ABSTRACT
The distinctive features of democratic government are chiefly intended to ensure a maximum of liberty for citizens. Liberty and equality are what distinguish the democratic ideal from other political ideals. A notion of equality of some sort must figure in any concept of justice, but it figures most prominently in the democratic concept of justice. Liberty and equality are the distinctive aims of democracy. That this has always been so may be seen from the criticisms of democracy made by Plato in Book VIII of the Republic. The ideas and the procedures of democracy do not apply only to the organization of the State. They apply also to associations within a State and to the relations between States. All States are treated as equal in International Law, regardless of size or power. The sovereign equality of States is a legal concept, a concept of International Law.
