TLDR
- The goal is to make the UN fairer, more democratic, more just, and more effective at securing peace and justice for everyone.
- The new General Assembly use weighted voting based on a reward system (i.e. rewarding good actors with more votes, penalizing bad actors) as a fairer alternative to veto power or permanent seats in the UN Security Council.
- The new UN Security Council is composed of experts and scholars, not affiliated with any governments, and elected by the General Assembly.
- The new UN Security Council only puts forward resolutions. The new General Assembly votes on and pass them.
Problems
Our proposal attempts to address some of the problems with the UN, particularly the UN Security council (UNSC) and its role to secure peace and justice for everyone:
· UNSC inability to stop conflicts
o Most of today's conflicts involve, either directly or indirectly, permanent members of the UNSC with veto power.
o Any resolutions that might have tangible impact are often vetoed, while the ones that do pass are often toothless and ignored.
o Leaving the failsafes that have been put in place to prevent the next big world war, after the horrors of the previous two, almost crippled.
o Leaving less-militarized nations defenseless and unprotected by international law, and subject to continuous violation and devastation.
o Leaving top military states at risk of major confrontation with each other.
§ Instead of recognizing the problem, and investing in tools of peace and de-escalation, those states are doubling down and investing more in instruments of annihilation.
· Lack of democracy at the international level.
o 5 permanent members can dictate agendas that often only serve their interests and those of their allies.
o Those government may or may not even always represent the will of their own peoples.
§ Due for instance to polarized, flawed, bought or questionable elections, or no elections at all.
· Lack of justice and rule of law
o Those interests are often unjust towards smaller or poorer nations, or the environment.
o Even when there are just resolutions, international law is seldom enforced.
o No international law means going back to the days where every nation must fend for itself.
o Injustice leads to violence
§ Left to their own devices, many factions often resort to endless cycles of tit-for-tat violence.
o Human right and war conventions such as the Geneva convention have been cast aside.
· Lack of meaningful incentives for countries to behave responsibly on the global stage.
o There is a lot to gain from breaking international law if a faction has the power to do so.
o But there is so little to gain from being a good actor, except to display high morality, which, unfortunately, a few leaders today are starting to figure they could do without.
The new General Assembly
We propose a new UN General Assembly (GA) that is a continuation of today's GA but with the following changes:
- In addition to its current roles, the new GA will have the responsibility to:
- Vote on and pass resolutions put forward by the new UNSC.
- Elect UNSC members
- The new GA uses weighted voting. (More details in 'Proposed vote weighting formula' below)
- A weighted vote is a fairer alternative to veto power.
- The vote weight is earned and is calculated based on each country's positive contributions to the world.
- It must not be determined by population size, land size, wealth, military might or past war accomplishments.
- All General Assembly-passed resolutions must be legally binding and must be enforced, and all members, no exceptions, must agree to abide by them.
- Failure to do so, should auto-launch a multi-phase pressuring approach against non-abiding members. Such as:
- An immediate suspension from all international cultural and sport events. e.g. Olympics, FIFA, Eurovision, etc.
- Arms embargo.
- Various levels of economic sanctions to a complete suspension from international trade.
- As a final resort, suspension from the GA
The new UN Security council
We propose a new UN Security council (UNCS) that is similar to today's UNSC but with the following changes:
- It does not vote on or pass the resolutions it puts forwards. Only the new General Assembly does.
- The new UNSC will still be made up of a limited number of rotating members
- Members of the new UNSC must be elected by the new General assembly rather than appointed by their respective governments.
- Via ranked ballots or multi-round voting to aim for the widest consensus.
- It must only be composed of experts and scholars in international law, human rights, environment, and such.
- And like the ICJ, with no affiliation to any governments or political parties, to ensure just and unbiased resolutions that serve global stability and justice, rather than special interests.
- They must be nominated for election based on their accomplishments, renown, and expertise, instead of their nationality.
- However, a per-continent quota system could be considered.
- Members must serve a limited term but can run for re-election.
- Unlike the ICJ, members should be impeachable.
- Elections could be held individually (not all members rotate at once to ensure continuity) whenever a term expires or for example, a member steps down, is impeached, or passes away.
- No member shall ever have veto power or a permanent seat.
- Its new responsibilities include:
- To ensure security and stability to all nations
- To monitor and attempt to prevent future conflicts
- When conflicts break, to hear all sides and mediate an end as fast as possible
- When mediations fail, to discuss, compose and propose just and unbiased resolutions to the General Assembly
Proposed vote weighting formula
A fair UN recognizes that not all countries are equal. e.g. A small country like Micronesia (with all due respect to all small countries) couldn't have the same sway as the USA or China.
We propose the following formula:
- Number of votes may be allocated to each country based on their positive contributions to the world.
- A UN agency would be created to track such contributions and re-allocate the number of votes every year, based on contributions recorded for example in the past 5 years.
- Contributions such as (but not limited to):
- Donations to UN organizations and NGOs.
- Humanitarian aid and monetary donations to other members (excluding loans).
- Peace-keeping forces, weapons and equipment for peace keeping forces.
- Medical aid and equipment, doctors/health workers, etc.
- Investment in innovations that improve the wellbeing of humans, animals, the planet, etc.
- Vice versa, aid that a member receives are deducted from its total contributions.
- Other positive actions could be adapted by certain formulas to amount to contributions. Such as:
- Successful mediation between warring sides.
- Hosting world events
- Taking tangible actions towards reaching climate goals.
- Similarly, negative actions that lead to instability, and deterioration of harmony and peace could be adapted into deductions. Such as:
- Not abiding by international law, UN resolutions and sanctions.
- Invasions, occupations, or other military interventions, unsanctioned by the UN.
- Assassinations
- Terror attacks
- Trade wars and unfair trade behavior.
- Sponsoring or enabling any of the above
- A maximum number of votes (e.g. 20) goes to the highest contributor.
- The number of votes of other contributors is determined based on their contribution relatively to the highest contributor.
- e.g. USA contributes the highest with 100B$ and gets 20 votes. Canada contributes 80.1B$, that's 80.1% of the highest contribution, so it gets 80.1% of 20 votes, that's 16.2 votes.
- With all remaining members guaranteed a minimum of 1 vote.
- This system is designed to reward major contributors and good actors, and encourage more positive actions, all the while, to penalize bad actors and agents of instability and conflicts.
- Which in and of itself could promote and lead to more peace and stability.
- The formula could be subject to constant review and adaptation to keep up with the times.
Temporary solution for current permanent members of the UNSC
The current permanent members might unlikely be too eager to give up their veto power, their permanent seat, or their grip over of the UNSC decisions. So, to make it more enticing:- In addition to the reward of knowing that such restructuring is required to uncripple the UNSC so that it's able to fulfill its role and prevent eventual devastating wars, in which these countries will inevitably face off should the current system persist.
- For a transitionary period (e.g. 5 years), all 5 members could automatically be allocated the maximum number of votes at the new General Assembly, regardless of their contributions or actions.
- After that period, they'd have to earn their votes like all the other countries.