The author's aim in this book is the defense of a “cosmopolitan political morality” that pits cosmopolitan ethics against its communitarian competitors (e.g., realism, the “society of states” tradition, and nationalism) and finds them wanting in relation to a number of key issues: human rights, distributive justice, political institutions, war, and intervention. These issues are addressed in specific chapters, which outline the cosmopolitan positions and then negatively evaluate the alternatives. At the outset, we are informed that this is not intended to be a “neutral account” (p. 3), and the author consistently and methodically picks his way through the book at every turn seeking to reinforce his defense.

There is no shortage of ethical justifications for universal moral principles based on human dignity, human suffering, human needs, and so forth. Caney makes some useful points that the criticism of the historical (and current) use of moral universals, such as human rights, by self-interested powerful actors, is often not a critique of universalism as such, but rather of the abuse of universal moral standards. In fact, the defense of autonomy, pluralism, and democracy and opposition to hegemony and oppression demonstrate the adherence to universal moral principles (p. 56). The key argument, which the book fails to clearly establish however, is how universal moral principles can be meaningful guides to policy or practice in the sphere of international relations.

Caney wants to have his cake and to eat it too. Where the critics of assertions of global morality raise the issue of power relations invalidating claims of universality, as above, they are seen as enforcing the cosmopolitan argument. The argument that the global or international sphere is less open to moral universalist principles than the domestic sphere because there is no unitary authority and therefore no framework for establishing a representative or accountable universal moral view, let alone to enforce it against power interests, is also seen as enforcing the cosmopolitan argument—in this case, that new suprastate political structures are necessary (e.g., p. 121). Counterarguments based on ethics are seen as justifying universal moral values, and counterarguments based on empirical reality are seen as justifying political change away from the current framework of largely state-based rights.

The title of the book asserts that Caney's project is that of “global political theory,” but it is clearly one of “global ethics.” It is the ethical arguments that do the work in his critique of existing state-based frameworks of international law, especially the restrictions on war and assumptions in favor of nonintervention and state sovereignty. He asserts that current legal and political frameworks, and their reflections in realist and “international society” (or English School) international relations theorizing, assume that states are legitimate or an ethical good per se. This problematic “communitarian” assumption is best highlighted in Caney's questioning of states' having the “right of self-defence” (p. 194). Judged on the basis of cosmopolitan rights, states would have no right of self-defense if they were rights abusers, and concomitantly, they would have the right of intervention (or the duty, if they were powerful enough and could easily bear the costs) if they were upholders of rights.

The argument pitting global cosmopolitan rights against the arbitrary and restrictive community of the state is purely an ethical one about the moral status of states: Caney sees no good answer to the question of “why the existence of states is a morally significant fact” (emphasis added, p. 271). Note that Caney does not pose the question of whether the existence of states is a politically significant fact. Viewed in the abstract, the restriction of political rights to the institution of the state would seem irrational (as would the division of the earth's territory into sovereign states). In the abstract, there is no reason why the state should claim moral authority in the international sphere. Caney is right that there is then no intrinsic value to states (p. 271). However, in the concrete reality of politics as it is currently constituted, there are reasons for state sovereignty to be upheld as an ethical value. For example, on the grounds of universal rights of political equality: The state is currently the highest level at which political equality is recognized, the highest level at which political authority is accountable and at which self-government is possible. There is no higher source of legitimacy than the sovereign state. This is highlighted by the fact that even international or supranational institutions (such as the United Nations, NATO, and the European Union) derive their legitimacy from their constituent sovereign states.

The irony is that despite Caney's talk about upholding universal rights of empowerment and his liberal egalitarianism, he seems to have very little faith in democracy. This is highlighted, for example, in his critique of state-based democracy: “Consider the incentives facing democratically elected officials in a world of states. Their incentive is to win elections and to do so to cater for the wishes and beliefs of their own citizens. They will therefore serve cosmopolitan ideals only if their citizens happen to have strong cosmopolitan beliefs…. A system of democratic states is, thus, not the most effective institutional system if we are to further cosmopolitan goals” (p. 169). It is as if Caney is suggesting that democracy is a barrier to universal rights (there is clearly no guarantee that voting per se, on any basis, will further cosmopolitan goals). Caney seems to lack the belief that people can be convinced to share his “cosmopolitan beliefs,” and nowhere does he suggest that there is any political or popular support for radically reorganizing the international system on the basis of cosmopolitan ethics. In his desperation to defend the idea of universal moral principles, he is even happy to state that they can play a role in criticizing injustice even where “there is no prospect of these principles playing a positive role” (p. 276).

To my mind, this book is strangely passionless for such an engaged and one-sided project. Caney has none of the aspirational commitment or engaging style demonstrated by other cosmopolitan theorists, such as Thomas Pogge, David Held, Andrew Linklater, Richard Falk, or Daniele Archibugi. The reader is left with the impression that, for Caney, this is a dry and hollow intellectual exercise. In many ways, it is. This is a work for the already converted. There is little new in terms of the development of cosmopolitan ethics. The potentially interesting aspect of the book—the comprehensive survey of competing approaches—is undermined by the predictability and superficiality of the critiques of the competitors and the unchallenged cosmopolitan starting assumptions. In this respect, the work falls between two stools, and in the end, it is neither a development of cosmopolitan thinking nor a useful, comprehensive, survey of the field.