This paper aims at offering a critical examination and overview of the “right of strangers” in Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right, in the light of Benhabib’s “vision of just membership”. For this purpose, it will firstly analyze the ground and content of the rights of the citizens of foreigner States, as it results from Fichte’s discussion of the right of nations. Secondly, it will focus on Fichte’s cosmopolitan right, whose core is – as it will be shown – the determination of the basis and of the extent of the rights of stateless people. Finally, it will verify if Fichte’s theory of right achieves the five criteria that Benhabib considers as conditions of a “just membership”, by devoting a special attention to Fichte’s conception of the relationship between the right to first admittance, the right of stay and the gain and loss of citizenship.
