McCain, Law Day, and a "League of Democracies"
We should go further and start bringing democratic peoples and nations from around the world into one common organization, a worldwide League of Democracies. This would not be like the universal-membership and failed League of Nations' of Woodrow Wilson but much more like what Theodore Roosevelt envisioned: like-minded nations working together in the cause of peace. The new League of Democracies would form the core of an international order of peace based on freedom. It could act where the UN fails to act, to relieve human suffering in places like Darfur. It could join to fight the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and fashion better policies to confront the crisis of our environment. It could provide unimpeded market access to t hose who share the values of economic and political freedom, an advantage no state-based system could attain. It could bring concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma or Zimbabwe, with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval. It could unite to impose sanctions on Iran and thwart its nuclear ambitions. It could provide support to struggling democracies in Ukraine and Serbia and help countries like Thailand back on the path to democracy.
This League of Democracies would not supplant the United Nations or other international organizations. It would complement them. But it would be the one organization where the world's democracies could come together to discuss problems and solutions on the basis of shared principles and a common vision of the future.
It seems the new league would work without the blessing of the UN, which I think might be a very good thing. There are just too many unhelpful aspects in the way the UN is structured. It would allow humanitarian intervention without the blessing of totalitarian states or China and Russia on the Security Council. In any event, this is an exciting idea, and one which has been endorsed by Anne Marie Slaughter and John Ikenberry, both of Princeton. This is a really interesting and fresh policy idea, and the kind of thing which makes John McCain such an exciting candidate (and please, no knee-jerk reactions just because he is a Republican candidate).
It's no coincidence either that he delivered the speech on May Day, or what has also been called law day. For an interesting discussion on law day, and the way international law gained traction as a response to the threat of communism, there was an interesting editorial in the New York Times yesterday. Here's an excerpt:
President Dwight Eisenhower established May 1 as Law Day to co-opt the biggest day on the socialist calendar. While much of the world marked May Day with critiques of capitalism and parades celebrating working men and women, the United States would honor, President Eisenhower declared, the “national dedication to the principle of government under laws.”
Despite its propagandistic beginnings, a day set aside to honor the rule of law was not a bad idea. On the first Law Day, in 1958, Gov. Averell Harriman of New York attacked Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas for blocking integration. His fight to keep black children out of the Little Rock Central High School “offends the concept of law on which our society is based,” Harriman insisted.
Law Day proved to be a boon to international law, which was seen during the cold war as a check on communism. In his proclamation creating the holiday, Eisenhower emphasized law’s role “in the settlement of international disputes.” On Law Day 1959, Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut, grandfather of the current president, urged, remarkably, that international conflicts be settled by the World Court.
While the Soviet threat loomed, Law Day attracted a sizable following. In 1961, a headline in The Times reported, “100,000 Law Day Celebrations Take Place Throughout Nation.” But as the cold war waned, so did Law Day. It is marked today most notably by the American Bar Association, and it is perilously close to becoming a celebration of lawyers.
There's nothing wrong with a celebration of lawyers in my view. In all seriousness though, I'm intrigued by McCain's idea on a League of Democracies, and I hope we hear more of these ideas from him and less Beach Boy renditions.
Comments
In this light, one cannot, perhaps, fault McCain for proposing a new international League of Democracies, but given that the US’ account of democracy, and its attempt to export it to the Middle East, has been heavily tainted and looks doomed, one might wonder what ideas of democracy McCain has in mind. If he is trying to gather international consensus around issues like extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, indefinite confinement without respect for basic human rights, his attempt looks equally doomed and he will need all the good luck he can get.
Lets not forget that Roosevelt himself played a major role in establishing the UN. Perhaps his contemporary colleagues in the US political establishment should use their strength to improve the UN instead of trying to overdo Roosevelt in proposing new world organizations.