Hayward, Tim. "Global Justice and the Distribution of Natural Resources". Political Studies, Vol.54, No.2 (2006): 349-369.

Hayward, Tim. "Global Justice and the Distribution of Natural Resources". Political Studies, Vol.54, No.2 (2006): 349-369.

• Charles Beitz puts forward an argument in favour of global redistribution of natural resources based on an application of John Rawls's argument about arbitrary distribution of natural talants to natural resources, arguing that the principles of justice demand global redistribution of natural resources (350-351).
• An objection to Dr. Beitz's argument exists because, although he is correct that the distribution of natural resources in arbitrary, these resources need to be extracted and processed. The labour and cost required to make resources available for redistribution needs to be accounted for, and may result in claims to those resources (351-352).
• The distribution of resources versus the distribution of wealth in the modern world demonstrates that Dr. Beitz's claim that natural resource wealth translates into general wealth is not correct, meaning that natural resources have relatively little effect on economic development (353).
• So, this may be literally true, as in many states like Japan are wealthy and states like Congo are poor, but this does not mean that access to natural resources is unimportant. In fact, one could argue that the colonial exploitation of natural resources is one of the factors which allowed Japan, Belgium, and other resource-poor states to achieve economic success.
• One of the major contemporary critics of global redistribution is David Miller, who argues that since different resources are valuable to different societies -- the worthlessness of uranium to most countries is given as an example -- the appropriate distribution of this value cannot be calculated. Furthermore, even if value could be determined the resultant redistribution scheme would penalize conservation and encourage proligate use of natural resources to avoid sharing (354-355).
• This criticism of global redistribution avoids actually engaging with the type of resource distribution proposed by cosmopolitan redistribution advocates. It assumes that access to resources must be the same at every point in time, whereas this problem of perverse incentives can be mitigated by dividing resources before use rather than continuously dividing rights to a shrinking resource base (355-356).
• At several points, Dr. Miller also argues that the global economic system is not sufficiently exploitative to justify redistribution, in that rich countries do not bear responsibility for the poverty in poor countries. This is blanantly false in a number of ways (362-363).
• The author proposes a new system for thinking about the redistribution of natural resources. It asserts that different resources have different uses, these resources can be increased in valued through cost-intensive processes that produces by-productions, any system of resource accounting should include both natural resources and associated by-products, the environment should be considered a common resource subject to redistribution (357).
• Rather than depending upon the monetary values of natural resources as Dr. Beitz does, the author recognizes that different resources could have different values, so distribution should occur for physical materials not abstract values. (358).
• Value-added products depending on natural resources for their creation are just another form of resources as are the nonproductive by-products resulting from their creation. Therefore the consumption of natural resources to produce products does not reduce a country's set distribution of resources. Additionally, it establishes an ownership responsibility for by-products, making countries responsible for their own pollution (358-359).
• The author limits their argument by contesting the claim that natural resources should be redistributed. This may be true for easily available resources, but not for those which require labour or capital to extract. In the majority of cases, the nation or individuals conducting extraction deserve the resources because of Lockean principles of ownership through labour (360).
• The ecological space in our planet for development is limited, as in there is limited ability of the planet to absorb carbon gases or other pollutants. Since this space is accessible, what all individuals do deserve is an equal access to 'ecological space', meaning an equal potential 'footprint' on the Earth that cannot be exceeded (360-361, 364).
• Looking at ecological space, or the use of resources, rather than the initial distribution of those resources allows for fair distributions based on the actual wealth of nations. Focusing simply on the presence of resources would force the transfer of resources from Congo to Japan, despite the gap in wealth, whereas looking at Japan's disproportionate use of resource and ecological space would facilitate a more logical transfer to Congo (364-365).
• "As a basic norm, a globally equal per capital right to ecological space should be recognized. [...] justice requires of 'ecological debtors' a long-term commitment to reduce their ecological space utilization to the permitted level. [...] justice imposes an obligation on them to redistribute the economic benefits they have derived from their excess use" (368).