The category of cosmopolitan right (vs. content)

When discussing the limits of cosmopolitan right, and the possible need to take it further today, it is important to separate discussions on the limits of the category versus limits on the content of the right of hospitality.

How does Kant characterizes the juridical category of cosmopolitan right? What is the subject matter of cosmopolitan right? Cosmopolitan right is about the principles for interactions between individuals and peoples and between peoples and peoples, given we share a limited globe. On this I largely follow Jeremy Waldron (though not his more substantive conclusions about what accepting this characterization entails). I do not think it is simply about the human rights all persons have or should have; in this I disagree with the restricted focus on individuals' relations to states found in the work of Seyla Benhabib and some others who use cosmopolitan right. This seems to me to restricted or limited definition of cosmopolitan right. Benhabib expands the content of the right of hospitality beyond temporary sojourn, to arguments for a right to obtain membership, so in this sense her use of cosmopolitan right is less limited that Kant's. But this is mainly in terms of the content, not the premises of the category.

Cosmopolitan has (or can be seen as having) some interesting facets that are relevent for examining issues of colonization. These are not just relation between individuals within a state, but relations between peoples. Waldron himself has noted that colonization is an issue that could be discussed in cosmopolitan right, though he mainly uses the category of cosomopolitan right to argue for its irrelevance in a certain sense: we are now unavoidably side by side not only by sharing a globe, but in sharing a local territory; even if we got here by injustice, we now have to come to terms with each other; Waldron argues that this should be in the terms of positive law basically in the context of somethng like the category of Kant's (domestic) constitutional right.

It also seems to me that Habermas (at least until recently) has perhaps misused the term cosmopolitan right. I think Habermas is now trying to expand international right (at least, this is what I think on reading part of the Divided West). The limits of cosmopolitan right become a synonym for issues about the world state and enforceable international law. I do not think that is the whole picture. It is useful to think of "citizens of the world" as more than states, but also concerning peoples and individuals.