Further, I show that Kant’s account of property rights does not commit us to a monolithic conception of property as private property. It is compatible with different ways of conceptualizing and implementing property relations. This is because Kant’s project is primarily analytical; his main concern is to provide an account of what he calls “merely rightful possession” and the normative conditions for the power to impose an obligation on all other persons generally.

Kant’s argument also extends to possession of land and the territorial rights of states. Kant stresses that states do not have the authority to dispose of national territory or its people as their private possessions. However, in the absence of an international legal order binding all states internationally, territory has the same provisional status as possession in the state of nature. This also requires us to gradually overcome the international state of nature and work towards a condition where conflicts over territory can be settled through law, not war.