International Human Rights Doctrine: Should the Rights for Democracy be Included?

Abstract

There is not much doubt that democracy is better than other forms of governments but a theoretical debate is there on whether democracy can be enforced to all societies. The scholars,  who advocate democracy as a ‘universal value’ believes that a country should not wait to be prepared or build a culture for ‘democracy’ and start running the country under this system. But the ‘Rights of Democracy’ is not as simple as other parts of the International Human Rights doctrine such a child rights, labour rights or anti poverty rights. If ‘democracy’ is counted as a ‘universal value’ and gets included in the International Human Rights doctrine it will seek protection against the violation of this right and the international community will get involved to enforce this right. The International concern for upholding democracy in a country may create conflicting issues with the sovereignty of that particular country.  In many cases it was observed that the International concern (or it can be called as Western Concern) for ‘democracy’ was motivated by the economic and strategic interests. If ‘democracy’ is imposed from outside or forced to any society it will violate the society’s right of self determination. And in some countries it had produced a ‘hybrid’ or an ‘incompletely democratic’ regime. In this perspective instead of enforcing ‘democracy’ to all societies the ‘right of collective self-determination’ might be the better choice for International Human Rights to regulate the political constitutions of the societies.