The programme is a 45 minute lecture, followed by 45 minutes for discussion.
Abstract
International institutions must be justifiable
In the public reason tradition, political institutions must be justifiable to all persons over whom they have authority. International institutions must also meet this high standard of justifiability: their rules can be justified only if such rules can be endorsed by all individuals or peoples to whom they apply.
How can such endorsement take place when, given the variety of histories and cultures across the globe, we witness vast disagreements about moral, religious, and political ideals?This question was made more tractable in the domestic realm by assuming an overlapping consensus on widely shared political values such as freedom and equality, in other words by assuming a shared liberal democratic political culture.
Such an assumption is ill suited as a starting point for the justification of global political institutions. Thus, the question arises: what are the assumptions and arguments which global public reason theorists can advance in order to make progress on the question of how to justify the legitimacy or authority of international institutions and rules to diverse peoples and persons?
Fails test of public justifiability
The speaker will contribute to a public reason evaluation of international institutions by focusing on an organization that fails a test of public justifiability: The Security Council. Evaluating the justifiability of the Security Council is of the outmost importance since it is the only institution who can authorize the use of force at the international level in cases other than self-defense and has important duties to protect human rights in situations of humanitarian crises. Pavel will tease out a few implications of this evaluation for a theory of global public reason.
About Carmen Pavel
Carmen Pavel is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at King's College London, and specialises in political philosophy and the history of political thought. Her recent work has examined the nature and limits of institutionalizing rights and theories of constitutionalism. She has notably published the book Divided Sovereignty. International State Institutions and the Limits of State Authority (Oxford University Press 2015).