Around this time last year the United Nations was very much in vogue. So long ignored and sidelined, the UN was, for a brief period at least, at the centre of global politics as the Security Council debated the pros and cons of war with Iraq. The anti-war lobby argued that UN support for any conflict was essential and, since this was not forthcoming, war was illegitimate. The pro-war camp said it already had UN backing. When it became clear that this was untrue they argued that they had never needed it in the first place.

But what does UN support actually mean? According to some, a majority in the General Assembly is enough to legitimate any course of action. This hardly seems fair since votes are not weighted to take account of population size. India, with one billion people, has one vote just like Kuwait which has only one million citizens. Others have argued that real legitimacy comes from the resolutions of the Security Council. In reality though this body is little more than a cabal where the “big five” can veto any measure they don’t like. “Bigness” in this context means having been on the winning side of a war which ended nearly sixty years ago.

Nevertheless, if for the sake of argument we overlook the shortcomings of the UN’s internal mechanisms, I still believe that its claim to be the sole arbiter of “legitimacy” is false. For once I find myself in the same boat as Richard Perle. During the Iraq war, the arch-unilateralist wrote newspaper articles welcoming the imminent demise of the UN following its decision not to back Bush’s adventurism. For him, America was right and it didn’t matter what the UN thought. For me, America was wrong and it didn’t matter what the UN thought.

In recent years the UN has been elevated by the left to a position of unchallengeable moral authority on global affairs. It’s my belief that the UN simply doesn’t deserve this kind of respect. What is the UN? It’s a collection of nation-states. We are supposed to believe that the same nation-states which we on the left rail against as unjust and inhumane suddenly become beacons of nobility when they get together in New York. This is simply untrue.

A club is only as good as its members. Here’s just a small sample of the barbaric regimes which have warmed seats at the General Assembly: Stalin’s USSR, Mao’s China, the Shah’s Iran, Pinochet’s Chile, Amin’s Uganda. Pol Pot’s regime was represented at the UN for years AFTER it was overthrown. There’s no human rights “entrance exam” to get in. All a government needs in order to gain entry is to be recognised by enough other governments.

This leads on to the second major shortcoming of the current international system. The UN is based on an old-fashioned 19th century model of sovereignty. With the exception of the Palestinians, people who aren’t fortunate enough to have their own state go unheard. Some voices you won’t hear at the UN: the Basques, the Kurds, the Aboriginals, the Scots. This isn’t really the UN’s fault. After all it’s designed to be a mirror of the world – and what an ugly reflection it is.

All this is not to deny the many good things that the UN does. Agencies such as UNESCO and the UNHCR perform valuable work all over the world. The UN did a fine job in overseeing East Timor’s transition to democracy. The world would be a poorer place without the UN but that doesn’t mean that the organisation has any special claim to international legitimacy on matters of war and peace. It would be wrong to throw the baby out with the bathwater. What is needed therefore is a new organisation which would co-exist with the UN at first but would eventually usurp the blue helmet boys.

A new body, a “League of Democracy” if you will, needs to be established. It would be like the UN except membership would only be open to those who uphold democracy. Entrance requirements would include respect for human rights, free and fair elections, the right to protest and join a trade union, freedom of speech and religion, a free press and an independent judiciary.

Of course there would have to be some leeway in these requirements or else Sweden would be the only member. Such an organisation would encourage reform in authoritarian societies across the world. States on the road to democracy could be rewarded with observer status as an encouragement to keep going. By expelling countries which no longer make the grade, it would discourage states such as Zimbabwe from going backwards towards tyranny. It’s virtually impossible to get thrown out of the UN even if, like Israel, you constantly flout the organisation’s own rules.

I’m not proposing anything new here. Some international organisations already operate a good governance door policy. You can’t get into the European Union if you’ve got a few gulags tucked away or a nasty habit of whacking your political opponents. By insisting that aspiring members respect human rights, the EU has encouraged fairness and justice in the former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The alternative, to throw open the doors to all comers, is the equivalent of saying: “Sure, come on in. What’s a little ethnic cleansing between friends?”

An organisation based on justice rather than territory could also include the elected representatives of stateless nations. Membership of the League of Democracy may well dampen separatist tensions in many countries. There would be no need to secede in order to get your seat at the big table.

As I’ve said, in the highly unlikely event of this coming to pass, the two bodies would co-exist for a time. Eventually though enough members, money and power would flow to the new body and make the old one obsolete. Remaining holdouts would then face the prospect of either reform or isolation.

In the words of John Lennon “you may say that I’m a dreamer”. Maybe I am being too optimistic about our ability to recast the world as a fairer place. Then again, maybe I’m not. Twenty years ago most of Eastern Europe, Latin America and East Asia were ruled by dictators. Today most states in these regions are democratic though of course not without their shortcomings. Forming a League of Democracy could provide the impetus to encourage positive change in the remaining swamps of tyranny: the Middle East, Africa and China.