ABSTRACT
As rights holders in civil society we accord one another the opportunity to place the whole of our human associational life on the political agenda. None of the following are sacrosanct from the point of view of civilians:
• Existing forms of states • Existing boundaries • The current number of states • Present international organizations • Our present way of organizing the international economy • The list of human rights • The values presently embedded in international law • Our current ways of organizing democracies • The right of any particular nation to self-determination • Existing nationalist claims • Existing ethical communities
From the point of view of rights holders, all of the above may be brought into the public domain for political evaluation. Civil society constitutes a global public domain. The constraints on the agenda are minimal. However, there are very severe constraints on how rights holders might proceed with regard to the issues raised. They are not permitted to follow courses of action that would deny to the participants in the political debate their basic individual rights which form the framework for politics.
