Abstract
Considering the high number of scholarly works that explore the relationship(s) between human rights and democracy, new entrants into this field of research should justifiably be treated with caution. Todd Landman’s latest book, Human Rights and Democracy: The Precarious Triumph of Ideals, however, provides a refreshingly new perspective on this relationship. While not seeking to reinvent the wheel, Landman’s book offers a guardedly optimistic account of developments in the world with respect to democracy and human rights, while also being aware of the possible pitfalls in this relationship.
It is the format of the book that sets it apart from others in the field. Taking what Landman calls a ‘thematic journey through a complex set of global developments over the last 60 years’, the book is presented as a series of ‘“thematic couplets” that frame our current and future trends in the world’ (p. 6). The couplets address what the author correctly identifies as a natural set of tensions between theories and ideas and the realisation of democracies and human rights. The ‘couplets’ identified and presented as individual chapters are: abundance and freedom; democracy and human rights; waves and setbacks; evidence and explanations; agents and advocates; truth and justice; threats and pitfalls; benefits and outcomes; and hopes and challenges.
The chapter entitled ‘Waves and Setbacks’ is one of the highlights of the book. Not only does it offer a measured critique of the Kantian-inspired principle that democracies will spread inexorably, but the chapter also highlights the folly of assuming that established democracies will inevitably develop strong human rights credentials (Brazil and Mexico are offered as examples). This chapter also provides a sensible assessment of the Arab Spring, avoiding some of the more overexcited pronouncements of a ‘fifth wave’ of democracy in the region. Subsequent events have proven Landman’s comments – that these countries ‘need to reconcile over issues around Islam, secular law, legal frameworks for democracy and the competition between political parties, some of which are not popular’ (p. 59) – to have been remarkably prescient.
Keeping with the cautiously optimistic theme of the book, the chapter entitled ‘Threats and Pitfalls’ identifies four ‘significant threats to the long-term sustainability of both democracy and human rights’: interstate and intra-state conflict; economic globalisation and inequality; global terrorism and its responses; and environmental degradation and climate change (p. 113). Admittedly, previous scholars and commentators have identified the same threats that Landman does. Nonetheless, the grouping of these threats together serves to highlight the fact that a diversity of threats that are clearly not mutually exclusive (as Landman identifies) threaten various aspects of democracy, which, in turn, provide challenges for the establishment of human rights. For example, as Landman highlights, the curbing of liberties by established democracies in the name of national security (e.g. the United States ‘Patriot Act’), while simultaneously co-opting authoritarian states into ‘the global war on terror’, serves primarily to undermine the foundations upon which modern democracies are built.
While the aforementioned two chapters clearly represent the strengths of the book, there are also some weaknesses, the most glaring being the failure to discuss, or even introduce, the topic of humanitarian intervention. The evolution of human rights has involved not only the evolved clarification of what these rights are and where they come from, but also the development of essentially liberal ideas that hold the state primarily responsible for protecting the human rights of its citizens. This new understanding of rights became linked to sovereignty, whereupon the right of non-interference was redefined as a ‘responsibility’ rather than a ‘right’. In turn, gross violations of human rights came to be regarded no longer as a national matter, but rather a concern of the international community as a whole. Thus, beginning in the 1990s, we witnessed the increased occurrences of military intervention to protect victims of gross human rights violations, often with the end goal being the establishment of a democratic polity. The tensions associated with humanitarian interventions have been raised in numerous volumes and articles. Nonetheless, in a book that purports to discuss (and even reveal) the tensions associated with the relationship between democracy and human rights, one might reasonably assume that it would contain at least a discussion on humanitarian intervention.
The second weakness is the degree to which the section on truth and justice is underdone. Democratic transitions, especially those from either totalitarian/authoritarian or post-conflict polities, are fraught with problems. Increasingly, countries going through such transitions have resorted to various forms of transitional justice mechanisms, be they lustration (Poland and the former Czechoslovakia), truth and reconciliation commissions (South Africa), hybrid international criminal tribunals (Cambodia and Sierra Leone), or Security Council-mandated international criminal tribunals (the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda). Yet, experience tells us that such mechanisms are not a panacea; many of these transitional mechanisms remain highly politicised and divisive, and often fail to provide a fertile ground in which democracy (and eventually human rights) can flourish. Again, considering the aims of this book, it was slightly disappointing that more of the book was not devoted to this aspect of democracy transition.
Aside from these minor quibbles, Human Rights and Democracy is a book that those without expert knowledge on the topics covered will find simultaneously engaging and informative.