On Cosmopolitan Law in Kantian Legal Philosophy.

An analysis of the notion of universal hospitality in the light of the current context

Abstract

This paper focuses on the notion of universal hospitality, formulated in Kant’s essay Towards Perpetual Peace [Zum ewigen Frieden, 1795], a notion linked to the problem of the legal regulation of international conflicts. Offering an analysis of the Third Definitive Article for Perpetual Peace, and studying the interpretation proposed by Mario Caimi in an article entitled “On the interpretation of the third definitive Article of Kant’s essay Zum ewigen Frieden” (1997), we will clarify the meaning of the notion of hospitality. Finally, we will consider to what extent this proposal has been materialized in current institutions of public international law, in order to identify the achievements and the remaining challenges in the construction of a cosmopolitan consciousness.