ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors explain about the responsibility of the lawmakers to ensure that participatory mechanisms are embedded in the legal framework. The principle of responsibility insinuated itself into some legal frameworks. Legal frameworks must be based on the vision of the integration of all the vulnerable groups ensuring that their voices are heard and that they are able to influence decision-making, benefit from the development paradigm and are in a comparable situation to other groups. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) and subsequent covenants dealing with civil and political rights, as well as on economic, social and cultural rights, is strongly rights-centric. The rights-based approach makes legal discourses in the Global South during the second half of the last century; the state became the ultimate duty bearer and people, the rights holders. In the popular democracies, this rights-based approach manifested in the creation of special protections and entitlements for the marginalised.
