The European Union and Kant's Idea of Cosmopolitan Right: Why the EU is Not a Kantian Cosmopolitan Federation.

When surveying the literature involved in cosmopolitan thought it is often common to see reference to the idea that the European Union symbolizes a prelude toward more regional and global forms of cosmopolitan political order. As many cosmopolitans argue, the European Union, and the legal and political institutions that have evolved from its founding in 1951, constitute something like a post-national order and that the EU example acts as a normative and practical source for future cosmopolitan innovations. Furthermore, it is also common to see reference to the political works of Immanuel Kant within these discussions and for many cosmopolitans to allude to theoretical, historical and practical links between Kant's idea for a federation of independent states and the formulation of the European Union. In particular, many cosmopolitan thinkers allude to an underlying Kantian rationalization behind the normative structure of the EU and often suggest that many of Kant's theoretical and political prescriptions take applied form within the context of the EU. However, I believe that this relationship between Kant and the EU remains a rather underdeveloped assumption that is problematic. This is because there has been little examination of Kant's prescription for a cosmopolitan federation of states and its applied consanguinity with the current structure of the EU. In this regard, although many cosmopolitans suggest a link between Kantian federation and the EU, it has not been teased out fully in terms of Kant's cosmopolitanism and there is compelling evidence to suggest that this relationship is not as robust as it is generally assumed. It is in response to this deficit that this paper will critically explore the link between Kant's vision for a cosmopolitan federation and relate it to the EU as it is currently constituted. By doing so, it will argue that a link between Kant's theory and EU practice can only be reasonably claimed to exist at the level of Kant's international right and that the EU remains rather impoverished in regards to Kant's more radical concept of cosmopolitan right. In this regard, the paper will argue that there are only very limited signs of cosmopolitan order within the current structure of the EU. Although the main purpose of this paper will be to challenge current assumptions about 'Kant's Europe,' it will nevertheless also serve a heuristic purpose. This is because, by highlighting the contrariety between theory and practice, it is possible to locate key normative discrepancies that would need to be resolved before a more Kantian inspired cosmopolitan federation could be realized. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]