ENTITLEMENT QUOTIENTS AS A ROUTE TO A MORE DEMOCRATIC UNITED NATIONS

by Joseph E. Schwartzberg of Minneapolis

The ability of the United Nations to function efficiently is limited by several serious structural deficiencies. First, the one nation - one vote system of decision making in the General Assembly is neither democratic nor realistic and bears no relationship to the actual distribution of power in the world. Hence, it is no wonder that GA decisions are only recommendatory rather than binding. Second, the method of allocating seats in the Security Council is neither fair nor representative. Finally, the Security Council's legitimacy is compromised by the anachronistic perpetuation of the veto power for the five permanent members. These deficiencies can all be corrected through appropriate Charter reform.  

  With respect to the one nation - one vote rule, consider the following ratios of largest to smallest nations: China's population is 122,000 times that of Tuvalu; Russia's area is 8.8 million times that of Monaco; The United States' budget contribution is 25,000 times that of each of the 35 nations paying the stipulated minimum of 0.001%. While uncritical supporters of democracy might wish to have population become the principal factor in weighted voting, any such drastic reform would be opposed by the United States and other democracies in that it would give inordinate power to the miniscule oligarchy that actually runs the Chinese state. This is not to say, however, that population should be totally ignored. If, on the other hand, the United States were to have its way, the chief factor in weighted voting would be some measure of national wealth, such as contributions to the UN budget. But such reform would be opposed by the smaller and poorer nations of the world, who comprise the vast majority of the UN's membership and who would sooner maintain the present system based on the legal principle of "the sovereign equality of nations."   

The way out of the impasse is to institute an objective system that recognizes the validity of all three principles pointed to above and, at least initially, assigns equal weight to each. This can be done by assigning an "Entitlement Quotient" (EQ) to each UN member nation according to the following formula:
EQ=(P+C+M)/3
in which P= the nation's population as a percentage of the population of all UN member nations, C= the nation's percentage contribution to the total UN budget, and M= the nation's unit percentage of the total UN membership (presently 189/3, or 0.53% for each member). To take the example of the United States, our EQ would be 4.55%+25.00%+0.53% / 3, which equals 30.08% / 3 or 10.03(%). Using the same formula, the EQs, in descending order, for the next 14 nations in the year 2000 would be: China 7.96, Japan 7.73, India 5.8, Germany 3.92, France 2.68, Italy 2.31, UK 2.20, Brazil 1.60, Indonesia 1.41, Russia 1.34 (bound to bouce upward as the economy improves), Spain 1.26, Canada 1.26, Mexico 1.06, and Pakistan 1.03. At the lowest extreme, no country would have an EQ lower than 0.18. The ratio of the highest to lowest EQ would be 59:1. EQs would be redetermined at regular intervals in light of each nation's changing demographic and economic fortunes, as well as changes in the number of member nations.

In the proposed restructured GA, votes would be binding provided that two conditions were met: a) that the nations voting for a specific proposition had a total EQ of at least two-thirds the total for all nations present and voting; and b) that the nations voting for the proposition had a majority of the total population of all the nations present and voting.

  The concept of Entitlement Quotients would also be applicable in devising a fair and objective basis for representation in the UN Security Council. One might stipulate that, whereas no nation would remain a "permanent" member, any nation with an EQ in excess of a specific threshold -- I would suggest 4.0% and a Council of either 18 or 19 members -- would automatically be entitled to a seat and that any self-formed bloc of nations whose collective EQ exceeded the given threshold would also be entitled to a Council seat. As of 2000, the US, China, Japan and India would qualify on their own. Caucuses of qualifying countries would form and reform in light of shared interests at particular moments in history. With no permanent members in the SC, there would also be no member with the power of the veto.  

 The permanent members of the Security Council would, of course, oppose the suggested Council reforms were it not for the fact that those reforms would be linked to substantial enhancement in the weight (EQ) of the more important states in an empowered General Assembly. That is the vital quid pro quo that could make the reforms acceptable. For the smaller members the quid pro quo would be the establishment of a rational UN system wherein the force of UN-enacted law would supplant the present system in which the law of force prevails whenever the UN fails to act in ways compatible with the interests of the major powers.

A Professor of Geography at the university of Minnesota, Dr. Schwartzberg has headed the WFA's Minnesota chapter.