A Viable Project of Solidarism? The Neglected Contributions of John Vincent's Basic Rights Initiative

We analyse a part of Vincent's theory that has been neglected by the English School discourse: his idea of the right to subsistence, particularly the right to food, as the basis on which to build a cross-cultural human rights project across the societies of the world. Vincent insisted that starvation is the `resident emergency' of international society, and its elimination should be the minimum standard for the society of states to achieve legitimacy. We assess here the normative and practical viability of that enterprise as a project of solidarism in international society. Such assessment reveals that Vincent's work has made three contributions to English School thinking. In relation to the solidarist agenda, Vincent both widened the human rights agenda, and pushed the idea of developing a normative consensus around the basic right to food. More generally, his work forces the English School to think seriously about the relationship between international society and International Political Economy.