Good, suddenly democratic

quot;What we think is beginning to happen in the world is that the democratic countries are beginning to cooperate with each other. There are some regional or functional institutions like the Commonwealth or the Organisation of American States which have said that non-democratic states are not welcome, that these institutions are for democratic countries.quot;In Halperine8217;s framework the decisions of the CHOGM summit in Durban in November last year were not a result of some global orchestration but rather a result of a process of evolution organically from within the 54-member group of the Commonwealth.

Indeed countries like Nigeria, Ban-gladesh and leaders from the Caribbean took up a stand against military dictatorships having a place in the Commonwealth. It was this spontaneous response to the mi-litary takeover that resulted in Gen. Musharraf8217;s regi-me as distinct fr-om the nation being barred from the Councils of the Commonwealth.

The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 caused countries to be relieved of old anchors as well as pressures. Thus, it was only at the 1991 CHOGM summit in Harare that the Commonwealth declaration defined good governance, democracy, human rights and the rule of law as the core values of the grouping. At the subsequent Auckland summit the CH-OGM set up a sort of constabulary in the form of CMAG Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group to monitor whether member countries were abiding by the quot;core valuesquot;. Gen. Abacha8217;s military dictatorship in Nigeria was found in total violation of the quot;core valuesquot; enunciated at Harare, and expelled.

British political observers see the Commonwealth as an instrument for democracy, good governance, hum-an right and the rule of law with a life independent of the broader, overarching structure of the Community of Democracies of which thinkers like Halperine are the authors.

The Commonwealth has the institutional framework which can take action against a regime stepping out of line with its quot; core valuesquot;. Conversely, the regime, feeling the heat, may decide to leave the grouping without too many apparent bruises on its body.

The strength of Halperine8217;s design is that it draws strength from groupings like the Commonwealth but an errant regime cannot opt out of it because there is no institutional framework to flee. In fact such a regime will be confronted by the growing concert of democracies as an ever more co-ordinated front in all existing international institutions like the UN.

quot;I think the need for universal institutions, like the UN, will continuequot;, Halperine says, quot;and no one is suggesting that such institutions ought to have a democratic criterion for membership and we don8217;t see building an alternative formal organisationquot;. Only regional and formal organisations have barred non-democratic entrants.

A watershed in the community of democracies agenda will be the conference in June to be held in Warsaw at the level of foreign ministers.

quot;India, along with the United States, is one of the convening countries for this important conferencequot;.

It transpires that foreign minister Jaswant Singh and Madeleine Albright have been discussing the concept for quite some time on the margins of meetings in Singapore and Manila.

Convening countries like India have considerable leverage. For instance, New Delhi would have the authority to have an invitation issued to a country like Iran which has demonstrated considerable advance towards democracy. That the Community of Democracies is a rapidly advancing, all pervasive movement is clear from fact that the quot;World Bank which generally uses the euphemism of good governance rather than democracy, held a conference rece-ntly in South Korea under the title De-mocracy and Economic Development. This symbolised the growing willingness of global organisations to acknowledge the fact that most of their members are democratic states and democracy is a core value of the member states, not a political criterionquot;. A revolutionary thought, though fraught with pitfalls.