Journal Articles

KANT'S CONCEPT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

---

Modern theorists often use Immanuel Kant's work to defend the normative primacy of human rights and the necessity of institutionally autonomous forms of global governance. However, properly understood, his law of nations describes a loose and noncoercive confederation of republican states. In this way, Kant steers a course between earlier natural lawyers such as Grotius, who defended just-war theory, and visions of a global unitary or federal state. This substantively mundane claim should not obscure a more profound contribution to the science of international law. Kant demonstrates that his concept of law forms part of a logical framework by which to ascertain the necessary institutional characteristics of the international legal order. Specifically, his view is that the international legal order can only take a noncoercive confederated form as its subjects become republican states and that in these circumstances law can exist without a global state. Put another way, Kant argues that if we get state-building right, the law of nations follows.

---

Availability

No copy data

Detail Information

Series Title

Legal Theory

Call Number

-

Publisher

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press., 2010

Collation

-

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

13523252

Classification

-

Content Type

-

Media Type

-

Carrier Type

-

Edition

Volume 16, Number 4, December 2010.pp.229-257

Subject(s)

KANT'S CONCEPT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment