ABSTRACT
This chapter defends the view, first developed by Immanuel Kant, that international law and domestic justice are fundamentally connected. It reconstructs and examines Kant's theory as put forth in his famous essay Perpetual Peace. The chapter addresses the controversy regarding the essay's structure and organization, and argues that Kant developed a normative philosophy of international law not merely a practical political program. It shows that Kant's reason for respecting states stemmed from concerns about individual freedom, not from holistic claims about the state as a moral person. The chapter presents and defends the two Kantian arguments for the international human rights imperative. It then examines the nature of the liberal alliance proposed by Kant and explains the place of war within the theory, showing an inconsistency in Kant's views on war, and proposing a modified version. The chapter defends the Kantian theory of international law against recent challenges to the idea that justice should be a component of international legitimacy.
