ABSTRACT
Positive law does not have an independent internal morality contrary to the claims of the cosmopolitans. The pragmatists are right to remind us of this fact. But the pragmatist denunciation of all external ethical positions leaves us devoid of value in a world where meaning and value has been drained. Law is linked with justice in a paradoxical way. When law violates its established procedures; when it does not recognise or uphold rights already given; when it violates basic principles of equality and dignity – the law acts unjustly according to its own internal criteria. We can call this first type of injustice, legal injustice; it is negative, internal to the law and operates when the law does not match its own standards and principles. But throughout history, another type of transcendent justice has appeared, to which the law as a whole is accountable. The law of the polis has been judged from the position of the cosmos, with its universal but absent principles and found wanting. Let us call it ‘cosmopolitan’ justice. What are its principles today?
