Comments on: Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil Seeking UN Security Council Seats

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 04:34:10 +0000

And some more membership requirements...: gobal pollution, age of civilisation, abilty to perform a democratic election and ignorance of the national government!

By: World Community

World Community — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 04:27:46 +0000

Which is the best political setting to bring this planet into a new millenium?

There are forces in different part of the world that need to be brought into the UN, and there are issues that need to be dicussed and dealed with within this body for a global community. I hope the new security council will be able to face these issues.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 18:41:06 +0000

I've written about this pretty extensively. My solution: have explicit membership requirements. Germany can't meet one of the obvious requirements which is percent of GDP devoted to military expenditures. Neither does Japan.

The Security Council is for, well, security. And I seen no particular reason for security consumers to have permanent seats on it. Perhaps they should start an Insecurity Council.

By: Jim Henley

Jim Henley — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 14:18:24 +0000

South Africa would be the best African representative. It certainly managed to doff white-supremacy more gracefully than Zimbabwe did. It's still democratic, only tolerably corrupt and modern - certainly Africa's most functional state. Not a perfect state by any means (crime e.g.), but if the rest of Africa looked more like South Africa than it does, the continent would be vastly better off.

By: Just Me

Just Me — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 13:04:40 +0000

I think India also has a pretty good case, and they would be a good country to bring in, given their population and their region.

I don't think Germany should get a seat, especially since the EU thing doesn't seem to be totally dead, but my opinion is that if the EU goes through, and UK and France both keep their seats, then we should get to get seats for California and Texas too.