GLOBALIZATION: JUSTICE AND ORDER IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

Abstract

Globalization highlights the interconnections and interdependencies among human beings, institutions and societies and that makes it a carrier of some positive human values. Yet this world may never have been more divided, given prevailing ideas and realities both natural and man-made that challenge the world (global terrorism, trade imbalances, arms race, annexation of other territories, boundary disputes, human rights abuses, poverty, environmental disasters, pandemic diseases, etc.). A contested world order arises because, despite human technological advances, our ethical instincts and sociopolitical arrangements have not caught up with this advance. Our finding is that some implications of globalization are debilitating given a surge of unaccountable, oppressive, unelected, national and international power through either direct causal or regulative hegemony. There is a problem because global leadership’s causal and regulative control or construct has jettisoned the culture of dialogue, accountability and respect for consensus on divergent views or perspectives. This paper recommends the normative and prescriptive human values required for mitigating discontent; these include justice, fair play, respect and cooperation for peaceful coexistence of all states.