Friday 24 March 2017

Juris North: Legal and Political Philosophy Discussion Group. Jurisprudence: Call for Presenters 2017-18 [Term One]


Call for Presenters 2017-18 [Term One]
If your current research is on a topic that can be broadly characterised as jurisprudencei.e. legal and political philosophy, and you would be interested in presenting it to a friendly group, which includes academics as well as lawyers, you are welcome to be a presenter at the Juris North Discussion Group.
The discussions are normally held on Wednesday afternoons. But we can be flexible about the particular days that we meet. Discussions are always informal and very lively since we follow a Rawlsian approach. That means we do not have Professors and Students but people interested in discussing issues related to legal and political philosophy. So any question is an important question for debate.
If you would like to give a paper as part of our 2017-18 Working Paper Series [Term One: September-December 2017] then please send an abstract, no more than 500 words long and written in English. If you are interested, please contact Dr Jorge Emilio Nunez j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk.
The seminars will have a pre-read format: successful applicants will be asked to send a draft paper two weeks in advance of the seminar so that it can be circulated amongst members of the group.
Accommodation and expenses: we will not be able to make any contribution towards accommodation and travel expenses.



BOOK PREVIEW [coming May 2017] Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue. Chapter Seven: How could shared sovereignty work in practice?

Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and Politics

A Distributive Justice Issue





















Previously:



Chapter Seven

How could shared sovereignty work in practice?


Introduction

The previous Chapter showed that egalitarian shared sovereignty is a fair way of dealing with sovereignty conflicts and that it is unreasonable to reject it as a way of solving them. That is because the fairness of the outcomes of the original position was secured by the conditions under which the choice was made. It is now time to evaluate if the general principles of the egalitarian shared sovereignty can be extended to workable institutions that realise these principles. That is the aim of this Chapter, to work out what sorts of institutions and arrangements could, and would best, realise the egalitarian shared sovereignty.

In order to work out the institutions, some actual sovereignty conflicts will be used. These conflicts will fulfil the criteria defined at the beginning of this book—i.e. two sovereign States and a populated third territory. Moreover, the attention will be centred on some of the elements that constitute these particular sovereignty conflicts and that are constitutive of any political society, national or international—i.e. population, territory, government, and law. Indeed, as it would be theoretically impossible and practically cumbersome for a monograph to aim to cover every single aspect of the third territory, criteria will be introduced to select those elements that will be reviewed.

A further point must be made clear before working out what sort of arrangements and institutions may best realise the egalitarian shared sovereignty. Although this Chapter will explore the applicability of the egalitarian shared sovereignty in some real cases they are only used as part of a theoretical exercise. Ergo, relevant non-ideal issues—e.g. lack of compliance—will not be considered. It is assumed that all parties are reasonable and rational and want to resolve their conflict without violence. To put this in another way, this book only claims it would be unreasonable to reject its outcome—i.e. the egalitarian shared sovereignty—should all ideal and assumed conditions were present.

Wednesday 8 March 2017

BOOK PREVIEW [coming May 2017] Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue. Chapter Six: How can shared sovereignty be just?

Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and Politics



A Distributive Justice Issue


By Jorge E. Nunez

























Previously:



Chapter Six

How can shared sovereignty be just?


Introduction

The aim now is to present a conception of shared sovereignty that 
can lead to an abstract model in which the claimants in a 
sovereignty conflict leave aside reasons that may work against a 
final and peaceful solution. This Chapter will explore if it is
 possible to adapt the model created by John Rawls in his Theory 
of Justice to sovereignty conflicts. The idea is to present an 
argument for hypothetical agreement by coming up with 
principles that cannot be reasonably refused. Therefore, this is a 
theoretical exercise to focus on what factors cause bias in 
sovereignty disputes. Then, the task is to design a procedure 
which will limit the effect of these factors. As well as highlighting 
these pitfalls on the way to a peaceful solution, a hypothetical 
agreement amongst the claimants will be explored. If such an 
agreement is reached, it must be one that people could not r
easonably reject later on, and so to do this bias must be eliminated.

As in Theory of Justice the analysis conducted here is based on a 
hypothetical situation. In consequence, the only thing needed is 
that all three parties are motivated to obtain a reasonable solution. 
Therefore, it is assumed that they have appointed free and equal 
negotiators to achieve this. Hence, this original position in which the 
negotiations take place assumes certain other features that will be 
discussed here. Within this environment, the negotiators will examine 
a series of principles and see if any of them secures their respective 
ends as representatives of the claimant populations—the two 
sovereign States and of the third territory.

Indeed, Rawls’ thinking on international justice can be found in The 
Law of Peoples. Some of its elements will be explored too. Yet, it 
is mainly his Theory of Justice and the method he develops there that 
will be used here. The main reason to proceed this way is that Rawls 
makes clear in The Law of Peoples that it is ‘peoples’ that constitute the 
relevant moral units of international society leaving aside States per se
In addition to this, he emphasises that sovereignty is not central for 
his proposal. This monograph, on the contrary, follows the traditional 
view that States are constituted by a population (‘peoples’) but also 
recognises other constitutive elements. That is because this 
monograph is centred on sovereignty disputes, issues that Rawls himself 
does not address.

In other words, Rawls was involved in a different project in The Law of 
Peoples. This book does not argue that the solution is the one Rawls 
would necessarily come up with or what Rawls would have wanted. 
It is using his methodology to arrive at its own solution. 

More preview posts coming in 2017.