Between naturalism and cosmopolitan law

hospitality as transitional global justice

Garrett Wallace Brown

pp. 99-123

in: Gideon Baker (ed), Hospitality and world politics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

The above quote by Francisco de Vitoria upholds an idea that has consistently underpinned the moral requirements of cosmopolitan legal theory. It is a principle that demands that justice should be a universal and equal concern for all humanity one which should be impartially applied at the global level as a normative commandment for all human law. It is in relation to this cosmopolitan vision that Vitoria uttered these words, maintaining the normative idea that "the whole world has the power to enact laws".¹ In other words, Vitoria argued that natural reason, public reason and law are compatible, consistent and necessary at the global level; that the ethical treatment of all human beings is a moral requirement of universal justice and that it is a further requirement for international law to mirror this sense of mutually consistent justice.