ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the basic notions and requirements of liberal democracy and relates them to the central tenets of the human rights corpus. It explores the relationships among liberalism, political democracy, and human rights norms. Liberalism is distinguished from other traditions by its commitment to formal autonomy and abstract equality. In the historical continuum, therefore, liberalism gave birth to democracy, which, in turn, seeks to present itself internationally as the ideology of human rights. The chapter focuses on the first school, that of the abolitionists or doctrinal conventionalists. The selection of the boards and staffs of international non-governmental organizations seems designed to guard against individuals, even if they are Westerners, who may question the utility or appropriateness of the conventional doctrinalist approach. The chapter explores the assumptions and views of constitutionalists and examines the dilemmas of the cultural agnostic.
