United Nations of Democracy

[IrishHand]

I've thought a fair amount about the oft-cited concept on these boards of eschewing the UN in favor of an international organization composed exclusively of democratic nations. I understand the objections of many people to ceding power - no matter how limited - to an organization which includes dictatorships and other oppressive regimes and human rights violators. Now, if there was a UN-style organization composed exclusively of democratic nations, would you be more in favor of the US being a member of the international community?

A few thoughts on this hypothetical organization...the United Nations of Democracy (UND):

The criteria for membership would be critical, of course. There are many different forms of democracy, and several dictators can claim with some truth that they were "elected". (Hitler, for instance, was legitimately appointed to be Germany's chancellor via a democratic/constitutional process.) My solution to this would be to establish a basic requirement for open elections whereby all male and female citizens above a certain age are eligible to vote and are able to do so free of outside interference. I think the best way to do this would be to have all elections in UND member countries overseen and conducted by the UND voting council. The member (or prospective member) nation would be required to pay this UND voting council to go into the country, set up polling stations, collect votes, and announce results. This would (hopefully) ensure that elections in UND countries were open and fair.

In terms of the actual inner workings of the UND, I envision all topics to be addressed and dealt with based on the notion that all people are equally valuable and worthwhile. Therefore, I would propose population-based representation. If the US has 270M citizens, then they would get, say 270 representatives and 270 votes. The UK would have 59, Germany 82 and so on. Nations would be free to determine for themselves how those representatives are elected within their countries so long as they remained based on the notion of proportional representation. (eg. In the US, we couldn't simply say each state gets to send 5 representatives - it would need to be related to state population - Florida would get 18, Kansas 3 and so on.)

I'm not quite sure what the requirements would be in terms of voting - for some matters, one would imagine that a 2/3rds majority required, for others, a simple majority. That could be worked out by smarter people than me. However, I think the notion of an international organization which fairly represented the desires of the citizens of all democratic nations is a wonderful concept.

Of course, the scope of the power of this organization would have to be carefully constructed. What are those things which are best determined and controlled by a "government" at the international level as opposed to individual governments? International trade would be a big one, as would international conflict and some basic level of human rights. I also think a "world court" within the context of this UND is both proper and necessary, to deal with violations of the international rules which would be determined by this organization.

I realize this is a wholly hypothetical concept, but I was curious what others here think about it.

Irish