International Human Rights and Political Equality: Some Implications for Global Democracy

Abstract

International human rights are often considered as evidence of the existence or at least of the possibility of global democracy and citizenship (see, e.g., Simmons 2001, 179; Gould 2004; Erman 2005; Habermas 2011).¹ This is sometimes explained by reference to the possible grounding of democracy and human rights in a common value: equality (see, e.g., Christiano 2008; Brettschneider 2007). This common egalitarian dimension rather than grounding in equality needs to be argued for, however. But something that is even more problematic is that it is readily assumed in those accounts that the relationship between democracy and human rights can be transposed to the global level and be activated anew horizontally and outside the boundaries of domestic or regional democratic polities.² A lot hinges on this debate, however, on what equality and, more specifically in this context, political equality can and ought to mean when applied to global or transnational law and institutions. This is a very difficult question that democratic theorists have started addressing lately (see, e.g., Christiano 2010; Pettit 2010) and that is discussed by different contributions in this volume.