The UN's temple of the veto

Major countries in their regions would become “anchors” with a permanent place on the Security Council, others would have rotating “co-anchors”. Some of the larger regions in population and economic power - North America, led by the US, the European Union and probably East Asia - would be given two votes, the remainder one, but regions would have to secure 60 per cent majorities - based both on population and economic clout - of their membership, before a vote or votes could be cast.

There are many difficulties with Hartwig’s vision. One is that economic performance would be assessed not through the well known measure of Gross Domestic Product but by a theory called Purchasing Power Parity which, he argues, is a more stable and accurate assessment of a nation’s economic standing. He also places Australia in a ramshackle “Pacific” region with New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Japan, South Korea and Canada.

Does it have any hope of success, especially as it involves the five permanent members of the Security Council giving up their cherished vetos? Not a hope in today’s world Hartwig says, but maybe by 2020 - a date set by a UN-sponsored panel as the deadline for reform.

He believes Britain and France could be persuaded to surrender their vetos in the face of overwhelming evidence they are no longer the great powers they once were. Even the US may come round to realising the importance of preserving the UN “perhaps by the second Obama Administration”.

But surely Russia and China would never agree? In answer to a question Hartwig suggests a scenario where if there were a few standouts “everyone could resign from the UN and form an identical UN the next day, leaving open chairs for missing countries if they decided to join later”.

Whatever the verdict on REP, Hartwig is doing a valuable service by promoting international debate over the direction reform of the UN should take. Unlike the Bush-Bolton brigade he believes the international body has a role, indeed a crucial role to play in the future of this planet. It is no coincidence that one of the sponsors of his paper is the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, established to perpetuate the name of the UN’s greatest Secretary General who gave his life in the service of a very different world.