A Federation of Democracies to replace the Security Council

The Democratic Federation: A Proposed Alternative to the U.N. Security Council

Executive Summary

by John J. Davenport
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy,
Fordham University; Davenport@fordham.edu

Today, in 2008, prospects for the future of the human race look much worse than they did only a few years ago. As the peril of radical pseudo-Islamic terrorism grows and the 'Iron Veil' spreads across southern Asia and Africa, the United States and its former European allies remain badly divided over the fundamental question of how the global order is to be structured. This question has not been revisited since 1945. Everyone agrees that the world now needs something more than a system of nation-states that cannot coordinate their efforts to achieve global public goods such as universal rights, security from terrorism, or environmental sustainability. But should we continue to coordinate our nations through the U.N. Security Council as the final authority on Earth, or rely primarily on U.S. power supplemented with short-term alliances to deal with particular crises as they arise?

Both these alternatives are fatally flawed. More than a decade after the atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo in which it did virtually nothing, the U.N. Security Council has proven itself incapable of saving innocent peoples from genocide, scorched earth campaigns, and other atrocities in Rwanda, East Timor, the Darfur region of Sudan, the Congo, Burma, Zimbabwe, etc. Given the presence of non-democratic and even tyrannical regimes on the Security Council, including China's veto power, the Security Council is utterly incapable of acting swiftly to uphold basic human rights -- especially when this requires swift military intervention in the 'internal affairs' of de facto sovereign states. But on the other hand, the resources of the United States are stretched thin today, and we lack sufficient coordination with other democratic governments around the world to respond swiftly in humanitarian crises, let alone to deal with the longer-term problems of military dictatorships in many African and Asian nations, or the growing threat of Islamic fundamentalism, or entrenched poverty. As our disastrous unilateral approach in Iraq has proven, the United States cannot operate as world policeman without going broke, exhausting our armed forces, and appearing as a global tyrant to the peoples we most need to persuade to adopt peaceful relations with us and to move towards better human rights records. Only an organization that is widely perceived as multinational in sovereignty rather than a mere extension of U.S. power can now operate with sufficient perceived legitimacy around the world to be effective in dealing with humanitarian crises and in promoting human rights and democracy everywhere.

If humanity is to have a bright future, then, we must now seek a way out of the false dichotomy of U.S. unilateralism or the U.N. Security Council system. The former gives us insufficient resources and coordination, while the later is outdated, unjust, and utterly impotent. Since dramatically reforming the U.N. by working from within its Charter is politically impossible, the most viable solution is to return to Senator Henry C. Lodge's old proposal for a league of democratic states. We should seek a new consensus with our European allies and

friends around the globe: starting with NATO nations, Russia, and other leading democracies, we can come together to form a permanent alliance to function as the sovereign body at the center of international law. This new Democratic Federation (DF) would unite the vast military strength and moral legitimacy of the world=s good governments against rogue regimes, dictatorships, and international terror organizations. Replacing the Security Council, the governing body of the Federation would provide the power to intervene swiftly in humanitarian crises and the credible threat to deter genocidal aggression and other crimes against humanity. This 'new deal' at the global level would provide the United States with the multilateral support it desperately needs to act effectively for the growth of democratic justice around the world, while also satisfying the European demand for collective decision-making that is not unilaterally ordained by any American administration.

This proposal requires compromise on all sides. To gain the advantages of perpetual alliance, the United States would have to bind itself to abide by the common will of the Democratic Federation regarding international security and human rights (except perhaps in cases of direct assault on our homes). However, unlike the Security Council, the Democratic Federation would have the legitimacy to deserve this full allegiance from Americans, because it would be free from influence by tyrannical regimes and it would be directly answerable to the peoples of its member states, rather than only to their national governments. This change is analogous to the move in American history from the Articles of Confederation to the 1789 Constitution. With the proper institutional design, the Democratic Federation ought to be acceptable to the American people as well as to all other democratic peoples around the world. Its design should balance representation by population with a mechanism for ensuring that smaller nations retain a sufficient voice. The Federation's central governing body ought to be directly elected by the citizens of the member states, giving it primary sovereignty over its enumerated functions (rather than only derivative sovereignty through ambassadors or other proxies of national governments).

Such a Democratic Federation would not be a 'world government,' let alone an empire. It would pursue peaceful relations with states that did not join it, and allow certain states to enjoy provisional membership on their way to full participation pending resolution of internal problems as judged by the Federations ruling Democratic Council. It would also be strictly limited to a short but absolutely vital list of enumerated powers, including first and foremost:

1. Maintaining a standing armed forces, raised from all member states proportionate to their populations, to intervene swiftly under direct DF command when necessary to prevent genocide, ethnic cleaning, and similar atrocities that constitute humanitarian emergencies;
2. Providing a new, firmer foundation for international law and the operation of international courts, ensuring the legitimacy of entities like the World Court, the ICC, the Hague Tribunal, and making their judgments enforceable;
3. The general enforcement of human rights, including (when possible) the removal and prosecution of tyrants and warlords, the punishment of crimes against humanity, and pressure to democratize and to guarantee equal status for women and the safety of children;
4. The defeat of international terrorist organizations and international crime rings, along with the prevention of nuclear proliferation, and the monitoring of all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade material available on the planet;
5. The commonly undertaken and collectively funded defense of all democratic member states from hostile incursion or attack by outlaw states or terrorists;
6. The exertion of unified diplomatic pressure on non-democratic regimes to democratize;
7. The nation-building activities and political support necessary to assure all peoples on Earth a stable democratic nation-state of their own, with a working legal system free from corruption of the authorities, a liberal educational system free from fundamentalist indoctrination, and a decent standard of living in whatever economic system they choose;
8. The approval of new states as members of the DF upon sufficient proof that their highest sovereign officers are elected by frequent multi-party democratic processes, including freedom of the press, freedom of speech, sufficient separation of church and state, toleration of minority religious faiths, and other basic civil liberties.

In time, if the federation worked well, its members could decide if they wanted it to assume further functions enabling global coordination to secure public goods that are difficult to attain through treaty organizations or the unregulated interplay of sovereign nations, such as:

9. Preservation of the world's environmental resources;
10. Management of a global financial system and global currency; setting world interest rates;
11. Eliminating tax havens and setting minimum individual and corporate taxes world-wide, leveling the playing field between nations with free-trade agreements involving parity in worker safety and environmental laws;
12. Conducting anti-trust activities to prevent the formation of overly large multinational corporations capable of exerting undue influence on small nations or too much power within the whole global economy;
13. Taking over management of development funding through the World Bank and global health policy initiatives through the World Health Organization.

But these functions are all secondary to the primary one that replaces the Security Council. Creating a new league of democratic states, as envisioned prior to the League of Nations, would inevitably mean pulling out of the Security Council, or even amending the U.N. Charter to eliminate the Security Council. But it would not necessitate the elimination of the entire United Nations. The General Assembly could remain in place to provide a forum for global diplomacy and the rest of the U.N. agencies, such as UNICEF, could continue to function doing what good they are able to, at least until the Democratic Federation was well established and it was clear that these agencies should be brought under its umbrella.

Critics will no doubt object that such a Democratic Federation would divide the world. But the world is already divided into democratic states that (by and large) respect basic rights and non-democratic states that do not, because they are either military dictatorships or Islamic theocracies. The Democratic Federation is needed to unite the will and strength of the first group of nations in the face of these new fault lines, just as NATO united us against the threat of Soviet totalitarianism during the 20th century. But it is clear that this time we need more than a temporary military alliance for deterrence. The growing number of democratic nations in the world now have a far greater share of political, military, and economic power than we did during the Cold War. As a result, we no longer need the U.N. Security Council system which gives a strong voice or even vetoes to some tyrannical governments. We can now afford to trade in this outdated system for a new one that comes much closer to ideal justice at the international level.

NB: This proposal dates back to a paper I published titled Just War Theory Requires a New Federation of Democratic Nations," Fordham International Law Journal 28 no.3 (Feb.2005): 763-85. Thus it precedes Senator McCain's proposal, which sounds similar, but is quite different since McCain does not propose to replace the Security Council. Although the DF could coexist with the UN at the outset, delegitimizing the Security Council in favor of the new organization is crucial to the long-run success of this plan.

James Dobson deliberately distorts Obama's position

Rev. James Dobson's criticisms of Obama's nuanced position on religion in politics radically distorts the senator's view. Obama's position is very similar to that of philosopher Jürgen Habermas in an article titled "Religion and the Public Sphere" in which he argues that secularists should not expect citizens of faith to put aside all their religious convictions in political debate and action, but also that arguments from religious perspectives should be 'translated' into terms that are universally accessible to all citizens, including atheists. What that means is NOT, as Dobson misleadingly alleges, that citizens and politicians can argue for laws or policies only from premises on which everyone already agrees -- that would be impossible, since there is too little on which we all agree. Rather, it is best understood as a proscription on political argument from revealed doctrine alone, with no "secular rationale" whatsoever (Robert Audi). For arguments that merely cite scriptural or clerical authority are on a par with statements of pure preference or desire, meaning that they do not give other citizens a reason intelligible to them to respect and obey the resulting law. Citizens who end up in the minority on some vote do not need to agree with their opponents' arguments for the resulting law or policy, but they do need to be able to understand their opponents' arguments as providing reasons for everyone to accept that law or policy. If 51% of the population says merely "We just want law X" or "we desire X" and that's it, then they have not offered any public reason for X at all. That's tyranny of the majority. One form of such tyranny is the rule of faith in various revealed creeds: let's call this popular theocracy. Dobson does not even recognize that this could be a problem.

Dobson is also wrong to imply that this debate is about the Constitution, nor did Obama say that it is. The issue is a moral one: what do citizens owe one another in democratic deliberation on a conception of democracy adequate to resolve the "tyranny of the majority" problem. The Constitution written in 1787 was designed to overcome coordination problems with the previous Articles of Confederation, not to spell out a full conception of democratic justice. However, the separation of church and state in the First Amendment does force us to face these underlying moral issues: should that separation extend to the reasons that citizens cite and rely on in political action and debate? Obama's position on this, like Habermas's and my own, is a moderate one; Dobson's is an extreme view that would see no violation of the church-state separation ideal in a nation in which a religious majority forced other minorities to follow their creeds and articles of faith that are backed with no argument other than pure religious authority. As long as no one is forced to attend a church they don't like, then the First Amendment is satisfied according to Dobson and his kind. But the ideal of public reason and government that is neutral between faiths requires a lot more than this minimal freedom of exercise provision.

I have a detailed forthcoming essay on this matter that responds to a large body of philosophical work on the issue by Rawls, Audi, Quinn, Wolterstorff, Greenawalt, Eberle, Weithman, and others including Habermas. No one familiar with this literature and its nuances could view Dobson as anything but the extreme ideologue that he is. He obviously has no familiarity with this philosophical literature, whereas Obama clearly does.