Human Rights and Global Democracy

O ver the past dozen years or so democratic theorists and activists have become increasingly worried about globalization’s adverse effects on democracy. Their concerns include: (1) democratic deficits, or the lack of democratic control over existing intergovernmental and supranational governance structures such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the European Union (EU); (2) democratic disjunctures, or the disparities in scope between such global political problems as climate change, economic development, and international terrorism, on the one hand, and instantiations of democratic authority in existing, state-level political institutions, on the other; and (3) democratic asymmetries, or the widening inequalities among states whereby the wealthiest and most powerful dominate international interactions. In response, democratic theorists have advanced various proposals for global democracy, including cosmopolitan and discursive (or global civil society–based) schemes. Such proposals presume—whether explicitly or implicitly—that human rights form part of the basic political infrastructure of global democratic governance. 1 They thus leave the relationship between human rights and global democracy undertheorized, with two related negative results: first, there has been little discussion of the theoretical and practical role of human rights in global democracy 2 ; second, this inattention has left important questions about the compatibility of democracy and human rights neglected or unnoticed. Meanwhile, numerous critics have questioned the compatibility of the core democratic principle of majoritarian rule and human rights at the national level, citing fears of