Applying human rights to enable participation

Human rights are seen by democratic theorists as being central to promoting the realisation of deliberative and participative democracy. However, there is little detailed analysis of how an application of human rights law can inform participatory processes. This article explores the application of freedom of association, non-discrimination, and freedom of expression to participatory processes before looking briefly at the application of other human rights. Deriving standards from established human rights principles, it finds that these rights can be interpreted to have an impact on who is entitled to participate in these processes and how they should be enabled to do so.