Kant's Cosmopolitanism and the Systematic Structure of Public Right

In recent studies on Kant's cosmopolitanism there has been a growing and ever more prevailing tendency to move away from the traditional interest which basically involved the theory of a world order in favor of a conception centered on cosmopolitan right as the right to visit. This shift of Kant research towards a restricted notion of Weltbürgerrecht hindered a full acknowledgement of the broader concept of it. This paper sets out to draw attention back to the original motif of Kantian cosmopolitanism, which still expresses its own primary value on the idea of cosmopolitan constitution. Focusing on the systematic connections within public right, and especially its relations with ius gentium, I challenge Kant’s cosmopolitan philosophy through the exegesis of two closely linked paragraphs from Doctrine of Right and Perpetual Peace. My aim is to show that, although the legal requirements of the broad concept of cosmopolitanism may pose difficulties and delineate a genuine ‘systematic contradiction’, they do not actually invalidate its systematic structure at all. Taking into consideration the possibility to escape the ‘systematic contradiction’, this paper defends the internal coherence of Kantian ius publicum as well as the validity of a fully cosmopolitan reading of his political philosophy.