The United Nations and Democracy: UN-Democratic

We set out to discover how democratic the nations belonging to the United Nations were. To do this we visited the United Nations website to download the complete list of member nations. We then visited FreedomHouse to get a ranking of each nation. FreedomHouse looks at three criteria: political freedom and civil rights on a score from 1 to 7 with 1 being the most free and 7 being the least free - then assigns an overall score of Free (F), Partly Free (PF), and Not Free (NF). To download the Excel file containing the data used in our analysis, visit here. For more information regarding FreedomHouse's analysis visit here.

Analysis

There are 190 member nations constituting the United Nations. Of these FreedomHouse ranks 84 nations as "Free", 60 as "Partially Free" and 46 as "Not Free".

The following nations were ranked as "Not Free" - and given scores of 7's in both political freedom and civil rights: (listed alphabetically)

Afghanistan
Cuba
Korea, North.
Iraq
Laos
Libya
Myanmar (aka "Burma")
Saudi Arabia
Sudan
Syria
Turkmenistan

On the other side, these are the nations ranked as the most free, receiving scores of 1's in both categories:

The average score was Political Rights (average) 3.410526316 (round to 3)
Civil Rights (average) 3.552631579 (Round to 4). Nations having these scores would receive a rank as Partially Free (PF). These are the nations that meet these criteria:

Albania
Bangladesh
Guatemala
Indonesia
Mozambique
Nepal
Senegal
Sri Lanka

Conclusions

The average United Nations member is Albania, Sri Lanka or Indonesia. What is the obsession with UN approval of any action done by states that are more free than these? Why should the United States seek approval from a body whose average member subjugates its own people?

President Bush's gambit with the United Nations and Iraq has shown the truth about this organization: It is an undemocratic institution whose members desire the status quo over change, who disregard the principles of the United Nations charter when applied to their own peoples, and have come to see UN as a vast feeding trough for despotic regimes the world over.

The United Nations has become its predecessor, the League of Nations - an ineffectual institution which hinders progress and democratic change in the regimes it represents. Whether or not it comes to support action to disarm Iraq, the UN has shown that it faces the same destiny as the League: the ashheap of history.

Sources:

Freedom in the World 2002, Liberty in a Turbulent World, ©2002 FreedomHouse

Maximiliano Herrera's Human Rights Site

The Economist, January 25 - January 31 2003