Seeking Mutual Understanding. A Discourse Theoretical Analysis of the WTO Dispute Settlement System.

The Dispute Settlement System (DSS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a mechanism to settle international trade controversies by means of adversarial procedures. In this paper we aim to address the following question: why is the DSS adversarial in kind and articulated through such sophisticated procedures? We shall combine studies in the fields of politics, law and economics through philosophical analysis to look for a systemic answer to this question in the inherent qualities of the procedures through which the DSS is articulated. Specifically, we shall resort to Jürgen Habermas’s discourse theory, as a hermeneutic device to disentangle the different kinds of “action orientations” DS procedures may have (compromise, consensus and understanding). We shall identify the reasons of the specific characterisation given to the DSS in the purposeful connections between its procedural features, the general aims pursued by the WTO and the disputes emerging within it.WTO, dispute settlement, discourse theory, trade controversies, mutual understanding

La giustizia nelle interazioni delle transizioni post-conflitto

I processi di transizione post-conflitto pongono questioni prominenti per l’agenda politica globale. Si pensi, per esempio, alla transizione democratica in Sud Africa dopo la fine dell’Apartheid o alla ricostruzione politica dei paesi facenti parte dell’ex-Jugoslavia all’indomani delle guerre dei Balcani. Quali principi normativi dovrebbero informare tali processi? Questa domanda è al cuore del crescente dibattito sulla “giustizia transizionale”. Questo dibattito si è concentrato principalmente sulla rettificazione delle ingiustizie occorse a causa dei torti perpetrati e subiti dalle parti coinvolte. Di conseguenza, la giustizia è stata tipicamente concepita come una proprietà di esiti distributivi di diritti e opportunità. I processi di transizione post-conflitto sono giusti nella misura in cui sono in grado di condurre a tali esiti. Un simile approccio orientato agli esiti è capace di rendere conto di dimensioni morali, animate da preoccupazioni di giustizia e/o pacificazione, che dovrebbero certamente figurare nella caratterizzazione e valutazione normativa dei processi di transizione. Tuttavia, esso rischia di perdere di vista un’altra dimensione egualmente rilevante che riguarda le qualità inerenti ai processi di transizione stessi. Per illuminare questa dimensione, vorrei portare l’attenzione su di una diversa idea di giustizia che riguarda le proprietà inerenti alle interazioni tra persone; la giustizia nelle interazioni. La tesi che sosterrò è che le procedure costitutive dei processi di transizione post-conflitto non dovrebbero essere disegnate con la sola o prioritaria preoccupazione di condurre le parti a un consenso o compromesso su di un accordo capace di rettificare le ingiustizie perpetrate e subite. È anche necessario che questi processi siano strutturati in modo da consentire alle parti di reinterpretare il loro conflitto come un problema condiviso, che richiede l’instaurazione di dinamiche d’interazione cooperative capaci di realizzare forme di trattamento inerentemente giuste delle loro pretese reciproche

RISPETTO, DISACCORDO E GIUSTIFICAZIONE PUBBLICA: COSA È DAVVERO IN GIOCO?

On the basis of what reasons ought the state’s coercive action to be justified? In this article, I discuss the Rawlsian response to this question, which singles out shared and accessible reasons grounded in political values as the only possible bases for public justification. By engaging with Christopher Eberle’s critique of this position, I defend the Rawlsian argu-ment for public reason as capable of resolving epistemic disagreements in a context of per-sistent practical disagreement. I build my defence on a proceduralist interpretation of pub-lic reason. This interpretation rejects the common idea that central to the project of public justification is the restriction of the kinds of reasons that citizens have in support of collec-tive decisions. The project of public justification requires, rather, that the constraints of public reason apply to the establishment of respectful and legitimacy–generating processes capable of giving citizens valid reasons to comply with collective decisions (while the sub-stance of such decisions may remain the object of disagreement)

Liberal Democratic Institutions and the Damages of Political Corruption1

This article contributes to the debate concerning the identification of politically relevant cases of corruption in a democracy by sketching the basic traits of an original liberal theory of institutional corruption. We define this form of corruption as a deviation with respect to the role entrusted to people occupying certain institutional positions, which are crucial for the implementation of public rules, for private gain. In order to illustrate the damages that corrupt behaviour makes to liberal democratic institutions, we discuss the case of health care professionals' abuse of their right to conscientious objection to abortion services. We show that the conscience clause can be instrumentally abused to sabotage democratically established public rules and thus exert undue private influence on their implementation. In this sense, from a liberal democratic perspective, institutional corruption is problematic because it is disruptive of such fundamental liberal ideals as the impartiality of public institutions and citizens' political equality

Dimensions of Responsibility

This Editorial to the 20th Anniversary Issue of Ethical Theory and Moral Practice outlines key challenges and opportunities arising from the recent explosion of responsibility studies in different areas. The underlying ambition is to counter the trend of fragmenting the philosophical debate around responsibility by bringing together helpful insights on related dimensions. The discussion is organised around three main themes: (1) Accountability, Attributability, Answerability, Liability; (2) Individuals, Collectives, Practices, and Institutions; and (3) Harms and Wrongs

Theories of whistleblowing

“Whistleblowing” has entered the scholarly and the publicdebate as a way of describing the exposure by the memberof an organization of episodes of corruption, fraud, or generalabuses of power within the organization. We offer acritical survey of the main normative theories ofwhistleblowing in the current debate in political philosophy,with the illustrative aid of one of the epitomic figures of awhistleblower of our time: Edward Snowden. After conceptuallyseparating whistleblowing from other forms ofwrongdoing disclosures, we introduce and discuss two familiesof normative views of this practice: the “Extrema Ratio”and the “Deontic” views. We show how the two views canbe usefully considered in tandem to offer an all-roundassessment of the moral justification of whistleblowingeither as an extraordinary individual conscientious act ofindictment or as an ordinary dutiful organizational practiceof answerability that enables the capacity of self-correctionof an organization

Seeking Mutual Understanding. A Discourse Theoretical Analysis of the WTO Dispute Settlement System.

The Dispute Settlement System (DSS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a mechanism to settle international trade controversies by means of adversarial procedures. In this paper we aim to address the following question: why is the DSS adversarial in kind and articulated through such sophisticated procedures? We shall combine studies in the fields of politics, law and economics through philosophical analysis to look for a systemic answer to this question in the inherent qualities of the procedures through which the DSS is articulated. Specifically, we shall resort to Jürgen Habermas’s discourse theory, as a hermeneutic device to disentangle the different kinds of “action orientations” DS procedures may have (compromise, consensus and understanding). We shall identify the reasons of the specific characterisation given to the DSS in the purposeful connections between its procedural features, the general aims pursued by the WTO and the disputes emerging within it

Responsibility for Reason-Giving: The Case of Individual Tainted Reasoning in Systemic Corruption

The paper articulates a new understanding of individual responsibility focused on the exercise of agency in reason-giving rather than intentional actions or attitudes towards others. Looking at how agents make sense of their actions also allows us to identify a distinctive space for assessing individual responsibility within the context of collective actions, which so far has remained underexplored. We concentrate as a case in point on reason-giving that occurs when individuals engage in necessarily less-than-successful rationalisations of their involvement in a shared practice, like systemic corruption

Framing the Role of Envy in Transitional Justice

This article offers a conceptual framework for discussing the role of envy within processes of transitional justice. Transitional justice importantly includes the transformation of intergroup dynamics of interaction in the aftermath of societal conflicts and upheavals. Such transformation aims to realise “interactive” justice in transitional justice by reshaping belief and value systems, and by moulding emotional responses between the involved parties. A nuanced understanding of the emotions at play in intergroup antagonistic dynamics of interaction is thus essential to transitional justice. Among the many emotions that we could address in such scenarios, we target envy. Envy, in its various forms, features prominently in many societal conflicts and upheavals, and has, therefore, the potential to undermine or, conversely, support just intergroup interactions. However, the ambivalent role of this emotion has been scantly analysed in the philosophical literature on transitional justice. We make a start on filling this lacuna by developing a conceptual framework which is necessary to appreciate how envy and its varieties are epistemically and practically relevant to realising interactive justice in transitional justice processes

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice at 24

This Editorial outlines recent developments in the Journal’s scope, mission and review policy. It also illustrates the range of topics addressed on the pages of Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, which is now entering its 24th year