In defense of the duty to assist: a response to critics on the viability of a Rawlsian approach to climate change

One test of the practical relevance of any theory of international justice will be to apply it to the case of global climate change. Several thinkers have already dismissed John Rawls's Law of Peoples as a possible candidate for helping to manage this problem, arguing, among other things, that it demands too little, too late. This paper revisits and defends the Rawlsian framework as a viable approach to managing climate change. In particular, it argues that the duty to assist (the eighth principle of the Law of Peoples) may actually be an invaluable resource for dealing with the now inevitable consequences of global climate change.