United Earth: Rules
Suggested to replace the United
Nations Charter
by Paul VanRaden
July 4, 2024
Updated July 4,
2026
Topics
We, the people
Rules
Governance and limits on power
Transition from UN to UE
History
Predicted order of joining
Declaration of Dependence
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 United Earth to protect our
rights, defend our liberties, and improve the lives of 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 lands previously defended only by volunteer nations or
by treaties. 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.
Governance and limits on power
Goals of United Earth are to help people become and remain
free and to guarantee their rights. Limiting the power of a world government is
even more important than limiting national governments by checks and balances.
If a dictator takes control of a nation, outside forces can remove the dictator
from power such as with Hitler in 1944, but no outside forces will be available
if a dictator takes the world government.
A world army directly funded by world taxes could enforce
world decisions but also might too easily take rights away from people if
generals stopped following orders from UE leaders and took control themselves.
Instead, UE could lead armies controlled and funded by their nations as the UN
Charter had imagined but has not used. That design is used by NATO and was used
by previous missions such as the 1950 Korean War. The 1991 Gulf War was authorized
by the UN where 42 nations sent help to free Kuwait.
Local funding of armed forces is more like the US National
Guard and more consistent with the policy that UE members can cancel their
membership. NATO
members can leave the alliance 1 year after deciding too, but since 1949 no
nations have left after joining. UN members should continue to enforce the
rules they already agreed upon such as the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights even after joining UE.
Democracies, corporations, and many organizations must
prevent their chief executives from stealing power or money for their own use.
Executives who break laws can be arrested and fined or put in jail. Arrest is
very difficult if the chief executive controls the treasury, the justice
system, the army, appoints a court that says he can break any law with no
penalty, and has half the legislature willing to believe all his lies and
ignore all his fraud, no matter how obvious. Even in small organizations, the
board of directors appoints a treasurer and hires an auditor whose job is to
find and prevent fraud. Otherwise, some elected leaders become rich by taking
power and money away from their citizens and taking bribes from anyone, like
the US president can now do.
In large global companies, boards
of directors are responsible for directly selecting, hiring, overseeing,
and removing all officers of the corporation including the CFO (Chief Financial Officer), COO
(Chief Operating Officer), CTO (Chief Technology Officer), and other functional
heads, not only the CEO (Chief Executive Officer). About half of U.S. based
companies follow Delaware
General Corporation Law which gives a CEO much less power than a US
president has. Further rules (bylaws) to distribute and limit powers of
individual executives will be needed to make UE government more honest than US
government.
In the EU, the legislative branch (European Parliament) is
directly elected every 5 years within the same 4-day window across all
member nations. The executive branch (European Commission) has a
President elected by the Parliament by secret ballot. Then, 26
Commissioners (one per member state) are nominated by the President and
each is approved separately by the Parliament. Those rules are like for cabinet
heads in the US nominated by the President and approved by the Senate, except
that cabinet secretaries do not need to each be from different states. For
other EU executive agencies such as the European Central Bank, the Court of
Justice, and Court of Auditors, member nation governments appoint the judges
and auditors, or a Governing Council elects the ECB President, with final
approval by the European Parliament.
In the UN, senior officers such as Secretary General, High
Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF Executive Director, and other agency
heads are nominated by members, voted
on by the Security Council, or vetoed by the 5 permanent members, and their
final choice then gets approval from the General Assembly. The Secretary
General office has a 5-year term and rotates by continent. The last 3 were each
reelected with no opposing candidate, but the office has a 2-term limit, and a
new Secretary General will
be elected in 2026.
The UE could appoint a nominating committee instead of a
security council to locate or screen candidates followed by the general
weighted voting procedure used for all other actions. In early rounds, members
could still add other candidates or vote for candidates that the nominating
committee had not listed. Ranked choice voting can speed the election process.
Direct elections of UE officers do not seem practical or
desirable due to language, culture, and political system differences across
countries and cost of campaigning worldwide. Few leaders have their names
recognized by the voters across earth except sports heroes, movie stars, or
other entertainers who might win but perhaps not govern as well. Past political
leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, or Barack Obama might have been
able to win a global election, but the world should not trust any one person to
govern all people well. A team of separately chosen officers could better
govern the earth than one person dictating what every agency and every nation
should do.
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 the UN is not a government, not
very democratic, and provides almost as little power as the US Articles of
Confederation or the League of Nations which were replaced and discontinued
many decades ago. Fewer rules that are more democratic 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 nation favors 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.
Declaration of Dependence
When people decide to govern their earth
jointly instead of each nation and state governing separately, we should
declare what caused us to unite our laws and to depend on each other. We need to
convince others that all human lives can improve when we have a chance to work
together instead of each nation governing alone. No nation has a right to
govern other nations or other people without their consent.
All people agree with the folowing truths, that peace, security, laws, cooperation, and
friends are better than war, danger, anarchy, violence, and enemies. We need local,
regional, national, and global governments to make and enforce rules, protect
us from harm, and preserve peace, but allow each of us the liberty to pursue
happiness by thinking, speaking, moving, and acting on our own beliefs and
choices. Before governing us, each government should get consent from all people
it governs.
Americans declared in 1776 why they chose
independence and explained how poorly the colonies had been governed, but 250
years later they elected a President who governs them now like the king did
then. “The history of the present King of England is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations… He has endeavored to prevent the population of these
states… obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners… He has
obstructed the administration of justice… He has made judges dependent on his
will alone… cutting off our trade with all parts of the world… transporting us
beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences… He has excited domestic
insurrections among us…” The United States began earth’s trend toward democracy,
but Americans now may need to depend on the rest of the world to help preserve
democracy.
Declaring independence and declaring
war often happen at the same time, whereas declaring dependence often leads to
peace, such as nations of Europe creating a European Union. They wrote their rules
so carefully that when the United Kingdom declared their independence from the
EU, neither side declared war, and most British voters now want to redeclare
their dependence on EU. Americans did not write their rules as carefully, and when
southern states declared their independence from northern states, both sides fought
a very bloody war, and the states fighting for independence lost.
People now buy half of their goods from
people living in other nations who ship their goods to us across national
borders or oceans. Earth has 7 continents and thousands of islands but 70% of earth is
ocean. All nations agreed to the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the UN has no navy to enforce any of
those laws. All nations share the same air, but the UN cannot stop any of us
from poisoning, polluting, or heating the air by adding elements such as carbon
or chemicals such as freon to it. Any nation or private company may now launch
rockets into space, but the UN cannot stop any nation or company from making
space less usable by filling it with orbiting junk that may damage useful satellites.
People of all nations can become
friends. We should consent to give a new government real power to govern the
air that we breathe in, live under, and fly thru, the oceans that our goods arrive
on, our ancestors arrived on, and that touch each shore, the space above the
air that earth travels thru, and the land that supports all of us land lovers.
Global government could let each of us improve and live our lives where we
choose, like the EU does. Our free and independent nations can unite, like 13 American
colonies united and then gradually
became 50 united states, and like 27 nations in Europe gradually
became a European union. Our lives will improve when we retire
the United Nations, we join the United Earth and make this whole planet better and
people freer for the next several centuries.
[This is
not The
Loyalist Declaration of Dependence of 1776 when some Americans pledged
allegiance to the king.]
Back to:
Defending National and
Creating World Democracy
