interesting, but a quick question - who gets to determine what country is a threat to their neighbours and who supports terrorism? What would this judge be of the USA or China? Should they sit on the council. Just asking since the UN membership can not bring it self to indicate that the PLO is a supporter of terrorism or that Cuba and China (for example) have "abuses the rights of their citizens". So while it sounds good, who gets to make the dicision?

Sorry for the spelling - bad day. Also never saw a link to the plan just to other stories about it.

g is likely correct. Israel would certainly be ineligible under such a rule.

Japan, Germany, and India should almost certainly be on the Security Council given their wealth, size, and/or regional power. But this is a Pandora's box that should probably remain closed. Once the discussion is open, many more countries than should be members will want to be members and much bitterness will ensue. And, of course, adding more countries with veto power will just make the Security Council even more impotent.

James?

Israel would certainly be ineligible under such a rule.

You crack me up! Are you referring to the West Bank and Gaza? 'Cause if you are, I have a news flash for you: It doesn't matter. As far as the UN is concerned, any excuse will do when it comes to boxing out the Israelis.

After all, Israel is already ineligible for a seat on the SC and has been for over 50 years! They are the only nation that holds that distinction. Check it out.

This is primarily why I view the UN with contempt.

Ara, not that I don't believe you, but do you happen to have any link to whatever makes Isreal inelligable.

The problem with that proposal is that it will result in countries which are denied seats on the SC withdrawing from the treaty. This would reduce the utility of the UN as a place where anyone can meet with anyone, and thus damage the ability of the UN to prevent wars. (Which was the primary purpose behind the UN's founding, and the only good reason for its continued existance)

If we really want to create a new body that can create useful and good international policy we will need to write a treaty that supports that type of behavior.

I think that would be a horible thing for the US or any other nation to do, as any such body would need some power to enforce policy, and would use that power to increase it's strength much as the US Federal government and EU have both done. And as the UN has repeatedly tried to do, with varying success, depending on just how much power it actually had.

I much prefer limited and situational alliances and agreements, they are less likely to result in something ugly and un-democratic.

Michael:

To be eligible for election, a country must belong to a regional group. Every UN member state—from the smallest to the largest—is included in one of the five regional groups. By geography, Israel should be part of the Asian bloc but such countries as Iraq and Saudi Arabia have prevented its entry for decades.

As a temporary measure, Israel has sought acceptance in the West European and Others Group (WEOG), which includes not only the democracies of Western Europe but also Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Turkey and the United States.

Here, too, despite the support of several countries, including the U.S., Israel still has not been admitted.

Thus, without membership in a regional group, Israel can never be elected to serve a term on the Security Council or, for that matter, to the other most important bodies of the UN system, such as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the World Court, UNICEF and the Commission on Human Rights.

The Charter of the United Nations proclaims "the equal rights...of nations large and small." But only Israel, among all the UN members, is denied the right to belong to any regional group.

You can read the whole thing here.

Ara is correct. I'll expand on his point with regard to the Security Council itself. The Security Council is made up of 15 members. Five of these are the permanent, veto-wielding nations--the P5 (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, and China). The other ten are the rotating membership that are elected to two-year terms. Each of the five regions that Ara mentioned above holds two of the non-permanent seats, which is what makes potential membership on the Security Council contingent on membership within one of the five regional groups. Israel is the only nation on Earth that is a member of the United Nations but has been blackballed from membership in one of the five regional groups.

It would be wrong to assume that the UN members would act rationally here. Y'all know the members of the UN Human Rights Commission!

And in case anyone forgot, China is a permanent member of the Security Council, and it's human rights record is highly dubitable at best.

This is a comment I posted on Angry Left:

'I am reminded from time to time that not once in its 55-year history has Israel ever been permitted to hold even a temporary seat on the Security Council of the "United Nations" Organization. Is there any other member state that has been similarly treated, or is this just another example of the worldwide antisemitism that forms an operational undercurrent of the UNO? No wonder the Israelis utterly despise all such international organizations.'

Having researched the matter further, it turns out that Israel alone is reserved for such pariah status at the UNO. The Arabs and other moslem states continually block their entry into the Asia group of constituent UNO states. They are also blocked from entry into the "western and other states" group. Which means they can never be nominated for a seat at the Security Council. Nor, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), has any Israeli diplomat ever been appointed to any high-level position in the UNO secretariat. Talk about a rigged game.

So fuck the UNO. I hope it collapses into the same dustbin into which the League of Nations disappeared in 1939. And I would encourage any of my children to serve in any US armed forces unit that would come under UNO command. As far as I am concerned, the UNO is just some sort of stinking modern version of the Holy Roman Empire, giving meaningless admonishments to everybody, responsible to nobody. All mouth, no power.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Here I go with my famous typos again. The sentence about encouraging my kids so serve in the US armed forces under UNO command, obviously, should read that I would not do this under any circumstances.

And what kind of patriotic American would want to serve the UNO, anyway, under that dreadful blue spider-web rag?

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI