Historic injustice in international and cosmopolitan law:Immanuel Kant on war, colonialism and restitution of territory
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Historisches Unrecht im Völker- und Weltbürgerrecht:Immanuel Kant über Krieg, Kolonialismus und die Rückgabe von Territorium
In his writings on international and cosmopolitan law, Kant condemns all unlawful annexations and especially European expansionism. Although his late works develop a staunch anti-colonial position, they contain little advice on how historic injustice is to be set right, especially whether and how claims to the restitution of territory ought to be satisfied. In order to give a systematic answer to the question, I introduce a threefold distinction between stages of international law. It is then argued that while Kant is skeptical about restitutive rights and duties as a matter of natural international law, he defends restitutive duties on the level of transitional international law. It can also be shown that violations of cosmopolitan law trigger more stringent duties of restoration than violations of international law.