Using international law to assess elections

摘要

This article provides an overview of existing obligations for democratic elections in public international law (PIL), and links these obligations to criteria for assessing electoral processes. We argue that PIL provides a basis for election observation that is more transparent, more objective, and has greater authority with host countries because it relies on states' acknowledged international legal commitments. In addition, the authors argue that this approach provides a solid foundation for building broad consensus on what constitutes ‘international standards for democratic elections’, an often-used term for which there still is no single commonly accepted definition.View full textDownload full textKeywordselection observation, public international law, election standards, human rights, democracyRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13510341003700253