Author's Accepted Version can be viewed for free at: https://www.gdblunt.com/publications This article assesses Thomas Pogge's recent argument that it is sometimes justifiable to harm innocent persons in light of his claims about the causes of global poverty. It argues that if Pogge's two theses are correct then a third thesis follows: that those immiserated by the international system can legitimately resist the institutions responsible for the systemic violations of human rights, even at the cost of grievously harming innocent persons. This article does not assess the validity of Pogge's theses, but draws attention to a neglected topic in the debate on transnational economic justice: the right of resistance.

This is published in 'Social Philosophy and Policy' Volume 32 / Issue 01 / Fall 2015, pp 51-73. Imagine that you are a farmer living in Kenya. Though you work hard to sell your produce to foreign markets you find yourself unable to do so because affluent countries subsidize their own farmers and erect barriers to trade, like tariffs, thereby undercutting you in the marketplace. As a consequence of their actions you languish in poverty despite your very best efforts. Or, imagine that you are a peasant whose livelihood depends on working in the fields in Indonesia and you are forcibly displaced from your land by a biofuels company because corrupt government officials have stolen the land and sold it to the company. Or, suppose that you work on the coast of Bangladesh but find that increasingly you are unable to cope with salination resulting from sealevel rise – a product of anthropogenic climate change. These, I believe, are cases of global injustice. My question is: What are those who bear the brunt of global injustice entitled to do to secure their, and other people’s, entitlements? Often people focus on the duties of the affluent to respect and uphold the rights of the disadvantaged. This is understandable. But there is a striking omission. Rarely do people analyze, or even mention, what those who lack their entitlements are entitled to do to secure their own rights. This is my focus in this paper. More specifically, I examine what agents are entitled to do to change the underlying social, economic and political practices and structures in a more just direction.

Because there are currently problems of structural injustice that no agent has the willingness, capacity, or authority to solve, we seem to be caught in a dilemma. We can either wait until the right sort of global institutional agency is created or try to figure out what we can and indeed may do under these conditions. We need to figure out the remedies and enforcement options that non- state agents can and indeed may pursue in the here and now, instead of deferring hopes of resolution to some indeterminate future when the right sort of institutional agency is created.Identifying what non- state agents can and may do is not easy. The normative authority that individuals have to step into the breach is morally clouded, especially when ordinary avenues of democratic change are partially, or even largely foreclosed and individual capacities for affecting change on a large scale are uncertain. In this chapter, we examine some strategies of resistance that aggrieved individuals and social groups have adopted. We consider the justification for their pursuit, especially when states are ineffective or unwilling guarantors of structural justice and human rights, along with the conditions under which the targeting of non-state entities is justified.

In this essay I address the question of the terms on which human rights include the right to resist. Within postcolonial theory, resistance as a category and as a practice is rarely interrogated. This leaves open the question, however, of whether resistance forms a valid political practice in any context or power structure, and whether all forms of resistance are equally acceptable. Is there a domain of the ethics of resistance? On what basis do we have the right to resist, and, following that, does this right authorise all forms and means of resistance? How can we construct an ethics of resistance that distinguishes between democracy, dictatorship, colonial rule and the forces of globalization? Historically there is a tradition in which such questions have been debated, particularly in relation to colonialism: the assertion of the right to use "physical force" begins with the US Declaration of Independence, while in Ireland in the nineteenth century Daniel O’Connor developed an ethical argument for ‘moral force’ as opposed to ‘physical force’ in response to British rule. The Irish nationalist movement subsequently provided a full spectrum of resources for resistance for other contemporary anticolonial, as well as feminist, struggles. In the twentieth century, the contradictions of the ethics of the right to resist were best represented by the figures of Gandhi and Fanon. In this paper, I interrogate the history of the anticolonial movements from the perspective of their ethical stance with respect to modes of resistance, and reflect on ways in which these divisions continue to be played out in contemporary global struggles. In this respect, I argue that postcolonial theory is uniquely positioned to articulate an ethical framework for the right to resist.

In section I of this article, the process of progressive neutralization/de-politicization of the right of resistance, from Medieval Ages to modern constitutional States, is succintly recalled. Section II further analyses the positivization of the right of resistance in contemporary constitutions, and describes it as a necessary paradox for modern constitutional orders (and theory). In section III the positive law provisions concerning the right of resistance are analysed in their dynamic value, i.e. in their functions of self-subversion for legal orders. Sections IV and V put this theoretical framework in the broader context of globalization processes, where the right of resistance – as positivized in State constitutions – may serve as a legal basis for lato sensu contestatory practices. In this way, it could be undersood as a tool of (internal) re-politicization of the normative systems of un-limited transnational actors, regimes and communicative processes. Thus, the (positivization of the) right of resistance may perform two functions at the same time: on the one hand, a conservative function for States political orders, where it may serve as an extra-legal defence against un-limited powers and communicative processes; on the other hand, a constitutionalizing pressure towards transnational regimes internal operations, where it may serve as tool of self-contestation and democratic legitimation.

This essay considers the problem of theorizing resistance within international law through a close reading of two recent contributions to the TWAIL literature. It is concerned less with their critiques of contemporary developments, than with how these scholars map the possible spaces for resistance of Third World states and peoples to international legal institutions and discourses. Do they argue that Third World resistance has the potential to transform international law, and move us in the direction of a more just international order? If so, how is that process of change envisioned? While the answers to these questions are, not surprisingly, somewhat elusive; what is illuminated in the attempt is the productively contradictory nature of the TWAIL project itself.

This paper is not an attempt to evaluate global human rights in the context of its practice, achievements, and limitations. Neither is it an inquiry into the theoretical or philosophical foundation of human rights. There is a school of thought which, maintains that it is possible to promote a theory of justice founded on fairness and impartiality without invoking philosophical or metaphysical claims ‘to universal truth, or claims about the essential nature and identity of persons. (John Rawls 1985) I will discuss the historical context of the inception of the concept of human rights, its evolution over centuries, and its relationship with capitalism. I will also examine the status and the role of human rights in the changing global context of neoliberalism and recent institutional responses, particularly some of the main contradictions of contemporary societies and new paths that would lead to a more just and fraternal world.