A few of the books I’ve read lately have made me wonder how existing power structures could be altered to allow for a more democratic society. True, a lot of the changes our world requires to truly realize democracy can’t be implemented within these structures as they now exist because they are designed to defeat change and enforce the status quo of inequality. But for fun’s sake, things like reality are easily brushed aside. Let’s fix the United Nations.
As it stands now, many components stand in the way of democracy in the UN. Among them an anachronistic security council whose members can veto anything they like and often do for selfish reasons, a severe lack of representation based not on member nations’ populations but a single vote per country allowing small (based on population, not land) countries to have as much power as larger ones, and funding is voluntary and allows rich countries to have more than their single vote of power. Can these things be changed for the better? For that matter should they? Does the world even need the UN? For our purposes, let’s answer “yes” to these questions.
First, let’s take a look at the concept of the Security Council. The permanent member nations (US, UK, France, Russia, and China) make up the main victors of World War II. To decide such monumental positions based on a simple “might makes right” concept regarding a war that is now 70 years behind us seems extremely short-sighted. Nations can change very quickly and to think that these five nations will be permanently in a position to make decisions for the rest of the world can only really mean that these nations wanted most to maintain our status quo. The concept of a council with abilities such as the Security Council I find odious and can’t think of a reason that member nations should be given more power for any other reason besides population size. I think the easiest solution to this is to simply dismantle it. Vetoes to resolutions should only be allowed by consent of at least 51% of the representatives. As it stands now, the Security Council’s veto is used often to block resolutions that would help to upset the status quo.
The problem of representation is one in which I have thought most about. While the solutions are not all obvious, the direction we need to go is. The UN’s current problem is the same as that of our Senate: with representation based on land and not population. When adapting democracy from the ancient Greeks for use in the modern era, the established powers greatly feared the will of the majority. A plethora of quotes from our own “founding fathers” can be found that showcase the undemocratic tendencies that helped form this country’s government. The concept of representation was and still is used to both connect and separate the electorate from their government. While representation does have separation as an inherent tendency, I think requiring the entire world to vote on each resolution (at this point in time) would be enormously inefficient.
Obviously (I think), widening representation if a good thing but how much becomes too much? When does it’s efficiency start to decline? Perhaps I’m trying to consolidate too much. Perhaps we do not create a legislative body in this new UN, instead having each country’s legislative body act as a micro-parliament. A resolution, passed by US legislation is then sent to a regulatory agency at the UN where it is dispersed to member nations’ own legislative bodies where it can either be passed, called for veto, or ignored (failure to take action in a set time). This of course would require all members to adopt some form of democracy either direct or representative, even requiring major changes in our own government.
The current system of funding that the UN receives foster another undemocratic way for countries to exert pressure on the body to meet its demands. With purely voluntary funding, rich countries that the body depends on like the US can (and have) withheld their funding while still maintaining member status until a demand is met. I propose a mandatory sliding scale built around a determination of the member nation’s wealth and poorer countries would have little or no required payment.
These ideas do only a little to create a world more amenable to democracy and still more problems persist. Sovereignty comes into conflict here and one must decide whose sovereignty trumps the other’s – the nation or the supranational body? Do nations have authority to act outside the bounds of their UN membership such as the US’ destruction of Iraq? And if not, what authority does the UN have to respond? One can see that as a supranational institution gains sovereignty, it does so at the expense of the sovereignty of the nation-state. Has the time come for nation-states to accept subordinate sovereignty in a world where one can destroy the world in which the rest reside? Let me know your thoughts on these proposals or others.
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