The Republican Foundations of International Law

Abstract

This paper suggests that republican principles embedded in international law since the seventeenth century still provide the most persuasive argument for its binding authority. Law should be obeyed when it is just; law is just when it serves the common good; and the common good emerges most clearly from free deliberation among equals. This means that there will be no justice within or between states without popular sovereignty, the separation of powers, the rule of law, democratic elections, individual human rights, and the other checks and balances of fully functioning republican government. The only just basis of international law is, has been, and always will be the settled perceptions of republican deliberation, as developed in the public sphere.

Keywords: international law, republicanism, legal history, legal theory

JEL Classification: K33