Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2010, pp. 193–215. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v3i3.5507

Abstract

In this paper I analyze some conceptual difficulties associated with the demand that global institutions be made more democratically accountable. In the absence of a world state, it may seem inconsistent to insist that global institutions be accountable to all those subject to their decisions while also insisting that the members of these institutions, as representatives of states, simultaneously remain accountable to the citizens of their own countries for the special responsibilities they have toward them. This difficulty seems insurmountable in light of the widespread acceptance of a state-centric conception of human rights, according to which states and only states bear primary responsibility for the protection of their citizens’ rights. Against this conception, I argue that in light of the current structures of global governance the monistic ascription of human rights obligations to states is no longer plausible. Under current conditions, states are bound to fail in their ability to protect the human rights of their citizens whenever potential violations either stem from transnational regulations or are perpetrated by non-state actors. In order to show the plausibility of an alternative, pluralist conception of human rights obligations I turn to the current debate among scholars of international law regarding the human rights obligations of non-state actors. I document the various ways in which these obligations could be legally entrenched in global financial institutions such as the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. These examples indicate feasible methods for strengthening the democratic accountability of these institutions while also respecting the accountability that participating member states owe to their own citizens. I conclude that, once the distinctions between the obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights are taken into account, no conceptual difficulty remains in holding states and non-state actors accountable for their respective human rights obligations.

David Woodward argues that sustainable human development requires a system of global governance radically different from that which exists today – one which reflects the values and objectives of the twenty-first century rather than the vestiges of the colonial era.

Read on... http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v53/n1/abs/dev20098...

Full Text: http://www.polity.co.uk/global/pdf/Global%20Democracy.pdf

Also published here: http://politybooks.com/global/transnational-democracy-theories-and-prosp...

From the chapter "Deepening democracy at the global level":
"The call for greater inclusion and democracy at the United Nations has led to calls for widening the organization’s representative base. Reform proposals focus on three areas. The first involves expanding representation in the UN system — increasing the plurality of voices so that the institution is not seen as being solely for governments and bureaucrats. There have been proposals for a People’s Assembly — something similar to an elected European parliament, with citizens around the world electing representatives. In addition, proposals have been made to allow civil society organizations to participate in the discussions of the General Assembly, Economic and Social Council and Security Council. A second set of reform proposals focus on shifting power in international organizations towards those with more democratic decisionmaking procedures."

Read the full chapter: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/chapterfive1.pdf

Read the full report: http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2002/

Published in Info - the journal of policy, regulation and strategy for telecommunications information and media.

From the article:
"Processes of globalization raise thorny issues of legitimacy as global governance institutions find themselves making policy decisions that have little grounding in popular consent. One solution would be to implement global democracy. Desirable as this might be, however, many scholars argue that global democracy is simply not feasible, for the social preconditions of democracy cannot be realized at the global level. These social preconditions can be conceived as: membership, communication community, interest aggregation, and democratic culture. The global elections held in 2000 by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) provide an opportunity to test the claims of the sceptics of global democracy. Those elections cast doubt on the strong claims of critics: all four preconditions of democracy were present to some extent, despite the global nature of the election."

Read full article... http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~hk28/klein-democracy.pdf