WELCOME

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Led by Professor Thomas Pogge, the Global Justice Program at Yale is an interdisciplinary group that works on assessment and reform of global institutional arrangements. For more information about the Program, people working in and affiliated with it, and the Projects that our fellows and affiliates are engaged in, please use the links above and below.

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GJP Youtube Channel

ASAP Youtube Channel

Journal ASAP

***Journal ASAP* Special Issue *Toward Food Security in Africa***

Journal ASAP Awards

Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) with latest newsletter

Ambedkar Grants for Advancing Poverty Eradication (AGAPE)

Illicit Financial Flows | Amartya Sen Essay Prize Competition

Pro-Poor Mountain Tourism anthology (Routledge)

A Human-Centered Approach to Health Innovations (Cambridge U.P.)

Incentives for Global Health (IGH) | Health Impact Fund (HIF)

Ecological Impact Fund (EIF)

The Oslo Principles on Global Climate Change Obligations

The Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM)

Thomas Pogge

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Including the African Union in the enlarged G21

We have worked for eight months within the T20 toward this enlargement of G20 to G21—alongside Doris Schroeder, Jeffrey Sachs, Peter Singer and especially Yale Global Justice Fellow Sachin Chaturvedi who, as Director General of RIS (a think tank within India’s Ministry of External Affairs) plays a key role in India’s chairing of the G20 and T20 proceedings.

G21 membership is a great opportunity for Africa and the African Union (AU). But this opportunity will be realized only insofar as Africa can overcome its key weakness of disunity, can come to present the needs and interests of Africans with one strong and united voice. G21 membership provides a powerful incentive in this direction; it is a chance to transform the AU as much as it is a chance to transform the G20.

Africans are most affected by global warming and by the grave injustices in the world economy and global governance. In 2015, the world’s governments announced the Sustainable Development Goals — with principal goals #1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere and #2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. At that time, 545 million Africans were counted as food-insecure. Since then, this number has risen every single year, reaching 868 million in 2022, a 59% increase. If this trend persists, we will have more than a billion food-insecure Africans in 2030 rather than zero as solemnly promised. Every one child going hungry despite her parents’ best efforts shames us all.

The AU can demand and achieve justice for Africans like no one else can. This opportunity comes with a great responsibility. Foreign scholars, practitioners, politicians, and citizens can and should lend support. But Africans must lead this effort to end exploitation of Africans through odious debts, kleptocrats, illicit capital outflows, tax avoidance, arms sales, brain drain, patent monopoly rents, uncompensated ecological destruction, and inequitable natural resource sales. Far too long have Africa’s impoverished been struggling, and waiting in vain, for basic justice!

Transforming the United Nations

A nation is much more than its government. So the United Nations should be more than a negotiation platform for governments. We propose that the UN General Assembly—in coordination with the UN’s upcoming 2024 ‘Summit of the Future’—create a UN Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) and the instrument of a UN World Citizens’ Initiative. The UNPA would allow elected representatives of UN member states to deliberate on and be involved in UN affairs. While considering the concerns of their local constituencies and giving them a voice at the UN, these representatives should be called upon to promote the interests of humanity rather than those of any particular nation or community. To encourage this mindset, the UNPA’s work should be based politically and procedurally on transnational groups established by its members according to shared viewpoints. This would transcend and complement the intergovernmental character of other UN bodies based on geopolitical regional groupings. The instrument of a UN World Citizens’ Initiative would provide individuals with a formal mechanism to influence, if certain conditions are met, the agenda and decision-making of the UNGA, the UN Security Council and indeed a UNPA (if established). For details, see https://www.orfonline.org/research/enhancing-the-legitimacy-of-multilateralism-two-innovative-proposals-for-the-un/

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The Ubuntu Health Impact Fund Pilot

Massive reductions in the global disease burden are possible by better aligning the rewards for developing and delivering pharmaceuticals with their impact on health. It is for this purpose that we have proposed the establishment of a Health Impact Fund that would give pharmaceutical innovators the option to exchange some of their monopoly privileges for impact rewards proportionate to the health gains achieved through their innovations. This approach can be tested and refined through a pilot in Africa which would demonstrate the feasibility of health impact assessments, the willingness of pharmaceutical firms to be paid for performance, and the cost-effectiveness of the impact fund approach. This proposed Ubuntu Health Impact Fund (UHIF) pilot would reward pre-selected pharmaceutical firms that are willing to inaugurate the manufacture of a specific pharmaceutical in Africa and to sell it in a self-chosen African region at or below the globally lowest commercial price for this product. The UHIF would reward such efforts by dividing a fixed pool of reward money among the participating firms according to the health gains generated through their respective products in their target areas over a three-year period. Here, health benefits would include externalities such as third-party health benefits to persons whose risk of infection is reduced. For details see https://www.orfonline.org/research/the-ubuntu-health-impact-fund/

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Ambedkar Grants for Advancing Poverty Eradication (AGAPE) – SOON!

Administered with Academics Stand Against Poverty, AGAPE provides competitive funding and mentoring for innovative pilot projects in severe poverty eradication that offer strong prospects of cost-effective scale-up.

In its first year of operation, AGAPE has made four awards in India, totalling INR 800,000. Applications for the second round of awards are due on 31 May 2023. See https://globaljustice.yale.edu/agape for details on the 2022 and 2023 competitions.

AGAPE commemorates and honors Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, India’s great leader in poverty eradication. Initial seed funding for this program was generously provided by Krishen and Geeta Mehta. Contributions to AGAPE are tax-deductible in India and the United States.

Global Justice Program

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