The purpose of this paper is to outline the different dimensions of law which Kant proposes and examine their significance from the standpoint of current international and national legal development.Uniquely Kant presents law at three different but interrelated levels: domestic (or national); international; and cosmopolitan. Private and public law fall into this framework. Not one of the three can stand on its own, each requires the two other levels for its completion. What draws these three different dimensions together I argue is the concept of innate right (angeborenes Recht). Implicit within the concept - which lies at the core of Kant's radical reform of natural right - is the need to extend the legal-political relationship of right between persons to a relationship between states, and, finally to a relationship between states and persons. Until this occurs all positive law has a provisional status which poses significant problems both of political justification and legal validity.These problems are briefly explored in relation to the varying levels of jurisdiction now found in both the European and world context.
