International Crime-Fighting SyndicateLeeg-Ov-Deh-Maw-Krah-Sayz
Decision-making body composed of Democratic nations whose leaders can be relied upon to be accountable to their citizens, to respect the rule of law and to do what they're bloody-well told.
Notional replacement for the United Nations, theoretically proposed because the existing body has failed to exterminate evil from the universe, the League of Democracies will leap tall buildings and zip around the planet faster than a speeding bullet, fighting for truth, justice and the Republican way.
Admittance to the League would be dependent upon a country's democratic bona fides, its legal system, its human rights record and its willingness to accept international Norms of Decency, which would be considered in-depth before being utterly blown off in favour of a quick America, Yay!/America, Boo! qualification test.
Theoretically brilliant mechanism for annoying the Russians, the Iranians and the Syrians, the League of Democracies allows the most priapic level of moral grandstanding while still being laughably unworkable in practice, making it the quintessentially Decent enterprise.
3 comments:
Did they really suggest that?
Wow, that sounds pretty unworkable. Not to mention something that would immediately spark furious rows about who is or isn't a "proper" democracy. No doubt if Russia or Iran were excluded because of the limitations of their democracy, they'd come back with a retort about us Brits having an unelected upper house.
And what would be done in an international dispute where e.g. China was a key player? Ignore China and ask South Korea and Japan to sort it all out?
In fairness, this is really only Professor Norm's hobby horse, and he seems to see it existing side-by-side with the UN. That seems even loopier to me, but there you go.
God knows how it would shake out, because if the Americans and the Brits threw serious political capital into this idea you'd get a lot of pissed off people around the world.
The first lot would probably be the Iraqis, I think. Any honest attempt to kick off this kind of plan would mean they were out, since their governing system is a bit like Lebanese zuama, where every tribe/religious group votes for its favourite warlord and the warlords jockey for power amongst themselves.
God only knows where this would leave Pakistan or the Palestinians. .. I guess, since we're never going to actually try this out, we'll never know.
"In fairness, this is really only Professor Norm's hobby horse, and he seems to see it existing side-by-side with the UN".
Well as little as 20 years ago Prof Geras was musing over the possibility of soviet power existing alongside forms of representative democracy, so relevance and practicality have never been particularly central to his noodlings.
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