Human Rights, Representative Democracy and the Social Mechanisms of Warranty. Notes for a Reflection

Abstract

The main object of the recognition and protection of human rights is to concrete human dignity,and to construct the subject of rights capable of self-determination in reference to what he considersa good life. One of the central elements in this process of self-determination, also an element constitutiveof democracy, is the binding participation in the political decision-making processes. When a personparticipates directly in those processes, or indirectly through the election of his representatives, ¿does itexist a right to deploy extra-institutional or social mechanisms for the protection of human rights? I willargue that these extra-institutional mechanisms of human rights’ protection, also known as self-protectionmechanisms, are fundamental in representative democracies because of the multiple disruptions in theconstruction of the representative bond