Civil disobedience is typically characterized as morally principled, deliberate, and publicly enacted violation of law by individuals, who do not then seek to evade arrest. It is framed as a “civil” way for citizens to challenge possibly unjust laws or policies: one that is in broad fidelity to their domestic rule of law and good citizenship, even when it involves the refusal to obey some specific law.1 Similarly, a number of commentators have sought to show that some acts which cross state territorial or citizenship boundaries should be understood as trans-state or global civil disobedience. They have focused on deliberate, principled violations of a state’s law by non-citizen activists, asylum seekers, and unauthorized migrants, among others.2

This chapter details a conceptual framework of global citizenship within which such principled lawbreaking beyond the state can be situated. It also highlights a significant underlying distinction between domestic and suprastate civil disobedience which has received relatively little attention in the recent literature.