Human Rights, Democracy, and the Conception of Persons as Equals

Jiewuh Song (Seoul National University, )

Abstract: The discontinuity thesis about the human right to democracy says that, although democracy is a requirement of domestic justice, it cannot plausibly be a requirement of international human rights.  I argue against this thesis and for continuity: the egalitarian argument that shows democracy to be a requirement of domestic justice also pressures us to see democracy as an object of human rights.  I then address powerful worries about recognizing such a right in our current global political world, e.g., about bad-faith or disastrously mismanaged interventions.  I suggest in response a novel model of human rights obligations that challenges the traditional divide between civil and political rights, on the one hand, and socioeconomic rights, on the other.  On this model, rights (i) requiring institutional reform; but (ii) subject to empirical uncertainty and resource constraints should be pursued on the model of progressive realization.  Progressive realization is typically associated with socioeconomic rights, but I argue that distinctions in mode of human rights obligations should be understood to cut across divisions in subject matter.