Why the human rights regime in the Americas matters

The hugely increased normative ambitions of international society are nowhere more visible than in the field of human rights and democracy – in the idea that the relationship between ruler and ruled, state and citizen, should be a subject of legitimate international concern; that the illtreatment of citizens and the absence of democratic governance should trigger international action; and that the external legitimacy of a state should depend increasingly on how domestic societies are ordered politically. The Americas provide a particularly important regional vantage point from which to analyse these developments. In part this is because legal and institutional changes have gone further in the Americas than in any other part of the world except Europe. In part its interest lies in the range of the challenges and problems faced by the regime and what these can suggest in terms of comparative experience.

Related Subject(s): Human Rights and Refugees