Why The Democracy League Won't Work
One of the most talked about concepts for the American foreign policy community lately is the notion that the United States should organize a concert of democracies or "League of Democracies" to help reorder the world. This idea has been put forth both by Democrats, including such figures as Anthony Lake, Barack Obama's foreign policy advisor, and Ivo Daalder, of the Clinton Administration -- and, most famously, by Republican presidential candidate, John McCain.
The belief is that a grouping of perhaps about 100 democratic nations would be able to protect human rights, enforce peace and achieve prosperity around the globe -- and even perhaps influence nations under dictatorial rule to move toward democratization -- and more importantly, circumvent the power of authoritarian states like China and Russia in the United Nations Security Council, who have blocked intervention of various sorts in places like Zimbabwe, Darfur and Myanmar (Burma).
But can such a proposal really work? On paper, this sort of experiment sounds plausible. If countries with like-minded constitutional systems can cooperate on economic and environmental matters and governance, and, on occasion, impose sanctions and even undertake military intervention to end abuses, wouldn't the world be better off?
But there are a number of fundamental flaws in this proposition. First, the assumption of most proponents is that the US would presumptively organize and lead such a group. But there is little evidence at this time that America today has the sort of influence and standing to inspire such a conclave, much less direct it -- unlike when it almost single-handedly pulled together the UN organization at the 1945 San Francisco Conference. After eight years of the Bush administration, Washington's low repute means that few democracies are likely to rally to its standard.
Second, even if such distrust could be surmounted, bringing together over 100 countries as a democratic coalition is a singularly difficult feat. An initial obstacle -- what would constitute the criteria for admission to the body? After all, what constitutes a democracy? As Fareed Zakaria has pointed out, there are illiberal democracies as well as liberal ones. Do the illiberal ones get to enlist? Second, once convened, by what procedures will the grouping make decisions: one state/one vote; majority rule; or unanimity. Each has consequences, especially among outspoken, disputatious democracies. Third, would there be enforcement regulations or penalties for member-states that refuse to go along with decisions? That seems highly unlikely.
Fourth, how would the organization be financed over the short and long-term, e.g., who would pay for the opening conference and where would its headquarters be located? Hard cases. Fifth, such a grouping, by definition, will have to exclude authoritarian states, yet, as a body, it would for the most part be acting against these very non-members -- which means that the assembly would have no world-wide legitimacy for its actions.
These drawbacks have already weakened the only experiment in this regard -- the body assembled by then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Warsaw in 2000 composed of 106 nations and known as the "Community of Nations," which has so far shown itself to be more of a symbolic body than a substantive player in world affairs. Such difficulties bring us back to the one and only universal security body in today's world -- namely, the United Nations. Much of what these strategists are seeking can still be obtained within this body -- without inventing a new one. The genius of the UN from the start has been that it does not set a requirement of democratic rule for entry into the organization. This is because the UN's first responsibility is security, namely, ending wars -- and since all nations might be involved in conflicts, all nations must be part of the assembly. This universality of membership instantly gives legitimacy to any decisions made by the UN.
Where a democracy caucus might conceivably have its greatest impact is as a lobbying group within the UN. And, in fact, there already is a democracy caucus within the UN also called the "Community of Democracies" formed by more than 80 states in September 2004. At its best, these democracies should be able to affirm the role of human rights in, for example, a still fledgling and weak agency like the Human Rights Council; convince all nations to share the burden of reaching the Millennium Development goals; put pressure on the Security Council to act to end abuses in benighted places like Darfur; and use the General Assembly to take action when the Council won't. This will not always work (and so far the caucus has only just beginning to exercise its muscles, in the last few years blocking Belarus and Sri Lanka from the Human Rights Council), but if one wants to seriously form and nurture such a caucus, it is really only feasible within the UN -- and that is where the advocates of this idea should now be focusing their resources and energies.
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Maybe when we go back to using The Constitution and stop torturing people and holding them without due process we could join such an orginazation.
It would further divide the world between "us" and "them" and would limit discourse.
It certainly is a better idea than united nations.
America won't even recognise the jurisprudence of The Hague.
Yes the UN is the appropriate international body to resolve issues, raise human rights, prevent genocide etc. And yes the UN is viewed by many in the world as a fairly useless body that generally fails to achieve much at all. However the UN is not a person or a country, so the effectiveness of the UN is 100% up to the countries of which it is comprised.
The US had actively acted to render the UN worthless through it's actions from not paying it's dues, to the veto of any resolution critical of Israel. Add to this the Chinese and Russian cynical support of dictators and abhorrent regimes around the world and it's no wonder the UN is a joke.
The effectiveness of any international gathering is dependant on it's members acting in good faith. Somewhat laughable to think many nations would be eligible for membership in any such group.
The United States is not a world leader. It just has the most bombs. And its not a democracy. It is owned and operated by and for corporations. The United States needs to learn to live within its means and within its borders. It needs to concentrate on getting its own sh*t together.
If only
The latest "Concert of Democracies" concept that has neoconservatives all atwitter is the one recently advanced by the Woodrow Wilson Institute at Princeton University, available here as a PDF file: http://tin
Essentially, it casts the so-called "Concert" as a sort of buddy club which, under U.S. leadership, will launch a series of wars on non-buddy club countries so as to bring them the blessings of democracy, including control of their economies by the WTO, control of their resources by favored multinational corporations, and control of their militaries by the buddy club.
It's fitting this piece of crap was generated at the Woodrow Wilson Institute as the idea is essentially the same Woodrow Wilson proposed at the end of World War I, which was subsequently rejected by the Senate.
The Neocons, of course, are neither new nor conservative. They are composed of a gaggle of so-called scholars with too much time on their hands and too little common sense to make a difference. They need to be taken on and exposed for the war-mongering arm-chair generals they are at every opportunity.
A League of Democracies as described by Benazir Bhutto is an excellent idea. It might have helped prevent American idiotic support for the anti-democratic regimes it has propped up to the detriment of ther human race.
The biggest obstacle? American hubris and stupidity.
The biggest foreign policy issue facing this country is how we define our national interest. Today, our national interest is defined by what corresponds with the interests of myriad multinational corporations who essentially run both major political parties. What Americans can't seem to understand that there is truly an alternative reality to the one our government articulates. America must accept the fact that it is silly to expect foreign governments to make decisions that are favorable to our corporations at the expense of their own people and until we do we will never achieve a sustained peace, and, we will continue to need a huge military national security apparatus. The UN is workable but as long as world leaders push national (corporate) agendas over a world agenda focused on people, no organization will successfully arrest the kinds of conflicts that exist today.
"League of Democracies" sounds like something right out of Marvel Comics. Maybe I'm thinking of the "Justice League". No, that was more like "Homeland Security" which is definitely us against them whereby "League of Nations" was president Wilson's failed attempt at a "New World Order". No, that was the first president Bush who also said "read my lips" which cost him the reelection.
Maybe we should put out own house in order before we embark on saving the world. People might listen to us then.
The democracy league would ensure repeated wars like Iraq on countries like Myanamar, Tibet, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Sudan, etc and any other country not going along with the NWO. It bypasses the UN security council and eventually would lead to WW III with China and Russia.
Dumbest idea I have ever heard of.
Just lead by example (GOOD EXAMPLE, not this nonsense put forth by the Bush Crime Family). IF he others want to emulate us, then fine and if not, fine. Their business; we all need to stop telling everyone else what to do until we are a more democratic country ourselves and with the laws that this criminal administration has put forth, we are less and less the idea of the world.
Besides, the U.S. would eventually come back under some lame-o republican president and things would go from bad to worse again because Thug party member cannot help but be corrupt beyond all belief and thus more inclined to pass laws protecting corporations before humans.
Sort of like what we have now.
The U.N. while a great concept has become powerless to do anything at all, except give the U.N. a bad name.
Didn't the US diss the Human Rights Council?What a Democracy! Tony
"As Fareed Zakaria has pointed out, there are illiberal democracies as well as liberal ones."
AND, UM, I'M AFRAID...
The U.S. would have to be counted as one of the former under the Bush administra
Actually, where to HQ such a league would be easy, if the natives agreed: Rekjavik (sp?), Iceland. Iceland has one of the oldest democratic traditions in the world.
That's cosmetic. The idea that even under the best of circumstances all democratic nations would even have the same agenda is laughable. It'd be the League of Nations times a hundred!
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