Immanuel Kant and Jurisdiction in International Law
This chapter discusses Immanuel Kant’s notion of jurisdiction. Kant’s work contains several thoughts and ideas on the scope of regulatory state activities that may well be read as pertaining to the exercise of imperium in the sense of jurisdiction how it is commonly used today. In his philosophical sketch on Perpetual Peace, Kant proceeded from a traditional understanding of jurisdiction as coexistence between states as a cornerstone of international law. In this traditional view, jurisdiction is nothing more than a reasonable mutual delimitation of jurisdictional spheres based on territoriality or personality. Yet, at the same time, he also developed a visionary idea of cosmopolitan law which would significantly affect the traditional rules of jurisdiction, especially the personality principle through the emergence of individual rights. Kant’s approach thus foreshadowed a development towards an anthropocentric international legal order epitomized by the concepts of human rights and universal jurisdiction.