Vad sysslar FN med?

Last week the United Nations’ Human Rights Council condemned “defamation” of religion, and called upon member states to ban literature and other materials containing “racist or xenophobic ideas” that might lead to hostility against religious groups – although Islam is the only religion mentioned in the resolution.

Islamic states joined with Mexico, the Russian Federation and China in supporting the measure which passed 24–14. There were nine abstentions.

Representatives of 24 countries voted in favour of the controversial resolution: Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Gabon, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Tunisia.

There were 14 opposing states: Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Republic of Korea, Romania, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Abstaining from the vote were: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Peru, Uruguay and Zambia.

Cosmopolitan Democracy Revisited

Torbjörn Tännsjö
(Stockholm University)
Abstract:
The main thrust of the argument of the paper is that a
cosmopolitan kind of democracy (with a world government serving a sovereign
world parliament) is both desirable and possible; it is also argued that, if we
want to implement a global democracy (a sovereign democratic world
parliament), then we ought to welcome the dominance of the USA in world
politics, and we ought to be sceptical of other, less than global forms of strong
transnational democratic institutions, such as a federalist European Union