When studying the history of ideas that we today tend to associate with the term global governance, especially in the area of peace and security, it seems that many of these ideas that have become common knowledge actually refer back to theoretical concepts and frameworks provided by Hugo Grotius and Immanuel Kant. In particular, their thoughts on international law and a system of sovereign states appear to have contributed to the normative foundation of a development who’s very prominent historical accounts so far has for instance been the establishment of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), and more recently the founding of the League of Nations.
While Grotius and Kant’s writings greatly reflect the historical context of their time regarding the style of writing, reference systems, or underpinning assumptions, both authors have in common that at the same time they tended to ‘transcend’ their time in the sense that the universality of their ideas went beyond predominant perceptions and realities.
According to Kant, Perpetual Peace in the sense of global and lasting peace among sovereign states is achievable or most likely under a federal system of free republican states, whereas the republican state forms the core and necessary precondition of this pacific federation. After Kant, a republican state system is crucial as it allows on the one hand for economic exchange among nations which will help to overcome hostilities and bring prosperity; on the other hand, a republican form of the state will decrease the likelihood to refer to war as political instrument in the international realm, since it is not in the interest of the majority of people. By republican state, Kant means a form of governance that is characterized by a separation of power of the legislative and the executive branch of government . Same as Hobbes in Leviathan, Kant presumes that the state of (human) nature is the state of war. However, Kant comes to a different conclusion. Being a protagonist within the movement of Enlightenment, he beliefs in the rational potential of humanity that allows it to develop beyond the state of nature towards a more peaceful form of coexistence. The willing subjugation of the domestic, international and cosmopolitan sphere under the rule of law (jus civitates, jus gentium and cosmopolitan right), is hence a possible result of humanity’s rational power. Moreover, it would be the precondition for peaceful coexistence on the domestic, international and cosmopolitan level. For Kant, the state is “a society of human beings”. Its sovereignty is given by the people and needs to be respected by the other states that join in this system of equal sovereigns.
Apart from inequality and hegemony in the international realm, both of which cannot be justified after Kant as they inherently foster war, peace and the sovereignty of the state is endangered by referring to states as things rather than moral persons, by standing armies, as well as by the financial dependency (credit) of state on sources within or external of the state that undermine its sovereignty by making it very vulnerable to mistakes of other actors. In general, the system at all levels should be characterized by “juridicial freedom”, “juridicial equality” and “lawful coercion”, implying that everybody has the right to only adhere to laws he consented to and that laws apply to everyone equally. Otherwise, the only way for states to defend their right is in fact war, which again is not apt to defend a right . Overall, only legal coercion can re-direct human nature to be peaceful out of self-interest.
While Kant focuses on right and sovereignty from the perspective of sustainable peace, Grotius in On the Law of War and Peace (Ch 1) on the other hand looks at the question whether there are just wars and what determines the justice of wars. According to Grotius, war is not necessarily related to anarchy but on the contrary there is a lawfulness even concerning war. War is defined as “the state of contending parties, considered as such”. It be morally justified as in the case of self defense. The normative basis for just and unjust is to be found in an assumed universal law of nature that is part of human reason and nature, and gives authority to customary law. Particularly interesting – when looking at the current global governance structure in the area of peace and security – is the notion, that war is the outcome of structure rather than anarchy, that there might be cases of war that can be called by negative definition “just” (“not unjust wars”), and that war might be a means towards achieving peace. Especially in view of UN Missions underpinned by the Responsibility to Protect- Concept and the Chapter 8 of the UN Charter, both of which reflect a re-definition of sovereignty and intervention (just war), it seems that Grotius idea of lawfulness of war is ever more present today.
The actuality of concepts of Kant and Grotius raises the question what is new about the idea of global governance. When looking at the history of ideas, it appears that it is not the ideas underpinning the current system and discourse on global governance that are new. Rather, one could argue that there is a historical moment of re-interpretation and re-weighing of a prevalent set of ideas or assumptions that is taking place – be it in form of the ‘democratic peace theorem’, the call for new forms of governance in the face of an assumed new degree of globalization, or the re-definition of sovereignty in view of the state’s responsibility to protect.
Literature:
Immanuel Kant, Zum Ewigen Frieden (1795).
Hugo Grotius, On the Rights of War and Peace (Book 1)
