On Perpetual Peace

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But by war and its favorable issue, in victory, right is not decided, and though by a treaty of peace this particular war is brought to an end, the state of war, of always finding a new pretext to hostilities, is not terminated. Nor can this be declared wrong, considering the fact that in this state each is the judge of his own case.

Notwithstanding, the obligation which men in a lawless condition have under the natural law, and which requires them to abandon the state of nature, does not quite apply to states under the law of nations, for as states they already have an internal juridical constitution and have thus outgrown compulsion from others to submit to a more extended lawful constitution according to their ideas of right. This is true in spite of the fact that reason, from its throne of supreme moral legislating authority, absolutely condemns war as a legal recourse and makes a state of peace a direct duty, even though peace cannot be established or secured except by a compact among nations.

For these reasons there must be a league of a particular kind, which can be called a league of peace foedus paci ficum , and which would be distinguished from a treaty of peace pactum pacis by the fact that the latter terminates only one war, while the former seeks to make an end of all wars forever.

This league does not tend to any dominion over the power of the state but only to the maintenance and security of the freedom of the state itself and of other states in league with it, without there being any need for them to submit to civil laws and their compulsion, as men in a state of nature must submit. The practicability objective reality of this idea of federation, which should gradually spread to all states and thus lead to perpetual peace, can be proved. For if fortune directs that a powerful and enlightened people can make itself a republic, which by its nature must be inclined to perpetual peace, this gives a fulcrum to the federation with other states so that they may adhere to it and thus secure freedom under the idea of the law of nations.

By more and more such associations, the federation may be gradually extended. We may readily conceive that a people should say, "There ought to be no war among us, for we want to make ourselves into a state; that is, we want to establish a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary power which will reconcile our differences peaceably. The concept of a law of nations as a right to make war does not really mean anything, because it is then a law of deciding what is right by unilateral maxims through force and not by universally valid public laws which restrict the freedom of each one.

The only conceivable meaning of such a law of nations might be that it serves men right who are so inclined that they should destroy each other and thus find perpetual peace in the vast grave that swallows both the atrocities and their perpetrators. For states in their relation to each other, there cannot be any reasonable way out of the lawless condition which entails only war except that they, like individual men, should give up their savage lawless freedom, adjust themselves to the constraints of public law, and thus establish a continuously growing state consisting of various nations civitas gentium , which will ultimately include all the nations of the world.

But under the idea of the law of nations they do not wish this, and reject in practice what is correct in theory. If all is not to be lost, there can be, then, in place of the positive idea of a world republic, only the negative surrogate of an alliance which averts war, endures, spreads, and holds back the stream of those hostile passions which fear the law, though such an alliance is in constant peril of their breaking loose again.

Here, as in the preceding articles, it is not a question of philanthropy but of right. Hospitality means the right of a stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he arrives in the land of another. One may refuse to receive him when this can be done without causing his destruction; but, so long as he peacefully occupies his place, one may not treat him with hostility.

It is not the right to be a permanent visitor that one may demand. A special beneficent agreement would be needed in order to give an outsider a right to become a fellow inhabitant for a certain length of time. It is only a right of temporary sojourn, a right to associate, which all men have. They have it by virtue of their common possession of the surface of the earth, where, as a globe, they cannot infinitely disperse and hence must finally tolerate the presence of each other.

Originally, no one had more right than another to a particular part of the earth. Uninhabitable parts of the earth--the sea and the deserts--divide this community of all men, but the ship and the camel the desert ship enable them to approach each other across these unruled regions and to establish communication by using the common right to the face of the earth, which belongs to human beings generally. The inhospitality of the inhabitants of coasts for instance, of the Barbary Coast in robbing ships in neighboring seas or enslaving stranded travelers, or the inhospitality of the inhabitants of the deserts for instance, the Bedouin Arabs who view contact with nomadic tribes as conferring the right to plunder them, is thus opposed to natural law, even though it extends the right of hospitality, i.

In this way distant parts of the world can come into peaceable relations with each other, and these are finally publicly established by law. Thus the human race can gradually be brought closer and closer to a constitution establishing world citizenship. But to this perfection compare the inhospitable actions of the civilized and especially of the commercial states of our part of the world. The injustice which they show to lands and peoples they visit which is equivalent to conquering them is carried by them to terrifying lengths.

America, the lands inhabited by the Negro, the Spice Islands, the Cape, etc. In East India Hindustan , under the pretense of establishing economic undertakings, they brought in foreign soldiers and used them to oppress the natives, excited widespread wars among the various states, spread famine, rebellion, perfidy, and the whole litany of evils which afflict mankind.

China 9 and Japan Nippon , who have had experience with such guests, have wisely refused them entry, the former permitting their approach to their shores but not their entry, while the latter permit this approach to only one European people, the Dutch, but treat them like prisoners, not allowing them any communication with the inhabitants. The worst of this or, to speak with the moralist, the best is that all these outrages profit them nothing, since all these commercial ventures stand on the verge of collapse, and the Sugar Islands, that place of the most refined and cruel slavery, produces no real revenue except indirectly, only serving a not very praiseworthy purpose of furnishing sailors for war fleets and thus for the conduct of war in Europe.

This service is rendered to powers which make a great show of their piety, and, while they drink injustice like water, they regard themselves as the elect in point of orthodoxy.

Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth has developed so far that a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world, the idea of a law of world citizenship is no high-flown or exaggerated notion. It is a supplement to the unwritten code of the civil and international law, indispensable for the maintenance of the public human rights and hence also of perpetual peace. One cannot flatter oneself into believing one can approach this peace except under the condition outlined here.

A hereditary kingdom is not a state which can be inherited by another state, but the right to govern it can be inherited by another physical person. The state thereby acquires a ruler, but he, as a ruler i. It has not without cause hitherto been doubted whether besides the commands leges praeceptivae and prohibitions leges prohibitivae there could also be permissive laws leges permissivae of pure reason. For laws as such contain a principle of objective practical necessity, while permission implies a principle of the practical contingency of certain actions.

Hence a law of permission would imply constraint to an action to do that to which no one can be constrained. If the object of the law has the same meaning in both cases, this is a contradiction. But in permissive law, which is in question here, the prohibition refers only to the future mode of acquisition of a right e. This possession, though only putative, may be held to be just possessio putative in the transition from the state of nature to a civil state, by virtue of a permissive law included under natural law, even though it is [strictly] illegal.

But, as soon as it is recognized as illegal in the state of nature, a similar mode of acquisition in the subsequent civil state after this transition has occurred is forbidden, and this right to continuing possession would not hold if such a presumptive acquisition had taken place in the civil state.

For in this case it would be an infringement which would have to cease as soon as its illegality was discovered. I have wished only to call the attention of the teachers of natural law to the concept of a lex permissive, which systematic reason affords, particularly since in civil statute law use is often made of it. But in the ordinary use of it, there is this difference: Then it is said, "This or that is forbidden, except Nos.

These exceptions are added to the law only as an afterthought required by our groping around among cases as they arise, and not by any principle. Otherwise the conditions would have had to be introduced into the formula of the prohibition, and in this way it would itself have become a permissive law.

For the possibility of a formula similar to those of mathematics is the only legitimate criterion of a consistent legislation, and without it the so-called ius certum must always remain a pious wish. Otherwise we shall have merely general laws which apply to a great number of cases , but no universal laws which apply to all cases as the concept of law seems to requires.

We ordinarily assume that no one may act inimically toward another except when he has been actively injured by the other. This is quite correct if both are under civil law, for, by entering into such a state, they afford each other the requisite security through the sovereign which has power over both. Man or the people in the state of nature deprives me of this security and injures me, if he is near me, by this mere status of his, even though he does not injure me actively facto ; he does so by the lawlessness of his condition statu iniusto which constantly threatens me.

Therefore, I can compel him either to enter with me into a state of civil law or to remove himself from my neighborhood. The postulate which is basic to all the following articles is: All men who can reciprocally influence each other must stand under some civil constitution. Every juridical constitution which concerns the person who stands under it is one of the following: This division is not arbitrary, being necessary in relation to the idea of perpetual peace.

For if only one state were related to another by physical influence and were yet in a state of nature, war would necessarily follow, and our purpose here is precisely to free ourselves of war. Juridical and hence external freedom cannot be defined, as is usual, by the privilege of doing anything one wills so long as he does not injure another.

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For what is a privilege? It is the possibility of an action so far as one does not injure anyone by it. Then the definition would read: Freedom is the possibility of those actions by which one does no one an injury. One does another no injury he may do as he pleases only if he does another no injury--an empty tautology. Rather, my external juridical freedom is to be defined as follows: It is the privilege to lend obedience to no external laws except those to which I could have given consent.

Similarly, external juridical equality in a state is that relationship among the citizens in which no one can lawfully bind another without at the same time subjecting himself to the law by which he also can be bound. No definition of juridical dependence is needed, as this already lies in the concept of a state's constitution as such. The validity of these inborn rights, which are inalienable and belong necessarily to humanity, is raised to an even higher level by the principle of the juridical relation of man to higher beings, for, if he believes in them, he regards himself by the same principles as a citizen of a supersensuous world.

For in what concerns my freedom, I have no obligation with respect to divine law, which can be acknowledged by my reason alone, except in so far as I could have given my consent to it. Indeed, it is only through the law of freedom of my own reason that I frame a concept of the divine will. With regard to the most sublime reason in the world that I can think of, with the exception of God--say, the great Aeon--when I do my duty in my post as he does in his, there is no reason under the law of equality why obedience to duty should fall only to me and the right to command only to him.

The reason why this principle of equality does not pertain to our relation to God as the principle of freedom does is that this Being is the only one to which the concept of duty does not apply. But with respect to the right of equality of all citizens as subjects, the question of whether a hereditary nobility may be tolerated turns upon the answer to the question as to whether the pre-eminent rank granted by the state to one citizen over another ought to precede merit or follow it.

Now it is obvious that, if rank is associated with birth, it is uncertain whether merit political skill and integrity will also follow; hence it would be as if a favorite without any merit were given command. The general will of the people would never agree to this in the original contract, which is the principle of all law, for a nobleman is not necessarily a noble man. With regard to the nobility of office as we might call the rank of the higher magistracy which one must earn by merit, this rank does not belong to the person as his property; it belongs to his post, and equality is not thereby infringed, because when a man quits his office he renounces the rank it confers and re-enters into the class of his fellows.

The lofty epithets of "the Lord's anointed But this seems to me without good reason. Far from inspiring a monarch with pride, they should rather render him humble, providing he possesses some intelligence which we must assume. They should make him reflect that he has taken an office too great for man, an office which is the holiest God has ordained on earth, to be the trustee of the rights of men, and that he must always stand in dread of having in some way injured this "apple of God's eye.

Mallet du Pan, in his pompous but empty and hollow language, pretends to have become convinced, after long experience, of the truth of Pope's well-known saying:. Whate'er is best administered, is best. If that means that the best-administered state is the state that is best administered, he has, to make use of Swift's expression, "cracked a nut to come at a maggot. Whoever reigned better than a Titus and a Marcus Aurelius? Yet one was succeeded by a Domitian and the other by a Commodus.

This could never have happened under a good constitution, for their unworthiness for this post was known early enough and also the power of the ruler was sufficient to have excluded them. A Bulgarian prince gave the following answer to the Greek emperor who good-naturedly suggested that they settle their difference by a duel: It would not ill become a people that has just terminated a war to decree, besides a day of thanksgiving, a day of fasting in order to ask heaven, in the name of the state, for forgiveness for the great iniquity which the human race still goes on to perpetuate in refusing to submit to a lawful constitution in their relation to other peoples, preferring, from pride in their independence, to make use of the barbarous means of war even though they are not able to attain what is sought, namely, the rights of a single state.

The thanksgiving for victory won during the war, the hymns which are sung to the God of Hosts in good Israelitic manner , stand in equally sharp contrast to the moral idea of the Father of Men. For they not only show a sad enough indifference to the way in which nations seek their rights, but in addition express a joy in having annihilated a multitude of men or their happiness.

Perpetual peace

To call this great empire by the name it gives itself, namely "China" and not " Sina " or anything like that, we have only to refer to [A. According to the note of Professor [Johann Eberhard] Fischer of Petersburg, there is no definite word used in that country as its name; the most usual word is "Kin," i. Accordingly, the emperor is called "the king of gold," that is, king of the most splendid country in the world.

In the empire itself, this word may be pronounced Chin , while because of the 'guttural sound the Italian missionaries may have called it Kin. This suggests many reflections concerning the antiquity of this wonderful state, in comparison with that of Hindustan at the time of its union with Tibet and thence with Japan.

We see, on the contrary, that the name " Sina " or " Tshina ," said to have been used by the neighbors of the country, suggests nothing. He speaks of republican Republikanisch states rather than of democratic ones , which he defines to have representative governments, in which the legislature is separated from the executive. He does not discuss universal suffrage , which is vital to modern democracy and quite important to some modern theorists; his commentators dispute whether it is implied by his language.

Most importantly, he does not regard republican governments as sufficient by themselves to produce peace: Unlike some modern theorists, Kant claims not that republics will be at peace only with each other, but are more pacific than other forms of government in general.

The general idea that popular and responsible governments would be more inclined to promote peace and commerce became one current in the stream of European thought and political practice. It was one element of the American policy of George Canning and the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston.

Wells , although other planks in Kant's platform had even more influence. Kant's essay is a three-legged stool besides the preliminary disarmament. Various projects for perpetual peace have relied on one leg — either claiming that it is sufficient to produce peace, or that it will create the other two.

In , Norman Angell relied only upon the second leg, arguing that modern commerce made war necessarily unprofitable, even for the technically victorious country, and therefore the possibility of successful war was The Great Illusion. James Mill had described the British Empire as outdoor relief for the upper classes; Joseph Schumpeter argued that capitalism made modern states inherently peaceful and opposed to conquest and imperialism , which economically favored the old aristocratic elites.

This theory has been well developed in recent years. Mansfield and Pollins, writing in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, summarize a large body of empirical work which, for the most part, supports the thesis. On the other hand, moving beyond economic interdependence to the issue of economic freedom within states, Erik Gartzke has found empirical evidence that economic freedom as measured by the Fraser Institute Economic Freedom Index is about fifty times more effective than democracy in reducing violent conflict.

The third leg is the old idea that a confederation of peaceable princes could produce a perpetual peace. Kant had distinguished his league from a universal state; Clarence Streit proposed, in Union Now , a union of the democratic states modelled after the Constitution of the United States. He argued that trade and the peaceable ways of democracy would keep this Union perpetual, and counted on the combined power of the Union to deter the Axis from war. In " A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace ", part IV of Principles of International Law —89 , Jeremy Bentham proposed that disarmament, arbitration, and the renunciation of colonies would produce perpetual peace, [5] thus relying merely on Kant's preliminary articles and on none of the three main points; contrary to the modern theorists, he relied on public opinion, even against the absolute monarchy in Sweden.

Secretly, that is, statesmen and politicians can take the idea of peace seriously, since it will never be associated with them. As such, the project brings together theorists and practitioners, such as diplomats, policy experts, philosophers, and artists, in order to revisit 21st century prospects for international peace through Kant's essay, in order to "change people's minds, get them to take the idea seriously, start to imagine what it would be like to live in a peaceful society".

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