Strengthening the United Nations

Is Working To Strengthen The United Nations Enough?

World federalists have a spectrum of views on the UN. There is (probably) a broad consensus that reform of the UN could be enough to establish a genuine and bona fide world federation. The question is, how much reform? And would the changes be so drastic as to constitute a new institution?

Here are some of the reforms that would--in my opinion, anyway-- be required. First, the Security Council is a state based system. The members have all the powers under the Charter to prevent war, but the system hasn't and can't work in a just way because it merely reflects the power situation at the end of WWII. If we go back to a few thousand years ago, it is like a council of tribes or clans trying to sort out their problems. There is no 'justice system' inherent in it. The states are all empowered to look out for their own interests, and the system still works under an outmoded view that the states themselves are ultimately sovereign.

So we need a judicial system with dispute resolution powers. States in disputes threatening war need to fall under an obligation to bring their dispute to the judicial council. The judicial council needs to be able to hear evidence from both sides and issue a declaration of resolution.

This could be an evolution of the International Court at the Hague which at the moment requires voluntary submissions and can include binding arbitration but only if states agree in advance. The replacement of the Security Council by an elaborated and augumented International Court at the Hague would represent a very major reform. (It would require a big modification of the UN charter).

Another major need is to augment the representation system of the world citizen population. The General Assembly is a spokesvehicle but it is not representative of the population of the world. Many world federalists have been advocating for the creation of a Parliamentary Assembly of world citizens.

A third major need is to have a system of regulation at the international level to protect the environment, human rights, labour standards, and various forms of corporate activity. The problem here is enormous, since the 'race to the bottom' competition between state regulatory agencies can only be rescued from it's 'prisoner's dilemma' aspects by a regulatory system. Yet we don't want a monolithic system; treaties are the best start, as long as they have teeth, and eventually the teeth would evolve into a global federal system.

The changes to the UN will probably be incremental, and so it will probably fall under the name 'UN', but by the end of the evolution the system will have to be a very different system than the one we have now. The Charter will have to be changed significantly. And for that reason, although it may and probably still would be called 'the UN', it would be constitutionally different from the current UN. Most importantly, though, this is an enormous, exciting, and important evolution. How do you think you might participate in this tremendously significant process?

-Leonard Angel