Over on No Right Turn, idiot/savant posted about a movement to add an elected assembly to the UN. This would, in effect, be a world parliament – a representative democratic body covering the entire world. Idiot likes the idea:
This is an interesting project, and one that deserves our support. It recognises both the need for some form of global government, and the fundamental truth that power derives from the consent of the governed, that there is no authority without democracy. At the same time, it also recognises that democracy has to grow from the bottom up,
I first heard about this idea of a world parliament in George Monbiot’s book The Age of Consent, and so I was excited to see what Monbiot would say about this initiative. He was just as encouraging, and in typically pithy style put forward a clear summary of the case for a global parliament:
Those who claim, like the British eurosceptics, that regional or global decision-making is unnecessary are living in a world of make-believe. No political issue now stops at the national border. All the most important forces – climate change, terrorism, state aggression, trade, flows of money, demographic pressures, the depletion of resources – can be addressed only at the global level. The question is not whether global decisions need to be made. The question is how to ensure that they are made democratically. Is there any valid answer other than direct representation?
Myself, I feel that a global representative government is an inevitability and something to be anticipated. The question is, how long will it take to get there and how many faltering early versions will we have to go through to get something functional? I hope that the rise of world-scale issues (like those Monbiot mentions) will serve as a driver to make this process relatively swift. It would be nice to see a functioning world parliament in my lifetime.
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As an aside, idiot has made use of Pledgebank again, this time to pledge “I will write to Justice Minister Mark Burton urging the repeal of New Zealand’s sedition laws but only if 20 other New Zealanders will do the same.” It already has well over 20 names. You should sign up too – all the cool kids are doing it!
The version Monbiot put forward in Age of Consent was IMO mindblowingly naive, flawed and impractical.
Nice sentiment, though.
Not to mention potentially lacking in legitimacy. The current version seems to be a better (and more achievable) proposal, which could actually grow into a real democratic check and balance.