Canada boycotts UN Disamament Conference

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by SebC

But if the UN had all the power, there wouldn't be any states. It would have to be elected directly.

I have no idea what that orgnanization would look like, but I suspect it would be a better system than "one sovereign state, one vote". In fact, as I sort of alluded to, the current system artificially promotes independence movements, which I'm not sure is a good thing. In a way, this notion of the nation-state takes us away from models which promote coexistence. I'd rather see the triumph of a form of liberalism where minority rights are protected by constitutions put in place by the majority, than to see the minorities leave, only to become the new oppresive majorities, and so on and so forth, which is what the "one state, one vote" system promotes.

Here's the problem though. Lets say that you get rid of the veto, then you end up with a one nation one vote scenario, and as we've seen the power would shift to those rougue states in the middle east that don't believe in human rights, who wage secular war against other religious groups.

The only way that the UN could properly function is to remove those states from their body until they reform.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Here's the problem though. Lets say that you get rid of the veto, then you end up with a one nation one vote scenario, and as we've seen the power would shift to those rougue states in the middle east that don't believe in human rights, who wage secular war against other religious groups.

The only way that the UN could properly function is to remove those states from their body until they reform.

I'm saying if you removed one nation one vote, and just went with some kind of proportional representation. The states wouldn't exist, so they wouldn't have leaders. Hypothetically, of course.

There's more disfunctional your country is, the more likely it is that regions will try to leave, the more power your region gets in the UN. How crazy is that?

If Canada wasn't such a great place to be a minority in, Quebec would've left ages ago and we'd collectively be twice as influentional in the GA. The fact that we're still one country (and without coercion, just bribery) should make us count for more (because it shows we know how to make coexistence work), but in fact it makes us count less.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by SebC

I'm saying if you removed one nation one vote, and just went with some kind of proportional representation. The states wouldn't exist, so they wouldn't have leaders. Hypothetically, of course.

There's more disfunctional your country is, the more likely it is that regions will try to leave, the more power your region gets in the UN. How crazy is that?

If Canada wasn't such a great place to be a minority in, Quebec would've left ages ago and we'd collectively be twice as influentional in the GA. The fact that we're still one country (and without coercion, just bribery) should make us count for more (because it shows we know how to make coexistence work), but in fact it makes us count less.

Proportional representation would be a horrible idea. That is unless you want international policy dictated by China and their oil suppliers.

As much as the current system is flawed, you do need the veto. Without it, everything would just break down into a mob of dictators constantly furthering their own agenda. The veto also stops a lot of fairly serious wars from occuring. If the General Assembly was allowed to dictate terms to the major veto countries: USA, Russia, and China, then you'd end up with a constant source of conflict between these countries.