Third Millennium Equipoise.

By Vinod Saighal, 1998 Lancer Publishers New Delhi, London, Hartford

Reviewed by Horst Rutsch

With the end of the cold war and the resultant contradictory ends of increased globalization and growing fragmentation, United Nations efforts to coordinate and sustain the strengthening of international peace and security have gained considerably in significance. Several recent studies have advocated a culture of prevention and emphasized the centrality of the United Nations, while recognizing the need for reforming certain aspects of the Organization, so that the international community will be better prepared for the manifold challenges that lie ahead.

In Third millennium Equipoise, Vinod Saighal sets forth a comprehensive blueprint for global governance and nuclear disarmament that attempts to facilitate a gradual transition from a culture of war, based on nuclear deterrence, to a culture of peace that focuses on restoring the deteriorating ecology of the planet.

In this fascinatingly detailed blueprint for a nuclear-weapons-free world, Saighal's identifies several elements as being central for the movement toward global harmony and commitment to ecological survival of the planet: voluntary nuclear restraint of States with actual or potential nuclear capabilities; the establishment of a "World Nuclear Council" as an independent monitoring body for nuclear disarmament; the necessity for an irreversible movement toward a "Zero nuclear-Weapons State" (by 2050); and the expansion and transformation of the Security Council into a "Planetary Council" responsible for international peace and global ecology.

Perhaps Saighal's most radical proposal is the transformation of the Security Council. He calls for completely democratizing the composition of its membership in four successive stages, over a period of 40 years. At its final stage, from 2035 onwards, there would no longer be permanent membership status or veto rights for any State. There would be no preferential quotas for the 30 members of the restructured Security Council, except that five seats would be reserved for "mini States", with less than 10 million population. ln addition, the members of the World Nuclear Council, as a block, would have observer status with veto rights on decisions endangering the global environment.

Although Saighal focuses on nuclear disarmament, his real concern is for what he calls the "supreme planetary interest", and in a final section, he expands his discussion and sketches a blueprint for the ecological revival of the planet. Saighal's model may seem utopian, for they depend on the unanimous political will of States to give up some of their sovereignty - something that seems highly unlikely at the present moment. But the humility of Saighal's humanism that is evident throughout his argument makes his book an admirable contribution to the current debate on global stability.