Don Gerritsen - maandag 29 september 2008 United Nations… democratic?

The United Nations is the highest international governmental organisation, comprising several institutions, assigned sovereignty to by 192 individual member states.

I have a strong affinity with this organisation. The endeavour of maintaining world peace is the best mission statement I have- and probably will- ever come across. The UN has thus achieved major peace operations with success. And this is the only platform in which people from all over the world can exchange information on the domestic situation!

The UN for president!
Nevertheless, some issues can be raised with regard to the organisation that are not in line with my perception of an organisation with this mission statement.

Is it awkward that a ‘United Nations Youth Representative’ criticises the United Nations?

Perhaps it is. But it is good to see what the UN is not… in order to see what it is!

The United Nations has several institutions: the General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International court of Justice and the Security Council, of which the last is the most powerful one. Under chapter VII of the United Nations charter (www.un.org/aboutun/charter), the Security Council determines the existence of any threat to peace in the world. If determined, it may take any action deemed necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Security Council resolutions are the only measures taken by the UN that transcend national sovereignty of UN member states. And a significant number of resolutions issued by the Security Council have (partly) succeeded.

Five allied states and victorious powers after World War II, i.e. France, China, Russia, UK and US (all nuclear powers), have a permanent seat in the Security Council. This makes them unreachable for the UN to intervene in their domestic situation, since these five member states have veto power in any proposal to a resolution.

This makes the UN unable to intervene in some threatening situations affecting the permanent SC states, which I find a major weakness of the United Nations. This obviously undermines the principle of international democracy.

One must however note that the UN definitely offers significant assets for smaller states, suffering from structural failure or threats to international peace amongst them.

I can propose two possible concise solutions, in order to make the United Nations, especially the Security Council, more democratic:

The first one is overall revolving of the Security Council members. This would be a first step to a more enhanced extent of international democracy (but the current permanent members would never agree on this).

The second one: suspending the permanent SC members’ veto power. This is only feasible if the international society (i.e. other member states) exercise political pressure on the current ones.

Don’t get me wrong. Despite some weaknesses, I’m still strongly in favour of this interesting organisation and wish that its influence will be further consolidated in the future. But then in a slightly more democratic manner, as far as the Security Council is concerned.

Don

www.DonGerritsen.com