Is there a human right to democracy?

Abstract

The last three decades and especially the nineties have brought an important numeric expansion of democratic regimes around the world, leading some authors to conclude that democracy is becoming a global value which will no longer have any contestants, and others that we are witnessing the emergence of a democratic entitlement. The general approach of the debate and its main arguments revolve around the following rights and their ensuing practice: self-determination, free and fair elections, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of association. This thesis suggests another perspective for providing an answer to the question is there a human right to democracy? . It does so by discussing whether we assist the birth of custom about a right to democracy, yet one not based on legal instruments, but rather on state practice at the international level. After a brief presentation of the relevant elements from the regional systems, the thesis mainly concentrates on the information provided by the work of various UN bodies, ranging from the Security Council and the General Assembly to the Secretary-General and the Commission on Human Rights. This assessment is mainly concerned by seeing whether state practice is of sufficient substance understood as coherence and uniformity as to deduce from it an international custom on a right to democracy.