Abstract
The legitimacy of institutions seems to be better guaranteed at the national than at the global level. Whether international institutions come to decisions and whether these decisions are enforced seems to be more dependant on political power relations than on a shared legitimising framework. Even if such a shared legitimising framework is absent at the national level, there are at least mechanisms to make institutional decisions and their enforcement possible, so that this absence is reversed at the meta-level. In the chapter it will be argued that the lack of legitimacy at the global level is, nevertheless, not an argument for a global state. Legitimising processes at the national and global level cannot be considered comparable and are to some extent complementary. This complementarity will analysed in terms of a different relationship of law and morality at both levels.
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Notes
- 1.
“Citizenship itself can be acquired in two distinct ways: (1) by birth and (2) by immigration. Citizenship by birth can itself be acquired in two ways: (1a) by being born within the territory of the state, regardless of the status of one’s parents (jus soli); or (1b) by being born to parents, at least one of whom is a citizen of the state (jus sanguis)” (Cole 2000: 32).
- 2.
“Für Staaten im Verhältnisse unter einander kann es nach der Vernunft keine andere Art geben, aus dem gesetzlosen Zustande, der lauter Krieg enthält, herauszukommen, als daß sie eben so wie einzelne Menschen ihre wilde (gesetzlose) Freiheit aufgeben, sich zu öffentlichen Zwangsgesetzen bequemen und so einen (freilich immer wachsenden) Völkerstaat (civitas gentium), der zuletzt alle Völker der Erde befassen würde, bilden. Da sie dieses aber nach ihrer Idee vom Völkerrecht durchaus nicht wollen, mithin, was in thesi richtig ist, in hypothesi verwerfen, so kann an die Stelle der positiven Idee einer Weltrepublik (wenn nicht alles verloren werden soll) nur das negative Surrogat eines den Krieg abwehrenden, bestehenden und sich immer ausbreitenden Bundes den Strom der rechtscheuenden, feindseligen Neigung aufhalten, doch mit beständiger Gefahr ihres Ausbruchs (Furor impius intus—fremit horridus ore cruento. Virgil)*[2]” (Kant, Werke VIII: 357).
- 3.
“For instance, when the Sandinista government of Nicaragua (taking advantage of its acceptance of compulsory jurisdiction before the Court) initiated proceedings against the United States for mining its harbours and lending assistance to insurgents in 1984, the United States attempted to withdraw the dispute from the Court’s competence and, having failed to achieve this result, defied the Court’s ruling. There is little, if anything, the Court could achieve in face of such defiance” (Held 1996: 95–96).
- 4.
“Bei moralischen Fragestellungen bildet die Menschheit bzw. Eine unterstellte Republik von Weltbürgern das Bezugssystem für die Begründung von Regelungen, die im gleichmäßigen Interesse aller liegen. Die ausschlaggebenden Gründe müssen im Prinzip von jedermann akzeptiert werden können. Bei ethisch-politischen Fragestellungen bildet die Lebensform “je unseres” politischen Gemeinwesens das Bezugssystem für die Begründung von Regelungen, die als Ausdruck eines bewußten kollektiven Selbstverständnisses gelten” (Habermas 1992: 139).
- 5.
“From the minority treaties associated with the establishment of the League of Nations after the first World War, to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and subsequent Covenants on Rights (1966), it has been recognised that individuals have rights and obligations over and above those set down in their own judicial and authority systems (see Vincent 1992: 269–92)” (Held 1996: 101).
- 6.
“Human rights deliberately leave significant leeway open in the choice of a constitution or of economic or social rules” (Gosepath 2004:162).
- 7.
David Held thinks that the UN Charter model “has provided a vision, valuable in spite of all its limitations, of a new world order based upon a meeting of governments and, under appropriate circumstances, of a supranational presence in world affairs championing human rights. Indeed, this vision, if carried to its logical extreme, challenges the whole principle that humankind should be organized as a society of sovereign states above all else. For if the rights of each person can be asserted on the world political stage over and against the claims of a person’s state, and if each person’s duties can be proclaimed irrespective of his or her position as a subject or citizen of a state, then, as Bull has clearly stated, ‘the position of the state as a body sovereign over its citizens, and entitled to command heir obedience, has been subject to challenge, and the structure of the society of sovereign states has been placed in jeopardy’ ” (Held 1996: 88–89). The logical consequence of this vision, however, can be formulated otherwise: the sovereignty of each state is embedded in the general values of human rights.
- 8.
This right of all moral persons can be translated into a “principle of minimal transnational justice”: “According to this principle, members of societies of multiple domination have a legitimate claim to the resources necessary to establish a (minimally) justified democratic order within their political community and that this community be a participant of (roughly) equal standing in the global economic and political system” (Forst 2004: 182).
- 9.
“International law has recognized powers and constraints, and rights and duties, which transcend the claims of nation-states and which, while they may not be backed by institutions with coercive powers of enforcement, nonetheless have far-reaching consequences” (Held 1996: 101).
- 10.
The invasion in Iraq has taught us that, even if the protection of human rights had been the main argument for intervention, an external imposition of a democratic order makes no sense. A government that is not able to guarantee the lives of its citizens is not in the position to defend the values of human rights.
- 11.
Jürgen Habermas makes the following observation: “Aus historischen Gründen besteht in vielen Ländern eine Fusion der Mehrheitskultur mit jener allgemeinen politischen Kultur, die den Anspruch stellt, von allen Staatsbürgern, ungeachtet ihrer kulturellen Herkunft, anerkennt zuwerden” (Habermas 1996: 141). To prevent the domination of a majority culture, he pleads for a dissociation of the shared political culture from “der Ebene der Subkulturen und ihrer vorpolitisch geprägten Identitäten” (ibid.:141). The domination of a majority culture, however, is not prevented by a dissociation of the political and the cultural domain, but rather by the guarantee that each subculture has access to the political domain. This is possible only if the relevant subcultures are prepared to organize themselves politically.
- 12.
“Andererseits müssen die Bindungskräfte der gemeinsamen politischen Kultur, die um so abstrakter wird, je mehr Subkulturen sie auf einen gemeinsamen Nenner bringt, stark genug bleiben, um die Staatsbürgernation nicht auseinanderfallen zu lassen …” (Habermas 1996: 175).
- 13.
J. Raz rightly maintains that “Multiculturalism, while endorsing the perpetuation of several cultural groups in a single political society, also requires the existence of a common culture … Members of all cultural groups … will have to acquire a common political language and conventions of conduct to be able to participate effectively in the competition for resources and the protection of group as well as individual interests in a shared political arena” (Raz 1994: 77). This “common culture”, however, presupposes some general values that are shared by all cultures: freedom and equality.
- 14.
I. Kant differentiates between “der öffentliche Gebrauch der Vernunft” and “der Privatgebrauch derselben” (Kant 1985: 56–57). In this “public use of reason” the citizen is an out-sider: the “Gelehrter” who serves universal reason. In the “private use of reason” the citizen is the in-sider, who plays her role within the political community.
- 15.
“…so ist die Idee eines Weltbürgerrechts keine phantastische und überspannte Vorstellungsart des Rechts, sondern eine nothwendige Ergänzung des ungeschriebenen Codex sowohl des Staats- als Völkerrechts zum öffentlichen Menschenrechte überhaupt und so zum ewigen Frieden, zu dem man sich in der continuirlichen Annäherung zu befinden nur unter dieser Bedingung schmeicheln darf” (I. Kant Werke VIII: 340).
- 16.
On the one hand, this international dimension is recognised by Francis Fukuyama: “Moreover, for Americans, their Declaration of Independence and Constitution are not just the basis of a legal political order on the North American continent; they are the embodiment of universal values and have a significance for humankind that goes well beyond the borders of the United States” (Fukuyama 2005: 154). Yet, he confronts this position with the idea that the will of the people is the highest authority: “Decisions by sovereign liberal democracies that are correct procedurally are not guaranteed to be just or in accordance with these higher principles” (Ibid.: 155).
- 17.
This opinion, however, is disqualified by Francis Fukuyama as an European illusion: “The problem with the European position is that while such a higher realm of liberal democratic values might theoretically exist, it is very imperfectly embodied in any given international institution” (Fukuyama 2005: 156).
- 18.
“The “international community” is a fiction insofar as any enforcement capability depends entirely on the action of individual nation-states” (Fukuyama 2005: 157).
- 19.
Fukuyama gives a couple of examples concerning the United States: “Much of this centered on European charges of American unilateralism on issues like the treatment of al-Qaida prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, the American abrogation of the antiballistic missile treaty, Washington’s failure to join the International Criminal Court, and, earlier, the Bush administration’s announcement that it was withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. The most serious rift, however, emerged over Washington’s intention to attack Iraq in order to effect “regime change” and eliminate its WMD” (Fukuyama 2005: 142).
- 20.
Habermas’ discourse theory of law is an example of this position. “Erst nach dieser Weichenstellung kann ich das System der Rechte mit Hilfe des Diskursprinzips so begründen, daß klar wird, warum sich private und öffentliche Autonomie, Menschenrechte und Volkssouveränität wechselseitig voraussetzen” (Habermas 1992: 111–112). “Diese behält gewiß, wie der Rechtsstaat selber, einen dogmatischen Kern: die Idee der Autonomie, wonach Menschen nur in dem Maße als freie Subjekte handeln, wie sie genau den Gesetzen gehorchen, die sie sich gemäß ihren intersubjektiv gewonnenen Einsichten selber geben” (ibid.: 537).
- 21.
Of course, this view opposes John Rawls’s “Fact of Reasonable Pluralism”: “A basis feature of liberal democracy is the fact of reasonable pluralism—the fact that a plurality of conflicting comprehensive doctrines, both religious and nonreligious (or secular), is the normal result of the culture of its free institutions. Different and irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines will be united in supporting the idea of equal liberty for all doctrines and the idea of the separation of church and state. Even if each might prefer that the others not exist, the plurality of sects is the greatest assurance each has of its own equal liberty” (Rawls 2000: 124). If Rawls remarks that “They cannot argue that being in a relation of equality with other peoples is a western ideal…” (ibid.: 122), it appears to be possible to speak about ‘equality’ independent of the cultural context. In my Das Gesetz der multiukulturellen Gesellschaft (Cobben 2002), I develop freedom and equality as absolute values that precede all cultural differences.
- 22.
For Francis Fukuyama, the lack of enforceable obligations is only a disadvantage: “A great deal of both international and national law coming out of Europe consists of what amounts to social policy wish lists that are completely unenforceable. Europeans justify these kinds of laws by saying they are expressions of social objectives; Americans reply, correctly in my view, that such unenforceable aspirations undermine the rule of law itself” (Fukuyama 2005: 157).
- 23.
Instead of this dialectics between domestic and international law, Th. Pogge proposes a intermediary position: “What I am proposing instead is not the idea of a centralized world state, which is really a variant of the preeminent-state idea. Rather, the proposal is that governmental authority—or sovereignty—be widely dispersed in the vertical dimension. … Thus, persons should be citizens of, and govern themselves through, a number of political units of various sizes, without any one political unit being dominant and thus occupying the traditional role of the state” (Pogge 2004: 178). However, these political units must derive their legitimacy from a central body. I think that this central body can only be identified as the state.
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Cobben, P. (2013). On the Relation Between Law and Morality in a National and a Global Perspective. In: Merle, JC. (eds) Spheres of Global Justice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5998-5_19
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