Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch - Emmanuel Kant (1795) - Measures to ensure the cessation of hostilities between states

Lucrece A.

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Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch - Emmanuel Kant (1795) - Measures to ensure the cessation of hostilities between states

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Kant, Perpetual Peace, peace, international community, international relations, Locke, Hobbes, state of nature, communication policy

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Abstract

Kant is optimistic and believes that perpetual peace between nations is possible and will be attained in the future. He sees peace as a gradual process. Therefore, he describes a peace program constructed in 2 parts : 6 preliminary articles listing the steps that should be taken immediately by nations. These articles are necessary but insufficient to inspire perpetual peace. That is why, in a second section, he lists 3 definite articles, which are sufficient conditions for perpetual peace and describes a federation of nations. Indeed, Kant's long-term goal is to establish a federation of free republican states concerned with regulating disputes among its members. For Kant, statesmen are morally obliged to seek the conditions he describes in this essay. Therefore, he shares the view with the English School of IR Theory that morality should play a role in international relations.

E. Kant's impact on the English School of international relations theory
E. Kant and H. Bull comparable approaches to international relations
The concept of international community

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[...] Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch - Emmanuel Kant (1795) - Measures to ensure the cessation of hostilities between states In this essay Kant proposes a series of measures to ensure the cessation of hostilities between states and to establish the foundations of a durable peace. Kant is optimistic and believes that perpetual peace between nations is possible and will be attained in the future. He sees peace as a gradual process therefore he describes a peace program constructed in 2 parts: 6 preliminary articles listing the steps that should be taken immediately by nations. [...]

[...] Those articles advocate for: the end of imperialism (governments can only rule when they have a contract with the people), stationing armies and credit systems (Kant predicts that it will foster the scarcity of resources, one of the most common causes of war). In the last 2 articles the author prohibits military interventionism and states that if a war occurred all belligerents should fight honorably. In this essay Kant adopts the same rhetoric as Locke and Hobbes, proposing a path out of the "state of nature", meaning the state of war, to peace first through a social contract between the people and their government. And in a second time through a covenant between states themselves. [...]

[...] Whereas in an international society, as defined by Bull, is characterized only by a shared view of proper procedures, and by procedural norms, not by shared ends. To sum up, the ties between community members are stronger than those between society members. Indeed, community is a stronger word as it carries a sense of shared values, identities, rights and obligations between members. For example: The United Nations is an international society and we could argue that the European Union is on its way to become an international community. [...]

[...] On the 19th of March, Bush declared war and a United States-led coalition invaded Iraq and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. Here, the UN did not fulfill its role of maintaining peace. However it remains an international society and a League of Nations, it even goes further than Kant had anticipated, as in theory this organism can judge and punish a state for a transgression of international treatises concerning peace, and can even use force against it. In his discourses before and during the intervention, Bush urged the "international community" to go to Iraq. [...]

[...] However, in his article Buzan confronts this idea. To do so he looks at the effect of the war on the western international community through its impact on NATO, the EU, the UN, the WTO and public opinion. He further argues that, though there were tensions between the US and its allies and the European Union and the big antiwar demonstrations showed a split between European and American public, there was no fundamental break in the identity shared by the Atlantic Community. [...]

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