This paper tackles a crucial methodological question for theories of territorial justice. Should theories of territorial justice give priority to specifically place-based and practice-based interests? Some views suggest that they should. In so doing, they isolate land from our more general theory of justice and instead distribute it in accordance with its own, tailor-made principle. This paper argues against these isolationist views and in favor of an alternative, integrationist view on which we do not give priority to specifically place-based and practice-based interests. Instead, we integrate land into our more general theory of justice. The paper makes several related arguments in pursuit of these claims: (i) the fact that an interest in land is practice-based and particularized cannot make a moral difference to the weight of the interest; (ii) isolationist accounts struggle to identify any unfairness in paradigmatically unfair distributions of land (but integrationist accounts do not); (iii) communities have no immunity from taxation of un-utilized resources or land; (iv) integrationist, accounts of territorial justice do not have repugnant conclusions in cases involving formerly colonized societies or indigenous peoples.
David Rischel is a normative political theorist. He received his PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick in November of 2024 and is currently a visiting research fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and a teaching fellow at Queen Mary University of London. His work revolves around questions relating to the political philosophy of territory, including such questions as: what, if anything, can justify the rights of states to rule their territories? Under what circumstances is the secession of sub-state regions from their parent states permissible? And what does a fair distribution of land look like?