Untitled


A Kantian conception of global justice
HELGA VARDEN*

Abstract. I start this article by addressing Kant’s question why rightful interactions require
both domestic public authorities (or states) and a global public authority? Of central
importance are two issues: first, the identification of problems insoluble without public
authorities, and second, why a domestic public monopoly on coercion can be rightfully
established and maintained by coercive means while a global public monopoly on coercion
cannot be established once and for all. In the second part of the article, I address the nature
of the institutional structure of individual states and of the global authority. Crucial here,
I argue, is Kant’s distinction between private and public right. Private right concerns rightful
relations between individual legal subjects, where public right concerns legal subjects’ claims
on their public institutions. I propose that the distinction between private and public right
should be central to liberal critiques of current legal and political developments in the global
sphere.

Helga Varden is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and in Women and
Gender Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her main research
interests are in legal, political, and feminist philosophy, with a particular emphasis on
Kantian and Lockean political philosophy. Her most recent publications include ‘Kant’s
Non-Absolutist Conception of Political Legitimacy’, Kant-Studien; ‘Kant’s Non-Voluntarist
Conception of Political Obligations: Why Justice is Impossible in the State of Nature’,
Kantian Review; ‘The Lockean ‘Enough-and-as-Good’ Proviso – an Internal Critique’,
Journal of Moral Philosophy; and ‘Kant’s murderer at the door . . . One More Time: Kant’s
Legal Philosophy and Lies to Murderers and Nazis’, The Journal of Social Philosophy;
‘Lockean Freedom and the Proviso’s Appeal to Scientific Knowledge’, Social Theory and
Practice.

Introduction

Why do we need an international authority like the United Nations (UN)? There
is no doubt that the UN often fails, that it is ine!cient, and that it su"ers from
corruption. So rather than seeking to reform and improve it, why not just follow
the current trend of powerful nations, namely simply to set aside the UN and
pursue unilateral solutions instead? Indeed, recently we have witnessed the US, a
Western, liberal constitutional democracy, pursuing unilateralism in new ways. The
US has employed private companies1 to perform security functions as part of

* Thanks to the audience at the conference ‘International Law and Global Justice’, The Centre for the
Study of Social Justice and the Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford (20–21 May
2009), Tiziana Torresi, Laura Valentini, Shelley Weinberg, Howard L. Williams, and an anonymous
referee (RIS) for their useful comments on earlier versions of this article.

1 Blackwater Worldwide, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy.

Review of International Studies (2011), 37, 2043–2057 ! 2011 British International Studies Association
doi:10.1017/S0260210511000301 First published online 17 Oct 2011

2043



conducting a war as well as established prisons outside its own territory, in which
presumed international criminals are held captive, subjected to military tribunals
and punished – allegedly without being deprived of their human rights. Against
these practices and others of their kind, many liberal voices have argued that we
need an international body like the UN to be the sole authority regarding
international interactions and interventions.

Although liberals typically are critical of such unilateral practices in inter-
national a"airs, it is unclear exactly why they think we need the UN. This is
especially unclear on the assumption that states are not adhering to the realist
paradigm, according to which the goal of foreign policy, primarily, is to attain
‘power, prestige, and wealth’ – to use John Rawls’s famous formulation.2 The lack
of a clear answer to the question why we need the UN if states act according to
just principles seems characteristic of ‘statist’ liberal positions, such as Rawls’s
theory, ‘cosmopolitan theories’, such as those of Charles Beitz, Thomas Pogge, and
Kok-Chor Tan, and ‘institution-based’ accounts such as the one defended by Allen
Buchanan. Instead, these theories rest on the implied assumption that the UN is
a prudential solution to problems of justice; it is simply easier to realise justice
through it. If so, however, then these liberal thinkers should not be dissatisfied with
the current debate’s focus on whether the US and its allies or the UN is more likely
to be successful policing the world. And yet these liberal thinkers are typically
uneasy about the prospect of particular states unilaterally assuming the role of a
world police. But to justify their dissatisfaction with the status quo, liberal thinkers
must say something about the special standing a global authority ought to have in
transnational a"airs. Liberal thinkers must, but unfortunately do not, say
something about what gives the UN special standing in global matters, such that
that standing justifies an authoritative role.

A general problem characterising much contemporary liberal thought is
therefore that it does not clarify whether respect for human rights and global
justice necessarily requires a global, public authority, rather than one, or more, just
and powerful agent, such as a state. To bring clarity to this issue, what we need
is an explicit answer to the following question: if we assume a world in which
resources were plentiful and individuals and/or states were acting in accordance
with just principles, would we still need a global political authority like the UN?
Contemporary liberal accounts of justice typically do not provide an explicit
answer to this question. In this article, I address this lacuna in contemporary
liberal thought. The aim is to provide a Kantian account of the foundations of a
liberal theory of global justice, namely a conception of the global public authority
that reconciles statist concerns for the sovereignty of nations and cosmopolitan
concerns for individual rights. In doing so, I outline a positive account of why
global justice requires states and private persons not only to adhere to some
reasonable conception of rightful transnational interaction, but also to establish a
global public institutional authority to regulate their interactions. If it can be
shown that there are problems characterising global interaction that cannot in
principle be solved without appeal to a public authority, then it is incorrect to
think that establishing global institutions is in principle unnecessary to enable just
global interaction. In addition, contrary to common liberal assumptions, I argue

2 John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 28.

2044 Helga Varden



that the rights of public authorities go beyond those of private persons, meaning
that the rights of public institutions are not coextensive with private persons’ rights
against one another. Rethinking these core assumptions concerning the need for
public institutions as well as the distinction between private persons’ rights and
rights of public authorities are essential to showing how the Kantian approach can
reconcile central concerns of both statist and cosmopolitan liberal theories of
global justice without thereby arguing for a world state.

I do not, however, want merely to take seriously the important insights from
prominent liberal accounts. I aim for an account that takes seriously the current
legal and political reality, understood primarily in historical and current develop-
ments in international private and public law. My method is therefore informed by
the idea that the most promising approach to global justice is able to critique
actual, current developments in liberal law and political systems. The reason for
this is neither merely that I want to avoid building a ‘castle in the air’ – beautiful
to look at, but utterly useless for any practical purposes – nor simply that I believe
that though often highly problematic in particular instances, there is wisdom in
time worn liberal legal practices and the additions these practices push for as our
world changes. This is also not to say that I find legal practices to be as wise and
unproblematic as legal positivists often do. Rather, a liberal theory of justice
should be able to illuminate whatever wisdom there is in liberal legal and political
systems and use this knowledge to identify and engage the particular institutions
comprising the actual systems. In particular, central to liberal legal and political
systems is both the idea of individuals’ rights as well as a fundamental distinction
between private and public right, where private right concerns rightful relations
between private individuals, whereas public right concerns legal subjects’ claims on
public institutions. This distinction, I believe, is one that neither is currently utilised
by liberal theories of justice nor one that legal positivists make good sense of –
whether we are focusing on issues of domestic justice or global justice. Yet it is a
central distinction in the legal and political reality to which our theories should
apply.3 Following Kant I will suggest that the distinction between private and
public right is at the heart of a liberal critique of current legal and political
developments, and hence essential as we try to identify both our current mistakes
and the way forward in our institution building attempts.

This article then, has two parts. Part one addresses the first question
emphasised above, namely why rightful interactions – or interactions consistent
with, ultimately, individuals’ right to freedom – require both domestic public
authorities (states) and a global public authority. Of central importance here are
two issues: first, the identification of which kinds of questions appear insoluble
without public authorities, and second, explaining why a global public authority
must be established, maintained, and developed through voluntary means even
though a domestic authority can be rightfully established by coercive means. A
global public authority is something that each party in the process can indepen-
dently hope or wish for, but its establishment is something we can only intend
collaboratively. This argument for the necessity of public authorities as well as the

3 Ingeborg Maus, in ‘From Nation-State to Global State, or the Decline of Democracy’, trans. James
Ingram, Constellations: An International Journal of Critical & Democratic Theory, 13:4 (2006),
pp. 465–84, also draw the attention this legal distinction when interpreting Kant’s conception of
global justice.

A Kantian conception of global justice 2045



principled di"erence between the rightful establishment of domestic and global
public authorities, I propose, can explain important features of the current
structure of domestic and international private right.

The second part of the article turns to the nature of the institutional structure
of both domestic and global public authorities. I briefly outline how domestic
public right secures and enables private right for all of its citizens and how public
right also contains other systemic measures involved in securing each citizen’s right
to freedom. I then outline core similarities and di"erences with regard to
international public right. My proposal is that in the future international public
right will aim to secure and establish international private right for all even though
its current main focus lies in establishing the other aspect of public right, namely
public institutions as required to secure global systemic justice. Moreover, I argue
that the development of international public right both as required to secure
international private right and to secure global systemic justice demands that we do
not give up on, but keep reforming the UN institutions. Finally I argue that the
global public authority will only seek to maintain a voluntary peacekeeping force
as needed to protect stateless persons and that it will only authorise coercion on
behalf of its members towards aggressive states. Yet since only the global public
authority can have rightful standing in interstate conflicts, the rightful solution also
to transnational injustice goes through it. States resorting to unilateral military
action is always the last resort – and one that is not, in principle, reconcilable with
rightful global relations.

Public authorities: why we need them

The lack of reflection upon the status of a global political authority probably
results from the fact that contemporary liberal theoretical analyses typically see all
issues of justice – domestic or global – through the perspective of hypothetical
consent. Much contemporary liberal theory seems implicitly to adopt the Lockean
assumption of a prudential need for authoritative public institutional solutions to
problems of interactions. Yet in contrast to the Lockeans, much liberal theory then
takes a shortcut by arguing that what matters for justice is simply that the right
principles are enforced without also addressing the question of whether and why
it matters who gets to enforce them. True, liberal statist theories do assume that
just states should enforce international laws; cosmopolitan theories simply identify
the bottom line as the principle that human rights should be universally enforced;
whereas institution-based theories emphasise the importance of institution building.
Yet all these theories say little about why we need a distinctly public authority to
specify, apply and enforce principles of global justice.4 Answering this question will

4 For example, it is unclear whether the realisation of Rawls’s ‘Society of Peoples’, which proposes a
statist response to questions of global justice, necessarily involves the establishment of a public global
authority of sorts or whether it is in principle su!cient that each one of the states (‘liberal’ and
‘decent’ peoples) individually abides, in its foreign policies, by the liberal principles (ideas and ideals)
as put forward in the Law of Peoples. (See Rawls, Law of Peoples, p. 37.) It seems fair to say that
Thomas Nagel’s revisions of Rawls’s theory in ‘The Problem of Global Justice’, Philosophy & Public
A!airs, 33:2 (2005), pp. 113–48 also does not include a clear, ideal justification for the global
authority. A similar puzzle arises in relation to the cosmopolitan theories of Charles Beitz, Thomas

2046 Helga Varden



tell us what, exactly, is so wrong with the unilateral enforcement of global justice
by an individual, a private security company, or a single state. Below I first argue
that we can respect one another’s right to freedom only through the establishment
of domestic public authorities (liberal states). Subsequently, I provide the comp-
lementary account of why human rights and mutual respect for sovereignty among
internally just states is possible only through the establishment of a global public
authority.

The need for domestic public authorities

As indicated above, I believe that justice is possible only within civil society, or
within a liberal, legal framework. Civil society is an enforceable precondition for
right, and not merely a prudent response to the so-called ‘inconveniences’
characterising the state of nature. In my view, these conclusions follow if one
accepts Kant’s relational understanding of right, according to which individuals’
interactions must be respectful of one another’s right to freedom. A right to
freedom, on this view, is a right to set and pursue ends of one’s own choosing
subject to universal laws of freedom rather than as subject to the arbitrary choices
of another. Moreover, our interactions are rightful only if they are subject to
restrictions of freedom, namely restrictions that are neither contingent, meaning
that they are traceable to some particular person’s arbitrary judgement or
preferences nor asymmetrical, meaning that they restrict people unequally. Such a
right to freedom must be understood as innate, and since we are embodied beings,
it must also be seen as involving a right to exist somewhere and to bodily integrity.
That is to say, we must have a right to exist wherever we are born and we must
have a right to defend our bodily integrity against attacks from others. Although
the innate right to freedom gives one a right to protect oneself against attacks from
others, it does not give us an individual right to punish. After all, rightful
punishment requires determining non-contingent and symmetrical restrictions to be
enforced against the perpetrator. Because it seems clear that there is reasonable
disagreement with regard to issues of procedural justice and determinations of the
amount of punishment, it is impossible for a private individual rightfully to enforce

Pogge and Kok-Chor Tan. These cosmopolitan theories distinguish themselves from Rawls’s statism
by using the wellbeing of individuals rather than societies (states or peoples) as the ultimate unit of
analysis in considerations of global justice. Nevertheless, they do not make much headway with
regard to settling the question of the status of the global authority. See, for example, Thomas Pogge,
‘An Egalitarian Law of Peoples’, Philosophy and Public A!airs, 23 (1994), pp. 195–224, and World
Poverty and Human Rights (London: Polity Press, 2002), pp. 91–118 and 168–95. See also Kok-Chor
Tan, Justice Without Borders: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and Patriotism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004); and Toleration, Diversity, and Global Justice (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2000). For example, see Part III: ‘International Distributive Justice’, in
Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1979), pp. 125–76; and ‘Human Rights and the Law of Peoples’, in Deen Chatterjee (ed.), The Ethics
of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),
pp. 193–216. Finally, despite his focus on international law and global institutions, Allen Buchanan
also fails to address the ideal question of why we need public institutions in the first place. See his
Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations for International Law (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2004).

A Kantian conception of global justice 2047



her particular choice of procedures and punishment. Hence, rightful punishment
requires the state: rightful punishment is impossible in the state of nature.

Setting and pursuing ends of one’s own, however, requires more than a right
to exist and to bodily integrity – and these further considerations yield other
reasons why rightful interaction is impossible in the state of nature. More
specifically, justice cannot be realised by each private individual acting virtuously,
since private individuals can neither provide rightful assurance nor overcome
certain problems of specification characterising private property, contract, and
status (‘private care’) relations. The problem, in short, is that these relations among
private individuals cannot be both rightful, and reconcilable with each person’s
innate right to freedom, and determined and assured by a private authority. But
private authority is the extent to which there is authority in the state of nature.
Thus, though we may identify the general principles that should be governing the
various areas of private interaction (private property, contract, and fiduciary
relations), this identification is insu!cient for rightful relations. True, we can
formulate the principles in a way that is reconcilable with each person’s innate
right to freedom. But identifying these fundamental principles of rightful private
interaction – or the principles of private right – is not enough to enable rightful
relations. There is still a problem of providing assurance that we will so interact
and of determining rightfully how these abstract principles should be specified in
relation to various empirical circumstances and cases so that the resulting set of
restrictions constrains each person’s actions symmetrically and non-contingently.
Indeed, even a mutual agreement to trust one another and agreement on the
specification of the principles cannot make relations among individuals rightful,
since everyone’s freedom is still subject to one another’s arbitrary choice.

Because it is in principle impossible for private individuals to solve the
problems of assurance and specification of the principles of private right, refusing
to enter civil society is to do wrong. In order to interact rightfully with others we
must establish a condition in which our interactions are subject to universal laws
of freedom rather than to one another’s arbitrary choices. The only way to do this
is by establishing a will that represents the will of each and yet the will of no one
particular private individual, that is, what Rousseau called a ‘general will’. I will
call it a ‘public will’ or a ‘public authority’. To refuse to enter civil society is
therefore to refuse the condition under which interaction consistent with each
person’s right to freedom is possible – it is to ‘do wrong in the highest degree’,
Kant argues. Thus, individuals have an enforceable duty to set up a public
authority to provide assurance and to specify the rules for their interaction. They
do not have a right to enforce their own specification even if it is a reasonable
specification. Because consent cannot be a necessary condition for the establish-
ment of a rightful state, we have good reason to think that the liberal ideal of
political obligations at the state level is non-voluntarist in nature.5

5 Kant’s account of justice is found in the ‘Doctrine of Right’ in the Metaphysics of Morals. This text
is found in Mary J. Gregor (trans. and ed.), Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2006). I provide a fuller interpretation of Kant’s account of domestic
private right in ‘Kant’s Non-Voluntarist Conception of Political Obligations: Why Justice is
Impossible in the State of Nature’, Kantian Review, 13:2 (2008), pp. 1–45.

2048 Helga Varden



The need for global public authorities

Having seen how the Kantian conception of justice treats the domestic case, we can
turn to the global case.6 First, it is important to note that the above argument
establishes that a group of persons do nothing wrong by establishing a state. To
the contrary, establishing a state is a precondition for rightful relations among
interacting persons. Consequently, once there exists states, the coercive establish-
ment of a world state with a global monopoly on coercion would be wrong because
it would involve wrongfully depriving peoples of their rightfully established states.
However we approach issues of global justice, our account can therefore not
require a people to abolish their state, which means that the ideal of global justice
cannot be the establishment of a world state with a global monopoly on coercion.7

Second, the just state is a public authority without private interests. Conse-
quently, it does not have what we often refer to as ‘realist’ global interests, such
as imperialist interests. If an actual liberal state has such interests, then it
misunderstands or contradicts its own fundamental liberal principles. According to
its own ideals, the just state’s domestic function is merely to enable rightful
relations amongst its subjects. The corresponding global function is to pursue a
condition in which it can interact rightfully with its neighbours and in which its
citizens can interact rightfully with foreigners. Finally, note that on this relational
conception of right, a state cannot rightfully use its citizens as means to solve other
states’ or people’s problems. If you are not party to a particular conflict, then you
do no wrong if you abstain from taking part in it. In other words, not only can

6 Kant’s main three writings on issues of global justice are ‘On the common saying: That may be
correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice’ (PP), ‘Toward Perpetual Peace’ (TP), and the
‘Doctrine of Right’ in The Metaphysics of Morals (DR). The core challenge facing Kant interpreters
concern dealing with the fact that he appears to be contradicting himself in his main texts on the
issue. For example, there are some passages in each text, where Kant seems to argue that global
justice is in principle impossible without a world state with a permanent monopoly on coercion (DR
6: 344, cf. 351, 354f; PP 8: 358, 379; TP 8: 310). Yet, in both PP and DR Kant appears to argue
the contrary, namely that global justice cannot require a world state, but only requires a voluntary
world republic (or ‘league of nations’). Kant appears to give several reasons – some principled and
some pragmatic – why global justice cannot require a world state (DR 6: 344, 345f, 351); (PP 8: 354;
8: 355f). Further interpretive complexity is added by some passages where Kant seems to say that
a world state is in theory necessary, but in practice it is impossible and, consequently, all we can
establish is a voluntary world federation (DR 6: 350; PP 8: 367; TP 8: 310f) Finally, in PP, Kant
famously argues that states, due to their mistaken understanding of the right of nations, will in
practice (‘in hypothesi’) wrongly reject what is true in theory (‘in thesi’) (PP 8: 357, cf. 312). I engage
Kant’s own text more carefully in ‘Diversity and Unity. An Attempt at Drawing a Justifiable Line’,
Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie/Archives for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy
(ARSP), 94:1 (2008), pp. 1–25.

7 Until recently it commonly presupposed that according to Kant and the Kantian position, the public
authority was needed simply because it constitutes the more e!cient means of ensuring peace.
Consequently, whether a world state with a monopoly on coercion or a system of independent states
was seen as an empirical question regarding which system is more likely to bring peace about.
Michael W. Doyle, ‘Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign A"airs 1/1’, Philosophy and Public A!airs,
11/12:3/4 (1983), pp. 205–35 and 323–53 and John Rawls (1999) famously pursue the statist line of
argument. According to Doyle, liberal states have proven themselves less likely to go war against one
another, and for both Doyle and Rawls, the aim is to identify which foreign policies liberal states
should adopt in order to secure world peace. In contrast, Thomas Carson in ‘Perpetual Peace: what
Kant Should Have Said’, Social Theory and Practice, 14:2 (1988), pp. 173–214; and Sidney Axinn
in ‘World Community and Its Government’, in Jane Kneller and Sidney Axinn (eds), Autonomy and
Community (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 119–29, argue that in our
nuclear times, a world state with a monopoly on military power is more likely to secure world peace.

A Kantian conception of global justice 2049



citizens never be rightfully forced to participate in expansionist wars, since states
do not own their own citizens, but in addition citizens cannot be forced to
participate in any conflicts to which they are not a party.8 Citizens can only be
legally obliged to defend their own state against attacks. The implications of these
preliminary remarks is that the pursuit of global justice for just states cannot
involve the establishment of a world state with a global monopoly on coercion.
Moreover, the level of required participation in the establishment of global
institutions depends on the level and kind of interaction.

So what are the kinds of global interaction? It seems that there are two kinds
of interaction: interstate interaction and global private interaction. Clearly it is
advantageous for an account of global justice if it can draw the proper distinctions
between relations between states and relations that involve private individuals and
yet are transnational in nature. The assumption that relations are only either statist
or individual in nature fails to accurately capture the complexity of global
interaction. This is a significant problem with statist and cosmopolitan theories.
For example, Rawls’s statist account confines itself to an analysis of ideal relations
simply in statist terms, and Tan’s account does the same only simply in individual
terms. A virtue of the Kantian account is that it can distinguish between, and yet
incorporate, both the right of nations (interstate interaction) and cosmopolitan
right (transnational interaction involving private individuals).9 This in itself gives
us some reason to pursue this third alternative, according to which accounts both
of interactions involving states and of private persons are constituent parts of the
full theory of global justice.

So far I have argued that global justice cannot involve imperialism or the
establishment of a world state with a permanent global monopoly on coercion and
that the analysis should involve both analyses of interstate interaction and of
private individual interaction. At this point it is fair to ask why we need any global
public authority at all and also what it would look like if it is not a world state
with a global monopoly on coercion? In answer to the first question, why, ideally,
we need a global public authority at all, there are two reasons corresponding to the
two relevant types of global interaction – between states and between states and
foreign, private persons. Each type of interaction requires a public authority in
order to be made rightful.10

8 See Kant in DR 6: 345f on this point.
9 In Kant’s DR the former account is found in ‘Public Right. Chapter II. The Right of Nations’ (6:

343–51), whereas the latter account is found in ‘Public Right. Chapter III. Cosmopolitan Right’ (6:
352–3).

10 Other non-prudential interpretations that deal with issues of global justice include Kevin E. Dodson,
‘Kant’s Perpetual Peace: Universal Civil Society or League of States’, Southwest Philosophical
Studies, 15 (1993), pp. 1–9; Jürgen Habermas, ‘Kant’s Idea of Perpetual Peace, with the Benefit of
Two Hundred Years’ Hindsight’, in James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds), Perpetual
Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal (Cambridge, Massachusetts: the MIT Press, 1997),
pp. 113–53; Otfried Hö"e, Kant’s Cosmopolitan Theory of Law and Peace, trans. Alexandra Newton
(New York: Cambridge University Press), 2006; Pauline Kleingeld, ‘Approaching Perpetual Peace:
Kant’s Defence of a League of States an his Ideal of a World Federation’, European Journal of
Philosophy, 12:3 (2004), pp. 304–25; Nancy Kokaz, ‘Institutions for Global Justice’, in Daniel
Weinstock (ed.), Global Justice, Global Institutions (Calgary: University of Calgary University Press,
2007); Thomas Pogge, ‘Kant’s Theory of Justice’, Kant-Studien, 79 (1988), pp. 407–33; Howard L.
Williams, ‘Back from the USSR: Kant, Kalingrad and World Peace’, International Relations, 20:1
(2006), pp. 27–48.

2050 Helga Varden



First, let me consider states’ interactions. There are two main types of ideal
interaction among states: interaction in international spaces (in the air and on the
sea) and interaction regarding borders. Even though individual states may specify
the general principles to govern both interaction in international spaces and the
determination of a proper border, there can be a reasonable disagreement about
how to specify them. And though it is advantageous if various states can work
things out, say through a willingness to engage in a Habermasian discourse or a
Rawlsian political discourse, there can still be reasonable disagreement regarding
exactly where the actual lines should be drawn. Although it is often unreasona-
bleness that leads to conflict, disagreements can also be reasonable. The only way
to find a solution to such a deadlock that is consistent with a commitment to a
liberal ideal of rightful freedom involves establishing a public authority to decide
the matter. Just as in the domestic case only a public authority can represent both
parties to the conflict and yet no one in particular. Therefore, a rightful solution
to problems involving interactions between states in international spaces requires
the establishment of such an authority. Since states can reasonably disagree, it
seems that a true commitment to rightful peace involves a willingness to establish
an international authority with standing to specify and apply the laws governing
these kinds of interactions. States committed to rightful peace will, insofar as
possible, coercively defend only borders so determined. Only coercion authorised
by the global authority in this way is reconcilable with rightful peace. It is for these
kinds of reasons that liberal states want something like the International Court of
Justice (ICJ).11

Second, there are interactions between states and foreign private individuals.
Ideally, there are only voluntary visitors to a state.12 Voluntary visitors are persons

11 This is an argument that is particularly important for countries with contested borders, such as
Norway. Norway is involved in many of the controversial international disputes concerning borders
on Svalbard, the Arctic and o"shore borders in the North Atlantic Ocean, and the Barents Sea.
Norway typically follows the relevant rulings of the International Court of Justice in these matters,
and yet a lot of the theoretical and public o!cials’ analyses of these matters are undertaken in realist
and increasingly neoliberal terms. A drawback of these analyses is that they only partially grasp why
Norway find it so important to look to the international authority when formulating its own
national policies, including its foreign policies, regarding these matters. The partial reason stems
from prudence – as a small nation, Norway has no option but to work with other political forces
when pursuing its interests. The argument presented here is not antithetical to or incompatible with
prudential reasons, but it maintains that the commitment to the ICJ can also be seen as a
consequence of Norway’s general commitment to function as a liberal legal system. Which reason
is actually operating depends on the extent to which Norway is able to function as a public
authority, of course. But the main point here is that liberal institutional commitments to right are
fundamentally incompatible with unilateralism and consequently insofar as liberal states progress,
they will be increasingly resistant to use unilateralism in their global interactions.

12 Involuntary visitors are refugees. States can justify their territorial monopoly on coercion only if it
is consistent with everyone’s innate right to freedom. Hence, though a state need not give permission
to everyone wanting to enter its territory, it cannot turn away those who have nowhere safe to go.
If it does, then the state’s use of coercion is irreconcilable with its own foundation, since such
exclusion is irreconcilable with the refugee’s innate right to freedom – it would not be reconcilable
with everyone’s right to exist somewhere. Moreover, even as the state lets the refugee across its
border, there arises the problem that until the refugee has obtained legal status as a citizen, the
particular state in which she is living is not her public authority. The state in representing the general
will of the people does not thereby represent her will. Therefore, until citizenship is conferred, the
state does not fully representing the refugee. On this account, it is in recognition of these kinds of
problems of reconciling a state’s monopoly on coercion with a visitor’s innate right to freedom that
current states have instituted the UNHCR (The O!ce of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees:
{http://www.unhcr.org/basics.html}. This global public institution represents both states and refugees,

A Kantian conception of global justice 2051



who visit (tourists) or live over longer periods in a di"erent country not out of
need, but because they would like to pursue a professional or private interest in
this way. They do not have a right to enter another state, but if they are permitted
to enter, the challenge for the state concerns how to enable rightful interactions
between itself, its citizens and the foreigners. The first response from just states is
to guarantee the visitors legal protection by giving them various types of legal
residence status, such as tourist visas, temporary work visas, permanent residence,
and so on. As long as a person is not a citizen, she or he does not enjoy full citizen
rights, but many of these rights in virtue of being granted these kinds of legal
status. Moreover, as mentioned above, private individuals do not have a right to
punish; only the state can. Yet since the state does not fully represent the visitors
(the resident does not have full rights), the next challenge for the just states
concerns how they can still rightfully punish the visitors? We see just states
responding to this problem in a variety of ways. For example, just states provide
legal aid to the foreigner, secure foreign embassies the rights to assist their citizens
(the resident), or negotiate extradition treaties. The suggestion in this article is that
it is because the state does not fully represent the foreigners that they try to secure
their rights by involving the state, of which the foreigner is a citizen, in these ways.13

Finally, there are transnational issues concerning private property, trade, and
fiduciary relations. Private persons inherit property in other states, engage in
international trade, and marry and have children across state borders. There are
therefore private right cases involving private property, contracts, and fiduciary
relations where at least one party to the conflict is located in a di"erent state then
the other(s). Again, the challenge for the state is how to make these interactions
rightful and the main problem concerns which laws the state should apply in any
particular transnational case at hand. For example, it can be a US airline company
filing a case in the US legal system suing a Belgian airline company for an accident
involving several American airplanes at the Brussels airport, or it can be a
Canadian couple adopting a child from Korea, and then the Korean biological
parents challenge the rightfulness of the adoption in the Korean legal system. In
these kinds of cases, there is a so-called ‘conflict of laws’, which means that it is
unclear which domestic laws should be applied in the particular case: should it be

and it is the means through which states and refugee interaction are made rightful. In addition, of course,
the UNHCR deals with other non-ideal situations, such as by trying to set up safe places for refugees,
by regulating any other non-state interaction with refugees, and by facilitating their transition to
permanent new homes in new states. Finally, it follows that the public authority will seek to maintain
a global peacekeeping force as required to stabilise and assist currently stateless peoples as they (re)build
their just states. No state’s military can fulfil such a role (ideally), since it cannot (in principle) act on
behalf of the stateless people; only a global public authority can. Moreover, because the public authority
cannot command anyone to risk their lives in such peacekeeping missions, the UN must maintain its
peacekeeping force purely by voluntary means.

13 The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) {http://www.icc-cpi.int/}, in contrast, is a means of securing
just punishment on behalf of defenceless persons and peoples – or persons and peoples who, in e"ect,
are stateless and hence deprived of protection by a just state. It is therefore a non-ideal measure in that
it enables rightful punishment of aggressive, violent behaviour that otherwise cannot be punished (since
one of the parties exists in the state of nature). It should therefore, if things go well, be incorporated
into the UN structure proper. This seems consistent with how the founding document of the ICC makes
it clear that even though the ICC is currently independent of the UN (Article 2, ‘Rome Statue of the
International Criminal Court’, downloaded from ICC’s homepage on 17 Feb. 2010), ‘The Court shall
be brought into relationship with the UN through an agreement to be approved by the Assembly of States
Parties to this Statute . . .’.

2052 Helga Varden



the laws of the legal system where the suit is filed or the laws of the legal system
of the defendant? In order to deal with these problems, many states have developed
so-called ‘international private right’, which are laws aimed at deciding how legal
systems should deal with these kinds of conflicts. Moreover, in the last few decades,
individual states have been trying to coordinate their international private right
systems, especially through the Hague Conference on Private International Law
(HCCH). In my view, this is the first step towards making such interactions
rightful, namely by establishing which principles should determine which states’
laws should be relevant in various types of cases. The further step seems to involve
establishing an international court with standing to evaluate whether or not states
properly applied the principles of international private right. Since a particular
state is not the public authority of all the interacting parties, a global authority as
an ultimate appeal is necessary for rightful relations involving international private
right. Hence, though the HCCH is a step in the right direction, it is not the last
step if things go well.

The institutional structure of public authorities

Having argued that we need both domestic and transnational public authorities, we
need to obtain a clearer idea of what such public authorities look like.14 In
particular, we want to make sure that establishing these authorities does not merely
reproduce the problems of the state of nature by subjecting freedom to someone’s
arbitrary choice rather than to non-contingent and symmetrical law. This requires
us to identify the institutional structure of the public authorities. Again, let’s take
a look at the domestic case before turning to the global case.

The institutional structure of domestic public authorities

To avoid the problematic conditions of the state of nature, first, the state cannot
have ‘private’ interests; second, it must guarantee all its citizens’ freedom and

14 I believe the charitable reading of Georg Cavallar, Kant and the Theory and Practice of International
Right (Cardi": University of Wales Press, 1999); Dobson (1993), Habermas (1997), Hö"e (2006),
Kleingeld (2004), Kokaz (2007), Maus (2006), and Pogge (1988, 2009) agree with me that according
to Kant rightful solutions to conflicts in interstate relations and in relations between states and
foreigners require the institution of a global public authority. The main di"erences are as follows:
Dobson and Hö"e argue that Kant’s ideal reasons for not establishing a global authority with a
monopoly on coercion should be rejected and instead our aim for the global authority should be
what Hö"e calls a ‘minimal state’. Habermas and Pogge, in contrast, argue that the considered
Kantian position defends an overlap between domestic, regional, and global spheres of sovereignty.
Maus uses the point to support her view that global justice requires that just states always remain
independent of one another, even though they ought to use global institutions like the Court of
Justice to settle their disputes. Cavallar, Kokaz and Kleingeld, in turn, use these ideal arguments for
the necessity of the global authority as providing further support for their developmental conceptions
of the world federation with some limited coercive powers. In contrast I have argued that the global
public authority is the only rightful authoriser of coercion regarding interstate relations (though the
individual just states do the actual enforcing) and that the global peacekeeping force is limited to
the protection of stateless individuals. Finally, I have argued that the choice to partake in other
states’ and stateless peoples’ conflicts is a choice that ultimately lies with each state’s individuals.

A Kantian conception of global justice 2053



equality by both securing for each one of them rights to bodily integrity and to
private right, and by setting itself up as a tripartite coercive authority that specifies,
applies, and enforces only the law. Thus, to overcome the problems of the state of
nature and to establish a condition in which rightful relations are possible, the
public authority requires a constitution or a similar fundamental legal document
circumscribing its fundamental powers in these ways. These circumscriptions make
it possible for the public authority to be authorised to act on behalf of its people
in order to enable their rightful interaction – interaction that was impossible in the
state of nature. The public authority cannot own private property or have any
private interests because this would make it impossible to represent no one in
particular, and yet all its citizens. The public authority treats them as free and
equal by securing their rights to bodily integrity and private rights and by
establishing the sovereign as the rule of public law so that the law rules the o!ces
of the sovereign authority.

In addition to setting the sovereign power up in these ways designed to
overcome the problems of the state of nature, the state must take certain additional
steps to secure conditions of justice because it must establish a monopoly on
coercion. That is to say, because the state must assume a monopoly on coercion,
it must also ensure that monopoly on coercion is reconcilable with everyone’s right
to freedom, namely their right not to find their freedom subject to another private
person’s arbitrary choice, but only to the public authority’s laws. This is why the
state must provide unconditional poverty relief, why it must assume special control
over land, the economy and financial systems, and why it must set up a public
administration and a system of punishment. Each of these systemic measures is
necessary to ensure that citizens do not find their freedom, although determined by
institutions, e"ectively under the control of some private person. Establishing such
public institutions with the appropriate structure is a matter of public right, namely
it concerns the claims citizens subjects have on their public institutions in virtue of
their citizenship. Therefore, public rights are not coextensive with the rights people
have against one another as private persons. Rather the claims of domestic public
right are di"erent in nature and kind by being systemic claims citizens have only
with regard to their own state.15

The institutional structure of the global public authority

Let’s now return to the global case. How, exactly, do we set up a global public
authority, which is to say how do we reform the UN? As in the domestic case, I
believe that there are three main institutional processes that must take place. First,
the establishment of a global public authority requires a founding legal document
circumscribing its authority in ways similar to the domestic case. Second, this
document must specify the public global authority and the way in which it is
comprised of three independent yet complementary public institutions: a legislative
authority, a judicial authority, and an executive authority. Third, consistent with

15 I provide an interpretation of this public right argument to Kant’s ‘Doctrine of Right’ in ‘Kant’s
Non-Absolutist Conception of Political Legitimacy: How Public Right “Concludes” Private Right in
‘The Doctrine of Right’’, Kant-Studien (forthcoming).

2054 Helga Varden



the legal foundation, other public institutions must be established to enable and
secure systemic justice. The current UN, albeit in need of significant reform to
secure global justice, is at least approaching minimally meeting all three conditions
in a way that is reconcilable with just states’ sovereignty. Because of some
unjustifiable asymmetries that characterise the UN’s core institutions, some
improvements seem pertinent to their ability to issue political obligations on
interacting states in all regards, but there seems to have been clear institutional
improvement over its short history. Consequently, although there may still be some
time before these institutions are capable of functioning as public authorities
capable of issuing political obligations, I do not see that there are any principled
reasons why we shouldn’t be able to reform them so as to overcome these
problems.

To start, the ideal function of the UN Charter is to serve as the founding legal
document for international public right, and therefore it is the document within
which all the other UN institutions must act. Moreover, it specifies the tripartite
structure of the public authority required for international right. The legislative
authority currently lies with the General Assembly, and the judicial authority is
currently identified with the International Court of Justice. And consistent with
what I have argued, if things progress rather than regress, a suitably constructed
analogue to the Hague Conference on Private International Law will also become
parts of the UN judicial authority. Central to further progress regarding all
institutions, I believe, focuses on being able to reform them into institutional
authorities that reason and act as public authorities – namely as authorities
representing all and yet no one in particular. This naturally includes progress with
regard to establishing the principles determining which judges are necessarily
biased in which types of cases. The more we are able to do this, the more
unreasonable and irrational it becomes to insist on settling transnational conflicts
by unilateral means.

The executive authority primarily lies with the Security Council, which is
authorised to decide when member states can be called upon to intervene in
situations where international rightful peace and security is threatened. Since the
Security Council must be reconcilable with just states’ sovereignty, not only must
the just states’ own citizens have the last word on intervention, it will only
authorise coercion aimed at stopping international violence or domestic violence
within unjust states. The enforcement of the authoritative decisions made by the
UN is carried out by the just states themselves and/or by the UN Peacekeeping
forces. Moreover, it seems fair to say that the main challenge with regard to this
authority concerns reforming the Security Council into an authority that can be
seen as representing all its legal subjects – all just states – as free and equal.
Today’s system of veto by permanent members and the possible election of the
most unjust states as members of the Security Council may be prudent given the
global climate, but I cannot see that it can fulfil its function as a public authority
until it becomes based on a firm commitment to freedom and equality.

What about the third condition, namely of securing systemic justice? Interest-
ingly, the General Assembly, the ICJ, and the Security Council comprise only three
of the six original bodies established by the UN Charter. The other three are the
Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, and the Secretariat.
Without looking at the details surrounding these institutions, it is fair to say that

A Kantian conception of global justice 2055



they all concern systemic issues related to global interaction – that is, systemic
issues related to the global economy, including poverty, peoples without indepen-
dence as a result of historic imperialism, and public administration. All of these
issues were identified by the founders of the UN as central to establishing a global
system of public right. Moreover, as time has passed, other institutions have been
added, far too many to mention here. Rather, what is important is that there seems
to be a fairly clear structure to the growth of the UN as an institutional whole. It
is similar to how the public institutions of just states have and still do increase in
number or grow to enable conditions of rightful interaction for all its citizens. New
institutions, whether on the domestic or global front, are necessary to fill out the
public institutional structure required for rightful relations (rightful peace) for all.
Since on the global front we need a fairly comprehensive system to deal with
international spaces, international private right and systemic right, we are now
seeing the growth of institutions in all these areas.

On the one hand, we see an increasing number of public or quasi-public
institutions aimed at enabling borders and international private right. As already
mentioned, in addition to the ICJ for border and international space issues, we
have the O!ce of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) specialising
in refugee issues. In addition, there are increasing numbers of institutions aimed at
enabling international private right, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO)
and the quasi-public HCCH, which, I suggest, will be reformed into a public
authority if things go well. On the other hand, we have an increasing number of
institutions aimed at enabling systemic justice with respect to the global economy
and the international financial system. This explains some of the complexity of the
World Trade Organization’s operations as well as institutions like the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). We also have institutions aiming to
make it possible for states to have interacting economies and financial systems
without thereby risking the downfall of these states. To that end, the UN has set
up the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), and the World
Health Organization (WHO). Like the original Economic and Social Council called
for under the UN Charter, their primary function is to help the stabilisation and
growth of international global systems without also creating, even unintentionally,
destructive dependency relations between states. This is not to say that there are
some serious asymmetries involved in the current institutions, such as the way in
which the Western countries control the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank.
Rather the main point is that current UN already includes much of the necessary
structural features to serve as a just global public authority. Therefore, although
all these institutions still require significant reform, the current UN charter
establishes a coherent institutional structure that can be reformed into the kind of
public authority necessary to enable global justice.

Conclusion

Despite my conditionals in the arguments above, the main objection to my
conclusions is still likely to be that many of these UN institutions are notoriously
corrupt and unjust deserving only of the rubbish heap, so let’s just scrap them and

2056 Helga Varden



start from square one. Let me therefore just emphasise again that I completely
agree that the current UN institutions are corrupt and unjust. But I also believe
that the above account says something about what makes such institutions corrupt
and explains why the solution to our current problems requires us to fix these
institutions from within. On the one hand, these institutions are unjust because
they do not treat all their legal subjects (states and persons) as free and equal.
There are certain institutional asymmetries that simply must be overcome before
they can properly issue political obligations. But because proper institution
building takes time, this will take time.

On the other hand, the alternative to fixing global public institutions seems to
be to settle for unilateralism of powerful states, which is worse. It is worse because
it is the incarnation of the asymmetry problem currently characterising aspects of
the UN institutions. Of course, unilateralism that involves enforcing illiberal
principles is worse than unilateralism that involves enforcing liberal principles. But
that is not the point here. Since I’m after identifying the liberal ideal to strive for,
the main point is that all unilateralism necessarily involves interaction between
states as unequals subject to contingent and asymmetrical restrictions. Unilateral-
ism cannot in principle enable global justice. After all, even an internally just,
powerful state cannot rightfully enable global justice because it cannot in principle
be impartial, have rightful standing in particular transnational disputes or assume
rightful authority over global systems of interaction. The reason is simply that any
particular state can only represent the general united will of its own people.
Therefore, it cannot in principle have the rightful authority to specify, apply or
enforce private or public right beyond its own territory since it does not represent
the world as such. Indeed, even the state’s own, reasonably contested borders are
beyond its own rightful authority. Because siding with unilateralism cannot in
principle lead to rightful relations, the only way forward with regard to establishing
global justice requires reforming the UN by working towards eliminating the
institutional asymmetries that currently exist. And as they are eliminated, liberal
states can and must increase their institutional commitment to them too. Finally,
since the UN has much of the required institutional framework in place, also the
prudent way seems to be to reform it rather than start all over again. After all, just
as with states, there is no good reason to think that starting all over again is going
to be much easier and get us much further, faster, than reform will.

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