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A Cosmopolitan Law Created by Cosmopolitan Citizens: The Kantian Project Today

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Abstract

Nour Sckell introduces the concept of cosmopolitan law by Kant as law that considers the human being as a citizen of the world regardless of her/his state. She analyzes how international law currently protects freedom formally on the cosmopolitan level in case of two instruments: the individual petition for human rights issues and individual responsibility for international crimes (which Kant had in view with his concept of “cosmopolitan law”). From this analysis, she shows that the Kantian concept of freedom in cosmopolitan law must be intrinsically linked to equality and identity issues as well as to the concept of a cosmopolitan citizenship as a practice of cross-border associations in political struggles.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For deep, detailed analyses of the nuanced sense of Kant’s concept of cosmopolitanism, the historical context of Kant as well as the contemporary debate, see especially the works of Kleingeld and Cavallar, including: Pauline Kleingeld, Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); and Georg Cavallar, Kant’s Embedded Cosmopolitanism: History, Philosophy, and Education for World Citizens (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015). Among the most important works dedicated to Kant’s text Perpetual Peace are Georg Cavallar, Pax Kantiana: Systematisch-historische Untersuchung des Entwurfs “Zum ewigen Frieden” (1795) von Immanuel Kant (Wien: Böhlau, 1992); Otfried Höffe, ed., Immanuel Kant: Zum ewigen Frieden (Berlin: Akademie, 1995); Volker Gerhardt, Immanuel Kants Entwurf “Zum ewigen Frieden”: Eine Theorie der Politik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995); Reinhard Merkel and Roland Wittmann, eds., “Zum ewigen Frieden”: Grundlagen, Aktualität und Aussichten einer Idee von Immanuel Kant (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 1996); James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, eds., Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997); Luigi Caranti, ed., Kant’s Perpetual Peace: New Interpretative Essays (Rome: Luiss University Press, 2006); Oliver Eberl, Demokratie und Frieden: Kants Friedensschrift in den Kontroversen der Gegenwart (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2008); and Oliver Eberl and Peter Niesen, Immanuel Kant: “Zum ewigen Frieden” und Auszüge aus der Rechtslehre: Kommentar (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011).

  2. 2.

    An earlier version of this section appears in Soraya Nour, “The Cosmopolitans: Kant and Kantian Themes in International Relations,” in Kant in Brazil, ed. Frederick Rauscher and Daniel Omar Perez (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2012), 246–70.

  3. 3.

    Reinhard Brandt, “Vom Weltbürgerrecht,” in Immanuel Kant: Zum ewigen Frieden, ed. Höffe, 142.

  4. 4.

    Ibid., 143.

  5. 5.

    Ernest Hamburger, “Droits de l’homme et relations internationales,” Recueil des cours 97, no. 2 (1959): 316.

  6. 6.

    Victor Delbos, La philosophie pratique de Kant, 3rd ed. (Paris: PUF, 1969), 564–65.

  7. 7.

    Christoph Menke and Arnd Pollmann, Philosophie der Menschenrechte zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius, 2007).

  8. 8.

    See Andrew Clapham, “The Role of the Individual in International Law,” European Journal of International Law 21 no. 1 (2010): 25–30.

  9. 9.

    Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), Jurisdiction of the Courts of Danzig, Advisory Opinion, Reports Series B No. 15, March 3, 1928, [37], pp. 17–18.

  10. 10.

    For further discussion, see Pierre-Marie Dupuy, “Actualité du cosmopolitisme juridique: Revenir à Kant pour mieux le dépasser?” Revue Quebecoise de Droit International (June 2015): 313–29; and Angelika Emmerich-Fritsche, Vom Völkerrecht Zum Weltrecht (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 2007).

  11. 11.

    Antonio Cassese, International Law, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  12. 12.

    Hans Kelsen, Principles of International Law (Clark, N.J.: Lawbook Exchange, 2003), 10.

  13. 13.

    Étienne Balibar, “Cosmopolitisme, internationalisme, cosmopolitique,” in Vivre en Europe: Philosophie, politique et science aujourd’hui, ed. Bertrand Ogilvie, Diogo Sardinha, and Frieder Otto Wolf (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010), 19–49.

  14. 14.

    James Bohman and Pauline Kleingeld, for instance, have developed a Kantian concept of cosmopolitan citizenship that is used in global networks. See James Bohman, “The Public Spheres of the World Citizen,” in Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal, 179–200; and Kleingeld, Kant and Cosmopolitanism, 90.

  15. 15.

    An earlier version of this section appears in Soraya Nour, “Kant’s Philosophy of Peace: The Principle of Publicity,” in Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants: Akten des X. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, ed. Valerio Rohden, Ricardo R. Terra, Guido A. de Almeida, and Margit Ruffing, 5 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005), 4:573–84.

  16. 16.

    Klaus Blesenkemper, “Publice age” – Studien zum Öffentlichkeitsbegriff bei Kant (Frankfurt am Main: Haag und Herchen, 1987), 342.

  17. 17.

    Gerhardt, Immanuel Kants Entwurf “Zum ewigen Frieden,” 200–201.

  18. 18.

    Blesenkemper, “Publice age,” 351.

  19. 19.

    Gerhardt, Immanuel Kants Entwurf “Zum ewigen Frieden,” 45–49. See also MM 6:324, 329.

  20. 20.

    Bernd Ludwig, “Will die Natur unwiderstehlich die Republik? Einige Reflexionen anlässlich einer rätselhaften Textpassage in Kants Friedensschrift,” Kant-Studien 88, no. 2 (Jan. 1997): 226.

  21. 21.

    Ingeborg Maus, Zur Aufklärung der Demokratietheorie: Rechts- und demokratietheoretische Überlegungen am Anschluss an Kant (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994), 127–28.

  22. 22.

    Gérard Raulet, Histoire et citoyenneté (Paris: PUF, 1996), 209.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., 210.

  24. 24.

    Balibar, “Cosmopolitisme, internationalisme, cosmopolitique,” 19–49.

  25. 25.

    Étienne Balibar, La crainte des masses: Politique et philosophie avant et après Marx (Paris: Galilée, 1997).

  26. 26.

    Matthias Kaufmann, Em defesa dos direitos humanos: Considerações históricas e de princípio (São Leopoldo: Unisinos, 2013).

  27. 27.

    One exception to this is Vicki A. Spencer, “Kant and Herder on Colonialism, Indigenous Peoples, and Minority Nations,” International Theory 7, no. 2 (July 2015): 360–92.

  28. 28.

    See Francisco de Vitoria, “On the American Indians [De Indis recenter inventis et de Jure belli Hispanorum in Barbaros relectiones]” (1539), in Political Writings, ed. Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 233–92.

  29. 29.

    Jürgen Habermas, “Kant’s Idea of Perpetual Peace, with the Benefit of Two Hundred Years’ Hindsight,” in Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal, 113–53.

  30. 30.

    See several works of Georg Cavallar, especially The Rights of Strangers: Theories of International Hospitality, the Global Community, and Political Justice since Vitoria (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002).

  31. 31.

    Jacques Derrida, Cosmopolites de tous les pays, encore un effort! (Paris: Galilée, 1997).

  32. 32.

    Kleingeld, Kant and Cosmopolitanism, 77–78. For further discussion, see Martha Nussbaum, “Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism,” Journal of Political Philosophy 5, no. 1 (March 1997): 1–25; Seyla Benhabib, The Rights of the Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), esp. ch. 1; Peter Niesen, “Colonialism and Hospitality,” Politics and Ethics Review 3, no. 1 (April 2007): 90–108; Rainer Keil, Freizügigkeit, Gerechtigkeit, demokratische Autonomie (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2009); Garrett W. Brown, “The Laws of Hospitality, Asylum Seekers and Cosmopolitan Right,” European Journal of Political Theory 9, no. 3 (July 2010): 308–27; Jürgen Habermas, “La France et l’Allemagne doivent prendre l’initiative,” Le Monde, September 9, 2015, www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2015/09/09/la-france-et-l-allemagne-doivent-prendre-l-initiative_4750233_3232.html; and Matthew C. Altman, “The Limits of Kant’s Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Practice, and the Crisis in Syria,” Kantian Review 22, no. 2 (June 2017): 179–204.

  33. 33.

    Víctor Abramovich, “Das violações em massa aos padrões estruturais: Novos enfoques e clássicas tensões no sistema interamericano de direitos humanos,” SUR – Revista Internacional de Direitos Humanos 6, no. 11 (Dec. 2009): 7–39.

  34. 34.

    Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Maria Da Penha Maia Fernandes v. Brasil, Case 12.051, Report no. 54/01, April 16, 2001.

  35. 35.

    Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Wallace de Almeida v. Brasil, Case 12.440, Report no. 26/09, March 20, 2009.

  36. 36.

    Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACourtHR), Niñas Yean y Bosico v. Dominican Republic, September 8, 2005.

  37. 37.

    Abramovich, “Das violações em massa aos padrões estruturais.”

  38. 38.

    International Criminal Court (ICC), Case ICC-01/04–01/06, Decision, Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga, July 10, 2012.

  39. 39.

    International Criminal Court, Office of the Prosecutor, Policy Paper on Sexual and Gender-Based Crimes, June 2014, www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/otp/OTP-Policy-Paper-on-Sexual-and-Gender-Based-Crimes–June-2014.pdf.

  40. 40.

    Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, “Pontos de vista sobre a floresta amazônica: Xamanismo e tradução,” Mana 4, no. 1 (1998): 7–22.

  41. 41.

    Balibar, “Cosmopolitisme, internationalisme, cosmopolitique,” 36–42.

  42. 42.

    See Christina Hoff, “Kant’s Invidious Humanism,” Environmental Ethics 5, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 63–70.

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  1. Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Soraya Nour Sckell

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Correspondence to Soraya Nour Sckell .

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  1. Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington, USA

    Matthew C. Altman

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Sckell, S.N. (2017). A Cosmopolitan Law Created by Cosmopolitan Citizens: The Kantian Project Today. In: Altman, M. (eds) The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Palgrave Handbooks in German Idealism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54656-2_26

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