Should We Reform the Title of the United Nations Charter?
Before we look further at the Preamble to the UN Charter, we should take a few moments to consider the title. Does God want us to keep "United Nations" as the title of our world government, and should we continue to call its core document a "Charter," or should we call it a constitution?
According to Preparatory Years: UN Charter History | United Nations, "The name 'United Nations' was coined by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt" in 1942. I don't have any objection to continuing with this title through 2045 CE. The name may well hold far beyond 2045 CE, even in the context of greater world federalism. Perhaps it will hold all the way until 2945 CE.
Wikipedia presently defines the United Nations as "an intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among states, to promote international cooperation, and to serve as a center for harmonizing the actions of states in achieving those goals." I prefer to define the United Nations as a world government. I think we both deceive ourselves and sell ourselves short if we fail to recognize it as such.
Is there specific legal meaning to the term "charter"? According to the definition used in the UN Treaty Collection,
The term "charter" is used for particularly formal and solemn instruments, such as the constituent treaty of an international organization. The term itself has an emotive content that goes back to the Magna Carta of 1215. Well-known recent examples are the Charter of the United Nations of 1945 and the Charter of the Organization of American States of 1952.
Oxford Reference defines a charter this way: "A legal document from a ruler or government, conferring rights or laying down a constitution."
This suggests that the UN Charter could be understood as the constitution of a world government.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, argues that the UN "charter" implies the reservation of sovereignty by states:
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the recipient admits a limited (or inferior) status within the relationship, and it is within that sense that charters were historically granted, and it is that sense which is retained in modern usage of the term.
How much sovereignty belongs to the world level and how much belongs to the federal, state, and local level is an advanced formula. In the meantime, I don't think we need to see the UN Charter as more than a national constitution, but I don't think we need to see it as less, either. It's the cognitive space where national identity is transcended by those who are committed to world peace, prosperity, and global citizenship education for all facets of human enlightenment, including in the religious sphere. Said another way, there is value in continuing to think about the UN Charter as a charter, not a constitution, if we don't make the mistake of subordinating the Charter too far below our Constitution, on the one hand, or raising it too far above our Constitution, on the other hand.
As it stands right now, I am good with the title "United Nations Charter." But I am an American, so I may be biased, and I am trying to be reasonably conservative during my first round of UN Charter reform edits. What about you? Do you think we need to call our world government something other than the United Nations? Do you think we need to reframe our foundational global governance document as a world constitution, or is the "charter" distinctive even better?