Robin Helweg-Larsen
A small country, a member of the United Nations - of no threat to its neighbors, and of no strategic importance to large powers - signs a treaty with the United Nations in a format acceptable to the permanent members of the Security Council. Under this treaty the country agrees to turn over its military equipment to the UN and to pay 1% of its Gross National Product directly to the UN each year, and in exchange the UN guarantees the country's security from outside intervention.
There are obvious benefits:
There are several caveats:
There are various paths by which such a treaty could be drawn up:
Article 26 is realistic because it begins with what the veto-holders would find acceptable. Article 62 would focus more on the needs of the planet first, and then look to see what would be acceptable to the veto-holders secondarily; a different, but equally valid, approach.
But before determining which path to take, the most important first step is to find a country which would be prepared to be the pioneer in this entire process. For a country to be willing to give up its military forces, it needs to be one which does not glorify its military, and does not have a proud heritage of conflict. For a country to be willing to give up elements of national sovereignty, it needs to be one which puts peace and progress above pride, or which can find pride in leading the world towards peace as the first signatory of the treaty. For a country to be acceptable to the Security Council as a candidate for the rights and security guarantees of this treaty, it needs to be one that is of no strategic importance to any of the veto-holders.
Countries have taken steps in this general direction in the past, such as Costa Rica's abolition of the armed forces after its 1948 civil war. Any country like Costa Rica, therefore, with a continuing history of spending money on education and health instead of armaments, and of regional peace-brokering, might be a candidate.
Small states like Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or Liechtenstein might be receptive, but their position within the middle of Europe might be problematic. (Vatican City is not a UN member.)
Caribbean states with less than 100,000 inhabitants, such as St Kitts Nevis, Dominica, or Antigua and Barbuda might be possible, but the UN would have to keep in mind the need for protection against drug trafficking and other illegal activities, given that the economic and military power of some criminal cartels is greater than that of those countries.
Even smaller Pacific states in the 10,000 to 20,000 inhabitant range, such as Nauru, Palau, or Tuvalu, are also possible candidates, and the security concerns here would include those states' effective control of the seas that are part of their territory, in the face of international fishing and the movement of Big Power armed forces.
Perhaps a country that is struggling to survive in the face of famine or social collapse, or that has had an idealistic government come to power in the aftermath of revolution or civil war, would be receptive to all the help it could get - the difficulty here being that the government might not be democratic, or, if it was, the treaty might not be popularly supported, and might be renounced by the next government that came to power.
Some larger countries come to mind as possibilities, countries with a long history of socially progressive legislation, support for peacekeeping operations and the UN, and a lack of enemies; but many of them are members of defense blocs such as NATO from which domestic public opinion might prevent them withdrawing; while others are sufficiently proud and wealthy to prefer to stand entirely on their own.
However, the important point is that finding the pioneer country needs to be the first step; after that, the treaty will have to be rethought into what is politically possible for that country, for its neighbors, and for the Security Council veto-holders, before the General Assembly can again step back and look at both this first manifestation of such a treaty and the implications for its ongoing use throughout the world. Only after that can the first, pioneer, treaty be signed.
The search for this country can be assisted by anyone interested in strengthening the UN, whether they are themselves elected government members or civil servants, or members of the general public, regardless of nationality or residence. On the one hand, we need to find a willing country; on the other, we need to clarify the criteria that will allow a country to be acceptable to the veto-holders on the Security Council. There will be a lot of different concerns and fears to deal with, a lot of different constituencies whose needs must be taken into account. At first the idea may face rejection, simply because it has not been implemented before. We will have to show it to be possible, reasonable, and beneficial. After that, when the proposal is considered possible, power-holders under the status quo may be reluctant to implement change if they cannot be certain of the personal consequences.
This proposal treads heavily in the area of 'outside interference' as regards the freedom of the candidate country to manage its own affairs: it will have no military capability beyond a police force; its elections, internal conflicts, judiciary and payments to the UN will be subject to UN oversight; it will be dependent on the UN for defense and stability in the event of a political emergency.
Therefore in the candidate nation a constituency needs to be built which supports the reduction in autonomy; and the primary spokesperson for the proposal needs to be a citizen and resident of that nation, in order not to contribute to the concerns of 'outside interference'.
The reasons for supporting the proposed treaty will be a combination of global altruism, national benefit, and personal self-interest. The treaty must be presented as a win-win-win opportunity.
'Global altruism' includes religious and humanitarian motivation for reducing the risk of war, and for reducing arms races and thereby allowing increased spending on health and education in all countries; it also includes promoting the rule of law between nations through the various ways in which the UN would be strengthened.
'National benefit' focuses on the candidate country's increased security with reduced expenditure, and the redirection of military expenditure to the most-desired social programs or to a reduction in personal and corporate taxation. The treaty would also give a higher international profile to the country, in a very positive light, with opportunities to enhance national pride as well as exports, tourism, and international investment.
'Personal self-interest' for the average voter will be found within the national benefits.
Regarding 'personal self-interest' for the politician: first, the debate over the proposal gives an opportunity to break old patterns and form new alliances; second, the financial and security benefits of the treaty will increase popular support for the politicians associated with creating it; third, the closer working relationship with the UN provides an opportunity to move from the national to the international stage; and fourth, for the signatories for the first nation to develop this new relationship to the rest of the planet, there will be a permanent place in the history books.
This proposal can also be construed as limiting (albeit in a very small way) the freedom of the five veto-holders on the Security Council to act independently of the UN. The proposed treaty necessarily leads to a strengthening of the UN in military, judicial, economic and political areas; a strengthening which is at the expense of the autonomy of all individual nation-states.
It can be argued that that was what the framers of the UN Charter had in mind, as expressed in Article 2. However, the reality is that, because of the veto power of the five permanent members of the security council, those five have been able to engage in wars, proxy wars, subversion, coups d'etat, etc, without the UN being able to act against them. This has created a roadblock to world peace.
This proposal is an attempt to break the roadblock by working, first, with a small and not strategically important nation or territory, demilitarizing it, and having its security guaranteed by a veto-proof mechanism. Though this mechanism would be approved by the veto-holders, and would only apply in this one instance, it would permanently remove their veto in this instance; therefore the veto-holders may be initially averse to the idea. That is why the proposal must be done as a one-off trial, without any mandatory future application, but as a working model which could be used again later if it turned out to be beneficial to the veto-holders. A working model is always useful, to check for unexpected advantages as well as drawbacks.
Possibly the only thing that will make this model beneficial to the veto-holders will be if they receive a lot of popular support for the idea from their own electorate. This popular support, in turn, will be easiest to achieve for an application of the proposed Peace Treaty to individual nations that are well-liked by the world at large, or that are in desperate need of aid and stability, or that are too small and weak to be able to defend themselves from their neighbors in the event of war.
Therefore this proposal may only prove realistic if there is a groundswell of popular support for it within each of the five veto-holding nations.
Article 77 of the UN Charter allows a nation to place a dependent territory in a UN Trusteeship. This is relevant for a nation (especially one of the veto-holders) that is prepared to work with this Proposal by putting one of its colonies or dependencies in UN Trusteeship. The original big power would continue as before to provide administration or allow self-government, but the territory would be demilitarized, its defense would be turned over to the proposed standing UN Rapid Response Force, and its economy would be taxed at 1% of GNP - as with the main proposal.
If a big power was already engaged in transferring some of its sovereignty to a supranational body such as the European Union, or otherwise engaged in a realignment of the importance of its overseas territories, it might be relatively prepared to put one of its territories into UN Trusteeship; compared with the reluctance that might be felt by a big power actively seeking to maintain or enhance its freedom to act unilaterally in the world.
[As an example, the UK might be prepared to consider the Turks and Caicos Islands in this way: with a population of less than 20,000, the islands have been under the control of Jamaica, the UK, the Bahamas, and currently the UK again, in the last 40 years; they have also decided on independence, and then reversed that decision; they have applied to join Canada, and been turned down. They are no threat to their neighbors (the Bahamas, Haiti, the Dominican Republic), and they are not engaged in any international disputes. Though pleasant enough, they are just not in the headlines.]
If one of the veto-holders was prepared to put its own territory into UN Trusteeship, it might be relatively easy for the other veto-holders to accept.
The will of the people in the territory would obviously have to be considered, and not just the will of the government of the controlling power. Furthermore, one of the objectives of the trusteeship system, as laid down in Article 76, is the "progressive development towards self-government or independence" of the trust territories, and that too needs to be considered in the treaty.
Signing such a proposed Peace Treaty with a small, poor, weak, and strategically unimportant country, or with a big power dependency placed in UN Trusteeship, can be done without having to modify any of the existing institutions of the UN. However, if the use of the treaty were to spread, the existing institutions would inevitably prove themselves inadequate at some point. Therefore the longer-term implications of such a treaty being used should be considered from the outset.
They include issues in the following areas:
Despite these longer-term considerations, there is nothing to prevent the proposed Peace Treaty being implemented, if a suitable candidate can be found.
If you are interested in the general idea of this proposal, you could help in three immediate ways:
Robin Helweg-Larsen
July 2001