The United Nations is in an ongoing state of crisis. It is a crisis caused by corruption and incompetence, but at a deeper level it is a crisis of legitimacy. The UN lacks the basic ethical foundation to function with legitimate authority as a world peacekeeping body. They have turned a blind eye to genocide, engaged in wholesale fraud and deception, deployed troops to rape and murder, condemned the innocent and given comfort to oppressors. They bring chaos, death and corruption instead of the peace they promised. The continued rule of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, his fraudulent reelection and the willingness of the UN and other nations to negotiate with him is just the most recent reminder of the utter failure of their philosophy of indiscriminate inclusiveness.
The UN is a democratic organization. You know, democracy. That stuff the USA so energetically and enthusiastically exports to the rest of the world. How on earth could you possibly object to a working democratic organization? The problem is that while it may technically be a democracy because it votes on things, it lacks other essential elements of representative government which are necessary for fair and equitable representation.
First, in the general assembly every nation has an equal vote regardless of population or any other consideration, including whether that government is itself legitimately elected. There are no qualifications for membership except controlling land and having some sort of government. The harsh truth is that some UN members aren't fit to govern their own countries, much less participate in governing the world. Democracy is a useful tool, but it can't be the sole basis for government, because it is vulnerable to abuse by demagogues and interest groups and factions with very undemocratic agendas. For representative government to work, it needs to have checks and balances, protections for the rights of citizens and rules which restrict the abuse of power. This was a problem we had in the US over 200 years ago in the Confederation Congress and we were able to figure out a solution which is embodied in our Constitution.
Second, the Security Council itself is unfair and undemocratic. It arbitrarily empowers certain nations over others, in many cases with little or no justification or contrary to any kind of good sense. What's more, some of the worst dictatorships and most abusive governments in the world are represented on the Security Council, which is absolutely unacceptable. Some of these countries shouldn't even be let into the UN, much less be put in a position of power, but with the ten temporary members voted on by the whole body of the UN, the council strongly represents powerful factions for whom democracy and human rights are low priorities.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Pablo
Well for ONCE Davey and I agree, albeit for completely different reasons.
2 - Clavos
You must be thrilled, Dave...
3 - Dave Nalle
Actually, I'm flabergasted. Pablo must not have read the whole thing. I can see how he'd be happy if he only read the list of faults in the UN and never made it to the part where I endorse a more powerful and exclusive UN dominated by the imperialistic nations of the anglosphere which he so reviles.
Dave
4 - troll
...how does a gated community promote world peace - ?
sounds like a prescription for conflict
but no worries - no government would qualify for inclusion as no government supports free trade over varying levels of protectionism
5 - Jet in Columbus
One of my pet-peeves is people who comment on articles without reading them first. Dave, I don't agree with everything, but it is thought provoking, and later I may do some "googling".
Jet
6 - Dave Nalle
Troll, is the current formulation of the UN doing anything to solve conflicts now?
As for the free trade issue, I wasn't thinking in terms of setting the bar incredibly high. I was thinking mostly in terms of excluding countries which have command and control economies and place extreme restrictions on private business. I'd set the bar just a bit higher than the current situation in China so that they'd be motivated to improve their human rights and their economic structure just a bit to qualify.
Dave
7 - Dan Miller
Dave,
However, you also say, If the UN court is to have the jurisdictional limitations you suggest, how are the individual freedoms embodied in the suggested bill of right to be enforced and protected? And if the UN court is not to have those jurisdictional limitations, what happens to national sovereignty? You seem to contract the jurisdictional limits by suggesting, It strikes me that this would open a Pandora's Box of problems. Would a resident of the U.S., distressed by refusal, for example, of State or Federal welfare payments, have to go first to a State or Federal court and pursue appropriate appeals, or would the UN court have concurrent or even primary jurisdiction? What about countries where rights and courts are sick jokes? There are more than a few of them. Same rule there?I think Churchill and FDR had some petty decent ideas about what a United Nations should be and how it could prevent future world wars for maybe twenty years. I also think that if they were to be resurrected today, they would be shocked, amazed and disgusted, and that they would favor putting it out of our misery. The UN has in recent(?) years become a farce, and the only remaining source of surprise connected with it is that it consistently manages to do what I would have considered impossible, to become even more farcical. It thereby provides a bit of comic relief for those of us with twisted senses of humor; and that is the only good thing I can think of to say about it.
Perhaps I am missing something, but there appear to be a few significant inconsistencies in your suggestions. You say,
It seems to me that we can't retain national sovereignty on the one hand and yield it to a legitimate world organization on the other; we have seen what happens to legitimacy over the decades.
I certainly don't have any solutions to the underlying problems, but pose these questions merely in the interest of discussion. Perhaps, however, it might be useful to re-read Churchill's and FDR's thoughts on how a post WWII United Nations should be structured. In the ensuing sixty or so years, those thoughts seem to have vanished from view.
Meaningful reform? Wonderful but impossible; it's sort of like trying to cure a cancer patient whose cancer has metastasized to every bone and organ in his body. Get out? A good idea, but highly unlikely; the current political climate simply would not allow the notion to be considered seriously. Solid mutual defense treaties with other reliable nations of our own choice? Maybe that's the best we can hope for.
Dan
8 - bliffle
I thought we were doing pretty good with the old UN. We can use it for whatever international operations we need it for, and it never imposes any restrictions on us. Why change it? Aside, that is, from some notions of the boilerplate language built into the preamble. But only (misguided) idealists would consider that worthwhile.
9 - Ruvy
Dave,
The main problem with your proposal lies in this paragraph:
No nation which doesn't have a verifiable, popularly elected government, with a working legal system and a recognition of human rights, including the right to free trade, should be allowed a vote at the UN. Nations with ongoing histories of human rights abuses should not be allowed to be voting members. A committee made up nations picked in advance and written into the charter should determine what nations pass this criteria for membership and the criteria should be objective and written into the charter. The committee should consist solely of nations with long standing traditions of representative government and a commitment to human rights.
Such nations are far and few between and at present barely include your obvious model, the United States.
You would be left with Australia, New Zealand, and perhaps Iceland and Switzerland as your only voting members. Everybody else fails your standards by a country mile, including (especially) Israel.
10 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, I think you're being a bit more strict in your interpretation of my guideline than I intended. I think that at least half of the European nations would make the first cut. As I suggest later in the article, an initial membership would probably include the US, Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Poland, Denmark, Chile, Canada, Australia, India and Japan.
Dave
11 - Dave Nalle
Damn, Dan. You went all lawyery on my little set of suggestions.
You're right, there's a contradiction there between the sovereignty issue and the individual liberty issue. I would like to see both protected, but can you imagine if the UN as currently constituted tried to actually enforce its idea of human rights without regard to national sovereignty? It would be a disaster.
Sovereignty would have to come first. Then only if the new UN proved itself to be reliable would it be possible to phase in some sort of larger judicial functions which might include human rights enforcement and even a right of appeal for some types of cases from national courts.
As I note in the article, reform is inadequate for the UN as it stands now. We would need to tear it down and start over again from scratch, replacing it with something more rational. I think the way to do that would be to start the new institution as a separate body, perhaps without even mentioning the intent to replace the UN and let it develop naturally, supplanting the UN graducally as it proved itself to be more capable and less corrupt.
Dave
Dave
12 - Dan Miller
Dave,
Sorry about the shyster stuff, but it seemed necessary. The issues are not simple, and it is quite difficult to mix two or more apparently inconsistent concepts and come up with something workable.
I can't see the UN as presently constituted doing anything more than collectively ignoring traffic tickets and discovering the best and most expensive restaurants in NYC and elsewhere, while allowing its people to pocket bribes along the way.
I agree that national sovereignty is key, and would feel uncomfortable (there is probably a stronger word, but I shall avoid using it) if (for example) President Mugabe of Zimbabwe or one of his folks had anything to say about anything, particularly where the sovereignty of any other country is involved.
It's a mess. I like the idea of getting rid of it and starting all over, although as you suggest, not necessarily in that order. Again, I commend to you some of the telegrams back and forth between Churchill and FDR on what a United Nations should be.
Dan
13 - Ruvy
I think you're being a bit more strict in your interpretation of my guideline than I intended
No, Dave. If you start with compromised goods, you wind up with garbage ten years down the line - or sooner.
You would include India in your list of countries in this new world organization?! The whole sub-continent stinks from the blood of communal violence, and the government there makes Israel's look squeaky clean and honest!
If you want to include the U.S. in this organization, you first have to go to war to bring down the price of oil so as to give your economy a quick fix and stabilize it some.
You want to include Britain on this list? The country where Christian kids get detention for not kneeling down to Allah to pray? The Magna Charta gets smaller with each passing year....
You would include European countries like France, Italy, Denmark? The countries where it is politically incorrect to talk about women being gang-raped by Moslem gangs?
What you have done is take a high standard and declare that nations who do not meet this standard do, and proceed further. That's the kind of dishonesty that led to the present travesty of an international organization. You should have been a lawyer, Dave - you slipped in that shit and make it smell like Mr. Clean....
Of course, you may not have even realized how you were slipping in that ahit....
14 - Pablo
Davey said:
"No nation which doesn't have a verifiable, popularly elected government, with a working legal system and a recognition of human rights"
You mean like here in the good ole usa davey boy? Aside from the fact that our electoral system stinks to high heaven, and the voting machines have obviously been co-opted by fascists, last time I checked the head of our government, even if tallied honestly is not popularly elected, he/she is elected through the electoral college, which is hardly poplularly elected. Oh yeah and I almost forgot the "human rights" clause. Like the right not to have your fucking phone tapped, or the right not to have your piss tested to get a job. Or the right not to be named an enemy combatant by the executive. I think that would exclude the good ole usa, land of the free and home of the brave bucko. Oh yeah and the right not to be tortured, too, just ask Jose Padilla about that one. Land of the free, my ass.
Just my two sense worth cia boy.
15 - Clavos
Paulie,
If you're talking about private (as opposed to government) employment, you're off base on this one:
"...the right not to have your piss tested to get a job."
I, as an employer, have the right to set criteria and screen prospective employees for suitability for the job.
I have the right not to hire drug users to fly my airplanes, operate my bulldozers, drive my trucks, keep my books, handle money, etc.
16 - Dan Miller
Actually, the UN may be completely unnecessary, with freedom loving folks like these willing to go to far off places in look into human rights abuses.
One might have thought that a much shorter trip to Zimbabwe could have been more carbon-efficient and interesting, but it's comforting to learn that they are taking all the trouble to go to Israel instead.Dan
17 - Ruvy
"A 25-member delegation from South Africa arrived in Israel on Sunday with the self-proclaimed goal of examining Israeli human rights violations against the Palestinians."
One might have thought that a much shorter trip to Zimbabwe could have been more carbon-efficient and interesting, but it's comforting to learn that they are taking all the trouble to go to Israel instead.
So Dan,
Have you figured out why in Israel we call the scum "useless nothings"?
18 - Dr Dreadful
@ #14:
It appears that Pablo went back, actually read the whole thing, and decided that he didn't agree with Dave's proposal after all...
My reaction to the piece as a whole is that if you had certain arbitrarily-chosen nations dropping out of the UN and starting their own organization - based inevitably on their own assessment of themselves as beacons of freedom and justice - you would put a multitude of noses out of joint, and probably end up with China, Russia and a few others starting up their own rival body on the grounds - also determined by themselves - that they are the paragons of virtue in this world.
Presto! A new Cold War. Congrats, Dave.
19 - bliffle
IMO we're better off with the UN the way it is.
If the UN were controlled by a more representative sample of world political theories and various power centers we might be worse off. I doubt that we can control the formation of a UN these days the way we could 60 years ago.
We seem to be devoted to diminishing our influence in the world and ceding more of it to Europe, the Middle East and China (as well as other Asian centers). Bush seems in a particular hurry to give it all away and he may have committed so many longterm follies that several future administrations may find their options co-opted.
The bottom line is that the USA will be so much weaker in the future that when the neo-UN sends blue-helmeted troops into New Orleans to quell housing riots the US government won't have moral, financial or military means to stop them. We'll be longing for the veto power we had in the old UN.
20 - Dan Miller
Ruvy,
Have you figured out why in Israel we call the scum "useless nothings"? Why no, I didn't even realize that you thought of them that way. How could you possibly have such views? Sounds twisted to me.
Actually, they aren't totally useless. Nothings, perhaps, but far from useless. Just think of the comfort and happiness they bring to the oppressed peoples of the world, and to those who oppress them. Without oppressors, there wouldn't be any oppressed people, and then what could be done about them?
Why, even Nancy Pelosi is not completely useless, and has done quite a lot to further the noble cause of human rights, in far-away places like Colombia.
Useful idiots are lots of fun.
Dan
21 - Christian
I was very impressed with the quality of the discussion on this blog. So I thought it would be the perfect platform to get feedback on an idea that has been bothering me for awhile now.
The other day, while daydreaming, I stumbled upon the concept of "Vampire State or Nation". A state or nation who has/has had its fangs sunk in the jugular of another, usually "less developed", state or nation and is/were sucking the life out of its economy thus contributing to a myriads of issues for its population. Issues ranging from repressive governance to extreme poverty.
Since I am not politically savvy or even knowledgeable, I would love to see this topic disserted, published and debated. It is, in my opinion, one of the root cause of the ongoing failure in unifying the world into one nation.
22 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, if we used your standards then the only countries let in would be Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, and while I'd be fine with them running the world as a triumvirate, that would hardly be a representative organization.
Maybe there ought to be three levels of membership, with a relatively reasonable standard to be a voting member and then a higher standard for nations which would be allowed to head committees and fill leadership positions. So you could put India and France and Denmark and Italy and maybe even Israel if they cleaned up some of their human rights issues in that second tier with full representation but no leadership slots.
Dave
23 - Dave Nalle
You mean like here in the good ole usa davey boy? Aside from the fact that our electoral system stinks to high heaven, and the voting machines have obviously been co-opted by fascists,
Obvious only to paranoid nuts
last time I checked the head of our government, even if tallied honestly is not popularly elected, he/she is elected through the electoral college, which is hardly poplularly elected.
I thought you were a constitutionalist Pablo. Like Ron Paul you'd be happy to throw out the parts of the Constitution which don't fit with your populist delusions.
Oh yeah and I almost forgot the "human rights" clause. Like the right not to have your fucking phone tapped, or the right not to have your piss tested to get a job.
Sorry, these two are NOT basic human rights. There's no right to conversational privacy and certainly no right to keep a job while violating standards set by the employer. The more you write the more clear it becomes that you're nothing like a libertarian. You're just another leftist crank who wants to make up rights out of thin air.
Or the right not to be named an enemy combatant by the executive. I think that would exclude the good ole usa, land of the free and home of the brave bucko. Oh yeah and the right not to be tortured, too, just ask Jose Padilla about that one. Land of the free, my ass.
Padilla is the only US citizen ever declared an enemy combatant and that was because of the unique conditions of his case which suggest that he revoked his own citizenship, which is debatable but different from any other possible case, so your argument that the executive can do this at will is bogus. As for Padilla's 'torture', it was a fabricated ploy by his defense attorneys which the court didn't take seriously at all.
Dave
24 - Andy Marsh
Padilla spent all his time in the states anyway...he wasn't even part of the Gitmo BS, he was held in Charleston, SC!
25 - Andy Marsh
I like your ideas Dave, but what are the chances of it ever happening?