Chapter 3. The Global Justice Platform: Toward A New Democratic International Order

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). [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.[PIN| |See the “Manifesto for the democratization of Europe” (tdem.eu) for an attempt to combine national and transnational parliamentary decision rules in order to extend federal budgetary power in Europe. 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. [4]I.e. one could think of larger qualified majorities to revise the GJF Charter itself (e.g. 60% of countries representing 70% of the population) but one should avoid unanimity or quasi-unanimity requirements. 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.   

The Global Justice Fund is the centerpiece of the Global Justice Platform, but it is not self-sufficient. It needs to be supplemented by other major reforms of the international financial system. In particular, even with output and income convergence, we can still have major imbalances, in the sense that some countries accumulate large current account surpluses and foreign assets, while others accumulate large current account deficits and foreign liabilities. Historical and contemporary evidence shows that such global imbalances can create major economic, financial, commercial, and geopolitical tensions, which can ultimately threaten the process of sustainable convergence.
 
According to the Global Justice Platform, the adequate institutional tool to end global imbalances is the creation of an “International Clearing Union” (ICU). This is close in spirit to the proposal made by Keynes in 1943, but adapted to the needs of the 21^st century. Ideally, the ICU should be hosted by a newly created United Nations Central Bank (UNCB), which would replace the IMF and issue a new international currency (more on this below). The ICU could also be hosted by the IMF, similarly to what was envisioned by Keynes. The chief objective of the ICU is to end global imbalances, i.e. to have all current account balances and foreign asset positions converge to zero over the course of the 21^st century. Observed trajectories over 1970-2025 and projected trajectories for 2025-2100 are described in Figures 3.1a-3.1b.

It should be noted that the current situation is characterized by very large global imbalances. In particular, the US has accumulated large trade and current account deficits over the 1990-2025 period, resulting in an enormous negative foreign asset position (close to 20% of world GDP in 2025). The corresponding positive foreign asset positions are mostly located in East Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In our benchmark scenario, we assume that all current account positions converge to levels close to zero by 2035. Subsequently, current account positions over the 2035-2100 period are projected to be close to zero, so that net foreign asset positions gradually move toward zero. One could also adopt even more gradual trajectories (say, with current account positions close to balance by 2040 or 2050). In any case, the US will need to move from large trade deficits today to significant trade surpluses in the medium term (around 2030-2050), before converging to trade balance in the longer run (say, after 2060-2070). [5]See Bothe et al, 2026, Appendix Figure B1w. This shift in the US trade balance is a consequence of the unwinding of the US large negative net foreign asset position, and the size of the required shift is further amplified by the Global Justice Platform. [6]In particular the end of exorbitant privilege (which will amplify the net interest outflows to the rest of the world) and the large GJF wealth and income tax payments borne by US millionaires and billionaires both contribute to magnify the size of the shift (which would already be substantial in any case). If well managed, this rebalancing of trade patterns can be in the common interest of all countries. It can also be a source of conflict, both in the US (where different views on how to generate such a trade surplus are likely to coexist) [7]Many US actors would welcome large trade surpluses in case this could come entirely through a rise in domestic production (e.g. via a rebuilding of domestic industrial strength and/or increased dominance in high-tech sectors) and with no consumption cut. Given the magnitude the current trade deficit and net foreign debt, it seems unlikely however that the required adjustment can be implemented without a significant consumption cut, or at least a large consumption shift from material to immaterial sectors, given the fact that the country also needs to reduce its enormous GHG emissions and material footprint. and in the rest of the world (where some concerns might be raised regarding the absorption of US exports). [8]This concern, while understandable, is likely overstated: the implied increase in US exports is modest relative to the projected growth of GDP in Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia over the same period. The absorption of these exports does not pose a structural constraint on the convergence trajectory, and can on the contrary contribute to accelerate the convergence process, as poor countries are able to import large flows of high-tech equipment and services (financed by the Global Justice Fund).
 
The basic mechanism behind the ICU is the same as that described by Keynes (1943) and more recently by Greenwald and Stiglitz (2010). Namely, the current account surpluses and deficits accumulate as credits and debits in countries accounts in the ICU (at the UNCB or at the IMF). To prevent persistent imbalances, symmetric and progressive penalties apply once balances exceed a defined threshold. This incentivizes surplus countries to spend or revalue and encourages deficit countries to adjust gradually their consumption level (and devalue their currency if needed), thereby supporting global demand and full employment and preventing major global imbalances to build up. Several specific proposals have been made regarding the penalty formula, and we do not take a firm stance on this issue. We stress that such penalties are necessary in order to ensure the stability of the system but should not prevent countries from having significant temporary current account surpluses and deficits when they are subject to specific shocks, as long as these imbalances do not build up and persist at large levels over time. [9]See Bothe et al, 2026, Section 3.4, for a more detailed discussion and for a description of the formulas advocated by Keynes (1943) and Greenwald and Stiglitz (2010). The revenues coming from this penalty system should be allocated to the Global Justice Fund, so that the penalties (if applied) can contribute to finance global sustainable convergence. [10]In our benchmark projections, we assume that the penalties are sufficiently large that they do not need to be applied in equilibrium, so that we do not need to add the corresponding revenues to GJF budget.
 
One criticism which has often been made to the symmetric penalty system on current account surpluses and deficits is that some developing countries might need to run persistent current account deficits to bring in international investment flows during the take-off stage. [11]See Kalecki and Schumacher (1943) and Davidson (2002, 2004). See Morgan and Patomäki (2026) for a review of discussions around ICU proposals since the 1940s. See also Ocampo (2010) and Kari and Holappa (2026) for proposals to exempt low-income countries from ICU-type penalty systems. However, in practice, large current account deficits have often been used by rich countries (typically the US) rather than by poor ones. Most importantly, this criticism does not apply to the present ICU proposal, because it is embedded in the Global Justice Platform and a broader plan to finance global sustainable convergence. Thanks to the Global Justice Fund and the World Sovereign Fund, developing regions will receive country dividends and investment flows, allowing them to invest and develop without accumulating large current account deficits (which markets would not have allowed them to do in the first place anyway).
 
Note that several mechanisms can contribute to restore current account balances, including currency devaluation and reevaluation, temporary capital controls, and sector-specific tariffs and subsidies. The exchange rate mechanism and the international monetary system are particularly important here. One standard explanation for the large US current account deficits is the lack of an international reserve currency. In effect, many countries use the US dollar as an international reserve currency and dollar denominated assets as reserve assets, which leads to excessively large purchases of US assets (including public debt, equity shares, and other assets) and contributes to global imbalances (especially in light of the shrinking size of the US economy relative to world GDP). This is why we believe that the creation of the ICU should come together with a broader transformation of the current international monetary system and the creation of a new international reserve currency.
 
Finally, a key objective in our view of the ICU is to equalize the rates of return on foreign assets and liabilities for all countries and to put an end to the so-called “exorbitant privilege” of the US and other rich countries. The fact that rich countries are able to obtain substantially higher returns on their foreign assets than what they pay on their foreign liabilities – partly because their currencies serve as reserve currencies and partly because they control the world’s largest financial institutions, both public and private – is well-known to lead to massive transfers from poor to rich countries. [12]Recent research has shown that the “exorbitant privilege” has grown in magnitude in recent decades. This appears to reflect various factors, including the impact of new regulations put in place in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis (which in effect require large financial institutions to hold more safe reserve assets issued by rich countries) and structural biases against poor countries by credit rating agencies and governance indicators set up by international institutions. See Nievas and Sodano (2024).
 
The magnitude of the implied transfers is striking. Over the 2000-2025 period, the US and Europe have received on average the equivalent of 0.6-0.8% of world GDP every year from other world regions (including the poorest world regions) due to this differential in rates of return. This is more than twice as large as the total world flows of development aid and assistance. According to our benchmark scenario, the rates of return on foreign assets and liabilities are scheduled to converge to the same level for all countries over the 2026-2030 transition period, so that in effect the exorbitant privilege will be reduced to zero by 2030 (Figures 3.2a-3.2b). We could also think of more gradual processes, but given the magnitude of the transfer it is preferable in our view to end it as soon as possible. One of the key advantages of the ICU system is that this can directly be implemented within the system of countries accounts and credits/debits kept at the level of the UNCB or the IMF.

In our ideal scenario, we propose to create a new institution, the United Nations Central Bank (UNCB). The UNCB would replace the IMF, issue a new international reserve currency (the United Nations Currency or UNC), and operate the International Clearing Union (ICU) (Figure 3.3). Although we find it preferable to create a new institution, with the same democratic voting rules as the Global Justice Fund, we stress that this transformation of the international monetary system could also emerge as a gradual evolution from the current system. That is, the “Special Drawing Rights” (SDR) that are currently issued and administered by the IMF could gradually evolve into a new international currency similar to the UNC which we discuss here.

In particular, it is worth stressing that the SDR system has already started to evolve significantly in recent decades (particularly with the large SDR creations following the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 Covid crisis, see Figure 3.4) and is likely to continue its transformation in the future. The most important change from our viewpoint is to transform SDR from their current status as a central bank currency into a genuine international currency. In particular, the key characteristic of the UNC (or the new SDR) is that it could be used as the unit of account for international trade and financial transactions and serve as the reference world currency. The Global Justice Fund and the World Sovereign Fund would naturally use the UNC as unit of account, and the WSF would issue UNC-denominated public debt. [13]About 30% of world GDP over the 2026-2050 period. See Bothe et al, 2026, Figure 13. The aim is that UNC-denominated debt becomes the largest and most reliable safe asset in the world. We propose to start with the current SDR exchange rates (i.e. 1 UNC = 1.18 Euro, 1.36 Dollar, 9.39 Yuan, etc.) [14]These are the SDR exchange rates published by the IMF as of March 27 2026. The SDR value is based on a basket of five currencies - USD, EUR, JPY, GBP, and CNY (added in 2016) – and is recomputed by IMF on a daily basis. and to shift to a system of fixed adjustable exchange rates between the UNC and the national currencies. The general principle is that all currencies should gradually move to their purchasing power parity over the 2026-2100 period (Figure 3.5).

The two key advantages of this new monetary system are, first, that it would bring a lot more stability to exchange rates (especially compared to the erratic fluctuations observed in recent decades), and, next, that it would put an end to the structural overvaluation of the currencies of rich countries (especially the Dollar) and the structural undervaluation of currencies of poor countries. This situation is largely due to the fact that there exists no international reserve currency (so that the Dollar ends up playing a role that is simply too big for the size of the US economy). In principle, it could be in the interest of all countries to move to this new system, including the US, who experience many adverse consequences of the Dollar overvaluation (especially in terms of trade deficit). In practice, many problems need to be addressed. One central issue is the speed of convergence to purchasing power parities. Unlike the end of exorbitant privilege (which can be implemented almost immediately, say by 2030), it would probably not be wise to proceed similarly for exchange rates, as this could entail some negative trade consequences in a number of developing countries. The target should be purchasing power parity, as determined by the results of ICP (International Comparison Program) price surveys organized by international organizations (the latest one in 2021). In the future, ICP surveys should be organized on an annual basis. But this PPP target has to be examined very closely, on a sectoral basis, in particular by distinguished tradable and non-tradable goods and services, and on the basis of the target current account and trade balance of each country. [15]The occurrence of exchange rate adjustments and the speed of purchasing power parity convergence are complex issues which should be carefully examined by the governing bodies of the UNCB and the ICU. In particular, all exchange rate adjustments should be deliberated and decided under the approval of UNCB board, so as to avoid non-cooperative competitive devaluation. Properly implemented, this reform of the international monetary system has the potential to improve considerably the terms of trade for poor countries and to end the situation of unequal exchange in which they have been confined ever since the colonial era. [16]See Nievas and Piketty (2025) and Keller (2026).
 
Regarding the direct creation and allocation of international currency by the UNCB, our approach is relatively cautious and conservative. Generally speaking, the objective of the Global Justice Platform is to finance sustainable development predominantly via the progressive taxation of wealth and income, and not through money creation. The total revenues and expenses of the Global Justice Fund are projected to represent about 8-10% of world GDP per year over the 2026-2060 period, while the World Sovereign Fund (WSF) is set to stabilize its assets around 60% of the world GDP (i.e. about 10% of the world capital stock). These substantial amounts are scheduled to be financed for the most part by the tax revenues coming from the global wealth tax and the global income tax, and this should always remain the backbone of the Global Justice Platform.
 
That being said, if used carefully, UNCB money creation can serve two main purposes: reserve requirements (financial stability) and sustainable development. First, UNCB money creation and allocation to countries can be useful for reserve purposes and current account management. One standard rationale in the literature on international clearing unions is that country central banks should have enough reserves to be able to confront short-term trade shocks. Following this logic, the UNCB would need to issue and allocate to countries the equivalent of around 0.5% of world GDP each year. [17]With a nominal world growth rate is about 5% (3% real growth and 2% inflation), it takes annual money creation around 0.5% of world GDP to reach and maintain central bank reserves around 10% of world GDP (close to average reference level). This is close in spirit to the proposal made by Greenwald and Stiglitz (2010) to have annual SDR issues around 200-300 billion $ (about 0.2-0.3% of world GDP at the time), except that they are aiming for somewhat lower reserves.
 
Next, the UNCB should also issue the equivalent of another 0.5% of world GDP each year to finance sustainable development, e.g. by buying bonds issued by countries or regional development banks to finance climate action. This is very close in spirit to the proposal by the “Bridgetown Initiative”, and which calls upon the IMF to boost country capacity to invest in climate action resilience by re-channeling SDR creation for this purpose. [18]The Bridgetown Initiative on the International Development and Climate Finance Architecture calls upon a new issuance of at least 650 billion $ in SDR (about 0.5% of world MER GDP in 2026). In our view, this UNC issuance of about 0.5% world GDP should be allocated to each country on an equal per capita basis, in the same way as the country dividends allocated by the Global Justice Fund. It should also be noted that the rationale for the reserve-related UNC issuance is likely to decline over time (as the ICU mechanism is put in place and ensures convergence toward current account balance), so that a larger fraction of total UNC issuance (set to the equivalent of 1% of world GDP per year) could be used to finance sustainable development.
 
We should also make clear that the total size of UNC issuance and UNCB balance sheet would deserve extensive deliberation by its governing bodies. [19]With total UNC issuance of about 1% of world GDP per year, and a nominal world growth rate around 5%, the size of the UNCB balance sheet is set to rise and stabilize around 20% of world GDP. Recent decades have shown that central banks can play a critical role when urgent action is needed to confront unforeseen crises (such as the 2008 crisis and the Covid crisis). As long as new UNC issuance remains sufficiently modest to prevent a significant rise of inflation, and as long as tax revenues and investment income remain the main sources of financing of the Global Justice Platform, it is possible to imagine higher levels of international money creation than those considered here.

The democratic decision-making rules envisioned for the Global Justice Fund and the United Nations Central Bank stand in sharp contrast with the governing principles of Bretton Woods institutions since 1945. In effect, the IMF and the World Bank have been governed since their creation by a form of global plutocracy, in the sense that each country’s voting rights are tied primarily to its wealth and resources (in particular the size of its GDP) rather than to its population. To a large extent, this resembles the wealth-based and income-based voting systems that were applied in many countries in Europe and elsewhere in the 19^th century and up until the early 20^th century (including in countries like Sweden, where inequality was at the time deeply entrenched in the political system). [20]See Bengtsson (2018) and Piketty (2020, 2022). Between 1865 and 1911, the number of votes an elector had in Sweden depended on how much tax he paid and how much property and income he had. Within the 20 percent of men rich enough to be able to vote, electors were divided into forty groups, each associated with a different electoral weight.  Members of the least wealthy group each had one vote, whereas those in the richest group had as many as fifty-four votes each. A similar system was used for municipal elections, but with no ceiling, and with the additional particularity that corporations also had the right to vote, with a number of votes depending on the amount of their taxes.  In practice, there were several dozen municipalities in which a single elector has more than 50 percent of the votes. The shift from global plutocracy to global democracy which we envision for the 21^st century in the context of the Global Justice Platform has in our view the same status as the shift from national plutocracy to national democracy which took place in the 20^th century.
 
Several remarks should be made about this transformation. Generally speaking, we stress that the current international system faces a serious legitimacy problem and that it is a lot more fragile and unstable and much less frozen than is commonly thought. First, the exact formula used to compute voting rights at the IMF since 1945 is a multi-factor formula including population (so-called “basic rights”), gross domestic product and economic openness (trade and financial flows). [21]The formula used at the World Bank and in other multilateral development banks follows a similar logic, but with a number of specific features. Here we focus on the case of the IMF. See Druschke and Nievas (2026) for a detailed analysis of the formulas and the evolution of the structure of voting rights. The exact weights used for each factor have changed significantly over time and will continue to do so. For instance, the “basic rights” made 10% of total voting rights in 1945, down to 5% in 2025. The most important change in the recent period is the introduction of PPP GDP in the 2008 reform. [22]Since 2008, the notion of GDP used in the IMF formula is 60% PPP-based and 40% MER-based. We describe on Figure 3.6 the general evolution of IMF voting rights since its creation. As one can see, the dominant weight of GDP, trade and financial indicators in the formula implies that Europe and North America/Oceania have always had a majority of voting rights (over 70% in the 1950s, and close to 55% in 2025).

Within this general framework, however, it is striking to see that the voting rights going to the United States have declined markedly, from about 35% in 1945 to 17% in 2025, in line with the decline in the US share in world GDP (Figure 3.7). The fact that the US voting share is closer to their PPP share in world GDP than to their MER share reflects a number of factors, including the “basic rights” effect, the introduction of PPP GDP in the formula in 2008, and the fact that openness indicators make a smaller share of GDP in the US than in smaller European economies. The important point is that the US vote share is quickly declining and is now getting close to 15%. This threshold plays a critical role in IMF Statutes, as it grants veto power for the Fund’s most important decisions, in particular regarding the creation of new Special Drawing Rights (SDR). In other words, when the US vote share falls below 15%, the rest of the world can decide to create large quantities of SDR and to increase its economic role (e.g. by deciding that it can be used as unit of account for international trade), and by doing so to substantially transform the world monetary landscape, even with US opposition.

It should also be stressed that the decline of US influence and IMF vote share is likely to accelerate in the coming decades. According to our benchmark scenario, the US share in world GDP is set to decline from 15% in 2025 in PPP terms (23% in MER terms) to about 10% by 2050-2060 and around 5% by 2100, i.e. the same level as the country’s population share (Figure 3.8a). This will happen less fast if the process of global convergence takes place at a slower pace than what we envision in our benchmark scenario, but, in any case, the decline observed over the 1945-2025 period will continue in the future. As a consequence, the US will soon pass below the 15% threshold in voting share and therefore to lose their veto power on SDR creation and other strategic decisions. Note that the IMF formula for voting shares is generally applied with some time lags, as countries need to agree to reorganize the quota system and exchange shares if needed. But it has always been applied in the past, resulting into a massive long-run decline in US vote share (Figure 3.7), and it will be very difficult for the US to block the application of IMF Statutes in the future. If they try to do so for too long, they will face major pressure from the rest of the world, and in particular a mounting threat from China-led BRICS coalition to set up an alternative set of international economic and financial institutions.

Unsurprisingly, Europe’s share in world population and GDP will also continue to decline in the future (Figure 3.8b), implying that the region will need more than ever to be part of larger coalitions.

Regarding China, it is worth emphasizing that their share in world GDP is currently about 20% in PPP terms (about one third higher than the US) and is scheduled to be twice as large as the US by 2035 according to our benchmark projections. However, China’s population share is falling very fast, from 23% of world population in 1945 to about 17% in 2025 and less than 8% in 2100. As a consequence, the share of China in world GDP is projected to stabilize and decline in the second half of the 21^st century, and to be overtaken by India around 2060 (Figures 3.8c-3.8d). In any case, China is very unlikely to ever reach the kind of hegemonic position which the US had in the world around 1950 (with as much as 35-40% of the world’s GDP) or which Europe had around 1900-1910 (around 40-45% of the world’s GDP). In brief, the world is set to be multipolar in the 21^st century, unlike the worlds of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

To summarize, the democratic rules envisioned for the Global Justice Fund do stand in sharp contrast with the current plutocratic rules applied at the IMF and other international institutions, but the point is that these rules are already deeply contested and inherently unstable. The dominant power of the post-1945 era – namely the US – has lost a lot of its former power and influence, and the entire system has entered into an era of strong turbulence, structural crisis, and deep realignment. The world is entering a long-lasting era of multipolar rule. It seems about time for a reset.
 
In light of the urgency of the climate crisis, the best approach in our view is to favour a complete change in paradigm, with an immediate shift to global democratic rules. This could be achieved via our proposed double majority system, whereby all regular budgetary decisions made by the Global Justice Fund must be approved by 55% of countries representing 60% of the world population. Other variants based upon clear democratic principles and excluding all GDP-related voting rights could also be considered. Ideally, these new democratic voting rules should and could also be applied immediately to other international institutions. Regarding the Global Justice Fund, the risk is that some countries – especially some of the richest countries – will refuse to participate to the project altogether if it comes with a fully democratic governance. In our view, however, it is preferable to create the Global Justice Fund or the UN Central Bank with an incomplete coalition of countries (possibly without the US and/or without China) and with full democratic rules rather than the opposite. We will later return on the conditions under which the Global Justice Platform can be achieved with an incomplete coalition of countries.
 
In order to obtain the support of all countries which are currently members of Bretton Woods institutions, one could also envision another strategy, namely a gradual transition from global plutocracy to global democracy. The Global Justice Fund would start with the same voting rules as those implied by the current IMF formula, and the country vote shares would then linearly evolve from this initial allocation to a full population-based allocation over the 2026-2050 period. The resulting evolution of vote shares is described in Figures 3.9-3.10. In effect, we would gradually move from a system where each inhabitant of Europe and North America/Oceania has about 16 times more votes than each inhabitant of Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia to a system where all inhabitants of the world have the same voting power.   

This alternative strategy could work, but it also involves major risks. On the positive side, this could be a way to bring all countries on board in a gradualist manner. There are two main problems, however. First, unless this is strongly guaranteed by the GJF Charter, there is a serious risk that rich countries will try to maintain the GDP-based voting system and postpone the transition indefinitely (i.e. push back the democratic target year 2050 to 2080 or 2100). Given that the GJF aims to reach global economic convergence by 2100, it will be tempting for rich countries to argue that there will be no difference between a GDP-based and a population-based voting system by 2100, and that it is preferable to wait for this gradual GDP-based transition to equal voting rights. Next, and most importantly, the problem with this gradual transition to global democracy is that this will prevent the right policies to be adopted in the first place. In particular, in the event that the GJF is controlled by rich countries in the early years, there is a serious risk that they will adopt a very minimalist version of the GJF budget (say, with a small global wealth and income tax and reduced country dividends), or that they may even oppose the principle of equal per capita country dividends and prefer instead to have dividends in proportion to GDP (unless the GJF Charter disallows them to do this). One of the great lessons of the march toward equality at the national level in the 20^th century is that political reforms and political equality were put in place before the movement toward socioeconomic equality could begin – not after. Without a decisive move toward global democracy, there is a high risk that the GJF – or any similar system – will never be able to deliver global socioeconomic convergence.  
 
Finally, while the Global Justice Fund and the United Nations Central Bank are the two main pillars of the new international order which we envision in the context of the Global Justice Platform, it would be preferable if the transformation of the international order could also involve a coordinated reform of other institutions, including the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the International Labour Organization. Ideally, the new democratic governance rules envisioned here, i.e. the double majority system (55% of countries representing 60% of population), should apply all institutions, including the United Nations. [23]In our view, the resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly would have more weight if they were based on this double majority system. Importantly, building a democratic international order also requires the abolition of any veto power, starting by the UN Security Council. Organizations which were historically restricted to rich countries (like the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Energy Agency) should be open to all countries and follow similar democratic rules, especially if they ambition to address global issues. [24]For instance, it is difficult to understand why the discussion about international tax cooperation should be left to a group of rich countries meeting at the OECD rather than in the context of a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, in line with the agenda followed by a large majority of world countries in recent years, with the support of coalitions like the Tax Justice Network and ICRICT. The new international order should also include the reset of dispute settlement mechanisms, with a general priority given to public courts rather than private arbitration. [25]See Hassani (2025). Last but not least, it should be noted that the large financial resources allocated to the Global Justice Fund (and to a lesser extent to the United Nations Central Bank) would de facto create a major transformation of the entire system of UN agencies and international institutions. In particular, it is clear that the Global Justice Fund and the World Sovereign Fund would have the capacity via country dividends and investment flows to play a major role to push for higher social and environmental standards in labour regulations, trade agreements, energy systems, production norms, and so on.