Justice Among States: Four essays

The thesis is a defense of a cosmopolitan, yet state-based conception of international justice that emphasizes the normative significance of international law and international public institutions. Its starting point is Kant’s idea that an order of public right establishing conditions for rightful exercise of freedom cannot be limited to the domestic sphere, but must extend beyond the territorial borders of states. The aims are to defend and clarify this idea; aims that are pursued in part as an attempt to dissolve what has often been considered irresolvable conceptual tensions internal to Kant’s philosophy of right and in part as a critique of adversary positions. One important conceptual issue concerns the coherence of establishing an international civil condition without an international public authority vested with coercive power. According to many Kant scholars, international norms could only acquire the quality of being legally binding if there were an international enforcement mechanism in place. Contrary to this view, it is argued that there should be no supranational coercive authority, but that we need an international public authority vested with judicial power. Another important conceptual issue concerns the apparent conflict between the normative individualism at the heart of Kant’s philosophy of right and the defense of state sovereignty implied in his advocacy for a league of states. Contrary to this widely held view, it is not only argued that respect for each person’s right to freedom and respect for the equal sovereignty of states go well together, but also that the latter is an essential aspect of the former. As regards theoretical adversaries, views advocated by Carl Schmitt, a specific kind of modern cosmopolitans, and Jürgen Habermas are engaged. Against Schmitt’s realist critique of liberalism and the 20th century efforts at prohibiting aggressive war, it is argued that these efforts rightly understood do not point toward a final and total war against non-liberal states, but rather affirm the equal sovereignty of states. Against the cosmopolitans’ advocacy of international legal reform in a radically individualistic direction, it is argued that the norms of non-intervention and self-determination are intrinsically related to individual freedom, and therefore norms that cannot be ascribed a mere derivative significance, dependent on their instrumental value for protecting basic human rights. And finally, against Habermas’ recent attempt at critically reconstructing Kant’s original idea in view of contemporary political challenges, it is argued that his critique of Kant fails in important respects and that there are normative constraints relevant for institutional design in the international sphere that Habermas does not take sufficiently into account