Recent events in the Arab World suggest that the value of democracy has universal appeal across cultures and religions. These events raise once again the question whether international law should privilege democracy over other forms of governance. For most of its history international law had little interest in domestic politics and took an agnostic attitude towards the political organization of power within states. Only in the 1990s did the political form of government become an issue of concern to international legal scholarship. In light of the changed political context a number of commentators predicted the emergence of a democratic entitlement in international law.
While the rise of powerful non-democratic states precluded the crystallization of a global democratic norm in the post-Cold War era, international institutions have promoted democracy in the field of state-building and development assistance based on the conviction that democracy fosters peace, development and human rights. The presentation will explore the standard of democratic governance in international law today and question whether the traditional principle of regime neutrality has become anachronistic.
Charlotte Steinorth holds a law and a political science degree from the University Panthéon-Assas (Paris II) and an LLM degree and a PhD from the London School of Economics. Her research focuses on international human rights law, democratization and international law. From 2008-2011 she was a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. She previously taught human rights law and public international law at the London School of Economics.