Human Rights and Democracy: Discourse Theory and Global Rights Institutions

by Erman,Eva

• ISBN13: 9780754644866
• ISBN10: 0754644863
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781351929592
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-28
• Publisher: Routledge
• More Book Details

Summary

This volume explores the relationship between human rights and democracy within both the theoretical and empirical field. 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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vi
The Interdependence of Human Rights and Democracy	1	(24)
Introduction	1	(6)
Three Concerns	7	(6)
The Aim of the Book	13	(5)
An Outline	18	(7)
The Absence of Political Rights in the Rights Discourse	25	(44)
Introduction	25	(1)
The Theoretical Rights Discourse	26	(17)
The Empirical Rights Discourse	43	(8)
Reflections on Habermas' Discourse Theory	51	(18)
A Discourse Theory Based on Action Rules of Language	69	(52)
Introduction	69	(2)
Communicative Action, Lifeworld and System	71	(10)
The Action Rules of Language	81	(31)
Towards a Revised Notion of Rationality	112	(9)
Legitimizing Rights Through Democratic Means	121	(40)
Introduction	121	(2)
Reflections on Deliberative Democracy	123	(12)
Towards a Discursive Approach to Human Rights	135	(26)
Towards an Institutional Design	161	(48)
Introduction	161	(2)
From Territorial to Functional Sovereignty	163	(7)
Reflections on a Normative Institutional Design	170	(39)
The Reflexive Use of Rights	209	(22)
Introduction	209	(1)
Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights	210	(7)
The Critique of Human Rights	217	(3)
Human Rights as Critique	220	(11)
Bibliography	231	(8)
Index	239