Development of Standards for International Election Observation Background

Now more than ever, citizens of nations around the world participate in elections and recognize them as an essential means to hold their governments accountable. In part, the growing interest and participation in elections reflects the emergence of a broad international consensus that genuine democratic elections are essential for establishing the legitimate authority of governments. The assessment of professional international election observation organizations, such as The Carter Center, has proven to be central to the determination of whether an election is considered genuinely democratic.

When evaluating an electoral process, international election observation organizations commonly refer to international or regional standards for democratic elections as the basis for their assessments. This reference is often understood to suggest that a recognized set of such international standards exists, somewhere, on paper for anyone to review.

Although some international standards relevant to elections have been clearly articulated, election observers still do not have a single common set of internationally accepted election standards or criteria for assessing democratic elections to guide their work. As a result, there is an urgent need for the election observation community to articulate common benchmarks and to build international consensus on detailed criteria for assessing elections.

Building on the success of the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation and the accompanying Code of Conduct for International Election Observers, The Carter Center has launched a multi-year collaborative initiative aimed at:

1. Articulating criteria for assessing democratic elections based on public international law,
   
2. Creating practical tools for observers based on those criteria, and
   
3. Fostering dialogue in the international election community regarding the need for consistent criteria for assessing elections.

Why Public International Law?
Public international law provides a sound foundation for an electoral assessment methodology for several reasons. First, it creates a framework for democratic election standards that is based on obligations in international and regional treaties and instruments, to which state parties have already voluntarily committed. That is, states have obligated themselves, through the signature and ratification of treaties, to standards of behavior and respect for human rights. Because these are standards that have been articulated by the community of states themselves, public international law provides a recognized, objective, and transparent set of obligations for assessing elections.

Second, standards based in public international law are both prescriptive and aspirational in nature, pointing to goals that most states will not fully meet all of the time.  This approach recognizes that all democracies are imperfect and require vigilance and constant efforts to maintain and improve their functioning, which helps to move the discussion about democratic election standards toward a more positive perspective that recognizes the potential of all democratizing states.

Finally, public international law provides a credible and objective foundation for fostering dialogue and consensus-building among international election observation organizations around a single set of assessment criteria acceptable to the community at large.

For an overview of the role public international law plays in assessing elections, please refer to an article written by Avery Davis-Roberts, assistant director of the Democracy Program, and David Carroll, Ph.D., director of the Democracy Program.  The article, Using International Law to Assess Elections (PDF), was published in the May 2010 volume of Democratization. The final version of the article is available here (note: subscription/purchase required).

Sources of obligations for Democratic Elections
The Carter Center's collaborative project to develop criteria for assessing democratic elections utilizes a wide-range of international legal documents such as: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),The International Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and The International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).These examples of public international law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and subsequent international and regional treaties, establish an obligation for states to hold genuine elections.  This obligation, when considered with a number of other obligations such as the right to vote and to be elected, the right to participate in the public affairs of your country, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association, and freedom of movement, form the basis of the criteria for assessing democratic elections.

In addition to these universally applicable international standards, the Center's collaborative project also draws on a wide-range of regional instruments that form part of states' commitments at the regional level and are central to the development of broad and inclusive criteria for observing elections. Examples of such instruments include The Inter-American Democratic Charter, The African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance, The Council Governance of Europe Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, and The Revised Arab Charter on Human Rights.(Click here for more regional source documents.)

Database of Obligations for Democratic Elections
To facilitate the promotion of broad international consensus about this key criteria, in August 2010, The Carter Center launched the Database of Obligations for Democratic Elections. The first of its kind, this database consolidates more than 150 sources of international law related to human rights and elections that can be used by international and domestic election observers to assess elections. The database represents a critical step in building consensus toward a single common set of internationally accepted criteria for assessing democratic elections.  For the first time, election observers will have a single source to research a country's ratified or endorsed international and regional treaties and instruments to facilitate holding the country accountable to those standards when assessing an election's conduct.

Click here  for more information on the Database of Obligations, including instructions on how conduct searches > 

For those seeking a shorter and more concise version of the database, a condensed Narrative of Obligations (PDF) document has been compiled to serve as a companion piece to the database.

The Center has also created a series of practical tools for use by long- and short-term election observers to assist in monitoring the electoral process. Click here to explore the tools developed.

Recent Publications on International Obligations for Democratic Elections

Overview of State Obligations Relevant to Democratic Governance and Democratic Elections (PDF) >

Strengthening International Law to Support Democratic Governance and Genuine Elections (PDF) >