Hijacking Democracy

The author traces a dramatic power shift in world politics - a shift that is threatening traditional values, national sovereignty and representative democracy. Circumventing democratic channels, the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have unduly appropriated quasi-legislative and judicial powers over an astonishing range of concerns - health, public education, human rights and responsibilities, economics, the environment, security, local and national governments, and ethics - and national legislatures worldwide have been pressured to adopt their norms in a spirit of conformity to the new ethic. Peeters uncovers the magnitude and systemic nature of the shift toward global governance. She follows the movement from the consensus on sustainable development that emerged from the world conferences of the 1990s to the imposition for a new ethic for global governance, and she makes clear to the reader that a new social contract is at stake. Global governance has generated new rights, new values, new societal norms and a new culture.