Particular recognizes the latter sorts of ties but

particular, recognizes the latter sorts of ties but properly extends them more globally as
contemporary economic relations expand across borders.
The overall theory I have developed attempts to incorporate all three of these factors in a
coherent fashion—the cosmopolitanism of human rights, the claims of (democratic) political and
other more local communities, and the growing social relatedness given globalization. Here, we
can more narrowly frame the issue in terms of the sort of human rights approach the theory
entails and its implications for global justice. First, human rights hold not only against states but
as goals they require the development of a range of economic, social, and political institutions
that would realize them. There is no reason to restrict these to institutions within the nation-
state; transnational institutions and networks are required as well. Moreover, without going so
far as to use human rights to cover all laws and rules of whatever sort, we can see that such rights
are increasingly being taken (correctly) to hold against institutions below (as well as across) the
level of nation-states. Correlatively, we can propose that the redistributive effects we seek,
aimed at alleviating global poverty and the elimination of exploitation, will require developing
solutions that are not exclusively statist in their focus, but engage this variety of cross-border
associations and networks.
Political and other communities also come into play when we recognize that democracy
is itself a human right. Although the Universal Declaration and the Civil and Political Covenant
14

Carol C. Gould
use the language only of political participation and free elections, a right to democracy is
increasingly being recognized in international law. Moreover, self-determination is recognized
in the Covenant in its first article. In addition, as I have argued in Globalizing Democracy and
Human Rights , there are other important interconnections between human rights and democratic
participation (besides the fact that these rights can serve to constrain democratic decisions).
27
As
Henry Shue already argued in his early work Basic Rights , democratic participation importantly
works to implement and preserve economic rights. 28 Moreover, I have argued that in order to
determine what the impacts of policies are on people’s human rights, we need to hear from them
and not only imagine these impacts. 29 As I will note again in the final part, this supports new
requirements of democratic accountability in the institutions of global governance and of
transnational representation, if we are to fulfill people’s human rights. 30 Moreover, I propose that
wherever decisions or policies prospectively impact the possibilities for people to fulfill their
basic rights that they ought to be able to provide input into these decisions.