Institutional Cosmopolitanism and the Duties that Human Rights Impose on Individuals

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Politicologie (BSc)

Strygul, I.V. (2012)

Institutional Cosmopolitanism and the Duties that Human Rights Impose on Individuals

Bachelor thesis | Politicologie (BSc)

Thomas Pogge in his paper “Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty” developed an idea for global institutional reform which contributed significantly to the debate about global justice and promotion of human rights. Pogge attempts to use a strategy that would permit him to go beyond the debate between two extreme approaches to duties, namely libertarianism and utilitarianism. The idea is to invoke strong obligations on the part of individuals by appealing only to their negative duties and not affirming positive duties. In this way, Pogge attempts to broaden the circle of responsibility for the fulfillment of human rights. This thesis will discover how succesful Pogge is in his strategy to do it. It will explore how Pogge adresses within his institutional cosmopolitanism the duties that human rights entail and reveal this way a number of weak points in the theory

the Least Harm Principle