ABSTRACT
Almost everyone worldwide is simultaneously constituted as a participant in global civil society (GCS) and also as a participant in the society of sovereign states (SOSS). In the former they hold the status of civilians, the possessors of sets of fundamental first-generation human rights; in the latter they are constituted as citizens in sovereign states. That they are participants in both has produced for them a number of what often appear to be intractable problems. Engagement with these problems is at the very heart of contemporary international politics. A failure to understand this set of problems will result in an overall failure to understand contemporary international relations. Let us examine this more closely.
