ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that the radical vision, while not yet fully word made law, is rapidly becoming, in our time, a normative rule of the international system. It describes the governments whose legitimacy is questioned are turning to the international system for that validation which their national polis is as yet unable to give. The chapter is concerned with the pedigree, the time frame within which those processes took root and matured. The transformation of the democratic entitlement from moral prescription to international legal obligation has evolved gradually. In the past decade, however, the tendency has accelerated. In seeking to assess whether an international democratic order is emerging, data will be marshaled from three related generations of rule making and implementation. The oldest and most highly developed is that subset of democratic norms which emerged under the heading of "self-determination."
