4
victims, so also do states who violate international law merit punishment and owe their
victims reparations.
One final “Kantian” feature of the legalist’s model relates to the relationship
between persons and their governments and between independent political communities
and a “world government.” According to Kant, subjects have no right to rebel against
their sovereign, however imperfect the actual constitution of the state and however
ineffectively or corruptly the sovereign’s power is wielded.
4
Subjects, in effect, are under
a duty to regard their empirical rulers as if they lived up to the practical idea of a
legitimate government.
5
According to the simple legalist model, states are under a
parallel duty to regard the existing United Nations as if it perfectly corresponded to the
idea of a legitimate world government (or legitimate Kantian international federation).
Although this view is not held universally (the Bush Administration, for example, rejects
it), some international lawyers view the international system more or less precisely as this
legalist’s model requires: war is categorically forbidden, except in self-defense
(interpreted very narrowly), or when authorized by the Security Council. States who use
force without Council authorization, even to meet what those states believe to be a grave
threat (but one not sufficiently imminent to fall within the self-defense exception), do
wrong in the highest degree—and, therefore, merit punishment.
4
All references in this essay to works by Immanuel Kant refer to works found in
Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, translated and edited by Mary J. Gregor, The
Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, general editors Paul Guyer and Allen
W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. We will cite specific works
of Kant by their familiar short titles and by pagination corresponding to the Berlin
Academy Edition by volume: page number. Kant, Doctrine of Right 6:318-323.
5
Kant, Doctrine of Right, 6:319.
Convention