ABSTRACT
In the beginning, ‘global civil society’ (GCS) was not so much a discrete idea in search of people putting it into practice but rather a widespread mood in search of a clear idea about itself. 1960s cliches like ‘spaceship earth’ and ‘global village’ began to capture the new mood of global interconnectedness which today has been underpinned by increasingly thick infrastructures linking voluntary organizations, beliefs systems and policy issues on a worldwide scale. These infrastructures are critical for the task of generalizing and creating universal political accountability around human rights standards and other protective rules.
