United Earth: Rules

Suggested to replace the United Nations Charter

by Paul VanRaden

July 4 2024

We, the people of earth, unite to govern ourselves fairly, preserve our freedom, increase our liberty, promote peace, avoid war, and improve our lives. We depend on each other to respect some rules when we exchange goods, communicate, travel, and live our lives within or across our national borders. Our nations are no longer independent. New tools, ideas, goods, diseases, and cures can quickly reach all nations. More effective international government could help us and our nations to maintain and expand markets, sustain global transportation, resolve international disputes, and defend each other from threats to democracy. To achieve these goals, we join in a United Earth.

Since 1945 when the United Nations began, local and regional wars have not expanded into world wars and nuclear bombs have not destroyed any cities. The United Nations has helped to avoid world wars by formally discussing international issues but has allowed many nations to fail internally. More people now live in fear of their own government than of being invaded by another, and many people now live as refugees outside of nations that did not or could not support the needs of life. A major goal of United Earth is to rebuild failed states into prosperous nations, thus preserving or promoting the human rights of all people, as people and their governments did in the years after 1945. United Earth reserves the right to help people anywhere, especially if and when their own nation ignores their rights and needs.

The United Nations was not designed to be a government and could not enforce its resolutions due to lack of any military budget, little ability to tax, a weak Charter very difficult to amend, and the power of 5 nations to veto any decision. In contrast, United Earth is designed to govern. The rules are more like a global corporation whose member nations can invest in improving the world and share in the benefits.

We adopt the following rules for a United Earth to protect rights, defend liberties, and improve lives for all people in all nations.

Rules

1. United Earth’s member nations may elect or appoint 1 member to each committee if their estimated population is > 1/1000 of earth’s current population. Currently those members could include 101 nations with populations above 8 million. Nations that join may later secede, but any United Earth property in or from that nation will remain controlled by United Earth. Voluntary secession should be rare and peaceful, like the British exit from the European Union.

2. The Democracy Rating Committee will choose a scale and rate how well each nation’s government complies with principles of democracy, international law, and human rights. A simple majority vote of the committee will approve each nation’s rating each year, or when major changes to democratic rule occur during a year, or before new members join. The chair will only vote to break a tie.

3. Nations that democratically unite and then vote as 1 nation will inherit the votes of the previous N members; if a member nation democratically splits into N members, each will inherit 1 / N of a vote in the Democracy Rating Committee. The committee will also certify estimates of each nation’s population.

4. In all other committees, nations with higher democracy ratings will get proportionally more votes. The vote of each nation will be weighted by its democracy rating multiplied by its current estimated population. A rating of 0 will exclude a totally undemocratic nation from membership in United Earth until its rating exceeds 0. Excluding outlaw governments from voting will protect the democratic rights of governments that respect law and voters.

5. Member nations that elect instead of appoint their committee members may be assigned higher democracy ratings by that committee.

6. The governing committee will set taxing and spending policies, hire and fire the heads of major executive departments, and establish a court system to resolve disputes.

7. Current functions of the United Nations can be transferred into United Earth to maintain current services while developing further global services with better funding, more effective management, and more democratic control.

8. United Earth may assess and accept taxes in local, national currencies but may also issue and convert those taxes or entire national currencies into its own new currency (Earthos), like the conversion of former European currencies into Euros in 2000. Nations may pay all taxes in currency (national or Earthos) or may prefer to pay in kind by transferring ownership and control of ports, military bases, and military hardware (ships, planes, tanks, nuclear missiles, etc.) to United Earth for its long-term operations. The finance committee should propose transfers and prices to obtain such national resources.

9. The United Earth military will defend international waters and foreign lands previously defended only by volunteer nations. The United Nations began with a similar goal that was never developed due to poor governance, lack of funding, and lack of trust. National alliances and bilateral defense treaties are useful, but more direct control of international defense by a majority of earth’s people will better deter aggression. Few nations will declare war on the whole world.

10. Direct military action inside failed nations will be United Earth’s responsibility even if that nation’s failed leader objects. The Democracy Rating Committee may rate a state as failed and recommend that the Governing Committee commit resources to restore order and make life livable for people in that nation.

11. United Earth will have full authority to govern the whole earth when national governments representing a majority of earth’s people adopt these rules. Any nation may join and its voting power will reflect its democracy rating and current population. If a majority of earth’s people have not joined by 2039, a new set of rules to replace these will be offered for adoption.

Transition from UN to UE

Most modern governments have 3 main branches – a legislative branch to make the rules, an executive branch to follow and enforce the rules, and a judicial branch to interpret the rules for individual cases of conflict. The UN is not a government because it does not have an executive branch to enforce its rules; the governments of its member nations must do that instead. The UN does not have a legislative branch and does not make laws, it makes resolutions. That is clear just by reading the highlighted goals in Article 1 of its charter.

Article 1: The Purposes of the United Nations are:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

The other 110 Articles also use language making clear that members can volunteer to enforce UN decisions but that the UN itself has no resources to enforce its resolutions.

Article 43: All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.

Because the UN was designed to be weak, the Charter reserved the right of individual or groups of nations to unite in other treaties or governments such as the EU or AU or NATO to solve the problems that the UN is unable to solve:

Article 52: Nothing in the present Charter precludes the existence of regional arrangements or agencies for dealing with such matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security as are appropriate for regional action provided that such arrangements or agencies and their activities are consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.

The UN Charter has not been amended in >50 years, but its text makes clear that starting from scratch with new agreements is always permitted. The Charter says that if the UN is not meeting its purposes, we can meet those goals using any other arrangements, such as by uniting the earth with a real international government.

Article 95: Nothing in the present Charter shall prevent Members of the United Nations from entrusting the solution of their differences to other tribunals by virtue of agreements already in existence or which may be concluded in the future. [Regarding the International Court of Justice]

History

In 1944, Wendell Willkie “argued for a fully democratic structure for the United Nations—one that would give smaller nations equal power and open a clear path to freedom for colonized countries.” Instead, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to give the nations who won World War II permanent control of the UN. Thus, the UN Charter did not lead to a democratic world.

In 1948, a World Constitution was proposed by a team led by the University of Chicago:

Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution.

From 1950-1991, a World Constitutional Convention and later assemblies drafted and revised a

Constitution for the Federation of Earth. A Provisional_World_Parliament still meets occasionally to try to keep that idea alive.

In 2024, Paul VanRaden suggested the above rules to replace the UN Charter because it is anti-democratic and provides almost as little power as the US Articles of Confederation or the League of Nations which were abandoned long ago. Fewer but more democratic rules will allow member nations to solve bigger problems by combining their resources to benefit the whole earth.

Predicted order of joining

Ideally, the United States and the United Kingdom would be first to join United Earth 250 years after they became independent and began a global trend toward separation. But neither of them favor the goal of world democracy because their governments would lose some power. Rich people do not like to be taxed by poorer people, but American and British tax rates might actually decrease if costs of policing the world were paid for by world taxes instead of US and UK taxes. The UN’s 5 permanent members of the Security Council (US, UK, France, Russia, and China) are the 5 countries least likely to join because their governments currently are immune from any UN control. Dictators also are less likely to join because then they may need to explain why their nation’s democracy rating is so low.

Countries most likely to sign first are those that believe in democracy and deserve more power in world decisions. India has the most to gain in United Earth compared to UN. Like all other countries, India has only 1 of the 193 votes in the UN General Assembly (0.5%) but will have 36% of the votes in United Earth due to its large population and good democracy rating. Other nations will also gain votes such as Indonesia with 7%, Brazil with 5%, and Japan with 4%, along with several nations of Europe. More of Earth’s voters will control United Earth policy. The 5 countries that currently can veto any UN decision will still have 25% of the total votes, but the majority can make decisions without their approval.

These new rules will give us a fairer voice and a better path toward governing our nations and the earth. We, the people, should join this United Earth.

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