Montesquieu

Government a chance to be accountable. An open society is a place where improvements are often reached through noisy, painful and chaotic processes. Montesquieu wrote a long time ago that if everyone agrees with the Government and everyone agrees with one another, that is not a country; that is a cemetery. I

test of time. The dysfunctions noted recently highlight the need to press ahead with essential institutional reform. In that connection, a comment by Montesquieu comes to mind and I quote, “When a good thing has disadvantages, it is better to do away with the disadvantages than with the thing itself.” The auth

ld, as referred to in the Charter of the United Nations, demand a new contract between the governed and those who govern. The three classic powers of Montesquieu are no longer the only ones in the government of the peoples.

must show a greater readiness to accept juridical settlement of their differences. This solution, moreover, will be all the more realistic, since, as Montesquieu put it, laws are simply necessary relationships resulting from the nature of things. 38. We see no reason to disguise the scepticism we feel regardin

he interplay on the conflicting views that hamper action in the Security Council, This is a twentieth-century manifestation of the truth perceived by Montesquieu — that Powers which are capable of checking each other are forced to collaborate, 23. We believe it is childish to consider, at the present time, tha

es had often been raised in defence of mankind’s attempts to uphold peace based on justice, could now claim attention in the capital of Descartes and Montesquieu with the authority conferred by the consciousness of having never betrayed the principles underlying the Charter of the United Nations.