John Rawls' Notion of Justice as Fairness and the Global Society (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Politics - International Politics - General and Theories, grade: 2,7, University of Hamburg, 3 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The political changes in Europe from the years 1989-1991 and onwards are often referred to as the starting point of the world market expansion and the establishment of a globalised world of states for first time in the modern history. This poses both new challenges before the societies and new needs of respecting the same universal values and rules by all its members. How that can be effectively ensured is, thereby, a crucial issue.
Only if all members of our globalised reality perceive the rules of conduct as just, fair and equal to everyone it can be expected that these rules will be respected and will remain into force as indicators outlining the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad.
In today’s globalised world, however, there is a great variety of moral, religious, social and political doctrines that deal in quite a different way with the notions of right vs. wrong and good vs. bad. As states in their function as basic entities and members of nowadays globalised society are represented in the latter by individuals who have in turn their own perceptions shaped in accordance with the values of the environment the individuals have grown up it can be easily outlined how speculative can be a discussion on norms like right and wrong, good and bad if extended on an international scale.
The other way round, our globalised world that, as such, is still in its child age of development needs some clear principles on which to build on its structure and its institutions that in turn will be called to perform and employ the same universal values and rules to all its members.
If there is no universal perception on these values and rules then what can serve as an orientation light when the international community develops its international institutions and sets its principles?
Should the misbalance in the economic development and the political power of some states over the rest of the countries be used as a basis for outlining the parties who have ‘right’ and those who are ‘wrong’?
Or these issues will be dealt with and decided on also in the future within the presently existing international bodies the way of functioning of which dates back to the post World War II. and the Cold War periods of time when there was no globalised world yet (at least not in the way it exists today) and much of the challenges of nowadays did not exist?