 By contrast, de jure senses of “legitimacy” refer to the capacity of international law to generate reasons for action of various kinds. These might be reasons, whether prudential or moral, to establish international laws and institutions, to preserve and develop them once they exist, or not to interfere with their operations (Buchanan 2013). But de jure legitimacy is often taken to mean something more ambitious: the existence of a “right to rule”. On this view, some domain or institution of international law enjoys de jure legitimacy to the extent that its putative subjects have a pro tanto or defeasible moral obligation to comply with its directives, one that is content-independent, i.e., not dependent for its binding force on the specific content of any particular law (Raz 2006; Green 2004 [2012]). This sense of de jure legitimacy, as the right to rule, corresponds to the kind legitimate authority that states are often interpreted as asserting in relation to their members.