Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

Is the current state of international governance by the United Nations and related organizations a preface to what eventually might become a world government?' Is it at all similar to the structure of government in the United States after the adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 1781 and before adoption of the Constitution of 1787? Are changes in the way international institutions like the United Nations operate related to changes in our conceptions of the role of these institutions in providing international governance? When governmental institutions prove to be too weak to adequately perform the tasks expected of them is there a natural evolution toward greater centralization of power? If so, might an early sign of this evolution be decisions by public officials that afford greater deference to the decrees of international institutions that previously might have been sidestepped?

This article explores whether the current state of international governance, as set out principally in the UN Charter and related international documents, might be evolving toward becoming a world government, analogous to the way the government of the United States evolved from how it originally functioned only very weakly under the Articles of Confederation to function far more strongly as a centralized federal system under the Constitution of 1787.1 In examining these documents, the purpose is not to suggest that their roles are the same, but rather to find similarities, both in the values that underlined them and the inadequacies suffered by the governmental structures they produced. The intention is to see whether this might foreshadow developments in the international community, specifically in the United Nations and other international governmental organizations.

Part I explains the method of comparison used to show the relevance of the Articles of Confederation to the current state of international governance. It focuses on how societal values emphasizing states rights combined with fears against the creation of too strong a central government, which may have initially led to adoption of the Articles, had to make room for other, more pragmatic norms when the institutions created proved inadequate to fulfill their functions. Part 2 presents a more detailed understanding of the various provisions of the Articles of Confederation and relates that understanding not only to the government produced, but also to its successes and failures. Part 3 describes, in very brief terms, the current system of international governance under the United Nations and related organizations, and draws specific comparisons between the operation of the UN today and the way the United States government operated under the Articles. Finally, part 4 asks whether a more centralized world government can be predicted based on similarities between difficulties in international governance today and difficulties that the United States was confronted with under the Articles.

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