Media & Publications - Page 2 of 2

08Dec 2024 by Martin van Staden

Individual Liberty and the Responsibility to Protect: Toward a Neolibertarian Foreign Policy

Abstract This paper develops a distinctly libertarian, or “neolibertarian,” approach to foreign policy grounded in the principle that the State’s core responsibility is to protect individual liberty and self-ownership - the Responsibility to Protect Liberty (R2PL). Martin van Staden argues that libertarianism, being cosmopolitan and focused on the abstract Individual rather than particular nationalities or cultures, must apply its universal principles consistently to international affairs, not merely domestic ones. Drawing on the contemporary international norm of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which holds that states forfeiting their duty to shield populations from mass atrocities lose legitimate sovereignty, the author formulates R2PL as its libertarian counterpart. Governments exist to secure unalienable rights to life, liberty, and property. When a state fails this duty - or actively violates it - other states,…

A Federation for Southern Africa?

Isonomia Quarterly, Paper

Abstract This paper evaluates whether uniting the states of Southern Africa into a federal union would better protect individuals’ freedom of action and private property - the core purpose of government - than the prevailing system of separate sovereign nation-states. Martin van Staden argues that true federalism, unlike mere sovereignty or unitary centralisation, diffuses power by creating multiple constitutionally entrenched centres of authority that check and balance one another, spreading risk and making total elite capture far more difficult. Separate sovereign states do not constrain one another’s abuses; each remains a centralised point of failure for its subjects. In contrast, federal unification brings more people under a single constitutional framework of internal checks, advancing genuine decentralisation. Southern Africa’s history - including South Africa’s federalist tradition, the failed Central African Federation,…

To Tyrants the Answer is “No”: Conceptualizing a Confident, Muscular, and Cosmopolitan Libertarianism

Comos + Taxis, Paper

Abstract This paper critiques the growing tendency among some libertarians, particularly those influenced by national-conservatism, to treat individual liberty and property rights as culturally contingent "Western" values unsuitable for export beyond the West. The authors argue that libertarianism is inherently cosmopolitan: it posits universal, inalienable rights of self-ownership and property that apply to all individuals regardless of nationality, culture, or tradition. Drawing on FA Hayek, the paper rejects the nation-state's claim to collective "self-determination" through majoritarian legislation, favouring instead universal rules of just conduct (cosmos) over particularistic commands (taxis). National-conservative critiques - that libertarianism undermines tradition, community, and non-Western values - are countered by showing that libertarian principles accommodate voluntary associations, intermediary institutions, and cultural diversity, while requiring only that no group impose its vision on others. The authors advocate…