"The Law of Peoples extends the modelling devices of A Theory of Justice from a national to a global plane. […] Rawls argues that we should imagine an ‘original position’ for the various peoples of the earth parallel to that for individuals within a nation-state. In it, these collective actors choose the ideal conditions of justice from behind a veil of ignorance concealing their own size, resources or strength within the society of nations. The result, he argues, would be a ‘law of peoples’ comparable to the contract between citizens in a modern constitutional state. But whereas the latter is specifically a design for liberal democracies, the scope of the former extends beyond them to societies that cannot be called liberal, yet are orderly and decent, if more hierarchical. The principles of global justice that should govern democratic and decent peoples alike correspond by and large to existing rules of international law, and the Charter of the United Nations, but with two critical corollaries. On the one hand, the Law of Peoples – so deduced from an original position – authorizes military intervention to protect human rights in states that are neither decent nor liberal, but whose conduct brands them as outlaws within the society of nations. These may be attacked on the grounds of their domestic policies, even if they present no threat to the comity of democratic nations, regardless of clauses to the contrary in the UN Charter."