ABSTRACT
The new world order emerging after the collapse of communism is, we are told, ‘not only anchored by liberal democracy but . . . is a genuinely liberal democratic order’.1 It is founded on ‘judicial equality, the constitutional protection of individual rights, representative government and market economics based on private property rights’.2 The victory of the West means that the ideological controversies of the past have given way to general agreement about the universality of Western values and have placed human rights at the core of international law. Human rights have become the driving force of international relations, a way of conducting politics according to ethical norms. The geopolitical framework of the new millennium is liberal cosmopolitanism. Its signs are everywhere.
