This chapter begins with an analysis of Kant’s understanding
of cosmopolitan right. Kant’s discussion focuses on moral and
legal relations which hold among individuals across bounded
communities, and thereby demarcates a novel domain situated
between the law of specific polities on the one hand and customary
international law on the other. Katrin Flikschuh states
this clearly: “Kant recognizes three distinct though related levels
of rightful relation: the ‘Right of a State’ specifies relations
of Right between persons within a state; the ‘Right of Nations’
pertains to relations of Right between states; and ‘the Right
for all nations’ or ‘cosmopolitan Right’ concerns relations of
Right between persons and foreign states” (Flikschuh 2000,
184). The normative dilemmas of political membership are to
be localized within this third sphere of jus cosmopoliticum.