An influential interpretation of Kant’s Doctrine of Right suggests that the relationship between public right and freedom is constitutive rather than instrumental. The focus has been on domestic right and members’ relations to their own state. This has resulted in a statist bias which has not adequately dealt with the fact that Kant regards public right as a system composed of three levels – domestic, international and cosmopolitan right. This article suggests that the constitutive relationship is between all levels of (...) right, on the one hand, and ‘freedom in the external relation’ of all human beings, on the other hand. (shrink)

Kant deploys analogies from private law in describing relations between states. I explore the relation between these analogies and the broader Kantian idea of the distinctively public nature of a rightful condition, in order to explain why states, understood as public things, stand in horizontal, private legal relations without themselves being private. I use this analysis to explore the international law analogues of the three titles of private right, explaining how territory differs from property, treaty from contract and the specific (...) form of status relations between nations. I conclude with a brief discussion of the ongoing relevance of these horizontal relations. (shrink)