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On Trade Justice, Power and Institutions – Some Questions for Risse and Wollner

  • Oisin Suttle EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: September 3, 2021
Moral Philosophy and Politics
From the journal Moral Philosophy and Politics Volume 9 Issue 1

Abstract

While Risse and Wollner make an important contribution to theorising global justice and trade, I identify certain concerns with their approach and suggest an alternative that addresses these. First, I query their emphasis on subjection to the trade regime as a morally salient feature, suggesting their argument trades on an ambiguity, and fails to connect the trade regime, as a trigger, with their preferred account of trade-justice-as-non-exploitation. Second, I examine their treatment of the WTO, how they understand international organisations as inheritors of states’ obligations, and how far an organisation like the WTO can or should be self-consciously reoriented towards justice-as-non-exploitation. Third, I ask how their account is distinct from existing approaches, and whether it makes sense to apply the same conception of justice across diverse agents and institutions. I conclude by sketching an alternative approach, which makes the justification of states’ policies to outsiders the central problem of trade justice.

Keywords: trade; justice; WTO; power; institutions; coercion; equality
Corresponding author: Oisin Suttle, Department of Law, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to anonymous reviewers for this journal for helpful suggestions in improving this paper.

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Published Online: 2021-09-03
Published in Print: 2022-04-26

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorial
  3. On Whose Terms? Power and Exploitation in Trade
  4. Articles
  5. Exploitation, Trade Justice, and Corporate Obligations
  6. Trade, Exploitation, and the Problem of Unequal Opportunity Costs
  7. Moving Beyond the Individualist Paradigm? Risse and Wollner on Non-agential Exploitation
  8. When (Not) to Trade with Autocrats: Complicity, Exploitation, and Human Rights
  9. What the Trade Pioneers Missed: Money
  10. Subsidies, Relocations, and Social Justice
  11. On Trade and Exploitation
  12. On Trade Justice, Power and Institutions – Some Questions for Risse and Wollner
https://doi.org/10.1515/mopp-2021-0017
Keywords for this article
trade; justice; WTO; power; institutions; coercion; equality

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorial
  3. On Whose Terms? Power and Exploitation in Trade
  4. Articles
  5. Exploitation, Trade Justice, and Corporate Obligations
  6. Trade, Exploitation, and the Problem of Unequal Opportunity Costs
  7. Moving Beyond the Individualist Paradigm? Risse and Wollner on Non-agential Exploitation
  8. When (Not) to Trade with Autocrats: Complicity, Exploitation, and Human Rights
  9. What the Trade Pioneers Missed: Money
  10. Subsidies, Relocations, and Social Justice
  11. On Trade and Exploitation
  12. On Trade Justice, Power and Institutions – Some Questions for Risse and Wollner
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