¿UNA ALIANZA DE PAÍSES DEMOCRÁTICOS? Ivo Daalder y James Lindsay proponen una alternativa a unas Naciones Unidas tan necesitadas de una urgente reforma a fondo:

An immediate problem is that the United Nations lacks the capability to make a difference. Its blue-helmeted troops can help keep the peace when warring parties choose not to fight. But as we learned in the Balkans, they cannot make peace where none exists. And as we saw in the 12 years preceding the Iraq war, the United Nations cannot enforce its most important resolutions.

Efforts to improve the United Nations' capacity to respond to global security threats are laudable. But we are never going to see a U.N. army. And proposals to remake the Security Council, train peacekeepers and eliminate featherbedding -- to name just a few of the most popular reforms -- will only marginally improve the United Nations' ability to act.

The deeper problem is that these reform proposals do not go to the heart of what ails the organization: It treats its members as sovereign equals regardless of the character of their governments. An Iraq that ignores resolutions demanding that it dismantle its weapons of mass destruction can chair the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. A Sudan that wages a genocidal civil war can be voted onto the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

The idea of sovereign equality reflected a conscious decision governments made 60 years ago that they would be better off if they repudiated the right to meddle in the internal affairs of others. That choice no longer makes sense. In an era of rapid globalization, internal developments in distant states affect our own well-being, even our security. That is what Sept. 11 taught us.

Today respect for state sovereignty should be conditional on how states behave at home, not just abroad. Sovereignty carries with it a responsibility to protect citizens against mass violence and a duty to prevent internal developments that threaten others. We need to build an international order that reflects how states organize themselves internally. The great dividing line is democracy. Democratic states pose far less of a threat to other countries and are often more capable than autocracies. That is why democratic nations should rally together to pursue their common interests.

Un enfoque compartido no hace mucho por Daniele Capezzone y Matteo Mecacci del Partido Radical Italiano, y que de alguna manera se está ensayando en estos momentos en Ginebra sin demasiada luz ni taquígrafos.

Faster, please.