The Global Ethics of a Cosmopolitan Approach to Human Protection

Abstract

This chapter examines the key tenets—and limitations—associated with a cosmopolitan approach to human protection. It argues that the principles of collective responsibility, conditional state sovereignty, cosmopolitan criminal justice and, in addition, the provision of delineated and limited thresholds for intervention all underpin this cosmopolitan typology. Furthermore, the chapter explores the relationship between cosmopolitan human protection and the broader ethical principles of human emancipation, atrocity prevention and human security. It also critiques both the ethical and institutional variants of cosmopolitan human protection and, importantly, outlines a number of broader weaknesses symptomatic of this cosmopolitan typology. These include its focus on the symptoms and aftermath of conflict, realist, liberal and liberal-nationalist opposition to the scope and demands associated with ‘cosmopolitan’ criminal justice and the proposal to codify humanitarian intervention in international law.