Introduction

Eighteenth-century merchants of the Dutch East India Company doing business with Japan had to stay on a tiny artificial island in the Nagasaki bay called Dejima, the size of two soccer fields. There was a bridge to the mainland that could be crossed only by a very select group of Japanese officials, interpreters, and prostitutes, all of whom stood under the strict oversight of the shogunate. Except for a yearly visit to the shogun, the Dutch were not allowed on the mainland. During part of the 1790s, the Japanese allowed only one Dutch ship per year. These arrangements actually represented an exceptionally privileged status for the Dutch traders. They were the only Europeans who were allowed any contact with Japan at all.

In Europe, there was debate over the question whether the Japanese had a right to close their country to foreigners in this way, or whether foreigners had a right to enter territories abroad. Kant defends the Japanese policy. He discusses the matter in his treatment of what he terms “cosmopolitan right,” where he also discusses other questions regarding the interaction between states and foreign individuals and groups. What, for example, if someone cannot help entering another country? If, say, shipwreck victims wash ashore on a foreign beach, do they have a right to be tolerated on the soil? And what if a group of individuals still lives in the state of nature, do states (such as the European colonial powers) have a right to take possession of their territories and bring them into a civil condition?