The General Assembly of the The General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) is holding its 75th annual meeting in New York this month; perhaps now is a good time to assess the worth of the UN. Overall it is a morally flawed, failed organization, not because it is inherently evil, but because the gap between its ideals and achievements is so vast. After 75 years of existence it can be concluded that the UN is no better than its predecessor- the League of Nations.
Like the League, the UN has failed to prevent war, genocide, terrorism, slavery, and oppression. Furthermore, the UN is morally insidious because some member countries use their membership to disguise human rights abuses. These results do not match the idealistic expectations of those that formed the UN in 1945- how did their initial hopes fail so badly?
The same fundamental flaw cursed both the UN and the League: Dictatorships were allowed to become members. Dictatorships initiate the negative activities listed above, and they will resist any efforts to stop them from engaging in these activities. The 2019 Freedom House list of free, partially free, and not-free countries indicates that 50 of the 193 UN member countries fall into the not-free category, and another 59 are in the partially-free category. Only 84 countries are in the free category.
Furthermore, two of the veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, China and Russia, are in the not-free category. It is unlikely that the UN as currently constituted will ever become an advocate of the view that the combination of democracy, rule of law and free-market capitalism is the antidote to war, genocide and oppression.
To achieve the hopes of the founders the UN needs to seriously get into the business of spreading democracy and thereby ending global oppression. As a first step all member countries should reapply for membership in the UN, and their applications should undergo scrutiny according to Freedom House criteria. If a country is deemed to be in the ‘free’ category, then that country would be allowed to rejoin the United Nations as a full, voting member. Countries that fall into the ‘partially-free’ category would be allowed to rejoin the UN as probationary, non-voting members. Countries in the ‘not-free’ category would not be allowed to rejoin the UN.
The free/partially-free/not-free status of all countries would be reviewed every five years. Countries that have progressed from partially-free to free would be allowed to rejoin the UN as full voting members. Countries that have moved from not-free to partially-free could rejoin the UN as probationary members. And of course it would work in reverse. Countries moving from free to partially-free would move to probationary status, and countries moving from partially-free to not-free would be ousted from the UN.
What effect would this have on countries?
More than one might expect. All countries want UN membership; it is a prestigious marker of nationhood. Perhaps this valued membership can be used as an incentive to regulate a country’s behavior. And, banning dictatorships from one global organization might lead to banning by other global organizations, and to more effective boycotts. After all, the banning and shunning process helped to convert South Africa from a dictatorship to a democracy.
The positives of making the UN a democracy-only organization are considerable. A democracy-only UN could actually live up to its charter. It could form crisis intervention units and peace keeping forces from non-abusive, non-corruptible democratic militaries. It could take consistent action against genocide, something no country or organization has ever done. NATO could be incorporated into the UN. The level of financial corruption would diminish greatly. And from an American financial viewpoint, the global cop role, which has been borne primarily by the United States since 1945, could be borne more equitably by all democracies in the world.
If the next president wants to create significant positive change in the world, transforming the United Nations is an opportunity.
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