Move The UN

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

The fight begins - but an unfair one

The debate on the reform of the UN started in the UN today. As is evident from this news item Battle joined on Security Council reform, by Paul Reynolds, World Affairs Correspondent, on the BBC News website today, whatever the discussions and the outcome of the General Assembly vote, the key phrase which would kill this world democracy is this:

The procedure is this (it is in Article 108 of the UN Charter): First the General Assembly, made up of all member states, has to vote in favour of change by a two-thirds majority.

Then, two thirds of the member states have to ratify that decision by their national procedures, and - here is the key bit - the vote has to be ratified by "all the permanent members of the Security Council".

Thus, any of the P5 will be able to block the whole thing.


Additionally, the reason why the reform as suggested is worthless is because of this:

The G4 plan calls for six new permanent members, though they would not have a veto, and four new non-permanent seats.


What is the point of such reform where some are more equal than others.

Move the UN from the US to more conducive surroundings, which primarily reduces operational costs by more than half, reduces the financial dependency on a country which is complaining about this financial dependency, and then you will get some worthwhile reform which the rest of the world will find acceptable.

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