Which of these four principles of international law is the most important?
Posted by: joepbrOf the four principles stated here, which one do you think that should be defended by the international community in cases in which two or more of them are conflicting?
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18 Total Votes
1
Human Rights
The idea that every human being have some fundamental rights that should be defended independently of the political or social organization of their communities.1 comment
2
State sovereignity
State sovereignty is based on the idea that countries should be free to deal with their internal issues the way they think its best, without any type of uncalled interventions (economical, political, or military) between nations, and that maintainin... g the territorial integrity and union of a nation is one of the most basic principles of international law more1 comment
3
National self-determination
Self-determination is the idea that every community has the right to decide how they want to organize their own political and social lives, even if in order to achieve it, they must oppose the authority that rules over them.1 comment
4
Democracy/Constitutional governance
The idea that forms of governments similar to a democracy should be defended and/or promoted around the world, since the best form of organizing a government is through a system under the authority of a constitution that restricts the powers of lead... ers, based on the idea that such leaders are mere representatives of their communities and should be accountable to it. This is based on the idea that democracies don't fight each other, and therefore, it's promotion is a way to achieve world peace more0 comments
Human Rights and Democratic/Constitutional Governance are the most important.
What if they are conflicting (for example, if a nation if violates human rights while promoting democracy)? Which of the two would be the most important?
Human rights hands down. There's no way anything else is more important.
Democracy isn't a principle of international law, although 'm considering voting for that. A true democracy, isn't representative like Switzerland and Taiwan. Raw vote by the people can never fail.
Joepbr is right. In not so rare cases, the people can have a democratic vote to harm a certain minority. Or in America's complex representative system of electoral college and redistricting, we allow the minority (conservatives) to abuse the majority (liberals, homosexual, Mexican, and African voting bloc.) Democracy done right can't fail. So many states treat it like a bureaucracy though.
If the majority are conservatives why are the liberals in power.
@ChosenWolff democracy isn't an explicit principle of international law, but several scholars consider it an "implicit" one, claiming that international law can only be effective with democracies.
IMO, self determination can actually solve human rights 80% of the time. Not always, but a lot of the time.
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