The international state system as a background for liberal political theory

The international state system is, on the one hand, a real political order, in which states endowed with very different economic, military, and political power generally define and pursue their respective interests independently of each other. On the other hand, this system contains also a normative order within which states recognize each other as equal and sovereign legal entities. The normative validity of international law is derived from treaties voluntarily concluded between states, from customary law emerging from general patterns of state practices in international relations, and from a consensus in juridical opinion.

In contemporary liberal philosophy this normative order is often regarded as a barrier to the effective solution of global problems. This is most obviously so with regard to questions of global distributive justice. Economic resources, individual security, opportunities, and liberties are distributed extremely unevenly across states. From a liberal perspective, it is hard to justify that the arbitrary fact of being born in a particular state determines to a large extent individual well-being and autonomy (Carens 1987). A global political order of sovereign states is also an obstacle for addressing problems that affect populations across state borders, including environmental dangers such as the depletion of the ozone layer, global epidemics such as AIDS, or refugee movements. With regard to all these problems, a constellation of states that legitimately acts to maximize their interests independently of each other leads to prisoners' dilemmas.