Alexandre Gajevic Sayegh’s research while affiliated with Université Laval and other places

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Publications (9)


La tarification du carbone et l’utilisation de ses revenus au Québec et au Canada
  • Article

January 2022

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9 Reads

Politique et Sociétés

Alexandre Gajevic Sayegh


Moral duties, compliance and polycentric climate governance
  • Article
  • Publisher preview available

September 2020

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60 Reads

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6 Citations

International Environmental Agreements

Contributions to the climate governance literature have highlighted the importance of recognizing its new polycentric nature, which includes roles for non-state and subnational actors in climate change mitigation and in leadership for climate action. Yet, the literature is missing a normative cartography—that is, a mapping of the distribution of moral duties in the real world—which is tailored to a context of polycentric governance. This paper answers the question: how can moral duties be distributed in a context of polycentric climate governance such as to diminish the problem of non-compliance? This implies the following question: do duties change in situations of non-compliance in a context of polycentric governance, and if so how? Acknowledging polycentric governance is the key to an effective distribution of moral duties, as it allows for a more accurate mapping of non-state and subnational actors’ duties in leading the charge against climate change. Correspondingly, a normative cartography fitted to this context will be instrumental in showing how morally informed climate governance can diminish the problem of non-compliance. This paper focusses on the distribution of moral duties in a context of polycentric governance as a contributing factor to inducing agents to act according to the collective goal. It argues that a more fine-grained distribution of climate duties, tailored to polycentric climate governance, contributes to addressing the problem of non-compliance.

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Pricing Carbon for Climate Justice

June 2019

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58 Reads

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24 Citations

Ethics Policy & Environment

This paper focuses on one particular case that connects climate justice and climate economics. Its contribution is twofold. First, it aims at providing a sound normative foundation for carbon pricing mechanisms around the notions of a ‘right to energy’, the ‘duty not-to-harm’ and an argument for ‘restricted compensation’. Second, it identifies the normative elements from theories of climate justice that should guide the design of market-based instruments for climate change mitigation. This will cast light on the particular moral relevance of the act of internalizing a negative externality and of the funds generated by putting a price on carbon.


Climate justice after Paris: a normative framework

September 2017

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87 Reads

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10 Citations

Journal of Global Ethics

This paper puts forward a normative framework to differentiate between the climate-related responsibilities of different countries in the aftermath of the Paris Agreement. It offers reasons for applying the chief moral principles of ‘historical responsibility’ and ‘capacity’ to climate finance instead of climate change mitigation targets. This will (i) provide a normative basis to realize the goal of climate change mitigation while allowing for developing and newly industrialized countries to develop economically and (ii) offer an account of the distributive principles that can regulate climate finance. This is a real-world interpretation of the 1992 UNFCCC principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ that takes into account the progress accomplished at the COP21 in Paris and offers a solution to the still unsolved problem of differentiated responsibilities. This paper offers an application of this proposal to the Green Climate Fund.



A Case of Non-Ideal Guidance: Tackling Tax Competition

October 2016

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27 Reads

Moral Philosophy and Politics

In the global justice literature, growing attention has been given to problems particular to a globalised economy such as tax competition. Political philosophers have started to reflect on how these problems intersect with theories of global justice. This paper explores the idea according to which action-guiding principles of justice can only be formulated at such intersections. This is the starting point from which I develop a ‘non-ideal theory’ of global justice. The methodology of this theory posits that principles of justice are formulated according to the practice they are intended to regulate. Individual practices provide insights about the formulation of principles, for the non-ideal circumstances that prevent the realisation of justice are only revealed through the interpretation of each practice. With regard to the content of principles, I reject the notion that non-ideal theory is applied ideal theory. I offer instead an overview of the main features of a conception of justice for a non-ideal world based on the ideas of compliance, fact-sensitivity, feasibility and path-dependence. The contribution of this paper is twofold: to provide the conceptual framework for an action-guiding non-ideal theory of global justice and to show why this theory is well-suited to address problems of a globalised economy, such as tax competition.


Justice in a non-ideal world: the case of climate change

February 2016

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59 Reads

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15 Citations

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy

Ideal theory faces a paradox. The ‘capacity of guidance’ is an important feature of most normative theories, but ideal principles of justice are not well suited to guide action in non-ideal circumstances. This charge presses us to seek plausible avenues to connect ideal values with the non-ideal realisation of justice. The objective of this paper is to introduce an analytical framework and present a case study in support of what I call the ‘reflective integration thesis’. The thesis states that: if we wish to formulate principles of justice that can guide action in non-ideal circumstances, we need to integrate ideal and non-ideal theory, and the way to integrate ideal and non-ideal theory is by seeking reflective equilibrium between these levels. Taking climate justice as a model, this paper will explore the features of a non-ideal theory of justice, thereby providing insights about the structure of an action-guiding theory. It will show that, in order to guide action, our ideal principles of climate justice need to be reformulated in the light of real-world considerations, which we only obtain by integrating the relevant empirical work on the matter.


Citations (4)


... Uno de los aspectos que ha ganado más popularidad en años recientes en la discusión de la gobernanza policéntrica del cambio climático es la distribución de los daños y de la responsabilidad de mitigar y contrarrestar los mismos. Recientemente, Gajevic Sayegh publicó un análisis normativo de a quién debe corresponderle los compromisos morales respecto del cumplimiento (o ausencia del mismo) de los acuerdos nacionales e internacionales sobre mitigación y adaptación (Gajevic, 2020). Los aspectos de justicia climática no son solamente privativos de un modelo de gobernanza policéntrica. ...

Reference:

México ante la encrucijada de la gobernanza climática. Retos institucionales
Moral duties, compliance and polycentric climate governance

International Environmental Agreements

... This will lead to optimal choices. On the revenue side, with an ideal global carbon taxing policy, resources would be diverted to globally poorer countries, increasing global distributive equality (Eggleston, 2020), or supporting access to energy for the poor (Gajevic Sayegh, 2019). ...

Pricing Carbon for Climate Justice
  • Citing Article
  • June 2019

Ethics Policy & Environment

... This would imply, for instance, that all countries would aim for climate neutrality shortly after 2050 (and carbon neutrality by 2050), but in return O-PDs would transfer significant economic resources to U-PDs. From a practical point of view, strategy (b) is quite similar to strategy (c), if by 'climate justice finance' we mean only public grants and not loans or export credits (Gajevic Sayegh, 2017, 2019a: in both cases, (b) and (c), a major economic redistribution from developed countries to both developing and least developed countries is at stake. Given the above considerations, and for the sake of simplicity, I therefore consider climate justice finance the only possible way to implement historical principle of climate justice. ...

Climate justice after Paris: a normative framework
  • Citing Article
  • September 2017

Journal of Global Ethics

... However, it should be the job of the relevant ethical, legal, and economic experts to collectively determine statistical liability. What's more, there is still much to be settled regarding which actions should be pursued to realize justice for such liability (see Donhauser, 2019a;Donhauser, 2019b;Hourdequin, 2016;Sayegh, 2018). ...

Justice in a non-ideal world: the case of climate change
  • Citing Article
  • February 2016

Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy