In the article "Linking Democracy and Human Rights," David Beetham tells a very detailed comparison between Democracy and Human Rights. Democracy and Human rights have long been regarded as two separate political views. Democracy deals with an administration that involves ruling the people directly or indirectly through free voting (elections), while human rights deals with the rights that belong that to every single individual that is in a society. To date the separation between the two is no longer accepted, but rather they go hand in hand with each other. This paper will review Beetham's main arguments and highlights any assumptions that he uses to support the claim that Human Rights and Democracy goes together.
Beetham begins this article by stating that Democracy and Human Rights did not always go together and that they were both viewed as two separate political points. This separation came about during the cold war period between the United States and USSR. This separation was further increase by the left wing system; The left wing system is more of a radical and socialist section of a political party or system. Up until recently this view point has change; Human rights and democracy do belongs together, without human rights society would eventually move towards the extreme left wing of the political spectrum hence a communist society would be formed and living in a communist would not be a very pleasant one. The connection between Human Rights and Democracy lies in civil, political, economical, social and cultural rights. .
In Civil and Political rights citizens have the rights for fundamental freedom, the freedom of expression and speech, basic health care, access to clean flowing water, sanitation etc. The use of periodic and fair elections by the use of secret ballots to vote for the ruling party to government them. For the democratic principles to realized all the rights and freedom of the citizens but have some form of guarantee.
