IRAN and North Korea are always in the news. If one is not being accused of building atomic bombs the other is being lambasted for developing intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Meanwhile, nobody seems to bother about the fact that the USA, Russia, China, Britain and France are daily developing and deploying new advanced weapons systems of every description.

And that the burgeoning arms race that has gone on since 1945 is clearly indicative that the United Nations, UN, has largely failed in its core mandate of making the world secure or safer, as unrestrained arms build-up contributes enormously to outbreaks of armed aggression.

To make the UN effective in the discharge of its core objective, we must redefine the criteria that inform the prestige and clout enjoyed by nations within the UN system.

The continuing use of military might as a primary factor in this regard, as exemplified by the use of veto-power in the Security Council, is fraught with negative consequences. Indeed, we should abolish the veto and democratise the UN such that factors that truly underscore the strength of nations as well as enhance world peace are brought more into the picture and the process of allocating voting powers to nations in a democratised UN.

Power-sharing within a democratised UN should be based on the three factors of equality of states, population and economic power of nations. Equality of states (or groups) and population are long settled and accepted yardsticks for power-sharing in national politics the world over.

We do not, therefore, need to dwell on them. The third factor, economic power, is in my opinion relevant to power-sharing in the international arena because it complements the other two in the estimation of national power. Indeed, the three factors form the tripod upon which a nation derives true power. Conversely, they represent the axioms upon which the gradation of nations and a fair distribution of voting powers among nations in a restructured United Nations should be based.

In applying these factors to the task of gradation of nations and the assignment of voting powers, the scores of each country on the three attributes of equality of states, population and economic power are summed up and then subdivided by three to produce an average that then represents the nation’s voting power.

By way of example, the United States which has a GNP that today approximates 27percent of the world’s total, a population that is approximately 5.5percent of the world’s total and finally a score on the equality of states principle which like those to be assigned to each of the nearly 200 member-nations of the UN, stands at about 0.5percent.

These give the USA a total score of 33 percent, which when subdivided by 3 gives the country a weighted voting power of 11 percentage points. Similarly, an abjectly poor country with a GNP of approximately 0.00percent to the world total, an approximate population of 0.00percent to the world total and, of course, the requisite 0.5percent score on the equality of states principle would have an aggregate score of 0.5 percent, which when subdivided by 3 will give her a voting power of about 0.17percent. These voting powers are of course subject to annual adjustment in accordance with changing economic and demographic realities. The idea is detailed in my book, Strategy for Political Stability (1988).

It can be shown that like the USA, China, Russia, France and Britain, each stands to achieve very high scores or voting powers under this format. With these countries garnering or mustering so much voting powers, while the vast majority of the other UN member-nations will each have just about 0.2 percentage points, why would they continue to insist on having the veto-status? It is my hope that this power-sharing format should placate the big powers who stand to lose the veto in the proposed new scheme of things.

The arrangement should equally discourage the burgeoning arms race because nations will naturally strive to cut back on their military spending in order to enhance their economic power, to achieve better voting powers. Of course, democratic politics and decision-making processes will help bind losing minorities to accept the outcome of elections to which they submit themselves and hence curb veto-induced grandstanding within the UN as well as enable it to rally the world community, especially the big powers, to the path of restraint and honour.

Furthermore, I think that in the new dispensation, it should be stipulated that decisions on critical matters of armed UN intervention in any spot on the planet must be backed by an aggregate absolute majority of yes-votes. The new envisaged dispensation will with time ingrain a new suasive democratic culture in world affairs which no nation, however mighty, can afford to ignore or go against. This suggested reform should help infuse sanity, humility and mutual respect in world affairs.

Mr. UCHENNA NWANKWO, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Lagos.