New Jersey Law Journal
Copyright 2007 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved.
July 9, 2007
 

GLOBAL PROBLEMS REQUIRE GLOBAL LEGISLATION
 

None of us would choose to live in a nation with no lawmaking body. A system of law, order and justice is an essential prerequisite to real peace in any society.

But we live in a global community with no global legislature. Instead, we seek to solve global problems involving peace and pollution though a series of treaties. The Law of the Sea Treaty has been awaiting Senate ratification for more than 25 years. We abandoned the ABM treaty.  The treaty designing an International Criminal Court was signed by President Clinton on his way out of office and then 'unsigned' by President Bush.

Global problems do require global solutions. Global warming cannot be addressed with action by only a few willing nations. Global terrorism cannot be dealt with effectively if some U.N. members are permitted to aid terrorists without economic or other sanctions from the rest of the world community. Global peacemaking and peacekeeping require advance planning and organization.

The time has come to create additional power in the United Nations General Assembly so that when confronting global problems, and only global problems, it would act as the world's legislature.

All structural, radical changes in the United Nations, such as the enlargement of the Security Council and of the Economic and Social Council in 1965 and the creation of the International Criminal Court in June 1998, have originated with the developing nations (G77) and at first were opposed by the U.S., Russia, China, France and the U.K. (P5). For that reason, representatives of the Center for War/Peace Studies (CWPS) have for 18 months been meeting at the U.N. missions of the G77 key players to explain the proposal and to then visit their respective foreign ministries where policy is made.

On June 30, 2007, several of those players sent members of their missions to a 'retreat' in Morris County. They were responding to an invitation from the CWPS to discuss weighted voting and to consider questions relating to its referral for study to appropriate committees of the General Assembly. We believe that the work of the CWPS with G77 diplomats is important and we wish them well.