A society of peoples refers to those peoples who follow the principles of external and internal justice that Rawls defends in The Law of Peoples. The principles of external justice guarantee the freedom and independence of peoples, impose a duty of nonintervention, confer a right to wage war in self-defense, place limits on the conduct of war, grant the power to ratify (and the duty to observe) treaties, and require assisting economically burdened societies. The principles of internal justice guarantee basic human rights, which for Rawls consist in minimal rights to life (to personal security and means of subsistence), to liberty (to freedom from slavery, serfdom, forced labor), to personal property, to a measure of freedom of conscience and association, to formal equality (treating like cases alike), and to emigration. The principles of internal justice also require societies to contain some kind of consultative procedure through which their members’ views are heard, either as individuals (as in liberal democracies, where individuals possess the right to vote) or as members of associations (for more communal societies, where associations, but not individuals, each have a say in decisions).