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Overview
"This volume explores the relationship between human rights and democracy within both the theoretical and empirical held. It is a book within the tradition of deliberative democracy, although it focuses on global institutions and human rights rather than nation-state or federalist democracy." Eva Erman problematizes the absence of political rights in the global human rights discourse from a deliberative standpoint. Starting out from and at the same time criticizing Habermas' discourse theory of law and democracy, she makes a significant contribution to a discourse theory of human rights and applies it to a global rights institution, the United Nations' Commission on Human Rights. This is an innovative study that offers tools for democratizing existing global political institutions, and is therefore suitable for philosophers, political theorists, scholars of human rights and those interested in democracy.Synopsis
Adopting a discourse theory view of human rights, Erman (political science, Stockholm U.) begins with the notion of communicative action and the idea that human rights and democracy are mutually constitutive, then offers an alternative approach to human rights than is supplied by present cosmopolitan democratic theories. Her approach is not incompatible with all cosmopolitan projects, she says, but focuses on other aspects of the international political order, and so draws slightly different conclusions on how to legitimize and implement human rights by democratic means. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR