Who does the United Nations represent?
States or Individuals? A lesson from Daniel Webster.
Sam mentioned Vaclav Havel’s op-ed on the absurdity of undemocratic, illiberal states sitting on the U.N. Human Rights Council. America’s founders have some thoughts germaine to this crisis.
In late January of 1830, Daniel Webster and Robert Y. Hayne debated the meaning of the U.S. Constitution–unscripted–and it was arguably the most important and eloquent floor debate ever heard in the 200 some years since the Capitol Building’s construction. Hayne, representative from South Carolina, argued that the States came together to found a constitution and a nation. As such, States had the right to nullify Congressional law. The Congress represented the States interests and if it did not do so, the States had a right to disobey. Webster, representative from Massachusetts, replied that “the people” founded the Constitution and a nation, not the States. The Constitution was supreme (Art VI, par. 2 says so) and the Supreme Court is the only body that can nullify acts of Congress (Justice Marshall said so in Marbury v. Madison). The people rule; the people founded a government based upon a Constitution that demands its supremacy over the States; thus, the States cannot nullify federal law.
John C. Calhoun, a supporter of State nullification, declared earlier: “The Union; second to our liberty most dear!”, which meant that States rights guaranteed liberty (by preventing a tyrannical central government), and those State interests took priority over the federal ones. Webster replied: “Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!” His point was that individual interests and liberty were protected by a strong and centralized national government; because it was their government.
How does this relate to Havel and the U.N. Human Rights Council? The U.N. is no U.S. Congress; it has less authority and democratic legitimacy. But it connects to the Webster-Hayne because as the U.N. is currently structured, it is similar to the Congress Hayne envisioned, where individual member-states can nullify centralized rulings. This occurs at the U.N. to such an extent that States most offensive to supposed U.N. values sit on the council that is to enforce or regulate those values! Cynicism ensues.
We’re ignoring for the moment that there is no enforcement mechanism behind U.N. rulings.
What would it mean for the U.N. to be more like Webster’s vision for Congress, where the body is controlled by and represents “the people” (of the world)? This idea is at least more coherent; it doesn’t make sense how can a body founded on liberal values can allow illiberal states to control or veto its rulings and actions.
It seems there are two options, assuming for the moment that we want an international body like the U.N. to have some teeth and mean something:
1. Keep the Hayne vision where states can nullify U.N. acts, but limit the U.N. to liberal-democracies, as McCain envisioned in his “League of Democracies” idea, so that when a member state nullifies a central ruling, they won’t egregiously threaten the body’s values. The Hayne-Calhoun vision, to be clear, did assume shared fundamental values and laws between the States; they just added the caveat that the States would have final say on what laws ruled within their jurisdiction.
2. Follow Webster’s vision and make the U.N. the people’s body, wherby it can issue laws that no state can overturn. This is a distant dream and far from an attractive for democratic legitimacy and other reasons, but even here this only really works if illberal, undemocratic ideas are not included in the law-making process or are filtered out through some judicial review, for compromise with illiberalism is not liberal democracy and not representative of the people, but something else and something worse. This is ignoring all the problems related to the enforcement of such laws.
-Jake
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- Healthcare, Rights, and Human Rights
- Should we be required to rewrite the constitution?
- Healthcare and human rights cont.
- Are guns covered in the public option?
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