Monday, March 28, 2005
Transforming OECD in Parallel with the United Nations
Today's paper has an Op-Ed on strengthening NAFTA as a counterweight to China. It does not seem to make much sense for two reasons. First, the economies and capabilities of the United States, Mexico, and Canada are simply too different. In particular, we cannot afford to make the Mexican border into an irrelevancy in the near future. The suggestion that this is the kind of international reorganization we should favor rests on an outmoded territorial idea of the basis of international organization. The states that are closest to one another today are not those that are geographically closest, but rather those that are politically, morally, and economically closest.
A similar geographical concept is behind the thought that NATO be expanded in its membership and functions. Both suggestions have in common the idea that the United States faces long-term international problems that can only be handled by more intensive international cooperation outside the United Nations. The United Nations is an important organization, one that will always be needed because of its universality. However, the membership of the United Nations is so disparate that the issues on which effective action can be taken through the United Nations are limited. When it comes to foreign aid, it is difficult to effectively coordinate and develop policy when the poorest of the poor are part of the decision making process. When it comes to massive human rights violations, such as those in Sudan, the problem has often been that the perpetrators are actually members of the UN commissions that are supposed to suppress the violations.
My friend Jim Huntley has written extensively on developing a democracy-centered international organization built along the lines of NATO but having a global reach that would include Japan. However, there has been resistance to this idea in many quarters, partly because it appears to be another American attempt at hegemony, something that led the French to partially withdraw from NATO years ago.
The OECD, on the other hand, has its headquarters in Paris and has never been considered to be under the thumb of the United States. Its thirty members include all of the new European community, Japan and South Korea, as well as NAFTA. The purposes of the OECD (an organization set originally to help administer Marshall Plan assistance0 are to coordinate economic policy, particularly as it relates to development assistance to the less developed countries. Its relatively wealthy members work to improve economic and social conditions within it membership and throughout the world. It struggles against bribery and responsible government everywhere and regularly puts out reports of the social conditions, environmental policies, and educational standards in member states.
The OECD would seem to me to be the best available base from which to build a more effective parallel organization. Its strong statistical branch should help the United States maintain the standards of the rest of the developed world, while we can gradually help member states develop more coherent and congruent positions on the international issues that interest us. A expanded OECD could form a kind of caucus within the United Nations, with the end result either pressing the UN for more effective action or organizing more effective action on its own — if necessary military action to solve international problems. If we nurtured and respected its membership, this could become the group of states that could give the United States the muscle and moral strength that it will need to stand up to an emerging China down the road.
A similar geographical concept is behind the thought that NATO be expanded in its membership and functions. Both suggestions have in common the idea that the United States faces long-term international problems that can only be handled by more intensive international cooperation outside the United Nations. The United Nations is an important organization, one that will always be needed because of its universality. However, the membership of the United Nations is so disparate that the issues on which effective action can be taken through the United Nations are limited. When it comes to foreign aid, it is difficult to effectively coordinate and develop policy when the poorest of the poor are part of the decision making process. When it comes to massive human rights violations, such as those in Sudan, the problem has often been that the perpetrators are actually members of the UN commissions that are supposed to suppress the violations.
My friend Jim Huntley has written extensively on developing a democracy-centered international organization built along the lines of NATO but having a global reach that would include Japan. However, there has been resistance to this idea in many quarters, partly because it appears to be another American attempt at hegemony, something that led the French to partially withdraw from NATO years ago.
The OECD, on the other hand, has its headquarters in Paris and has never been considered to be under the thumb of the United States. Its thirty members include all of the new European community, Japan and South Korea, as well as NAFTA. The purposes of the OECD (an organization set originally to help administer Marshall Plan assistance0 are to coordinate economic policy, particularly as it relates to development assistance to the less developed countries. Its relatively wealthy members work to improve economic and social conditions within it membership and throughout the world. It struggles against bribery and responsible government everywhere and regularly puts out reports of the social conditions, environmental policies, and educational standards in member states.
The OECD would seem to me to be the best available base from which to build a more effective parallel organization. Its strong statistical branch should help the United States maintain the standards of the rest of the developed world, while we can gradually help member states develop more coherent and congruent positions on the international issues that interest us. A expanded OECD could form a kind of caucus within the United Nations, with the end result either pressing the UN for more effective action or organizing more effective action on its own — if necessary military action to solve international problems. If we nurtured and respected its membership, this could become the group of states that could give the United States the muscle and moral strength that it will need to stand up to an emerging China down the road.
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