Kant's Cosmopolitan Law: World Citizenship for a Global Order

Kantian Review 2:72-90 (1998)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Kant's unduly neglected concept of cosmopolitan law suggests a third sphere of public law -- in addition to constitutional law and international law -- in which both states and individuals have rights, and where individuals have these rights as ‛citizens of the earth' rather than as citizens of particular states. I critically examine Kant's view of cosmopolitan law, discussing its addressees, content, justification, and institutionalization. I argue that Kant's conception of ‛world citizenship' is neither merely metaphorical nor dependent on an ideal of a world-government. Kant's views are particularly relevant in light of recent shifts in international law, shifts that lead away from the view that individuals can only be subjects of international law insofar as they are citizens of particular states. Thereby, a category of rights has emerged that comes close to what Kant understands by cosmopolitan law.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-07-10

Downloads
414 (#42,863)

6 months
17 (#106,708)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Pauline Kleingeld
University of Groningen

Citations of this work

A Kantian Argument against World Poverty.Merten Reglitz - 2016 - European Journal of Political Theory 18 (4): 489–507.
Colonialism and Hospitality.Peter Niesen - 2007 - Politics and Ethics Review 3 (1):90-108.

View all 15 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Kant's political philosophy.Howard Williams - 1983 - New York: St. Martin's Press.
Kant's System of Rights.Leslie Arthur Mulholland - 1990 - New York: Columbia University Press.
The Public Spheres of the World Citizen.James Bohman - 1995 - Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress 1:1065-1080.
7. Vom Weltbürgerrecht.Reinhard Brandt - 1995 - In Otfried Höffe (ed.), Immanuel Kant, Zum Ewigen Frieden. De Gruyter. pp. 133-148.

View all 6 references / Add more references