A remedy for outlawry
By Doug Everingham
The New World Order promised by Messrs Bush and Hawke to keep peace by international law is not new, and not enforceable law except by breaching the peace. They propose using the United Nations Charter. This needs reform, since it preserves states' rights to make war (to combat "threats").
Australia's Forde-Evatt team were recognised at the UN Charter conference as the voice of smaller nations. They succeeded in getting equal votes at the General Assembly for each member state, but that is diplomatocracy, not democracy.
They failed to get General Assembly authority over sanctions, war or other joint security decisions. These were reserved for the Security Council, which has only five permanent members: China, France, UK, US, USSR. The Security Council may make substantial decisions only if none of the five disagrees.
The law and order policing provided for in the Charter is a joint military command of these five. This has never occurred. The only UN forces have been:
- police in charge of securing UN buildings;
- occasional detachments from national forces in demilitarised zones when and while disputants on both sides agreed;
- in Korea, under a US command, when China and the USSR were unable to use their vetoes;
- in the Gulf War, under a US command, while China feared reimposition of trade bans following the Tienanmen massacre and while the USSR feared loss of Western aid during secession demands and food riots at home.
The founding parents of Switzerland, USA, Australia and a dozen other federations started with constitutions. These include declarations of democracy rather like the UN Charter preamble. Unlike the charter, most go on to give citizens some control of the federation by direct elections.
It is long past time for a grassroots push to get governments to align themselves with organisations promoting public awareness and concern to achieve the minimum proven requirements for keeping peace by law and order:
1. Control of security forces by a representative body, not control of vigilante national forces by self-appointed diplomatic bargainers commanded by the most powerful disputant gangs.
2. Democratising UN representation in proportion to population, with no vetoes.
3. Mandatory power for the UN secretary-general and others to refer disputes to negotiators, mediators, World Court and arbitrators.
4. Power for the court to direct policing forces to act in all territories to arrest, try, restrain and penalise individual international outlaws.
5. Revenue and other powers, defined by the world community to be within reasonable limits. These must suffice for the UN to regulate matters that are dangerous to all sides if left in parochial national control, and matters in need of control in the interests of world security. These powers might include laws on international tax sheltering; transfer pricing by transnationals; money laundering and bank secrecy; public monitoring of Interpol arrangements; licensing and restraining exploitation of fragile environments; supervision of strategic areas and disputed regions; public hearings and ombudspeople to redress grievances.
Let's give the Australian government authority and encouragement to educate us and the world community towards the only proven remedy for outlawry in the world.
Doug Everingham was minister for health in the 1972-75 Whitlam Labor government.