Reciprocity, Equality and International Justice

In this article I criticize a prominent account for resisting the extension of egalitarian justice to global politics. For Andrea Sangiovanni it is the reciprocity requirement generated by the provision of basic public goods that grounds egalitarian justice. Such basic public goods provision is absent internationally and this entails that egalitarian justice is only appropriate between citizens of the same political community. This article highlights the problematic empirical assumptions on which Sangiovanni's work builds. It proposes a more ample class of basic public goods necessary to act on a plan of life and maintains that whatever list we adopt, in a globalized world, basic public goods provision is often dependent on the international system. It goes on to suggest that the role of equality beyond borders is an important topic not only for relations between persons at the global level but also for inter-state interactions and that what we really should be worried about is the instrumental effects that inequality has when it comes to issues concerning poverty reduction and the shape of international regimes and institutions. © 2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.