The laws of persons : toward a cosmopolitan theory of justice

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a defensible account of international justice.\ud Theorists such as John Rawls and Thomas Nagel have advocated the domestic priority\ud view of international justice, according to which strict principles of justice apply only\ud within nation-states. Cosmopolitan theorists such as Charles Beitz and Thomas Pogge\ud conversely argue that such principles ought to be applied globally in light of significant\ud international relationships or other principles of fairness. This thesis will focus primarily\ud on criticisms of Rawls' essay The Law o f Peoples (1999) with the aim of mounting a fresh\ud defense of institutional cosmopolitanism distilled from these leading theorists. Justifying\ud cosmopolitanism has proved challenging and controversial; however, the need for a solid\ud grounding of this view is ever more pressing due to an increasingly globalized world