IB Global Politics Rights and Justice Key Definitions

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are non-state actors that operate independently of governments and businesses.

Collective rights are the rights held by groups of people, often tied to their shared identity, culture, or history, such as Indigenous peoples’ rights to land or the right of minority groups to preserve their language and traditions.

Cosmopolitan justice treats every human being as the basic unit of moral concern, regardless of nationality, and demands that obligations of justice extend across state borders.

Cultural relativism is the view that rights and moral standards are products of particular cultures rather than universal absolutes. It treats human rights claims as legitimate only when they fit local traditions, religion, and history.

Deterrence focuses on discouraging potential aggressors through the threat of retaliation or punishment.

Distributive justice concerns the principles by which goods, burdens, and rights are allocated in a society. It asks who should get what, on what basis, and why.

External sovereignty refers to a state’s ability to act independently in international affairs—outside its borders. It reflects how much power a state has when interacting with other states and global actors.

A failed state is a state that can no longer perform its core functions: providing security, maintaining the rule of law, and delivering basic public services to its population.

Refers to economically and industrially advanced countries, generally located north of less developed nations.

Refers to countries with lower levels of economic and industrial development, typically found south of more developed nations.

Process of increasing global interconnectedness through trade, investment, culture, technology, and population movement. Complex interdependence (Nye).

Humanitarian intervention refers to the use of military force by one or more states in another state without the latter's consent, with the primary aim of preventing or stopping widespread suffering or human rights abuses.

Humanitarian stakeholders are individuals, organizations, and institutions involved in providing aid and relief during crises such as natural disasters, conflicts, and pandemics.

Individual rights are the freedoms and entitlements held by each person, such as freedom of speech, the right to privacy, and the right to a fair trial, which protect individuals from interference by the state or others.

Inequality refers to the uneven distribution of resources, opportunities, and power among individuals, groups, or nations.

IGOs are entities created by sovereign states to facilitate cooperation on specific issues.

International law is a body of rules, norms, and principles that govern the relationships and interactions between states, international organizations, and, in some cases, individuals. It is designed to promote peace, security, cooperation, and justice on a global scale.

Intersectionality is a framework, developed by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989, that analyses how overlapping social identities such as race, gender, and class interact to produce distinct and compounded forms of discrimination or disadvantage.

Justice refers to the fair and equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, and treatment.

Justice refers to the fair and equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, and punishments within a society.

State legitimacy refers to the perceived right of a state to exercise authority and govern its people. It is a foundational concept in global politics, as it determines the stability, effectiveness, and acceptance of a government both domestically and internationally.

Monitoring involves tracking and evaluating the implementation of rights and justice frameworks.

A nation state is a political unit in which a culturally or ethnically defined nation and a sovereign state broadly coincide, so the same group of people forms both the cultural community and the governing authority.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are a subset of CSOs that focus on specific issues, often with a global reach.