United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf.
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A neutral observer would have no difficulty in identifying instances of disconnect between government and people, most obviously in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes where civil society’s voices are muzzled and where peaceful protests are prohibited or severely suppressed,24 but also to a lesser degree in democracies, particularly “representative democracies” that do not genuinely represent, business-driven democracies and so-called “lobby-democracies”, where elected officials tend to be more responsive to the lobbies than to the population.

— Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "A neutral observer would have no difficulty in identifying instances of disconnect between government and people, most obviously in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes where civil society’s voices are muzzled and where peaceful protests are prohibited or severely suppressed,24 but also to a lesser degree in democracies, particularly “representative democracies” that do not genuinely represent, business-driven democracies and so-called “lobby-democracies”, where elected officials tend to be more responsive to the lobbies than to the population." in the context of "United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf." to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "Alfred-Maurice de Zayas" (Quotes, 2013) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

About Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

Alfred Maurice de Zayas (born May 31, 1947, Havana, Cuba) is an American lawyer, writer, historian, an expert in the field of human rights and international law, a peace activist, President of PEN International Centre Suisse romand (2006-09 and 2013-17), United Nations Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order (also known as Special Rapporteur 2012-2018), appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Professor of International Law.