What is the relationship between human rights and the rights of states? Roughly, while cosmopolitans insist that international morality must regard as basic the interests of individuals, statists maintain that the state is of fundamental moral significance. This article defends a relational version of statism. Human rights are ultimately grounded in a relational norm of reciprocal independence and set limits to the exercise of public authority, but, contra the cosmopolitan, the state is of fundamental moral significance. A relational account promises (...) to justify a limited conception of state sovereignty while avoiding the familiar cosmopolitan criticisms of statist accounts. (shrink)

We can distinguish between those political philosophers who are concerned to carry the original Kantian project further, like Wolfgang Kersting, Otfried Höffe, Ernest Weinrib and Fernando Teson, and those contemporary political philosophers who have given up the original project but seek to draw inspiration from Kant's thinking. Two political philosophers who belong to this latter trend are Habermas and Rawls.

Research Articles Christopher Heath Wellman, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

This paper sets out a view of a General Jurisprudence that is needed to underpin the institutionalised discipline of law as it becomes more cosmopolitan in the context of “globalisation”, and considers its implications. Part I restates a position on the mission and nature of the discipline of law and of the role of jurisprudence, as its theoretical part, in contributing to the health of the discipline. Part II clarifies some questions that have been raised about this conception of General (...) Jurisprudence: (i) the implications of “globalisation”; (ii) The meaning of “General Jurisprudence” in this context; (iii) The relationship between Jurisprudence, Legal Philosophy, and social scientific approaches to law; and (iv) The significance of the idea of “non-state law”. Part III illustrates through concrete examples some implications for possible agendas and issues suggested by this model within the areas roughly characterised as analytical, normative, empirical, and critical jurisprudence, including critical analysis of the assumptions and presuppositions typically underpinning mainstream work in fields such ascomparative law, public international law, religious law, and socio-legal studies. (shrink)

The war in Iraq has reignited the passionate humanitarian intervention debate. President George W. Bush surprised many observers in his second inaugural address when he promised to oppose tyranny and oppression, and this in a world not always willing or ready to join in that fight. Humanitarian intervention is again on the forefront of world politics.

This article argues that a state-centered theory of global justice exhibits an epistemic problem of perspective, and that this worry exhibits a gendered character. Within a liberal domestic theory of justice, the public/private distinction has been repeatedly shown to be bad for women because it creates a domain for injustice that becomes invisible to public policy and the law. This article argues that state-centered theories of global justice create an analogous space that is cut off from questions of global justice. (...) The article therefore suggests that this way of framing questions of global justice is problematic, and is problematic for women in particular. Just as the public/private distinction in liberal domestic justice leaves cases of injustice outside the vision of the law, the hard distinction between the domestic sphere and the international realm of justice leaves cases of injustice invisible to international law. For the question of global justice, the privileging of sovereignty and non-intervention compromises the ability of the theory to achieve its purported goal of universal justice. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between normative international political theory and the politics of international law. It begins by arguing that a gap between the normative (in moral terms) and the moral (in legal and social terms) still exists in the literature before going on to examine an approach to closing this gap. This approach, it is argued, is common to a plurality of theoretical approaches including liberal cosmopolitanism, social constructivism and forms of particularism. In exploring ‘institutional moral reasoning’ or (...) ‘social moral epistemology’ the paper argues that respecting the institutional autonomy of the international legal order is a key component of the approach. In order to test the extent to which the various positions do respect the autonomy of the legal order the paper engages with an analysis of the extent to which human rights have become the key constitutive norm of global politics. (shrink)

Nardin examines the moral principles underlying the idea of humanitarian intervention from the perspective of international law and from that of the natural law tradition.

This article presents a defense of Kant’s idea of a league of states. Kant’s proposal that rightful or just international relations can be achieved within the framework of such a league is often criticized for being at odds with his overall theory. In view of the analogy he draws between an interpersonal and an international state of nature, it is often argued that he should have opted for the idea of a state of states. Agreeing with this standard criticism that (...) a league of states cannot establish the institutional framework for international justice, others also suggest an alternative stage model interpretation. According to this interpretation, Kant’s true ideal is in fact a state of states, whereas the league is merely introduced as a temporary and second best solution. In contrast to both the standard criticism and the stage model interpretation, I argue that fundamental normative concerns count in favour of a league rather than a state of states. I also argue that Kant’s defense of such a league is consistent with his position on the institutional preconditions for just interaction in the domestic case because of crucial relevant differences between the state of nature among individuals and the external relations between states. (shrink)

Según cuentan algunos de sus colegas y discípulos, al momento de su temprana muerte, en 1993, Carlos Nino estaba comenzando a estudiar la posibilidad de trasladar sus teorías al plano internacional. En este trabajo pretendo retomar al menos un aspecto de aquel proyecto, preguntándome cómo hubiera trasladado Nino su teoría de la democracia al plano global. En otras palabras, intentaré especular respecto de cómo podrían insertarse las ideas nineanas en la discusión actual en materia de democracia global. Mi hipótesis es (...) que, por un lado, Nino habría reclamado la creación de nuevas instancias de participación popular en los procesos de creación e implementación del derecho internacional; pero a la vez, por otro lado, habría defendido el núcleo duro de la “constitución histórica” del derecho internacional, basada en un sistema interestatal y descentralizado. According to some of his colleagues and disciples, when Carlos Nino died, in 1993, he was beginning to work on a project trying to extrapolate his theories to the international realm. In this paper, I pick up at least an aspect of that project, and I analyze how Nino would have extrapolated his theory of democracy to the global arena. In other words, I speculate regarding how could Nino’s ideas be inserted into the current debates on global democracy. My hypothesis is that, on the one hand, Nino would have demanded new instances of popular participation in the processes of creation and implementation of international law, and on the other hand, that he would have somehow defended the “historical constitution” of the international community, based on an decentralized, inter-state system. (shrink)

The recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has killed thousands of people, including healthcare workers. African responses have been varied and largely ineffective. The WHO and the international community’s belated responses have yet to quell the epidemic. The crisis is characteristic of a failure to properly comply with the International Health Regulations 2005. More generally, it stems from a failure of international health justice as articulated by a range of legal institutions and instruments, and it should prompt us to (...) question the state and direction of approaches to the governance of global public health. This paper queries what might be done to lift global public health as a policy arena to the place of prominence that it deserves. It argues that there are at least two critical reasons for the past, present and easily anticipated future failings of the global public health regime. After exploring those, it then articulates a new way forward, identifying three courses of action that might be adopted in realising better health outcomes and global health justice, namely value, institutional and legal reform. (shrink)

International law has one principal mechanism for settling the legality of humanitarian interventions, the United Nations Security Council's power to authorise coercion. However, this is hardly satisfactory in practice and has failed to provide a more secure juridical basis for determining significant conflicts among states over when humanitarian force is justified. This article argues that, in spite of Immanuel Kant's limited analysis of intervention, and his silence on humanitarian intervention, his political theory provides the elements of a compelling analysis on (...) this topic. Five components of Kant's roadmap towards perpetual peace and an eventual world republic give conditional support for humanitarian intervention even in imperfect juridical conditions. This support is conditional on the achievement of juridical progress within and among states and has implications for the development of cosmopolitan citizenship. From Kant we learn that, ultimately, humanitarian intervention should become a matter of coercive law enforcement rather than an ethical question of ‘saving strangers’. (shrink)

If contemporary political theory in the area of international justice is to accomplish its aim of clarifying and making coherent the meaning of justice in an international context, the question of the appropriate role and responsibility of international criminal law must be answered. International criminal law must be more than simply domestic laws that are prosecuted at the international level. However, the question of what makes an international crime such that it deserves this special classification and international condemnation has not (...) been adequately theorized. This paper examines the character of international law as expressed by two theorists, Allen Buchanan and Larry May, and reveals the deficiencies of their theories. Then, it offers the first steps to a better theory, one that demands that two thresholds be met for an action to be considered international crime: the severity threshold and the agency threshold. It argues that these two thresholds restrict the domain of international criminal law to crimes that are of significant concern to the global community by way of their threat to political organization. International crimes are the jurisdiction of the international community because they threaten the most basic physical security human rights and because they originate out of the fundamental nature of humans as social entities and maliciously distort and threaten this natural inclination. (shrink)

When is humanitarian intervention legitimate and how should such interventions be conducted? This article sets out eight liberal principles that underlie humanitarian intervention, some of them abstract principles of international ethics and others more concrete principles that apply specifically to humanitarian intervention. It argues that whilst these principles do not determine the legitimacy of particular interventions, they should ?incline? our judgments towards approval or disapproval. The basic principles include the liberal idea that governments are the mere agents of the people, (...) that tyrannical governments forfeit their legal protections, that human rights entail obligations for governments, that justifiable intervention must intend the end of tyranny or anarchy, that the doctrine of double-effect should be respected, that intervention is only warranted in severe cases, that intervention be welcomed by those it is intended to save, and that ideally it is welcomed by the community of democratic states. (shrink)

Democracy is regularly heralded as the only form of government that treats political subjects as free and equal citizens. On closer examination, however, it becomes apparent that democracy unavoidably restricts individual freedom, and it is not the only way to treat all citizens equally. In light of these observations, we argue that the non‐instrumental reasons to support democratic governance stem, not from considerations of individual freedom or equality, but instead from the importance of respecting group self‐determination. If this is correct, (...) it implies that a state may choose democracy, but its right to self‐determination means that it is also free, in principle, to decide in favor of some nondemocratic alternative. (shrink)