ABOUT TIME, TOO!

“The United Nations is our last, best hope for a peaceful and prosperous planet.”
If so, then all hope is lost. As long as dictators like Mugabe and the junta in Myanmar have the same voice in the General Assembly as the ambassadors of democratically elected governments, we are wasting our time even caring about the UN.

“... the organisational structure ... does not reflect our democratic and humanitarian sensibilities.”
Of course it doesn’t. How could it? The UN is a club, not of nations, but of governments, most of which don’t see any reason why they should represent the people they govern. Societies like ours, which have these western “sensibilities” and the liberty to practice them, are a minority in the world.

“I understand this is a radical idea that at first blush may sound faintly ridiculous.”
Don’t kid yourself, Sean: there’s nothing faint about it. If your reform is going to be democratic, then it would have to be based on votes of equal value, would it not? Or are you saying that a billion or so votes in India should have the same value as a few thousand in Tuvalu? And who is going to supervise elections for UN “senators” in countries that don’t even have domestic elections?

The worst problem with the United Nations is that it perpetuates the silly idea that there is such a thing as an “international community”. A community can only plausibly exist on the basis of some kind of shared values, and it should be perfectly obvious that no such set of shared values exists in our world. It would be lovely if our “democratic and humanitarian sensibilities” represented the desires of all the peoples of the world, but it is hopelessly utopian to pretend that they do.

An interesting approach Sean.

You might be interested in a different Baha'i approach on the UN. If so go to <http://bahai-library.com/file.php5?file=uhj_turning_point_nations&
Regards
GR

Ian,

Thanks for response.

Regarding Mugabe and the various juntas, at present there is no objective test in the United Nations that clearly separates these despicable regimes from the rest. One aim of my reform is provide such an objective test: If you elect your representative then ok, you are invited to the Senate. If you do not and until you do, access is denied and you have no say. Harsh (on the people of these states) but fair.

I understand your issue with regard to the huge differences is sizes between states. That is why I suggest at the end of my paper the possibility of weighted voting so that the representative of India would have a greater say. In fact, it may even be possible for some states to have more than one representative reflecting different understandings of the "national interest". This is in constrast to now as it makes no sense to have more than one ambassador.

I believe there is an international community. It is simply a community of nations, rather than one of individuals. I argue we do have shared values such as state sovereignty, national self-determination, non-interference. In the same way that individuals in Australia with different interests, priorities, hopes dreams, elect their representative to national parliaments, I argue nations that also have dissimilar interests should elect their representatives to the United Nations.

Who might oversee such elections? There are many groups interested in overseeing free and fair elections and have had great success particularly in Eastern Europe ensuring they are not fixed. Any suggestion an election to the UN Senate was fixed would be grounds for immediate rejection.

For shorbe, I am not interested in people everywhere holding hands: In offering this reform I only care about the peaceful resolution of competing national claims based on democratic principles.

G R thanks for the link. Very interesting :)

It is not UN structure being outdated - a very context of the UN is.

Probably, "UN Millennium Development Goals: Planetary Price" is a good clarification of a conclusion provided above:

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/03/356004.shtml