Vulnerability, Space, Communication: Three Conditions of Adequacy for Cosmopolitan Right

Abstract

The chapter argues that according to the Kantian completeness assumption, not only do we face a major unresolved systematic issue—all exercise of cosmopolitan right takes place in a state of nature between states and foreigners: a highly structured state of nature, to be sure, but a state of nature nonetheless—but we have too few options for fulfilling the conditions of explanatory adequacy. Niesen points out that in Kant and the Law of War no space is reserved for leaving normative issues undecided, to be resolved through politics and through additional, positive global institutions.