The Kantian Project in Modern International Legal Theory 6. Conclusion Two criticisms have been made against Tesón's book. First, it needs to consider the validity of the categorical imperative as a moral principle. Without this, the validity of his approach to international law, which is based upon this principle, lacks foundations. Secondly, Tesón appears to side-step or trivialize the central core of Kant's legal philosophy which concerns the move from the state of nature to international legal order. Without this, Tesón appears at times to be an apologist for the unilateral activities of states and this is something that Kant would firmly reject. It is also intuitively plausible that legal mechanisms must be developed to resolve conflicts between states, where, invariably, both states consider they are justified in their course of action. For Tesón to side-step this move in Kant is problematic, and it is submitted that, while Tesón's work is a worthwhile analysis of Kant's ideas about the moral standing of states in a state of nature, it does not represent a developed account of Kant's conception of international law. The Kantian project, therefore, has to move towards a theory of institutions rooted in legitimate constitutional principles and procedures which will permit the effective application of the categorical imperative in the relations between states. This does not necessarily lead to a conception of international law which is dogmatically based upon certain absolute and inviolable substantive constitutional principles. Rather, it leads to a conception of international law based upon institutions which are effectively designed to pre-empt and resolve conflicts between states in a morally justified way.
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