Ethics in Democracy

Qualities of speech-acts and social realization of dignity

I describe the speech-act as the social realization of interaction between a speaker and at least one listener. The performance of a speech-act needs at least two persons, one who speaks and at least one other person who listens. We usually describe the speech-act almost exclusively from the standpoint of the speaker. We must get used to including the listener as well in our considerations of speech-acts. Yes, it is a social choice to take the word and start speaking. However, it is also a social choice to decide to listen to the speaker. The performance of a speech-act needs at least two social choices from at least two persons. The speaker chooses between the alternatives to take the word or to not take the word and then takes the word. The listener chooses between the alternatives to listen or not to listen and makes the free decision to listen. Speaking and listening are the two actions necessary for performing a speech-act. It is important for me to insist that the description of the speech-act as the realization of two social choices is part of reality and not fiction or wishful thinking. It must be possible to document the free interaction between a speaker and at least one listener. The speech-act as social realization of social choices is an empiric hypothesis that needs affirmation or refutation by social empirical research. It must be empirically proved that these kinds of social realization are facts of our social reality.

I started realizing this empirical research at the Clinics of the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria (Leher, Stephan P. 1995. Dialog im Krankenhaus: 243 Interviews mit Ärzten und Pflegepersonal. Wien: Springer Medizin). A team of interviewers interviewed 243 persons: 81 female and male doctors, 81 female and male nurses and 81 female and male assistants to the nurses. It was not easy for the female and male nurses to speak and getting recorded. The assurance of anonymity was an important factor in obtaining consent to do the interview. Obtaining consent from a female or male doctor was not difficult. The difficulty was contacting the doctors. It took the interviewers an average of four hours work to “catch” a female or male doctor and organize a meeting for the interview. Scarcity of time due to an exhausting work schedule partly explains the difficulty. The average interview time was 25 minutes. Finally, the interviewer team realized all the interviews. The social realization of these speech-acts proves that these kinds of free interaction are facts of the complex social reality of a university clinic in Central Europe.

In our day-to-day experience we observe many social realizations of speech-acts, and we realize many speech-acts. We also experience many times a day that speech-acts are not realized as we would wish. Daily we experience that a person we want to talk to does not want to listen and does not listen. We also must cope with persons, who do not want to speak to us, whereas we very much like that they would.

How about the social realization of speech-acts considered as free interactions between a speaker and at least one listener in a social and economic context that is very different from that of Central Europe? Austria corresponds with the “full democracy” category in the Democracy Index 2022 (https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2022/). Colombia qualifies in the category “flawed democracy” in the Democracy Index 2022 (ibid. 41). I went to Bogotá, Colombia to realize 624 interviews with women and men from high-, low- and very low-income neighborhoods (Stephan P. Leher. Hermann Denz. Health in Bogotà. Health as a Human Right. Bogotà 2005.). Again, the social realization of the interviews and their speech-acts was possible. We do find the social realization of speech-acts as interactions between a speaker and at least one listener as social choices of persons also in very vulnerable social contexts. These social, political, cultural, and economic contexts in Bogotá are characterized by painful vulnerabilities and personal insecurity because of poverty, injustice, gender inequalities, private, public and state violence, polluted environments, unemployment and many other indicators for the state of human development that document the fragility of society. In 2017, Colombia had a population of 7.9 million internally displaced persons, victims of violent conflict of rivaling guerilla movements and paramilitary organizations (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 2018. Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2017. 18. www.unhcr.org/statistics).

The social choice to listen to questions and to reply does not inform about the quality of the interaction of the speech-acts. To obtain some information on the quality of the interactions of the interviews with their social environment at the University Clinics in Innsbruck, the interviewers followed the interview guide that asked for personal convictions concerning the work and the working situation of the interviewed persons. The interviewers asked for important personal internal factors that influence working decisions, like talents, qualities, capabilities, mental strength, energy, my ego, purpose, effort, persistence, or perseverance. The interview guide also asked for external influences such as important persons like superiors or colleagues, technical resources, or time resources, administrative or organizational necessities or general working conditions that influence the decisions and the coping with concrete situations in the daily working routine. The interviewers also asked if and how the interviewed persons would relate internal and external factors of influence in concrete situations at work.

The interviewers in Bogotá were advised by the interview guide to start the interview with questions about the life of the interviewed person: “I would like you to choose a specific situation in your life, with a specific problem you had to solve, or a situation in which you had to make a decision. It can be a past or present situation. Now, tell me which aspects played an important role in that situation? Can you tell me a bit more about how you solved that problem” (Leher and Denz 2005: 303).

It is clear from the study design that the analysis of the interviews did not concern the quality of the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewed person. The analysis was about the recorded narrative of the interviewed persons speaking about their interactions with their environment. Is it possible with a kind of qualitative social empirical analysis of interviews to obtain information on the quality of these person-environment interactions? Concerning the quality of the social realization of speech-acts, I cannot comply with Amartya Sen’s insistence that we have to assess issues of justice and equality of freedom on the basis of “assessments of social realizations, that is, on what actually happens” (Sen, Amartya. 2009. The Idea of Justice. London: Penguin. 410). Yet, it is possible to assess how the interviewed persons themselves assess what happened. I assess narratives about behavior, actions and convictions that concern many themes from daily life and many interactions with other persons. I investigate narratives about interactions between people and I want to interpret these narratives according to various qualities of the narrated interactions.

An external quality of the narrated interaction is characterized by the fact that the interviewer shows or expresses that his or her interactions are determined by external influences. In Bogotá these could be important persons and their power and influence (for example: wife, husband, partner, children, parents, boss, superior, friends, etc.), social, economic, political, or cultural circumstances or other external forces. An internal quality is characterized by the fact that the narrated interactions are determined by internal influences. A determinist-additive quality of the interaction is characterized by the fact that the interviewer shows or expresses that his or her interactions are determined by a combination of internal and external influences. Depending on the situation, one type of influence may be more important than others, but they have no connection to each other. An interactionist quality of the interaction is characterized by the fact that the interviewer shows or expresses that the quality of their interactions is determined by all influences together; in the same situation there are internal and external influences that influence each other mutually in the interaction. A fatalist quality of the interaction is characterized by the fact that the interviewer shows or expresses that their interactions are unpredictable (Leher and Denz 2005: 63).

The analysis of the documented interviews interpreted sequences of the interview. A sequence starts with a concrete theme and ends when the interviewer or interviewed person clearly changes the subject and continues with a new theme (Leher 1995: 57). The interviews conducted at the University Clinics Innsbruck showed an average of 13 sequences (ibid. 137). Concerning the 624 interviews that were realized in Bogotá, I must admit that one interviewer stole 59 of the interviews. I was not experienced enough to foresee this possibility and take steps to prevent this from happening. This experience of my vulnerability was an important lecture to learn about criminal behavior that is possible without getting sanctioned because there are no police capable to investigate and no judiciary being interested in the case any ways. Sequences from the remaining 565 interviews showed an average of ten sequences (Leher and Denz 2005: 133). According to the control quality of the majority of sequences of an interview, the quality of control of the interview was determined to be fatalist, internal, external, internal and external, or interactionist.

Of the female and male assistant nurses 7.5 per cent of the interviews showed an interactionist quality of interaction, and 12 per cent of the interviews of the female and male nurses and 17 percent of the interviews of the female and male doctors. The dominant quality of interaction was formed by an additive quality of internal and external influences. Some forms of an interactionist quality of the narrated interactions are found in 20 to 40 per cent of the interviews. Since the quality of interaction of the doctors was not much better than the quality of interaction of the nurses, it may be suggested that the formal academic training of the doctors does not teach communication skills.

In Bogotá I determine the control quality of the interviews according to the overall percentage of each control quality of the 6.665 sequences of the 565 interviews. An overwhelming 61 per cent of the sequences showed the external and internal quality of interaction. 22 per cent of the sequences showed the internal quality, 2.9 per cent the external quality and 0.2 per cent a fatalistic quality. An interactionist quality of interaction was seen in 13 per cent of the sequences.

The control quality correlates with the socio-economic stratum in which the interviewed person lives: 60 per cent of the interactionist sequences we find in the very high socio-economic areas of Bogotá. 25 per cent of sequences with interactionist control quality come from middle socio-economic areas and only 15 per cent in the socio-economically low areas of Bogotá. Despite all difficulties, obstacles and vulnerabilities, interactionist control qualities are a social reality in low socio-economic areas (Leher and Denz. 2005. 258).

I did not investigate speech-acts as social realizations of the equal dignity, liberty, and equal access to rights of the interviewed persons. Yet, it is reasonable to take the various control qualities as possible indicators for the quality of the social realization of dignity by the interviewed persons. It is a hypothesis claiming that the interactionist control qualities effectively show elements of linking one’s own identity, self-determination and autonomy with respect, tolerance and even care for the self-determination of others.

How does dignity reveal itself as a social realization in the sentences of the interviewees? Dignity is demonstrated in the sense that the person narrates a single social choice made in his/her life by connecting external and internal influences within the unique situation of the choice. The agency of interacting, the ability to interact with external influences based on internal factors, shows that the person makes the decision based on reciprocity of the internal and external environment; in this case, it is legitimate to interpret this single social choice as a social realization of equality. It is important to remember that I am interpreting documented concrete speech-acts of narratives of women and men in Bogotá. The question remains: Are there speech-acts that are effective social realizations of dignity? Still, I am speaking of specific speech-acts; I do not want to speak of speech-acts in general. To answer the above question, further empiric social research is needed.

Discourse and Democracy

In Europe the modern state under the rule of law gradually was developed in the 19th century and needs constantly to be further developed and realized as guarantee of individual dignity, liberties and rights.

The state under the rule of law contrasts with the “police state” of absolutism. The police state was not bound by laws; the state was not ruled by law but by despotism and was at the mercy of arbitrariness. The civil movement demanded liberty from the state. Therefore, the terms “state under the rule of law” and “free-state“ or “state of freedom” frequently are used as synonyms. Because of the importance of liberty and freedom for the citizens the state under the rule of law is realized in a constant process that strives for an ideal of the right and the state. Right and justice are to be the foundations of the states. The government is bound to the law so that security is ensured for the citizens’ well-being.

Construction of the term “state under the rule of law” follows the validity-condition that its laws correspond, agree, and concur with the claims of human rights values and human rights law. The claim of any law and norm to legality must be examined for the validity-condition of correspondence with human rights. It is a constant process to realize human rights with the help of the laws of the state. The individual citizen must be able and empowered to ensure his or her human rights by being able to take legal action with the help of independent courts. In democracies human rights are fundamental rights and therefore guaranteed by the constitution. These fundamental rights bind the legislative, administrative, and judicial branches of the government and the constitutional court helps the citizen assert these fundamental rights.

Judges must be bound by the law and not by the government. This independence is secured and guaranteed by a fixed salary for judges and by the fact that they cannot be removed or dismissed from office, nor can they be transferred against their will to other courts or positions. The legislative, judiciary and executive powers must remain separate at all levels and each power is effectively balanced and checked by other institutions at the same level of the same power. Territorial and regional authorities - legislative, judiciary and executive - enjoy different levels of auto-administration.

The state under the rule of law not only ensures the liberty, freedom and peace of the state, but must also constantly adapt the law to meet the needs of the general public as expressed in elections. Justice must be sought in a constant process and cannot be fixed forever in one final law. Challenge and answer, trial and error describe this process of public conflict in democracies. Law is capable to peacefully change society. This change without violence and with the instruments of law and language characterizes democracies. Democracy and the state under the rule of law are reciprocal processes that are dependent on each other. (Welan 2001. I am thankful to Manfried Welan for generously posting me the manuscript of this unpublished radio speech of the 20th of July 2001 broadcasted by the Österreichische Rundfunk to commemorate Stauffenberg’s failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on the 20th of July of 1944).

Welan is convinced that law is capable of peacefully changing society according to the needs of the public as expressed in elections. Democracy Index 2021 mirrors a development of doubt in the capacity of democratic institutions to procure well-being, freedom, and security for the citizens:

Trust in government and parties has plummeted. Popular trust in democratic institutions has been in decline for many years. Corruption, insufficient transparency, and a lack of accountability have undermined confidence in government and political parties. In many countries, powerful interest groups exert significant influence. Citizens increasingly feel that they do not have control over their governments or their lives. These trends have been reflected in the scores in the functioning of government category of the index, which is the lowest scoring category overall, at 4.62 (from 10 possible points) in 2021, down from 5.00 in 2008. There have been big falls in the average regional scores in this category in Asia, Latin America, and eastern Europe. However, the developed democracies of the US and Europe have not performed well in this category either: institutional dysfunction, corruption and an increasingly unrepresentative political party system have led to a crisis of trust. This provides ammunition for leaders in China, for instance, to boast of the comparative efficiency and popularity of their own system.

(Democracy Index 2021. The China challenge. The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited 2022. eiu-democracy-index-2021.pdf. 27)

How is it possible to regain trust in government and political parties and empower the citizens for participation in the processes of democracy? I want to share some of the thoughts of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1787), the Enlightenment philosopher of the social contract and the most attentive theorist of the necessary realization of democracy by the individual person. It is not embarrassing, looking at a political philosopher almost 250 years after his death for answers to enhance contemporary democratic life in our nation states in a time of crisis. We must overcome the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the citizens for participating in the legislative process. It takes patience and time to realize ideas of philosophers, but ideas remain the principal roadmap for the development of societies.

Rousseau already paid attention to the importance of the conjunction of the terms “dignity” and “equal freedom and rights” for a functioning democracy. He claims that dignity is not possible without the participation agency in political law-making for the common good of the community and the moral agency of lawgiving to one-self (Leher Stephan P. Dignity and Human Rights. 2018. London: Routledge. 94). Rousseau not only conceives autonomy as the negative freedom to do what I want to do if my “ends do not run up against the limits imposed by law. … In obeying a law that came from me, I would ultimately be obeying only myself, and this - obeying only yourself (Rousseau. Social Contract, I.6.iv) - is for Rousseau the essence of freedom in all its forms” (Frederick Neuhouser. 2011. “Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Origins of Autonomy” In: Inquiry 54:5, 478-493, 481. DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2011.608880).

Rousseau understands moral lawgiving to oneself as a realization of one’s freedom, as the realization of the maximum of one’s freedom and as the realization of one’s dignity. Legislating citizens of the just state deliberate the general will asking: Which laws promote our own freedom? The self-legislating citizen, according to Rousseau, must be able to “will the happiness of each”, and doing so involves willing laws in accordance with an expanded conception of one’s own identity; every self-legislating member of society “applies the word each to himself” and then “thinks of himself as he votes for all” (Rousseau. Social Contract, II.4.v). The laws therefore are to be made by every single voice participating in the deliberations of a legislative assembly. In democracy this claim demands that the authority that gives laws must be made up of the voices of all and give them equal consideration. Rousseau speaks of the dignity of a self-legislating member of society always in connection with the dignity of every self-legislating member of society. Social realizations of dignity, freedom and justice by Rousseau are seen as social choices that interact with the dignity, freedom, and rights of - ideally - all citizens (Leher 2018: 173). I want to empower the citizens to become self-legislating members of society that realize their dignity and freedom by realizing the freedom and dignity of the fellow citizen. Hopefully it is a motivation for the citizen to participate in the democratic life of her or his society, if she or he is taught that realizing the freedom and dignity of each citizen needs the social choice of practicing moral lawgiving to oneself. Capacitate the citizens to experience to will the happiness of each, the happiness of oneself and the happiness of the fellow citizen as the realization of dignity and freedom of oneself and of all, in my eyes constitutes the way that leads out of the actual crisis of democracy. Democracy needs every citizen to ensure that the state protects equal liberty, freedom, and rights for all citizens. The reward for this demanding work for democracy is the realization of one’s dignity and freedom.

Christiana Figueres from Costa Rica, a former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and one of the architects of the Paris Agreement on climate change, writes in her foreword for “Earth for All” that “large-scale systems change is surprisingly personal. It starts with each of us, with what we prioritize, what we are willing to stand up for, and how we decide to show up in the world: we are the authors of the next chapter of humanity” (Earth for All. 2022. xviii).

Democracy and the earth sustaining life-system.

Ethics is about how I want to live. Indicators like trust tell that formal democracy is not enough, that participation is important. The ethical question how I want to live asks for the self-legislating will of autonomy. What do I want to change on the world’s concrete situation? In 2023 the development of democracy is inseparable from the development of the earth sustaining life-system. Poor economic conditions, no access to education and professional training, unemployment, unsafe social conditions because of failing police and judiciary state institutions, private, public, and state violence, lack of access to the health care system make it difficult and almost impossible to maintain peaceful and durable social relations.

The system dynamics model Earth4All developed together with the Transformational Economics Commission the Report to the Club of Rome “A survival guide for Humanity” that was published in 2022, fifty years after the Club of Rome’s “The limits to growth” (Earth for All. A Survival Guide for Humanity. Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Owen Gaffney, Jayati Ghosh, Jorgen Randers, Johan Rockström, Per Espen Stoknes. New Society Publishers. Canada. 2022.3). A foreword was contributed by Christiana Figueres from Costa Rica, a former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and by the Kenyan environment and climate activist Elizabeth Wathuti. The two women from the global south praise the above book, but the authors of the survival guide for humanity are four Europeans – three Scandinavians and one Belgian -, and one scientist from India, who is now working in the USA. One of the four authors is a woman. There are four contributing authors, two women and two men. One woman is from South Africa, the other three contributing authors are from the global north.

The author Sandrine Dixson-Declève is currently the Co-president of the Club of Rome, together with Mamphela Ramphele, a contributing author, the first women to lead the organization in its history. Women finally seem to get equal chances at the Club of Rome, but the male authors and male contributing authors from “Earth for All. A survival guide for Humanity. A Report to the Club of Rome” outnumber the female authors and female contributing authors six to three. The authors and contributing authors from the global north outnumber the authors and contributing authors from the global south seven to two. The report to the Club of Rome is called “A survival guide for Humanity”. Sadly, and typically, the authors and contributing authors from the global north once again try to “guide” the global south. Rather than including the global south into the team of authors and contributing authors, into the Transformational Economics Commission and into Earth4All, it looks like the global north does not treat the global south on an equal basis of dignity, that is participation in the modeling and discussion process was not possible for the global south.

Saying goodbye to poverty, ending economic inequality, achieving gender equity, making the food system healthy for people and planet, calling for electrifying everything, and establishing a new economic operating system are good goals and I share the call to action. Nevertheless, action will only start and be successful, if the global north and the global south consider themselves equal partners enjoying the same dignity, liberty, and rights. I want to cite at least a few of the above propositions of “Earth for All. A survival guide for Humanity. A Report to the Club of Rome” that I see as a discussion paper for the global south and the global north, but not as a guide for the global south and north that is primarily elaborated by the global north.

Although poverty has declined dramatically in the last fifty years, still almost half of the world lives on less than $4 per day (Earth for All. A Survival Guide for Humanity. 2022. 59). Low-income countries lack funds to invest in key infrastructure and to act on global warming. The rich countries are more interested in extracting interest payments from the poor countries than supporting their economic development. “High-income countries outsource their production to low-income countries to benefit from reduced costs” while “heavily polluting industries and more climate emissions” are brought to low-income countries (ibid. 61). Low-income countries cannot access the desperately needed “technology to green their operations, bring vaccines to their poor, or reduce expenses” (ibid. 63). Debt relief to low-income countries and “cooperation on a Global Green New Deal” to generate greener paths and millions of high-paying jobs are suggested by “Earth for All” (ibid. 65). Further, “the entire foreign-denominated debt and trading system needs complete transformation to enable countries in most of the world to borrow at low cost in their own currencies” (ibid. 66).

“Countries that are more equal perform better in all areas of human wellbeing and achievement” - such as trust, education, social mobility, longevity, health, obesity, child mortality, mental health, crime, homicides, and drug misuse, etc. – “than countries with divisive levels of income inequality” (ibid. 75). “The poorest 50% of people take less than 15% in total earning, while the richest 10% take well over 40%” (ibid. 76). “Earth for All” suggests that countries “share the wealth and commit to greater equality” by “more progressive taxation, including a wealth tax, strengthening labor rights and empowering workers through trade unions”, and providing safety nets and innovation nets like for example universal basic income or dividend programs (ibid. 77). “Tackling the drivers of excessive material consumption and focusing our system on what people fundamentally need” that is ending the overconsumption among the rich, will contribute to bring about the necessary turnaround (ibid. 83). The international corporation tax that was agreed in 2021 by the G20 group of high-income countries “is a significant achievement to begin to address the race to the bottom” (ibid. 87).

“Essential foundations for a functioning economy” are secure incomes for families, “access to universal healthcare, flexible working, adequate pensions for all, and humane parental leave” (ibid. 93). “Discrimination against women’s rights to equal education, equal pay, and financial security in old age is still pervasive around the world” (ibid.). The empowerment of women demands a “better access of women to education, health services, and lifelong learning, financial independence and leadership positions, economic security through a universal basic dividend, or similar, and expanded pension schemes” (ibid.). In 2022 “women’s share of total income from work (labor income) was 35% and less than 20% of landowners in the world are women” (ibid. 95). “Arguably the biggest challenge in the world today is not climate change, biodiversity loss, or even a pandemic. It is our collective inability to tell fact from fiction. In democratic societies, misinformation and disinformation had been kept at bay, to some extent at least, by checks and balances within mass media. Social media smashed this model apart. It has industrialized the spread of misinformation and disinformation in the world, polarizing societies, reducing trust, and contributing to our shocking inability to cooperate around common challenges, or even agree on the interpretation of basic facts. … Education systems have a duty to step up and teach critical thinking to help the next generation navigate this information minefield” (ibid. 102f.).

“The agriculture sector is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. It is the largest driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss, by far the world’s largest sector consuming freshwater, and excess fertilizers leak into air and streams, lakes, and oceans – causing vast dead zones and even more global warming” (ibid. 107). At the same time “nearly one in ten people worldwide remain severely food insecure with 821 million people undernourished. On the flipside, an astonishing two billion people, one quarter of the planet, are overweight or obese” (ibid.). “Earth for All” claims “the well-fed must adopt healthy, lower-impact diets, while the malnourished and undernourished must be lifted out of their predicament with regeneratively grown, healthier foods. People everywhere need access to safe, nutritious food that is produced within the planetary boundaries. We must tackle food waste along the entire food chain from production, distribution, and shops to consumers’ tables and bins. About one third of all food is wasted between the field or fishing net and the fork. Eliminating just 25% of that would free up enough food to feed all people on Earth” (ibid. 108f.).

Concerning energy “Earth for All” remembers “that what is being demanded is a complete restructuring of the foundation of all industrial economies” (ibid. 127). Much of our energy is simply wasted, “the most important step is to increase efficiency” (ibid.). For this energy transformation “a good rule of thumb is to electrify everything - that is substituting carbon molecules with electrons wherever something needs energy - while simultaneously rapidly scaling renewable energy and energy storage to provide energy abundance” (ibid. 127f.). The authors claim that changing people’s behavior is possible. “The global pandemic has shown that behavior and business models can change very rapidly and bring many benefits, for example, working from home not only reduces commuting emissions and congestion, but it also helps to juggle work and family life when the right supports are in place” (ibid. 131).

Call for a reform of the United Nations.

“Earth for All” calls for five turnarounds: turning poverty around, ending economic inequality, women empowerment, making the food system healthy for people and planet, and the energy turnaround. Where is the world organization or institution that is capable to mediate the necessary discourse between the global north and the global south concerning the realization of the solutions for the existential problems of humanity? Christiana Figueres from Costa Rica, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, writes in her foreword for "Earth for All" that “the journey to the historic Paris Agreement on climate change was long, difficult, and involved thousands of people working together” (ibid. xviii). She started working on the agreement from her first day in office as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on July 1, 2010, and on December 12, 2015, the agreement was realized. Are the United Nations (UN) the right organization for bringing about the five turnarounds that “Earth for All” claim necessary for saving humanity in the Anthropocene?

“The Charter of the United Nations was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization and came into force on 24 October 1945” (United Nations 1945. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter). At the beginning, the Charter affirms “faith in fundamental Human Rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women” and further aims like peace, justice by international law and social progress (United Nations 1945). Chapter 1 speaks on the purposes and principles of the UN and states in Article 1 the purpose “To maintain international peace and security” (ibid). Maintaining international peace and security is a fundamental principle for the global living together of women, men and queer. The member states of the UN affirmed the principle of peace and security as a reaction to the global disaster of World War II.

Article 7 of chapter 3 of the Charter Taking lists as the principal organs of the UN “a General Assembly, a Security Council, an Economic and Social Council, a Trusteeship Council, an International Court of Justice and a Secretariat” (ibid).

The General Assembly consists of all the Members of the United Nations (UN Charter art. 9). The actual powers of the General Assembly are very limited. The Security Council consists of five permanent members: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly. The five permanent members of the Security Council represent the victory states of World War II. The powers of the Security Council serve to maintain international peace and security. The powers do not serve to empower the individual woman, man, and queer world citizen to claim the effective rule of Human Rights law in the member states of the UN.

The Social and Economic Council consists of 54 members of the UN that are elected by the General Assembly (UN Charter art. 61). The Social and Economic Council initiates studies, reports on “international economic, social, cultural, educational, health, and related matters”, and recommends to members and the General Assembly (UN Charter art. 62). The Social and Economic Council may furnish information to the Security Council (UN Charter art. 65) but does not dispose over governmental, legislative, or juridical enforcement powers. In 2005, on the sixtieth birthday of the United Nations, Antonio Papisca, professor of Human Rights law rule at the UN, joined the voices calling for necessary UN reform to strengthen democratic institutional multilateralism in the world system (Papisca, Antonio. 2005. “Article 51 of the United Nations Charter: Exception or General Rule? The Nightmare of the Easy War.” Pace diritti umani: Peace Human Rights 2005 (1): 13–28).

Antonio Papisca analyses how George W. Bush bypassed the United Nations’ Security Council to pursue his new world order based on the armed sovereignties of a few major powers that declare war based on their power and greed calculus in blatant violation of International Law and Human Rights. Papisca strongly defends in 2005 the UN Charta as the origin of International Law of Human Rights that is the “role of the United Nations in the maintenance of international peace and security and the promotion of international co-operation” as the UN General Assembly of 13 August 2004 (A/RES/58/317) reiterated. Papisca strongly criticizes the permanent members of the Security Council and “some democratic States” accusing them of “persistent violation of principles and rules of International Law … the doctrine and practice of preventive war; rearmament and arms trade” (ibid. 18). Papisca remembers President Harry Trumann who in the concluding session of the founding conference of the United Nations had claimed: “We all have to recognize – no matter how great our strength – that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please” (ibid. 20). Papisca warns those in West and East who try to demolish the collective security system as conceived by the Charter of the United Nations by making drop the article 47 of this Charter that relates to the supranational authority and command of the United Nations. He insists in the legitimate, institutional multilateralism in the world system that was first acquired in the International Law of the United Nations Charter and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin evidently ignored the Charter of the United Nations and recklessly started his violent military aggression invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022, bringing unspeakable sufferings, death, and torture to the civil population by destroying their infrastructure and committing uncountable war crimes. Putin’s war of aggression reveals the failure of the UN and the whole post World War II international order in the maintenance of international peace and security and the promotion of international co-operation. If we want to become the UN an effective guarantee of world security, and an effective forum for dialogue between the global south and the global north, reform of the UN is necessary. Further, the realization of “more direct legitimation of the UN institutions and more political (popular) participation in its decision-making process” calls for a necessary reform of the UN (ibid. 25). Papsica speaks of “international-transnational democracy” and “the participation of civil society, transnational organizations and movements” is judged essential to meet the needs of “the human family” and he thinks about extending the Security Council membership to the European Union and the African Union. Even more, since the UN Charter speaks of “human security” and “human development” and since both are “interdependent and indivisible as human rights are”, a coherent and consistent reform of the UN should take the Economic and Social Council as important as the Security Council (ibid. 27). To empower the Economic and Social Council with “enforcement power” has the aim to realize the “right to development” that was proclaimed by the UN Declaration of 1986 and further elucidated by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The Economic and Social Council “should be enabled to guide and asses the policies … of the International Monetary Fund and of the World Bank”. According to Papisca this undeterred pursuit is the right way to positive peace as proclaimed by Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.” Reforming the UN to become an effective organization to procure world peace, security and development is fundamental for the wellbeing of every woman, man and queer person on planet Earth.