The validity and superiority of democracy are not universally accepted, but globally there is a growing trend toward greater transparency and accountability in both economics and politics. In the long term, only democracy can create conditions in which individuals are free to make rational economic decisions. President Kim Dae Jung has been one of the most forceful exponents of the necessary link between democracy and economic development. The post-industrial age is the information age, in which the wealth of corporations and of nations depends on the free flow of and open access to information. In politics as in economics, success and stability are found through transparency and accountability.
Democracy is, of course, more than a vehicle for economic success.
The UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, like the U.S. Constitution, are based on the principle that we have in common certain intrinsic rights. Issues of democracy are related to fundamental principles of human rights and respect for the individual. Democracy is based on the rights and responsibilities of individuals and the rule of law. Through this connection, questions of democracy lie at the center of an emerging debate about the very structure of international relations - the debate over the proper relationship between national sovereignty and an international moral imperative to intervene when human rights are violated in a gross manner. Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor all raise this issue.