which is forthcoming wit... more A brief Introduction and plan for my book Justice and Natural Resources, which is forthcoming with Oxford University Press
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Papers by Chris Armstrong
Chris Armstrong reveals how existing governing institutions are failing to respond to the most pressing problems of our time, arguing that we must do better. Armstrong examines these crises—from the fate of people whose lands will be submerged by sea level rise, to the exploitation of people working in fishing, to the rights of marine animals—and makes the case for a powerful World Ocean Authority capable of tackling them. A Blue New Deal presents a radical manifesto for putting equality, democracy, and sustainability at the heart of ocean politics.
This book explores the continued ability of the concept of citizenship to do valuable work in spelling out what a commitment to justice and democracy implies in a world marked by inequalities, migration flows, and various historical injustices, whilst at the same time addressing profound questions about the boundaries of citizenship, participation and political membership.