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1 Harv. Hum. Rts. Y.B. 77 (1988)
Political Participation as a Human Right

handle is hein.journals/hhrj1 and id is 83 raw text is: Political Participation as a Human Right Henry J. Steiner* In the postwar construction of human rights law, the concept of political participation has been an indispensable building block. The right to such participation figures prominently in the full range of international instruments: declarations, resolutions, regional and uni- versal treaties. Countries with markedly different political systems have termed political participation the vital human right. In its ab- sence, it is said, all others fall to a perilous existence. I Governments invoke it to justify their own political systems and to delegitimate those of their opponents. National groups struggling for political participation draw broad international support. No one doubts that success in their struggles would open avenues to basic change. For a right regarded as foundational, political participation suffers from serious infirmities. The norms defining it are either vague or, when explicit, bear sharply disputed meanings. Within the framework of human rights law, the right expresses less a vital concept meant to universalize certain practices than a bundle of concepts, sometimes complementary but sometimes antagonistic. On occasion this human right serves as a universal rallying cry against a friendless outlaw nation. But more often it becomes another weapon of rhetorical battle, a convenient, even authoritative concept through which each of the world's ideological blocs, infusing the right with its own understand- ings, attacks the others for violating those understandings. I intend to explore this controversy over the character of the right, both its reasons and consequences. My central concern is whether this right of political participation, in the light of its vagueness and the plural meanings attributed to it, expresses any shared ideal, or serves any useful purpose in the developing international law of human rights. Such questions suggest a broader issue. Although distinctive in some respects, the right of political participation forms part of a complex of related rights set forth in the international instruments. It shares with them an essential characteristic of the new human rights norms-the claim to a universal validity, if not quite efficacy. That * Professor of Law and Director of Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School. I owe special thanks to Lewis Sargentich for his criticism. I benefited from his comments, and from those of Harold Berman and Detlev Vagts, on a draft of this article. 1. In Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 17 (1964), a decision finding malapportionment in Congressional districts in violation of the Constitution, the Court stated: No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined

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