This paper builds on Immanuel Kant’s ideal of cosmopolitan right and strives towards an investigation of the European Union’s cosmopolitanism. Kant’s cosmopolitan right – also called hospitality right – addresses the rights of visitors in a country and particularly their relative rights towards the host state and its citizens. Thereby the cosmopolitan right generates a legal condition between any person and any state globally.
The policy field in which the legal condition between states and non-citizens can best be measured is that of immigration and asylum. Hence, the European Union’s approach towards legislating on migration and asylum is assessed in order to analyse the concrete practice of cosmopolitan norms regarding human rights and citizenship at the border of the European Union. The contrast to the codified cosmopolitan principles in EU treaty law sums up why the European Union embraces cosmopolitanism but cannot deliver Kant’s ideal of cosmopolitan right.
