Peace Demands an Independent Regulator, Not Diplomacy
For too long, we have clung to a persistent illusion: that the United Nations, with its blue helmets, speeches, and ceremonies, is humanity’s best hope for peace. But ask the citizens of Ukraine, Sudan, or Myanmar—ask the millions who have lived through airstrikes, starvation, or surveillance whether the UN made any difference? You’ll hear a silence louder than any Security Council resolution.
The truth is simple yet uncomfortable: we don’t have peace not because it is impossible but because the institution tasked with upholding it—the United Nations—was never designed to regulate power. It was designed to maintain optics. We are trapped in a system where abusive governments are treated as equals to constitutional ones; where sovereignty is protected more fiercely than justice.
The time has come to move past diplomatic nostalgia. We must accept a new reality: peace requires more than resolutions—it requires enforcement. And for that, we need a global institution that sees states not as sacred entities, but as juridical persons with obligations—subject to oversight, regulation, and even removal. The United Nations has failed in this role because it was never built for it.
The Market of Governance
To understand what has gone wrong and how we might correct it, we need to revisit a basic idea: every form of violence—whether state-led, communal, or systemic—stems from the violation of perceived rights. Rights, in turn, are not abstract moral claims; they are concrete entitlements that emerge from the roles people and institutions play in a market.
Every functioning system—whether economic or political—is ultimately a market. And markets have three basic components:
- Products
- Value-Consideration
- Actors
Let’s look at governance through this lens.
1. Products: What States Produce
In a political system, “products” are the goods and services states provide: law, order, justice, healthcare, infrastructure, education, and liberty. These products can be:
- Public goods (e.g., national defense, clean air)
- Private goods (e.g., identity documents, licenses)
- Common goods (e.g., forests, water, civic trust)
- Mixed goods (e.g., public transport or subsidized education)
Moreover, products can be real or imagined, useful or harmful. A fair judiciary is a real and useful product. A law protecting ideology, a slogan perpetuating nationalism, or a leader espousing personal worship might be an imagined product. Similarly, corruption, terrorism, and war are harmful products that benefit elites at the cost of citizens.
2. Value-Consideration
Every product has value, and every transaction demands consideration—what the consumer gives in return. In markets, consideration is variably known as bill, price, rent, interest or taxation.
Imagined and harmful products emerge when this balance breaks—when the state extracts resources without delivering standardized products in return. When governments tax but don’t serve, when they promise rights but deliver fear, the market of governance collapses.
3. Actors: Producers, Consumers, Middlemen
- Producers are those who create public goods—state institutions, legislators, civil servants.
- Consumers are the citizens who receive and evaluate these goods.
- Middlemen—including political parties, lobbyists, and advocacy groups—mediate between the two.
These actors can be individuals or juridical persons (known as corporations). And here lies the key insight: a state is structurally identical to a nonprofit organization (NPO). It is created not for profit or personal gain, but to deliver value to the public. It is a trust-based organization, entrusted with authority and resources to serve collective needs.
In theory, governments claim to behave like NPOs. But in reality, many function as if they are for-profit organizations (FPOs)—captured by elites, distributing benefits narrowly, and treating sovereignty as a license for unaccountable rule.
Oversight Is Not a Luxury—It’s a Necessity
In the nonprofit sector, oversight is taken for granted. In the United States, for instance, the IRS monitors all registered nonprofits, ensuring they operate in the public interest. Any organization that diverts resources for private gain, engages in fraud, or violates its mission risks losing its nonprofit status.
Why shouldn’t states be held to similar standards?
The absence of global regulatory oversight is precisely why violence continues. Governments that torture, steal, repress, or go to war are rarely held accountable. There is no institutional mechanism to decertify a state that fails to act like a legitimate NPO.
That should have been the job of the United Nations. But the UN was not built to regulate states—it was built to preserve them.
The UN: A Diplomatic Club, Not a Regulator
The United Nations presents itself as the moral voice of humanity, but in practice it functions more like a diplomatic club: members are admitted by status, not performance. Once inside, they gain legitimacy—no matter how they treat their people.
Consider the record:
- The Security Council, dominated by veto powers, has repeatedly blocked actions against war crimes and invasions, not to protect peace, but to protect allies and interests.
- The Human Rights Council has included among its members states that commit systematic human rights abuses.
- UN peacekeeping missions have sometimes been ineffective, or worse, complicit in harm.
- There is no audit mechanism, no citizen recourse, and no meaningful disciplinary power.
This is not regulation—it is ritual. A forum that legitimizes abusive regimes by putting them on equal footing with democratic ones is not a safeguard for peace but a stage for impunity.
A New Framework: Global Watchdog
If we are serious about world peace, we need more than resolutions and roundtables—we need a regulatory body that holds governments accountable to universal constitutional principles. The answer is not a reformed UN. It is a fundamentally new institution: a Global Watchdog.
This watchdog must operate not as a diplomatic forum, but as a constitutionally empowered authority, akin to an international regulator for nonprofit states. Its design should be rooted in market logic and legal principles.
What the Global Watchdog Would Do
- Execute a World Constitution
Draft a binding global charter defining what it means to be a legitimate state. Key standards would include transparency, equitable service delivery, protection of rights, prohibition of war, and adherence to constitutional norms. - Evaluate States Based on Performance
Treat governments as NPOs: evaluate them not based on their sovereignty, but on how effectively they fulfill their public mandate. Gather metrics on rule of law, corruption, repression, service delivery, and democratic inclusion. - Establish Local Oversight Offices
Just as the UN has country offices, so too must the Watchdog. These local units would function like ombudsman offices—receiving complaints, monitoring state performance, and facilitating investigations. - Certify and Decertify Governments
Governments that consistently violate the constitution or commit mass abuse should be subject to decertification: loss of recognition, aid access, trade status, and institutional participation. - Reward Ethical Governance
Countries that perform well should be rewarded with greater access to development funding, debt relief, international forums, and leadership roles. This flips the logic of geopolitics—making governance quality, not raw power, the source of prestige.
This Is Practical—Not Utopian
Skeptics may dismiss this as unrealistic. But the building blocks already exist:
- We already have international courts, financial monitoring bodies, and treaties that set standards.
- We already have transnational civil society tracking human rights, corruption, and development metrics.
- We already regulate NPOs at the domestic level. Scaling that oversight to the global level is a design challenge, not a philosophical one.
Moreover, public demand for this is growing. Across the globe, citizens are demanding transparency, accountability, and reform. From Cairo to Caracas, from Tbilisi to Tehran, protesters aren’t asking for charity—they’re demanding rules. The Global Watchdog would give that demand institutional shape.
Conclusion: Ending Impunity
The illusion of the UN persists because we confuse symbolism with structure. But peace is not made with flags and declarations—it is built through enforceable accountability.
If we recognize the state as a nonprofit organization, we must demand it behave like one. If governments fail in their role, they should lose their legitimacy—not be rewarded with immunity. The UN does not—and cannot—enforce this standard. Its design is incompatible with its mission.
The path to peace is not blocked by cynicism, but by institutional complacency. A Global Watchdog is not a dream—it is a necessity. Until we regulate governance with the same rigor we regulate finance or health, peace will remain an empty promise.
The question is not whether it is possible but how much longer can we afford not to act?