ABSTRACT
The link between political development and civil and political rights is a basic one. At one level the presence of and respect for civil and political rights indicates that the political community in which they exist also respects its citizens as valued members of political society who should be free to participate in political life and who should not be restricted from political participation. This society also offers certain guarantees to its citizens, especially in relation to the application of law. Similarly, if the application of democratic principles is understood as a political “good,” then civil and political rights are fundamental to the application of that good and in a number of respects comprise part of it. At another and somewhat more complex level, in that a political community in which such rights exist acknowledges and supports them, its society has probably engaged in discussion and debate around their value and necessity and, through a rational process, has concluded that such rights should exist. That is to say, the political society in question has engaged in and advanced its own thinking about difficult if also fundamental political issues, concluded that the application of civil and political rights is appropriate to its own citizens, and in principle to all others. Both of these exercises are themselves significant markers of political development.
