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Before we move on to the discussion of political strategies, it is critical to situate the Global Justice Platform within a broader international and institutional context. Generally speaking, to achieve its objectives, the Global Justice Platform requires not only the creation of the Global Justice Fund, but also a broader transformation and democratization of the international economic and monetary system, including the governance and voting rules of international institutions. We start with the governance of the Global Justice Fund (Chap. 3.1). We proceed with the International Clearing Union aimed at ending global imbalances with regard to current account surpluses and deficits (Chap. 3.2) and the transformation of the International Monetary Fund into a United Nations Central Bank issuing a new international currency (Chap. 3.3). The democratic voting rules that we envision for the Global Justice Fund, the United Nations Central Bank, and other international institutions stand in sharp contrast to the plutocratic rules associated with the current system. The point, however, is that the current international order faces a serious legitimacy problem and is inherently fragile and unstable. The emergence of a multipolar world and the current system’s inability to confront the existential challenge of development and planetary habitability make the rethinking of global governance both necessary and urgent (Chap. 3.4-3.5). info [1]This Chapter aims to synthetize some of the material that is presented in a more detailed manner in Bothe et al (2026). We refer all interested readers to this work and to the online replication package. For an historical analysis of the evolution of international institutions, their plutocratic design and the appropriation of funds by rich countries, see Druschke and Nievas (2026). By comparing governance rules and voting rights used by the various organizations, this work demonstrates the crucial role of these rules for the decisions that are being made, including the structure of revenues and expenses.
3.1 The Global Justice Platform and the Reset of Bretton Woods Institutions
The centerpiece of the Global Justice Platform is the creation of the Global Justice Fund. Given its crucial role and the magnitude of its resources (Figure 2.2), it is, in our view, preferable to conceive the GJF as a new international institution rather than as an outgrowth of existing ones (e.g., the World Bank or the UN Development Program).
It is also critical that the Global Justice Fund be governed according to very strict principles of democracy and transparency. In particular, the GJF should enforce strict rules on how its resources are collected and allocated, including rigorous monitoring of the distribution of asset ownership and income flows within each country and at the global level. Country dividends should be conditional on the strict realization of specific climate targets (investment in low-carbon energy infrastructure, verifiable GHG emission reductions, and the end of deforestation), human capital targets (education and health expenditure) and inequality targets (distribution of income and wealth). Monitoring of income and wealth inequality is particularly critical in order to avoid any misuse of the funds (see Chapter 2). Only very strict and transparent rules and monitoring can help build and maintain a high level of trust in the Global Justice Fund.
Regarding the decision-making system, we recommend that the Global Justice Fund should be governed according to a double majority system, whereby all regular budgetary decisions need to be approved by 55% of countries representing 60% of the world population. This is close in spirit to the concept of qualified majority currently applied in the European Union [2]Namely, the Council of the European Union (where national ministers from each EU country meet to negotiate and adopt EU laws) uses a qualified majority of 55% of EU member states representing at least 65% of EU population. In order to be adopted, EU legislations need to be approved both by the Council (using this double majority rule in areas covered by qualified majority or the unanimity rule in other areas) and by the European Parliament, with one critical difference: budgetary and fiscal decisions would follow the regular double majority system for the Global Justice Fund, whereas they require unanimous agreement in the EU (arguably a recipe for inertia on these issues). more [3]Historically, the EU was developed with a focus on free trade and free capital flows, and limited emphasis on common budget and taxation. This is arguably one of the key challenges which the EU faces today in order to redefine its role in relation to the new world order and climate challenges. This of course does not imply that a double majority could decide to do anything. The GJF Charter should specify in advance the guiding principles and constitutional rules under which the Global Justice Fund operates, including the type of global wealth tax and global income tax, the purpose of the country dividends, the functioning of the World Sovereign Fund, and so on. It would be impossible and counterproductive, however, to set all the details and parameters decades in advance. It is therefore critical to have clear and functional decision rules to adopt annual budgetary and fiscal decisions and monitor the entire system.
The double majority system is arguably more satisfactory than a simple majority based either on the number of countries or on population alone. The pure country-based system is based on the “one country, one vote” principle and has been used to adopt resolutions in the UN General Assembly since 1945. All countries have the same weight, irrespective of their population. This can work for some purposes, but in practice this comes with the fact that no significant budgetary power is allocated to the UN General Assembly, and that the international institutions with more substantial economic and financial power (starting with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) are governed for the most part through GDP-based voting rules (more on this below). The pure population-based system follows the principle “one person, one vote” at the world level. The problem is that it gives very little weight to the smallest countries. It has virtually never been used in any international organization.
It is worth stressing that the double majority system which we advocate for here is relatively conservative, in the sense that it relies entirely on existing national government and country-level political institutions. That is, each country is represented by its head of state (or by ambassadors or delegates nominated by the head of state or the national government, depending on the country constitution), in the same manner as in the United Nations or other existing international institutions. A more ambitious system would involve direct elections at the world level in order to choose representatives from each country and region, which would then take decisions at the level of the Global Justice Fund.[4] It is important in our view to be relatively flexible about such possibilities and to design the GJF Charter in such a way that it is possible in the future to implement such changes of governance rules in the direction of direct democracy.[5] We should also point out that the fact that the GJF controls significant resources can potentially make it easier to set conditionalities to national governments, especially in terms of social, environmental and economic justice, as well as regarding the protection of human rights in general.
