if you want a good path to true improvement in civil rights (not a useless piece of paper or declaration) just track the wealth of a country. Wealthy countries that didn't rely on natural resources to get wealthy tend to treat their citizens better because, well, they make up the fcking economy.

most western countries had a shortcut to that via colonialism and slavery. It's very rich to then point at countries that don't have that cushion and talk about being morally superior.

Democracy is a morally superior system of government, because it's fundamentally premised on a moral idea; that governments "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed". Dictatorships and aristocracies can make no such claim.

But in principle I agree, democracy on its own doesn't guarantee morality. There's such thing as the tyranny of the majority.