ABSTRACT
Contemporary liberal cosmopolitan thought on human rights sees the institutionalization of rights as a major indicator of freedom (See Held 1995 and Archibugi 2003). As such it sees in the development of transnational legal forms such as international criminal courts and declarations of legal rights a means of securing human rights as such. As Kurosawa has put it:
Politico-legal institutionalism … treats global justice as a question of redesigning the world system in accordance with international human rights procedures and cosmopolitan principles … politico-legal institutionalists believe that transforming the official system of planetary governance produces the clearest path to global justice.
