The defense and promotion of democracy represents a basic concern of the foreign policy of many actors in the international system, including the United States, the European Union and several countries and regional groupings in the rest of the world. In the Americas, the Organization of American state (OAS) adopted in 2001 the Interamerican Democratic Charter, an instrument which constitutes the core of the “Interamerican Democratic Regime” and which pretends to promote and defend the full enforcement of democracy in the region. To what extent these interests and initiatives embody a new international regime?
The article concludes that the promotion of democracy is part of a Western liberal political tradition and, consequently, its universalization and transformation in a global regime will depend on the, by now unlikely, expansion of this tradition in the rest of the world. As long as there are different notions about what represents a legitimate and just political order, not only at the global but also at the regional level, it will be difficult to speak of a precise and effective international regime for the defense of democracy.
Klaveren, A. van. (2012). Is there an international regime for the defense and promotion of democracy?. Revista De Derecho Público, (77), Pág. 463–475. https://doi.org/10.5354/rdpu.v0i77.30939
