Between the Dog and the Divine: Resistance and conventionalism in cosmopolitanism

Between the Dog and the Divine: Resistance and conventionalism in cosmopolitanism

Blog Article

We use the works of Diogenes and Zeno to argue that the 8-RK cosmopolitan world view remains torn between negation and conformation; between anti-conventional resistance against and super-conventional organization of power.In their separate codes and relations to convention, Diogenes and Zeno expose complementary and conflictual sides of cosmopolitanism: in Diogenes, a challenge to local regimes, and in Zeno a plan for overcoming them; but in Diogenes a political programme that cannot attain its own ends, and in Zeno a political solution that comes unmoored from its foundations.Today, the International Criminal Court combines the two elements of cosmopolitanism in its responses to international crimes.In 5 Piece Full Panel Bedroom short, the particular practices of international criminal law and its grand gestures are in tension, undermining the aspiration to a positive programme of justice.We illustrate the tension that results through a discussion of two of the artworks that form the topic of this special issue of the Utrecht Law Review.

As a result, the enterprise of international criminal justice, like the cosmopolitan programme that we trace back to Diogenes and Zeno, appears to become self-defeating.