From the good international citizen to the cosmopolitan political community: A constitutional path

While advocates of liberal internationalism have traditionally identified the state as an agent of progressive transformation of the international realm, they have had less to say about the specific domestic mechanisms that might govern the foreign policies of 'good' states. This article argues that domestic constitutions provide both a legal limit on the actions of governments and other actors, and also the means whereby citizens can pursue legal redress against the state. They therefore play a potentially constraining role that is different from that provided by the embedding of cosmopolitan law in transnational and international legal codes and norms. Transformed in this way, states become powerful agents for achieving cosmopolitan purposes and ultimately transforming world order