"World Government". Now there is a really frightening concept!

‘Apparently the only country that warranted a resolution [from the UN Commission on the Status of Women] for violating women's rights was, wait for it, Israel.’

The resolution in question was in regard to concern for the situation of, and giving assistance to, Palestinian women. Admittedly, this was a political act. However, against the claims of anti-Israel imbalance that were typically overblown in all the usual right-wing mouthpieces of the US press (while the rest of the conference was ignored by the MSM in general) it should be noted that the vote on this resolution was not exactly borderline. The 40 out of 42 nations who voted in favour of the resolution included: Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation and United Kingdom.

Not exactly your average bunch of Israel haters.

It would be a great injustice to single out this one resolution - taken almost as a footnote at the very end of the 2-week timeframe - as representative of the entire CSW 2007 session. The subjects covered among the full list of conclusions and resolutions included FGM, sex trafficking, HIV/AIDS, breaking the cycle of discrimination and violence against women, female child labour, the education of girls and the overall lack of progress on gender equality. The full text of the conclusions and resolutions for the session can be found here:

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw51/pdfs/CSW51_agreed%20_conclusions_ADVANCE%20UNEDITED%20VERSION.pdf

I did not propose that the world parliament of democratic countries dominate the rest at all. I said nothing about the relationship between the democratic world and the undemocratic world, though, as a long-term optimist who has observed the advance of democracy over the last century, I think that eventually every country in the world will be a democratic one.

I did not forget to include the US in my list of dictatorships. For all its imperfections, in the US, its citizens have the vote, there are genuine elections, there are competing parties, and there is freedom of speech.

Nor did I claim the democracies were noble. The ideal of democracy certainly is, but the democracies themselves have their failings, but those failings are nowhere near as great as the failings of dictatorships.

Leigh,

I did not mention world government. Just as the UN is not a world government, a world parliament would not be either. It would be a meeting place. One day, there will be a world government, but not in my lifetime. That is the direction of history. You have only to watch Star Trek to know that. I would prefer that such a world government develop from a democratic organization, not the UN.

Good one James;

But i think your satire has missed the point.

See, its all about the epertisation of global services. I mean, how can we expect to know about any given subject matter without being an expert, or having one present. Why not empannel the board of UN directors with experts skilled in matters as diverse as genocide, clusterbombing, drought making, warmongering, economic breakdown and so on. There is just virtually no way of guaranteeing the expertise of any appointee, except for those who have an expert resume in the relevant field.

By this means, any problem to be addressed by a world super-body can thus assure the world that 'opinion of the experts' is correct and resolute.

We have a pupative form of 'expertise' here in this great land, and I hope I have helped you to affix your sceptisism James.

@Chris C

As I said, the US has installed repressive dictatorships (CIA) in the place of democracy, aided and abetted them, has had business dealings with these evil countries, by selling them chemical weapons and cluster bombs (hi again Saddam Hussein), funding death squads and terrorists in south america. This is meddling in another countries sovereignty, for which I think you would have extreme resentment if another country funded some "freedom fighters" in Australia....oh wait...that sounds an awful lot like funding terror..

"l. I said nothing about the relationship between the democratic world and the undemocratic world, though, as a long-term optimist who has observed the advance of democracy over the last century, I think that eventually every country in the world will be a democratic one."

Uuh, so it will sit there and do nothing? What's the point then? I don't think you realise that a lot of the world's resources are contained in those countries that would be excluded from this organization (oil ect..), as well as a lot of the world's shipping lanes, ocean resources and environment/climate. One world, equal representation. You may not like what these so-called "dictatorships" are, but you certainly don't have a right to presume to create a "world" organisation that excludes them.

Great article. And very, very true!