Democratic Deficit - United Nations

United Nations

Many authors have argued that the United Nations suffers from a democratic deficit, because it lacks a body of directly elected representatives. The UN Parliamentary Assembly has been proposed as a way of ameliorating this deficit. However, even the creation of such an organ would not affect the great power veto in the UN Security Council, under which important UN decisions can be vetoed by China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom or the United States. Reform of the UN Security Council through amendments to the United Nations Charter could change this, but such reform would itself be subject to the great power veto.

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