Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

Two hundred years ago, in the wake of the modem world's first great republican revolutions in France and the United States, Immanuel Kant endorsed a federation of independent republics as the only valid basis of international law.' Kant's federation echoed the new federal Constitution of the United States, which guaranteed a "republican form of government" to every state in the Union.' Enlightenment scholars supposed that if ever some powerful people could form a republic, republican principles would become the basis of a just world order.3 So republican ideas permeated and inspired the developing jus gentium,4 and several new states emerged to embrace the republican form of government. This paper argues that international law still depends on republican principles for its content and moral validity, and that purportedly international laws and institutions bind and should influence republican governments only to the extent that they reflect republican procedures of politics and legislation.

The argument has ten parts. Part I defines republicanism as service to the common good. Part II endorses the republican tradition of finding the common good through popular sovereignty and the self-determination of peoples. Part 11 shows the influence of popular sovereignty and republican doctrine on the development of international law. Part IV reconciles popular sovereignty with regional federalism and international institutions. Part V defends the national basis of traditional international law. Part VI recognizes fundamental human rights as necessarily universal and international in application. Part VII endorses "peoples" as the basis of nations and international law. Part VIII explains the position of minorities within nations. Part IX identifies republican principles as the basis of international law. Part X proposes republicanism as the test of all international organizations and legal institutions. All ten sections support the conclusion that republican doctrines have driven the law of nations from the beginning and should continue to do so if international law is to have any moral influence or actual impact on the world's structures of legal and political power.

Accessibility Requirements

1

Download

Share

COinS