Kant’s Cosmopolitan Right and Peace

Although some scholars refer to Kant’s cosmopolitan right as ‘the right to visit’ (Ripstein 2021) foreign states and propose capacious interpretations according to which this right could entail ‘access and entry rights for all, in and through all states,’ (Niesen 2017, p. 104) Kant himself took pains to point out that ‘cosmopolitan right shall be limited to the conditions of universal hospitality,’ as he writes in the text of the third definitive article for peace (AK 8:357, emphasis added). In the text under this article and in the Doctrine of Right, Kant also leaves little interpretive room: every human being has the right ‘to try to’ (AK 6:353) enter a foreign country. The state in question has the right to turn the foreigner away—if a way out is available (AK 8:358). It seems that cosmopolitan right is not the right to be a foreign state’s guest but the right to communicate in peace about the terms of a possible visit with representatives of the foreign state. In my paper, I aim to do two things: (1) to explain why Kant’s cosmopolitan right must be restricted to this and (2) to indicate what the restrictedness of Kant’s cosmopolitan right tells us about Kant’s understanding of cosmopolitan peace. (1) Kant’s cosmopolitan right has to be so restricted, I argue, because it is the public right version of the innate right to ‘possession in common’ of the surface of the earth (AK 6:262; AK 6:352) that individual human beings have as well as collections of human beings (‘Nations’, ‘Völker’, AK 6:352). The point is that these innate rights to be on earth (‘Recht der Oberfläche’, AK 8:358) are mutually limiting. So, an individual human being can never have the public cosmopolitan right—viewed as the public right version of an innate right—to enter a foreign state, since that would constitute an infringement upon the innate right of the state in question to be on earth. (2) The implication for Kant’s understanding of cosmopolitan peace is that it is both spatial (Ripstein 2021, p. 237) and communicative (Niesen 2021). What needs to be regulated are the unavoidable (AK 6:307) interactions on Earth, as in the case of the right of state. However, cosmopolitan interactions differ from those in the state of nature. The latter concern the property of the parties, which explains why in the state of nature human beings have the right to approach one another as enemies (AK 6:307). Cosmopolitan interactions are, by contrast, merely communicative (AK 6:352), that is, as soon as the primary spatial phase has ended and the foreigner has arrived at the border. This subsequent communicative nature explains why under cosmopolitan right parties have the duty to meet each other in peace. Considering this characterization of cosmopolitan peace, I research in the paper whether cosmopolitan institutions are required and whether it makes sense to talk of a ‘cosmopolitan state of nature’ (Niesen 2021, p. 66-67).