Jürgen Habermas’s conception on cosmopolitan law: philosophical and pragmatic premises of an humanitarian ideal

Abstract

According to Jürgen Habermas, cosmopolitan law must be understood as a new paradigm of international law in the perspective of deliberative democracy. To clarify the discursive and pragmatic categories that justify the author’s position on the subject is the central goal of this work. For this, the main theoretical references of cosmopolitan doctrine are analyzed, in order to show its importance in the re-elaboration of the concept of national sovereignty and in the legitimacy of international law system as a whole. Next, an interpretative strand is suggested according to which the principle of republican constitutionalism and the protection of human rights constitute the main grounds of democracy and cosmopolitan law. Finally, it is presented an overview of the implementation of the project, its advances, setbacks and proposals for reforms in international organizations and institutions, with an emphasis on the United Nations system. The conclusion, in the end, points out that Habermas’s model of democracy is the most compatible with the premises of cosmopolitan doctrine, constituting a critical tool to perform the project in the institutional sphere. The study operates using the qualitative research method, permeated by theoretical-argumentative analysis of the concepts involved.