One of the main objections to the United Nations is its aptly-named "democratic deficit". The delegates the various countries of the world send to the United Nations are not elected directly by the people, but are selected by the governments themselves and cannot act independently of them. This certainly raises questions of credibility regarding delegates from autocratic states such as China and many Arab nations. But even the delegates from democratic nations are suspect, because they represent the agenda of the whichever political party is dominant at any given time, rather than the genuine wishes of the citizens of their country.
This problem could be addressed by the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, composed of delegates elected directly by the people rather than chosen by the individual governments. This would create a direct link between the United Nations and the citizens of the world it is supposed to represent. Implementing such an assembly would be the most fundamental reform ever enacted in the United Nations, and would mark a seminal moment in human history.
Assuming that all countries except the smallest will have multiple-member delegations to the proposed UNPA, we can expect that national delegations will be represented by more than one political party. We could see an American delegation that included both Republicans and Democrats, a British delegation that included Labour, Conservatives, and Liberal Democrats (and perhaps even Scottish Nationalists), and so forth. This injection of varying political persuasions would do much to strengthen and democratize the United Nations as a whole, shaking up its deliberations and raising its profile with the citizens of the world.
Elections to the UNPA would have to be democratic, free and fair in order for the organization to have any credibility. Sham elections in places like Egypt, Iran, or China could simply not be tolerated. Therefore, it is imperative that the United Nations and independent observers oversee the elections to the UNPA in a completely unfettered environment. If any nation declines to accept this, then they should not be permitted to send delegation to the UNPA. Such close U.N. supervision of elections would have the added benefit of strengthening democratic institutions in emerging democracies, as citizens would gain greater experience in conducting free and fair elections.
The creation of a UNPA would also present an opportunity to resolve another common and deserved criticism of the General Assembly: the fact that all countries have a single vote, regardless of population. Currently, we can see the absurd spectacle of little Monaco (population 30,000) having the same voting power in the General Assembly as China (population 1.3 billion). Clearly, the number of voting UNPA delegates per nation would have to take population into account.
But if we followed a path of exact proportional representation by population, another problem immediately presents itself, in that the larger nations would simply overwhelm the smaller nations by sheer force of numbers. Indeed, two nations, India and China, would control more than one-third of the seats by themselves. Clearly, exact proportional representation will not work.
The problem here is very similar to that faced by the 55 men who wrote the United States Constitution. The small states obviously wanted each state to have an equal say in the legislative functions of the government, while the larger states wanted voting power to be based on population. To solve this, the Constitutional Convention adopted the famous Connecticut Compromise, creating a Senate in which the states had equality and a House of Representatives in which votes were determined by population. Clearly, to create a UNPA, we need to find an equally brilliant compromise.
Joseph Schwartzberg, a professor at the University of Minnesota and a strong proponent of the UNPA, has created an electoral matrix that attempts to properly balance the need to give more populous nations greater representation, while avoiding the danger of having the biggest nations completely swamp the smaller ones. It uses such factors as population and financial contribution to the U.N. budget to calcuate the number of seats each nation should have. Even the smallest state would have at least one seat, while the larger nations of India, China and the United States would have around fifty or sixty seats. While not a perfect electoral system, it could be the framework of an eventual compromise.
Beyond all these questions, of course, is the basic question of exactly what the purpose of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly would be. Initially, it would likely serve as merely as a consultative counterpart to the General Assembly itself, until the electoral system had been properly ironed out. Within a few years, however, the UNPA should begin to take on duties beyond merely giving advice. The UNPA, being directly accountable to the people, could credibly take on jobs such as selecting the U.N. General Secretary and exercising proper oversight of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Eventually, the UNPA and the General Assembly might effectively evolve into a bicameral legislature, with the UNPA representing the people and the General Assembly representing the nations.
Over decades, the democratic credibility of the UNPA as a manifestation of the sovereign will of the people could allow it to evolve into a genuine world parliament, with the ability to pass binding legislation on such matters as shall be delegated to it. An age of global problems requires a global approach to solving them, and a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly would seem to be a necessary step in that direction.
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