WEIGHTED VOTING AS A VEHICLE FOR UN REFORM

A major reason why the United Nations commands less respect than it ought to have in global affairs is the fact that the allocation of decision-making power in both the General Assembly and the Security Council has virtually no relationship to the relative importance of nations in the real world outside the UN itself. For example, in the GA, Tuvalu, with a population of 10,000, has the same vote as China, with a population of 1.3 billion. The ratio between them is 1:130,000. The ratio of Tuvalu’s GNP to that of the United States is even less. In the SC, all members, irrespective of their importance, have equal votes, though the five permanent members, whose status is an anachronistic relic of the outcome of World War II, do enjoy the power of the veto. Leaving aside the exceptional situation of the P-5 and their dubiously legitimate veto privilege, the SC has seen years when tiny Malta has had the same voting weight as India and Cape Verde the same weight as Japan. More rational systems are both necessary and achievable.

A weighted voting system that would reasonably and fairly reflect the interest of diverse groups of states in the GA might utilize the following formula:

                                                WV = P + C + M
                                                                 3

WV here represents a nation’s weighted vote, the average of P, its percentage share of the population of all UN members; C, its financial contribution as a percentage of the total UN budget; and M, its share of the total UN membership (i.e., 1/191 or 0.524%. This formula embodies three fundamental principles: democratic/demographic, economic, and legal (the sovereign equality of nations). Were it in place today, the formula would give the USA a WV of 9.1%, China 7.7%, Japan 7.3%, India 6.0%, Germany 3.8%, France 2.6%, the UK 2.3%, etc. At the opposite extreme, a number of microstates would each have a WV of 0.17%. WVs would be periodically revised to reflect demographic and economic changes.

There would be little point, however, in changing the present system if the GA were to remain as weak as it is at present. The smaller members would have no incentive to vote for the new system unless the change were to result in their receiving some significant benefits in return. Thus, we recommend that the GA be empowered to make legally binding decisions on an initially circumscribed – but eventually expansible – set of vital global issues that nations acting individually cannot effectively address

To reflect the increased membership of the UN over the past four decades, expansion of the SC from 15 to 18 members is recommended. Several additional changes would enable the SC to better reflect the interests and capabilities of the global community. First, it would be understood that any nation with a WV above a 4% threshold would automatically be entitled to a seat. (Those presently qualifying would be the USA, China, Japan and India.) Additionally, any self-formed bloc of nations whose combined WVs came to more than 4% would also be so entitled, provided that the total number of seats in the two groups did not exceed 17. (Qualifying blocs would likely include the Arab League, ASEAN, South America, Meso-America, West Africa, and Central, East and Southern Africa combined.) Each self-formed bloc would put forward from two to five candidates to be its representatives and the GA would select from that list the one that it deemed most deserving. This system would contribute substantially to selection on the basis of merit. Finally, to fill the remaining one or more vacancies, the GA would elect worthy candidates at large from the entire group of nations not included in any of the self-formed blocs. Though the qualifying WVs (> 4%) of the single nations or blocs would vary, each nation or bloc represented in the SC would cast the same unit vote as at present. Permanent membership and the veto would be phased out over a 15-year period.

The constituent nations of each self-formed bloc would be expected to work out a set of rules to guide their respective SC representatives The representatives would, in turn, have to consult regularly with the external affairs ministries of the nations in their blocs to enable them to fairly reflect their collective will; and the ministries would also consult regularly with one another to develop collective positions on major issues. Recent advances in communications technology make this feasible. In the absence of a predetermined degree of consensus, the bloc representative would presumably abstain on a highly controversial issue.

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For a detailed exposition of the ideas presented above, including many maps and tables and the text of needed Charter amendments, see Joseph E. Schwartzberg, Revitalizing the United Nations: Reform through Weighted Voting, New York and The Hague: Institute for Global Policy, World Federalist Movement, 2004.