Jim Arkedis calls the veto-ridden United Nations “officially broken” and suggests that the US help create a entirely new, more exclusive body:
A United Democratic Nations would be composed of only the world’s most free countries: those who have had decades-long traditions of open, fair elections and institutions, peaceful transfers of power, well-established protections for all. The list is not hard to imagine.
The United Democratic Nations’ mandate would be to safeguard freedom and openness and to protect the voices who cannot express themselves in undemocratic countries: too often, it’s women and girls, ethnic minorities, and civilians trapped by combat. It would deliberate resolutions that support democratic institutions and protect innocents. In extreme cases, it could sanction the use of military force to protect civilians in combat. (Though, of course, all nations would reserve the right to use force in self-defense.)
Or think of it this way: a body of the world’s democracies would have so much legitimacy that it would make cases of worthy intervention–like Syria and Libya–easier, while making dubious interventions–like Iraq–more difficult.
Larison pans the idea:
Whenever the idea of a “league of democracies” or something similar comes up, it is almost always because the U.N. failed to function as a rubber stamp for Western military action.
This latest case for a “United Democratic Nations” is no different. The Security Council is “flawed” in this analysis because it is too representative of the world’s major powers, and at least some of those powers predictably have no interest in endorsing every war of choice the U.S. opts to fight. Let’s remember that if the Security Council were reformed to include more permanent members, there would be more states regularly voting against the U.S. on the Security Council.
The “solution” offered here is to create a new international institution that would include many fewer states and would exclude at least two of the world’s most powerful governments for the sake of having an illusory “democratic” consensus on controversial questions of interfering in other states’ internal affairs and authorizing military intervention.
Previous Dish on the decline of the UN here.
The Dish 