Civil disobedience in a globalized world

Is national civil disobedience justified by international injustice in the light of climate crisis?

Kaya Olsen
8 min readDec 20, 2022

We no longer live in national states. Globalization has interconnected countries and states and is questioning the meaningfulness of national citizenship and national laws. The crises we face are global, not national, so thinking within the boundaries of nationhood is a short-term strategy at best.

Yet despite knowing that this is the reality of the world, it’s not how our world is structured yet. Governments still only rule their countries and citizens only have political power within their nations. This is not an argument for a world government, but a discussion of the implications of globalization for the political power of citizens facing very real crises that cause massive injustice. What can we do as nation-bound people to fight injustices in a globalized world?

In the following, I’ll discuss the ethical justification for using civil disobedience to right international injustices, using the climate crisis as an example for the discussion.

Photo by Vincent M.A. Janssen: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-holding-banner-2561628/

What and Why of Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience is a political tool of citizens to fight injustice. Historically speaking, this tool has…

--

--