World Publics Favor New Powers for the UN

Today I attended a presentation by pollster, Steven Kull who just released an eighteen nation survey showing that publics around the world "favor dramatic steps to strengthen the United Nations."

Most of the publics seemed way ahead of their governments. For example, a majority of people believe that the U.N. not only should authorize force to protect people from "severe human rights violations such as genocide, even against the will of their own government, but that the U.N. had a responsibility to do so. This included nations as diverse as Armenia, China, France, India, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Poland.

The polls also showed 72 percent public support in the United States for the U.N. having its own standing peacekeeping force, but majority support in many other nations including Israel (64 percent) and China (62 percent). Kull also collected data on giving the U.N. authority to go into countries to investigate human rights violation, and regulate the international arms trade.

This is good news for those of us in civil society who supports H. Res. 213, the resolution which calls for the creation of a United Nations Emergency Peace Service. If you are part of the 72 percent, this is a good piece of information to relay to your member of Congress. Go ahead, give 'em a call. Here's one chart from Kull's survey. But check out the full survey for more.