We reject any initiative leading to a World Government

Caroline Vernaillen, Global Programme Manager of the reputable "Democracy International (DI)", an organization having its headquarters in Köln, Germany, is calling for signature support to an "ongoing petition to promote a more democratic United Nations".  Regretfully, the way to achieve this according to their call is through the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly "empowered to respond to global crises effectively" through a petition designed in fact to establish a world government.

Our PDCI is affiliated with DI and has been supporting its campaigns, projects, and conferences (our Representative in Europe, Abelardo Pérez García, has attended some of them) and we have also published in this digital magazine many of their calls for action and declarations. We do this because we appreciate the efforts they have been making for a united Europe and a more democratic world.

However, regarding this last call for signatures, let us point out that the United Nations is not an organization created to function as a world parliament, but rather as a senate (the General Assembly) where each State is represented equally.

Nevertheless, it is not even a senate per se, because its delegates are NOT elected, but rather a forum of nations aimed at bringing them together in debates, negotiations, transactions, and agreements. This means that it is NOT a world government but rather an organization devised for negotiation and understanding.

On the other hand, a universal parliament, whether within the structure of the United Nations or a parallel organization, represents a dangerous centralization of power at a global level in a single structure. Far from becoming a democratic vehicle, it would establish an enormous plutocracy in which the possibilities of the common citizen, or of the community or municipality in which he or she lives, would be diluted in a vast political apparatus totally removed from his/her influence and practically inaccessible. A world government centralized in a single structure is a serious path toward a plutocratic tyranny.

We do, however, agree that the current structure has to be updated more equitably and efficiently as it is highly ineffective. Among other factors, it would be appropriate for decisions (resolutions) adopted by the General Assembly to be binding, possibly with a supermajority of, say, 66%; or non-binding in the event that the majority is simple.

An enlarged Security Council, say to 19 or 21 members, may be empowered then to act as a kind of Senate with the right of permanent members to veto non-binding decisions of the General Assembly or to reject binding decisions by a simple majority of all its members. In its role to intervene in conflicts, guarantee international security and in the process of approving resolutions to deploy peacekeeping forces, the current right of veto should be limited in a way that the permanent State that wants to exercise it, could only do so if it is able to gather support from another permanent State, or if at least five non-permanent States support it. As for the veto, we do NOT favor it, but this suggestion is pragmatic because the five permanent Powers would hardly accept the radical annulment of this powerful right.

We believe that these or similar solutions should be considered instead of promoting a pseudo-democratic parliamentary world government. We do not support centralization of power but a democracy working under the subsidiarity principle that empowers citizens and communities to solve their own problems and those of the strata immediately above them in their political environment through civil participation in decision-making processes. In contrast, a world parliament would operate at a much higher level and would be removed from the interests of the citizen base.