Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-7nlkj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-25T06:17:55.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Constituting Humanity: Democracy, Human Rights, and Political Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

James Bohman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Democracy and human rights have long been strongly connected in international covenants. In documents such as 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, democracy is justified both intrinsically in terms of popular sovereignty and instrumentally as the best way to “foster the full realization of all human rights.” Yet, even though they are human and thus universal rights, political rights are often surprisingly specific. In the Covenant, for example, “the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs” is equated with “the right to vote and to be elected.” More often then not, their realization is left to states and their constitutions, as for example in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights. Political rights have a “peculiar” status among enumerated human rights, and this difficulty has to do with deep assumptions about the nature and scope of democracy and political community that remain unexamined by the drafters of these important declarations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 31: Global Justice, Global Institutions , 2005 , pp. 227 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arendt, H.. Eichmann in Jerusalem. New York: Viking, 1965.Google Scholar
Arendt, H.. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1973.Google Scholar
Arendt, H. and K., Jaspers. The Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers Correspondence. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993.Google Scholar
Benhabib, S.. The Claims of Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlin, I. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Bohman, J. “Democracy and Global Justice: Human Rights and the Democratic Minimum”, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Bohman, J. “Punishment as a Political Obligation: Crimes against Humanity and the International Political Community.” University of Buffalo Criminal Law Review 5 (2002): 101-39.Google Scholar
Buchanan, A.. Justice, Legitimacy and Self-Determination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Bunch, C. “Women's Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Revision of Human Rights.” Human Rights Quarterly 12 (1990): 486-98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, J. “The Right to a Nationality as a Human Right.” Human Rights Law Journal 12 (1991): 1–14.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. “Minimalism about Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope for?“ Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (2004): 190–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwall, S. “The Dignity of Persons and the Second Personal Standpoint.“ forthcoming.Google Scholar
Fox, G. and B., Roth. Democratic Governance and International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gadamer, H.-G.. Truth and Method. New York: Seabury, 1992.Google Scholar
Glendon, M. A.. The World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House, 2001.Google Scholar
Hohfeld, W. N.. Fundamental Legal Conceptions. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Kant, I.. Metaphysics of Morals, Ak. 435. In Practical Philosophy, ed. and trans. Gregor, J. M.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, C.. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luban, D. “A Theory of Crimes against Humanity.” Yale Journal of International Law 29 (2004): 85–140.Google Scholar
Mead, G. H.. Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.Google Scholar
Pagden, A. “Human Rights, Natural Rights, and Europe's Imperial Legacy.“ Political Theory 31 (2003): 171-99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabel, C. “Constitutional Orders: Trust Building and Response to Change.“ In Contemporary Capitalism, ed. Hollingsworth, J. R. and Boyer, R.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Schauer, F. “Amending the Presuppositions of a Constitution.” In Responding to Imperfection, ed. Levinson, S.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Tully, J. “The Struggles of Indigenous Peoples for and of Freedom.” In Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ed. Ivison, D.Patton, P. and Sanders, W.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Tully, J. “The Unfreedom of the Moderns in Comparison to their Ideals of Constitutional Democracy.” Modern Law Review 65 (2002): 204-28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Villey, M. “La gÈèèènese du droit subjectif chez Guillaume d'Ockham.” Archives de la philosophie du droit 9 (1969): 97–126.Google Scholar
Williams, B.. Making Sense of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, I.. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar