Les apories d’un droit cosmopolitique

L’actualité du traité « Sur la paix perpétuelle »

Abstract

In Kant’s treaty On Perpetual Peace the first definitive article lays down the fundamental principles of a republican order, the second article sets out the limits of international law (the “right of the peoples”) and the third article, instead of a cosmopolitical right, is content with a “right of visit” and a call to hospitality. Should this be seen as a form of resignation and acceptance of the liberal order at the global level – the free movement of people and goods –, a retreat into a position that is both moral and pragmatic that replaces an impossible cosmopolitical right?
I propose in thix text to re-examine this well-known problem of Kantian political philosophy in the light of the concrete apories faced by attempts to establish an order of law that would go beyond the more or less established rules of international law and the more or less accepted norms of the right of peoples. Can we hope to think and organize the new order of the globalized  world through the Law?
I examine different theoretical approaches to these apories – among them Habermas’ “de-stated constitutionalism” and the formation of transnational public opinion, etc. – as variations that always lead back to the “Kant problem” and I will confront them with the views of prominent constitutional lawyers.