From the 1648 peace treaties of Westphalia to the 1945 U.N. Charter, public international law has evolved as a system of reciprocal rights and obligations among states based on sovereign equality and non-intervention into the internal affairs of states.1 The state-centered U.N. Charter, and its collective security system established by the victorious powers of World War II,2 assert legal priority over other conflicting international treaties.3 The one-sided focus of the traditional “international law of states” on the freedom and power of governments, rather than on the human rights of their citizens is, however, increasingly challenged by national parliaments and civil society groups as being incompatible with the universal recognition of inalienable human rights and with the need for democratic legislation protecting human rights and “democratic peace”.4