 Political cosmopolitanism is the view that national communities are not the exclusive source of political legitimacy in the global realm. This is a minimal characterization. It is compatible with a system in which nation states and their governments remain the main political agents, as long as there is some attribution of legitimate political authority to international conventions. For even if states and their governments are the main political entities, there is still the question about appropriate relations among national actors. When should nation states recognize another political entity as legitimate? And what are appropriate sanctions against entities that do not meet the legitimacy criteria? Let us call this problem the problem of international legitimacy.