  A number of theorists have objected to the focus, in much of the debate over political cosmopolitanism, on the role of states. In their view, a genuinely cosmopolitan theory should address the needs and interests of human individuals directly – as world citizens – instead of indirectly, as state citizens, that is via their membership in particular states. What is needed instead is a theory that focuses not merely on the moral duties of individuals or on the political relations among states, but on the justice of social institutions world-wide and the measures required to attain it. This ‘cosmopolitan’ position in the debate over global distributive justice, is especially critical of what they see as John Rawls’ privileging of the interests of states over those of individuals, in his Theory of Justice as well as in his subsequent Law of Peoples. In order to establish principles of global justice, Rawls should have applied his famous thought experiment of the ‘original position’ at the global level of all human individuals, they charge, instead of arguing, as Rawls does, for a second original position, one that involves representatives of all ‘peoples’. The debate between Rawls and his cosmopolitan critics points to the issue of the proper role and status of states: are they indispensable instruments in the pursuit of justice (ideally embodying the principle of the democratic self-determination of peoples), or are they rather inimical to it, because they entrench state interests at the expense of individuals in need?