Kant and Habermas on International Law

The purpose of this article is to present a critical assessment of J ürgen H abermas' reformulation of K ant's philosophical project T oward P erpetual P eace . S pecial attention is paid to how well H abermas' proposed multi‐level institutional model fares in comparison with K ant's proposal—a league of states. I argue that H abermas' critique of the league fails in important respects, and that his proposal faces at least two problems. The first is that it implies a problematic asymmetry between powerful and less powerful states. The second is that it entails creating a global police force that has an obligation to intervene against egregious human rights violations worldwide, and that this seems incompatible with the idea that every person has an innate right to freedom. There are important normative constraints relevant for institutional design in the international domain that H abermas does not take sufficiently into account. However, this does not mean that K ant's league cannot be supplemented with more comprehensive forms of institutional cooperation between states. On the basis of my assessment of the multi‐level model, I propose a hybrid model combining elements from K ant and H abermas.