From May 26-27, 2018, an international Workshop on Reconciling Two Agendas: Global Justice and National Interests, organized by the Fudan Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences (Fudan IAS) and the Editorial Board of Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, was held at Fudan University. This workshop was also a sub-forum of “Shanghai Forum” organized by Fudan University. 18 scholars from China, the US, the UK, France, Australia and Germany attended the workshop.

Prof. Sujian Guo, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Fudan IAS and Editor-in-Chief of Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences (FDHS) delivered an opening speech. Prof. Guo first welcomed all the attending scholars. He pointed out the purpose of this workshop is to participate in the international dialogue on global justice and the reconstruction of global discourse. There are many questions worth discussing regarding theis topic: How to define “global justice”? How should it be interpreted in broad political theory terms? What criteria should be used to assess the behaviour of states, social and business organizations under global justice?. Prof. Guo further noted that the tension between global justice and national interests have many dimensions, such as economic allocation, social welfare and climate change. But what are the most important factors? The concept of global justice is extremely broad. Are there ways to resolve the tension between national interests and global justice? If such a bridge exists, how can the goal of resolving the tension between the two be achieved? To this end, Fudan IAS invited renowned international scholars in the field of global justice studies to gather here to explore these issues. 

Prof. Robert O. Keohane from Princeton University chaired the first session Conceptualizations of Global Justice. Prof. Charles Beitz from Princeton University spoke on Fifty Years of Global Justice. Prof. Mathias Risse from Harvard University delivered a speech on What’s ‘Global’ about Global Justice?. Prof. Baogang He from University of Deakin made a presentation entitled An Asian Conception of Global Justice?.

Prof. Charles Beitz chaired the second session Global Justice in a World of Independent Sovereign States. Prof. Kok-Chor Tan from University of Pennsylvania made a speech on National Partiality with Respect to What?. Prof. Su Gu from Fudan IAS talked on Nationalism, Egalitarianism and Global Justice.

The third session Global (In)Justice in Climate Change was chaired by Jean-Marc Coicaud, Fudan Distinguished Scholar, Senior Visiting Scholar in Residence at Fudan IAS and Professor of Law and Global Affairs at Rutgers University. Robert O. Keohane, Honorary Fudan Scholar, Senior Visiting Scholar in Residence at Fudan IAS and Professor of International Affairs (Emeritus) at Princeton University, made a report on Institutions for a World of Climate Injustice. Yannick Glemarec, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Policy and Programme in UN Women, talked on Reconciling National Interests and Climate Justice: Optimizing Development Co-Benefits of Climate Action. Prof. Darrel Moellendorf from Goethe University spoked on Equity and Increasing the Ambition of the Paris Agreement.

Prof. Mathias Risse from Harvard University chaired the fourth session Disentangling Complexities in the Relationship between Global Justice and National Interests. Prof. Jean-Marc Coicaud talked on Does it Make Sense to Try Reconciling the National Interest and Global Justice Agendas?. Ariel Colonomos, CNRS Research Professor at Sciences Po and senior researcher at CERI, spoke on The National Interest and Global Justice: Contradictory, Incommensurable, yet Compatible?. Assoc. Prof. Thomas Hale from Oxford University made a report on To What Extent Do National Interests and Global Justice Represent Two Agendas?.

On the morning of May 27, session 5 and 6 took place. Prof. Kok-Chor Tan from University of Pennsylvania chaired the fifth session Justice at the Global Level. Prof. Qingping Liu from Fudan IAS talked on Global Justice as the Bottom Line: Equal Needs or Equal Rights?. Dr. Zhongyuan Wang from Fudan IAS spoke on Representation for Justice: Political Representation at the Global Level.

Assoc. Prof. Thomas Hale chaired the sixth session Perspectives on Global Justice and National Interests. Prof. Qing Liu from China East Normal University made a presentation entitled Could the Pursuit of Global Justice be Considered as a National Interest?. Assoc. Prof. Guodong Sun from Fudan IAS talked on Towards a Moderate Cosmopolitanism: Reconciling Global Justice and National Interests. Assoc. Prof. Xi Lin from Fudan IAS spoke on All under the Heaven: A Confucian Frame for Managing National Interests in Global Justice.

In the afternoon, Prof. Sujian Guo, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Fudan IAS, chaired the roundtable discussion regarding the topic Global Justice: Conceptions, Theories and Indicators, aiming at soliciting opinions from the scholars on calling for papers of a Fudan IAS project “Global Justice Index and Database”.

Prof. Guo first summarized several important topics from the six sessions and highlighted following questions to consider, such as: How to define the concept of global justice? How to choose indicators for evaluating global justice? And how can these indicators be theoretically aligned with the concept of global justice? Global justice is a concept that covers a wide range of topics and requires a theoretical framework that covers many aspects of values, norms, institutions, and policies in order to effectively answer those basic and important questions. Many theories have attempted to define global justice, and Prof. Guo summarized some of the theoretical paths discussed by the participating scholars, such as rights-based, virtues-based, goods-based, etc., and invited the scholars for further in-depth discussions.

Prof. Jean-Marc Coicaud, Co-Principal Expert of the project Global Justice Index and Database, introduced the concept paper Understanding and Measuring Global Justice: Concepts, Theories and Indicators. He suggested that there are six intersecting dimensions in global justice research: doing the right thing, solidarity, responsibility, cooperation, distribution of power, and planning. Then he explored the main ideas of global justice theory from three perspectives: overall justice, international justice, and global justice. Prof. Coicaud analyzed the key points from overall justice to global justice in seven dimensions: justice communities and rights holders, distribution of material goods and rights, thresholds for achieving justice, examples and mechanisms for determining what is justice, evolution of the concept of justice, debates and struggles around what is justice, justice and reflexivity. Regarding the conceptualization of global justice, Prof. Coicaud proposed a theoretical outline: primacy of individual rights; state rights based on individual rights; state rights not being an end; the right of states to link the contribution of individual rights to public goods (national and global), fundamental and secondary rights, and the identification of solidarity and responsibility in relation to them; people's rights, consent, participation, etc.

The scholars then had a lively discussion on the questions from concept paper and made constructive suggestions on improving the idea and framework of the paper.

In the end, Prof. Sujian Guo made the concluding remarks. He expressed his sincere thanks to the scholars for their active participation over the past two days, especially for their constructive suggestions on the concept paper. He asked the participants to continue to think about the issues related to global justice, so as to prepare the topics for the second international workshop on global justice to be held next year. The workshop ended with a round of applause.