World Constitutionalism [Unabridged] 1847182933, 9781847182937

Intellectual quest for World Order is as old as the history of mankind. Saints and sages, religious visionaries and phil

234 7 2MB

English Pages 305 [307] Year 2007

Report DMCA / Copyright

DOWNLOAD PDF FILE

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
WORLD CONSTITUTIONALISM
THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AT 59
HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AGE OF GLOBALISATION
ENVIRONMENTAL SOVEREIGNTY
LOOKING BEYOND NATIONAL BOUNDARIES IN THE ERA OF GLOBALISATION
GLOBAL DEMOCRACY OR GLOBAL ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISM?
CONSTITUTIONALISM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ABROAD
HOW WORLD FEDERALISM WILL LIKELY COME INTO EXISTENCE
NEIGHBORHOOD DISCUSSIONS ABOUT GLOBAL CONSTITUTIONS MIGHT HOPEFULLY INVENT GIMMICKS THAT COULD BE BLENDED INTO A RATIFIABLE CONSTITUTION FOR A SUPRA-NATIONAL FEDERATION
PLANETARY HUMANISM
PROPOSAL FOR A NEW VISION AND STRATEGY OF GLOBAL DEMOCRACY
TOWARDS A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK TO EVALUATE WORLD PARLIAMENT PROPOSALS
THE INTERNET AND THE FIRST STEPS TOWARDS A WORLD CONSTITUTION
POLITICS OF OPPORTUNITY
SOME THOUGHTS ON UNESCO AND REFORM OF THE UNITED NATIONS
WORLD HEALING
JUSTICE, PEACE AND EQUALITY
THE KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN
HAS INDIAN NEGOTIATING POWER, TO ACHIEVE AN INTERNATIONAL ORDER BASED ON JUSTICE AND THE RULE OF LAW, INCREASED SINCE THE 1998 NUCLEAR TESTS?
SECULARISM IN INDIA, U.S.A. AND UNITED KINGDOM
HISTORY OF WORLD DEMOCRACY
SECTION II
THE POLITICS OF WORLD FEDERATION
THE POLITICS OF WORLD FEDERATION
ASIAN WORKS ON WORLD FEDERALISM
TOWARDS A WORLD CONSTITUTION
CONCEPTS IN LAW
ONE WORLD DEMOCRACY
ANNEXURE I
ANNEXURE II
CONTRIBUTORS
Recommend Papers

World Constitutionalism [Unabridged]
 1847182933, 9781847182937

  • 0 0 0
  • Like this paper and download? You can publish your own PDF file online for free in a few minutes! Sign Up
File loading please wait...
Citation preview

World Constitutionalism

World Constitutionalism

Edited by

Dr. Anthony D’Souza and Dr. Carmo D’Souza Foreword by Dr. Marian Pinheiro, Principal V. M. Salgaocar College of Law & Dean of Faculty of Law, Goa University

CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS PUBLISHING

World Constitutionalism, edited by Dr. Anthony D’Souza and Dr. Carmo D’Souza Foreword by Dr. Marian Pinheiro, Principal V. M. Salgaocar College of Law & Dean of Faculty of Law, Goa University This book first published 2007 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing 15 Angerton Gardens, Newcastle, NE5 2JA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2007 by Dr. Anthony D’Souza and Dr. Carmo D’Souza Foreword by Dr. Marian Pinheiro, Principal V. M. Salgaocar College of Law & Dean of Faculty of Law, Goa University and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN 1-84718-293-3; ISBN 13: 9781847182937

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword .................................................................................................. viii Dr. Marian Pinheiro Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... x World Constitutionalism ............................................................................. 1 Dr. Carmo D’Souza The Universal Declaration of Human Rights At 59: An Assessment........ 17 Dr. T.R. Subramanya Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation: Some Thoughts .................... 35 Dr. Maria-Suzette Fernandes-Dias Environmental Sovereignty: Dilution of National Boundaries. A Case for World Constitution.................................................................. 47 Dr. Sairam Bhat Looking Beyond National Boundaries in the Era of Globalisation: A Critical Analysis .................................................................................... 62 Vishwanath. M Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?............................. 76 Fernando A. Iglesias Constitutionalism in the United States of America and Abroad................ 99 Dr. Joseph Preston Baratta How World Federalism Will Likely Come Into Existence...................... 105 James T. Ranney Neighborhood Discussions About Global Constitutions Might Hopefully Invent Gimmicks That Could Be Blended Into A Ratifiable Constitution For A Supra-National Federation ................... 112 John R. Ewbank

vi

Table of Contents

Planetary Humanism ............................................................................... 126 Carl Coon Proposal for a New Vision and Strategy of Global Democracy .............. 136 Troy Davis Towards A Conceptual Framework to Evaluate World Parliament Proposals ................................................................................................. 138 Troy Davis The Internet And The First Steps Towards A World Constitution .......... 151 Otfried Schrot Politics of Opportunity ............................................................................ 155 Hank Stone Some Thoughts on UNESCO and Reform of the United Nations........... 160 Ian Anderson World Healing ......................................................................................... 165 Dr. Doug. N. Everingham Justice, Peace and Equality...................................................................... 176 Dr. Fatima Mascarenhas e Noronha The Kingdom of Bahrain: The Pearl of the Arabian Gulf ....................... 181 Dr. T.R. Subramanya Has Indian Negotiating Power, to Achieve an International Order Based on Justice and the Rule Of Law, Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests? ......................................................................................... 189 Dr. Klaus Schlichtmann Secularism in India, U.S.A. and United Kingdom.................................. 207 Ranjana Ferrăo History of World Democracy .................................................................. 221 Kenneth Kostyo

World Constitutionalism

vii

Section II: Synopsis of Thesis and Books The Politics of World Federation ............................................................ 226 Dr. Joseph Preston Baratta The Politics of World Federation Achievements..................................... 236 Dr. Joseph Preston Baratta Asian Works on World Federalism ......................................................... 243 Dr. Joseph P. Baratta Towards a World Constitution ................................................................ 251 Dr. Carmo D’Souza Concepts in Law...................................................................................... 254 Dr. Carmo D’Souza One World Democracy............................................................................ 266 Jerry Tetalman Annexures Annexure I.............................................................................................. 273 James T. Ranney Annexure II.............................................................................................. 283 James T. Ranney List of Contributors ................................................................................ 287

FOREWORD

Progress in the area of communication and computer revolution has in fact made the idea of global village a reality. On the other hand, frenzied nationalism, rabid fundamentalism and narrow parochialism are yet to cease to exist on the global scenario. Terrorism and unprovoked attacks of nations have created a new threat the world over. Over the decade, the United Nations and other world organizations have predominantly been exhibiting their inefficiencies rather than fulfilling the raison d’etre for their existence. The world today is a new challenge. The coming in of World Constitutionalism at this juncture in history is a greater challenge. Borderlessness as a concept does exist among intellectuals and the academia but materialism fuelled by fundamentalist movements have never before been a greater threat as it is now. Security of nations and individuals is held at ransom by blind forces that threaten the destruction of humanity and the planet earth. In such an atmosphere of threatening international relations the editors have been intellectually courageous in visualizing the book which explores the idea of World Constitutionalism. The collection of scholarly articles fittingly begins with article on World Constitutionalism by Dr. C. D’Souza, the idea which is a jurisprudential challenge as it is based on new concepts and values beyond those acceptable to a traditional jurist. His challenging statements are followed by a discourse of human rights by Dr. T. R. Subramanya and Dr. Maria-Suzette Fernandes-Dias. Environmental sovereignty, the problems of national boundaries and the idea of global democracy are areas of intellectual discourses by various writers. Further writings will definitely call for a paradigm shift in understanding the world and the implications of democracy.

World Constitutionalism

ix

I am certain this intellectual exercise will definitely stimulate discussions and debates of what could be envisaged as the future world or that of a world community. Dr. Marian Pinheiro Principal V. M. Salgaocar College of Law & Dean of Faculty of Law, Goa University. Panjim, Goa October 2006.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

World Constitutionalism is a compilation of articles sent in response to our appeal via the e-mail for material related to a new global order. We are grateful to all the contributors listed at the end of the book, who have readily sent their articles to this project. We are also grateful to all those who as part of publicity to our project forwarded the e-mail to their friends and acquaintances. We also thank those who sent us their encouraging messages and advice. Indeed the network that resulted from this exercise, cut across all barriers that seem to divide the present world. We would like to thank in a special way Dr. Marian Pinheiro, Principal V. M. Salgaocar College of Law for the encouraging foreword. This was a difficult task considering the assorted articles listed in the book. He took pains to go through the material before penning down his innovative ideas. If World Constitutionalism becomes an academic subject in law, one can expect Dr. Pinheiro to be in the forefront specially in his capacities as Dean of Law Faculty and Coordinator of LL.M and Ph.D. (Law) programme under the Goa University. A special thanks to all those working on the world order, who have fuelled the ideas that find voice in the present book. Anthony D’Souza Carmo D’Souza Porbavaddo, Calangute , Goa , India September, 2006

WORLD CONSTITUTIONALISM1 DR. CARMO D’SOUZA

World Order In this age of mission statement, concept building, brand marketing and designing it is surprising that little attention is paid to the problem of world order. The scientific study of world order in academic circles is put on the back burner. It is time that the present world residents give a serious thought to designing world order models and develop suitable curricula from primary to higher stages of learning. The present world owes this duty to the future generations. If world order were a marketable commodity, it would develop at fast strides. However, it is time for markets to realize that they need a just world order to prevent chaos. Accelerating market reforms without keeping in mind the fundamentals of world order may spell doom. Several world powers in course of history committed the same mistake. In their urge for market expansionism, these powers created an artificial economic order without reference to justice and fairness to all the players in the game and that order finally crumbled leaving behind chaos.

Objectives of Study of a Design for World Order Here is a list of some tentative objectives for designing a World Order. They are: x To enunciate a vision and mission statement for World Order x To make the world a better and safer place to live in.

1

I am greatly indebted to Mrs, Ingrid von Heiseler who advised me in planning the programme on World Constitutionalism for Ismilda Research Consultancy, material that forms part of the present article. My special thanks to Prof. (Mrs.) Clara Rocha for editing the present article.

2

x x x x x x x

World Constitutionalism

To identify essential values that are needed to be fostered for the survival and growth of mankind. To identify concepts that at present exist and hinder the New World Order and concepts that are required for its growth in the future. To provide principles for international relationships between Nations in a New World Order. To provide orientation to National Governments to shape their policies. To provide criteria to be used in the administration of justice to the municipal courts within national framework, as well as for other international adjudicatory bodies. To provide criteria for National Governments, mass media and the Peoples of the World for evaluation of international issues. To motivate and foster public opinion at national as well as at international level which will favour the growth of New World Order.

Binding International Law Many of the jurists in post 1945 era picked on the tunes of minimum binding International Law applicable to all nations. This especially developed in the area of Criminal Justice. The Nuremberg trials raised hopes that permanent structures and institutions would arise from the consequences of the trial. The accused could be denied the protection and shelter of ones’ own national sovereignty. However, history did not choose to travel the path of minimum binding international law. The trials set a trend to a limited and selective application of that rule, sometimes arbitrary used by powerful nations. Unfortunately, till date a satisfactory system has not emerged after the Nuremberg experience. Let us discuss two aspects of binding International Law applicable to all nations and Peoples of the World, namely: (a) World Constitution and (b) World Constitutionalism.

World Constitution Design It would have been an ideal to have a document, which could be labeled as a World Constitution. The first basic essential of such a binding document is that it needs to be just and fair to all sections of the World. The document should be free of cultural, racial, religious, gender and several other such biases, which are found in the legal regimes of the world today, sometimes as unconscious historical antecedents. The term Constitution

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

3

itself has several advantages, both legal as well as psychological, which will also adhere to a document labeled as World Constitution2. World Constitution unlike national constitutions, which visualise fullfledged organs of Government, could be an international document that will have prominence over other international documents. In one sense branded as World Constitution, it could provide minimum principles for governing international relations. In that sense it would be a supra law over all other international instruments. Alternatively, the document could go further and provide for a soft executive, a soft legislature and some sort of adjudicatory machinery. Such a Constitution for the World whichever the model that is selected3 will have many advantages and enable the international adjudicatory organizations with philosophy and criteria for international relationships. The document could contain the seeds for future growth and development of a World Constitution with full-fledged organs of Government. . The foremost question that arises in such a discussion is whether a World Constitution would have a smooth sailing under the present global situation in the absence of greater amount of spadework? Evidently there is too much of cultural and civilization mistrust and misunderstanding and these are further fuelled with the presence of power blocks and brokers in the international arena. That makes the process of acceptability of World Constitution, a remote possibility. Also, under present international scenario it may be a difficult proposition to get a fair and just Constitution. Nation States that are powerful may attempt to derive maximum advantage to themselves from such a document, which will do more harm than good to the process of world order. Besides, the World Constitution has to address the issues of gender equality, take care of racial and cultural diversities, religious differences and so on. Even if in principle one accepts that there should be a document called a World Constitution, there will be several problems to be sorted out before 2

See D’Souza Carmo Towards a World Constitution, Publisher Agnelo D’Souza , Goa, 2003. Chapter III discusses Advantages of a World Constitution, pgs.53-75. 3 Several models have been suggested and drafts of World Constitutions published by various parties after the World War II. See D’Souza Carmo Towards a World Constitution, Publisher Agnelo D’Souza , Goa, 2003. Chapter IV, Contents of World Constitution, pgs.76-90. Otfried Schrot list the various such efforts in The Menu of the Third Millenium, Annexure I to D’Souza Carmo , Concepts in Law, Publisher Agnelo D’Souza, Goa, 2004, Annexure I , pgs. 99-100

4

World Constitutionalism

one can work the finer details of the document. There are several options possible and selection and implementation of the right one will take time. The world cannot wait any longer for something to happen in the future. The work has to start now. The alternative is to start to build World Constitutionalism brick by brick. It is however not correct to erase World Constitution from our mind. One can always keep up the dream of a World Constitution with components of fairness and justice. Hence, it is necessary to support this dream at the level of Research and Education. The best way of promoting a World Constitution is to promote World Constitutionalism

World Constitutionalism Model World Constitutionalism can even grow without a written document as in some countries Constitutionalism preceded the Constitution. In fact, it can have extra legal origin, say through academic debate, and peoples’ discussion via the net using various communication techniques. However the best reason for its acceptance is that World Constitutionalism has already stepped the threshold of International Law under various guises as its principles are applied in Environmental Law, Human Rights, and many other fields. Another reason is that World Constitutionalism has several advantages of a World Constitution itself with the added characteristic that it is free from the element of imposition and apprehension of power control. A unique feature of Constitutionalism is its flexibility. Besides Constitutionalism goes much beyond the Constitution itself. Even after enactment of a Constitution, Constitutionalism grows and flourishes, as Constitutions are not dead documents. Briefly here are some points for consideration on World Constitutionalism: x World Constitutionalism does not require a written document to start with as evidenced from history of some countries. Writteness is not essential element of Constitution and much less of a World Constitutionalism. Though Constitutionalism in some countries such as India and US grew rapidly with the document, a document or series of documents is not a sine qua non for starting Constitutionalism. x Constitutionalism can provide philosophy, culture, concepts and values, for the future Constitution. x The process of developing philosophy, culture, concepts and values for the future Constitution has already begun under different forms

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

x x x

5

the world over. World Constitutionalism will strengthen all such movements. Constitutionalism can start before a Constitution is framed or it can be a path for future guidance of any such enactment. One can undertake a concerted effort to identify Legal Principles, Values, Concepts, for world order under the umbrella of World Constitutionalism. Such principles and legal values may help in orientation of municipal courts, national legislatures and national executives even before the law is made enforceable.

Academic Recognition to World Constitutionalism The first step is to recognize World Constitutionalism in Academic circles the world over. It must form part of curricula in centers of learning like universities, law institutions, colleges and schools. In fact the process has begun at some specialized institutions of higher learning and at visionary schools around the globe. It is at the schools that the lasting change has to take place in the mindset of the youngsters, who do not carry the mental blocks caused by undesired accidents of the past. Often subjects tend to grow once they get recognition in the Academic circles. The same can be expected of World Constitutionalism.

World Constitutionalism: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach World Constitutionalism has to be developed through a multi disciplinary approach. For instance there has to be contribution from languages, humanities, pure sciences, history, philosophy, economics, communication and information technologies among others. The various fields, like human rights, environmental sciences, alternate redressal systems, mediation techniques, peace and conflict resolution studies must leave their imprints on World Constitutionalism. Below are discussed some disciplines as illustrations to motivate debate.

6

World Constitutionalism

World Constitutionalism and History History4 can provide glimpses of how various concepts flowed down through the centuries and were and sometimes still continue to be mental blocks. It is interesting to undertake a proper analysis of history whether a particular approach needs to be promoted at the present stage under changed circumstances. This especially applies as regard war, which often form the golden pages of history of a country. Centuries after an event has occurred like a revolution of Independence from some power, the event is narrated emotionally recreating the past on the present canvas. It is not to suggest here that the events did not have their own values and ideologies, which need to be propagated. Often the national anthems of many countries have in them the marshal music, which were required in a particular phase of history and may not have much appeal to the modern youth. So it is necessary to investigate the dynamics of history in the past and evaluate its use in the present while also keeping in mind the process of building nationalism within World Constitutionalism. So history has to be an important component in the multi disciplinary approach. History too has evidenced many world order movements from ancient times to modern day. Even failures of various powers in history to bind the world together under different political, social, religious, economic frameworks may provide glimpses for building World Constitutionalism. History of powers that failed to create a legal order can be helpful to see their drawbacks and extract lessons for a New World Order. Besides there are various world order movements in the twentieth century under different personalities that sometimes failed to develop. It is necessary to study them objectively in order to draw useful lessons. History of Constitutionalism too in countries round the world can offer insights to World Constitutionalism. The world has seen Greek, Roman, British, French, American and other types of Constitutionalism. These evolutionary processes can provide insights into World Constitutionalism.

World Constitutionalism And Law Various interests in the society clamour to get the status of law. In that sense it is essential that World Constitutionalism is recognized as an 4

See , D’Souza Carmo , Concepts in Law, Agnelo D’Souza, Goa, 2004. It is clear that most of the examples cited in the book can be explained on the basis of history.

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

7

academic subject in the field of law. World Constitutionalism will grow in leaps and bounds if the legal centers of learning are behind the move. In fact World Constitutionalism should appear in the Academic Curricula at the law degree level. For instance in India, studies in Human Rights and Environmental Law after their introduction in the curricula are presently growing in leaps and bounds both at academic as well as legal practice level. Such recognition tends to change the approach in the mindset of law students, lawyers, judges, as well as people in general as the subject enjoys a legal brand. Through the various curricular activities like lecture, moot problems, projects and case study methods, innovative thinking evolves and develops on the subject among the legal community.

World Constitutionalism and Comparative Constitutional Law Today there is a great interest in Comparative Studies of the Constitutions of the world. Durga Das Basu in his book Comparative Constitutional Law5 lucidly explains the importance and scope of this subject. He sees in it the seeds of Universal Principles of Jurisprudence when he writes: In fine, it is from a study of competing systems of law that we may discover the universal principles of jurisprudence which alone may serve as a standard for measuring different national systems and for promoting international integration, - thus paving the way for the goal of the 6 Federation of the world, through peaceful means .

Further advocating the comparative method he writes: The need for the comparative method has become inevitable in any study of human culture, achievements and institutions because today the scale of human existence is no longer cramped by national sub-divisions but is as wide and unfettered as the horizon. What was only a poet’s dream in the 19th century- ‘the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world’, -is taking a realistic shape in the 20th century. The growth of League of Nations after the conclusion of the first World War and of the United Nations after the conclusion of the Second World War, has amply demonstrated that even erstwhile warring Nations are

5

Basu Das Durga, Comparative Constitutional Law, Prentice-Hall of India, Private Limited, New Delhi, 1984. 6 Ibid pg. 3

World Constitutionalism

8

bound to join together for the settlement of common problems which are more important than the national causes for which they had been fighting.7

Comparative Constitutional Law will also enable scholars to see how the spirit of Constitutionalism progresses in a society. The same rights existing in a Constitution over the years may have different dimensions as the society progresses. In fact Constitutionalism in some countries over the years traveled beyond national boundaries and assimilated international doctrines. A comparative study of these processes may present the key to World Constitutionalism.

A Multi –Disciplinary Approach: Conclusion So World Constitutionalism has to be conceived in such a way that the various fields of learning have a role and must contribute in building the subject. Music, art, theatre, mass media, cinema, must have areas devoted to World Constitutionalism. Great empires and civilizations have thrown everything in weaving the myths of their civilizations. Why should not the modern world use those techniques to promote World Constitutionalism?

Jurisprudence for World Constitutionalism One has to admit that there is some traditional jurisprudence that is stumbling block to legal thinkers. For instance the jurisprudence based on National Sovereignty has been deeply entrenched among legal writers over the past century. National Sovereignty was the need of certain period of history and it aided some countries to demolish the parochial barriers existing within that society. Nations were able to free themselves from the shackles of petty feudalism. The theory helped nations to rise strongly against the narrow dividing walls. Similarly it did help nations also to rise over and above the others. Austin’s Sovereignty perhaps enabled England to raise the Empire on which the sun never set. So there may be a need to revisit some of the earlier jurisprudence using historical interpretation to find its relevance to the fast globalising world. It is interesting to note, however that even with the aid of the existing jurisprudence, one can build the jurisprudence for World Constitutionalism. Number of jurists had difficulties to explain the world order within their theoretical set up. For instance Kelson had a problem 7

Ibid , pg.1

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

9

with the explanation of Grundnorm for international law8. Roscoe Pound in his book on Jurisprudence raised the question of a law for the world.9 So it is possible to find trends even amidst traditional classical legal theories for futuristic jurisprudence. Besides an analysis of rigid concepts on several issues such as National Sovereignty or International Law can be explained on the basis of historical and other circumstances of the time and place and the process may give us an insight into building a New Jurisprudence for the present. So a re look at jurisprudence is necessary in the light of the needs of the present world. In fact with the study of Comparative Jurisprudence of diverse systems world wide, it is possible to build Jurisprudence for World Constitutionalism

World Constitutionalism: Concepts, Values and Principles Debate, discussion and research can easily begin on Concepts, Values and Principles for World Constitutionalism. It is not to claim that the structure of World Constitutionalism can be laid just on these but they can provide a foundation. In the long run one has to face the other intriguing questions like national and international structures and methods of constituting, operating or dismantling them. However let us confine first to concepts.

Conceptual Analysis It is necessary to make a serious analysis and evaluation of concepts existing in the present society in view of World Constitutionalism. Some of the concepts may need to be discarded, others may be reformulated or modified, yet other concepts may need to be revived or recycled, or totally new concepts may be required to be promoted to foster World Constitutionalism. The fundamental requirement today is an analysis of existing concepts History indicates that sometimes highly acclaimed societies lived with concepts incompatible with the lofty ideas of the period. For instance the Greeks and the Romans, two highly civilized societies could live with the incompatible concept of slavery. In Sparta euthanasia/murder of disabled children was carried out without any remorse. The cultured Indian 8

See R.W.M. Dias, Jurisprudence , Fifth edition, Aditya Books Private Limited, New Delhi, 1994, pgs. 370-71. 9 Roscoe Pound , Jurisprudence , Vol.I, St. Paul, Minn, West Publishing Co. 1959, pgs. 457-459. Topic is “What of a next stage – A law of the world?”

10

World Constitutionalism

civilization glorified Sati i.e. self-immolation of widows. Surprisingly even today in this modern world we have modified concepts of slavery in bonded labour, child labour, child soldiers, human sacrifices, and so on which are incompatible with the modern values for a global order. Hence there is a need to do an audit of the existing concepts in the light of the future vision for a world order. Scientific conceptual analysis will reveal harmful concepts that often exist in our society and unconsciously continue to flourish. Such analysis will reveal the dynamics of concepts and how they are to be reformulated. Marketing today seriously researches on concepts and brand creations for their products. Such strategies adopted in marketing and advertisement have to be used in the legal field too. As international marketing forces are accelerating the world towards globalisation, it is necessary to evaluate concepts that will be needed for the future society. Unplanned fast growth under market economics may create lopsided development and endanger the planet earth. Selfish interests, be it individual, corporate, and even national may motivate changes, which are not beneficial to the world as a whole. Hence it is imperative that a lot of planning is dedicated not merely in checking the existing harmful concepts but also to the development of healthy concepts for the future.

Illustration of Concepts The list of concepts below is merely illustrative and has been included to motivate debate. 1.

Concept of War: War has been webbed in literature, folk songs, poems and legends. Conquerors and war heroes have been immortalized. Our literature is full of war achievements. Our epics sing the glories of those who dared to extend their kingdoms. It is not to suggest here that one needs to discard all the great literary masters and their masterpieces. However research can be carried out to find how the literary gems can be preserved without pushing unnecessary concepts that do not serve the present society. Similarly the spoken word in different languages of the world perpetuate war myths. We fight for survival, we combat vice and sin, we battle against odds of life and we struggle against hunger and disease. Are there no alternative peaceful means and methods to achieve the above ends?

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

2.

3.

4.

11

Concept of Peace: Fortunately today a number of masters and gurus in different disciplines are laying emphasis on achieving peace and harmony within oneself and with the environment around. A proper concept of peace is very relevant for the future world. Peace building has not received much attention especially in the field of law. There are many techniques on peace and harmony available in different civilizations from east to west, which have been systematically propounded. Peaceful coexistence at all levels is perhaps the key to the future. Fortunately there is already research on the areas of peace building, conflict resolution, negotiation and so on. Such practices did exist too in the past societies from ancient times, but got buried within the heap of glorified history of war and conquest. Concept of Human Brotherhood: The Concept of Human Brotherhood is entrenched in various philosophies and theologies in the history of the world. Simultaneously various other concepts dividing the human race under different classifications have evolved. Many of these are quite dangerous for the present world and are floated due to certain social, economic and other problems, which perhaps have not been addressed properly. It is necessary that the concept of Human Brotherhood is researched and attention paid to it in the field of law. International Law: There is a need to reformulate the approach to international law. In certain aspects the international law has remained as crude as it was in the age of discoveries during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Some conventions and charters are the contribution of around four centuries after the discovery of sea route to India. International Law has not been able to free itself from the traditional trappings built from the sixteenth to nineteenth century.

World Constitutionalism: Values World Constitutionalism has to contain certain values, which are to be inculcated for the survival of humanity. Here a list is drawn rather as an illustration. There is a need for in-depth research in identifying the values and determining their priority. Some of the values are: (a) Respect to Human Rights, (b) Rule of Law, (c) Justice, (d) Humane Spirit, (e) Value of Democracy, (f) World Peace, (g) Concern Towards Alleviation of Poverty, and (h) Concern for the Less Privileged and Disabled.

12

World Constitutionalism

World Constitutionalism: Principles Here some principles are suggested rather as an illustration to motivate debate. There is a need of serious research for identifying the principles. 1. Principle of Sovereignty - The present Principle of Sovereignty may need to be modified to answer the requirements of a world order. Nations can be expected to respect each other’s sovereignty as a general rule. However a Nation cannot be permitted to abuse the principle of sovereignty to the detriment of the world order. Sovereignty has to empower a nation in the rightful sense without its national growth being a threat to the global interests of planet earth, human beings and all living organisms. Sovereignty must empower nations in harmony with the welfare of earth as our home. Sovereignty does not augur well with arbitrariness. Sovereignty may fail to be sovereignty, the moment it is detrimental to the interest of other nations when considered as part of the globe. There may be a need to incorporate a balanced principle of Sovereignty in World Constitutionalism 2. Principle of Non-violence- The Principle of Non-violence may be propounded in World Constitutionalism to be applied in relationship to international matters as well as in solving national issues. 3. Principle of Conciliation: Conciliation may be part of World Constitutionalism, in settling disputes between nations. The objective is to promote settlement rather than conflict model in adjusting relationships for international as well as intra national matters. 4. Principle of Neighbourhood: The principle of neighbourhood may also be part of World Constitutionalism which can be used in policy matters by Governments, as well as used in conciliation, settlement and adjudication. The Principle of Neighbourhood may enable countries to engage in give and take attitude rather than base it on National Pride and historical accidents. Such a principle would provide criteria for evaluation of international affairs to nations themselves, mass media, and to the Peoples of the World. 5. Principle of Justice: Principle of Justice could be the goal to be found in all international dealings such as trade agreements, human rights, environmental law, international conventions etc. Element of justice could be insured at the international level by all the institutions under the umbrella of World Constitutionalism. 6. Principle of the Rule of Law: The Principle of Rule of Law is found in many Constitutions of the world and it is applied in those countries.

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

7.

8.

13

World Constitutionalism could apply the Principle of the Rule of Law to international dealings. Principle of Sustainable Development: Environmental issues do not respect territorial boundaries, as political barriers cannot prevent pollution from spreading. In Environmental Law principles like the Principle of Sustainable Development, Precautionary Principle, Polluter Pays Principle have evolved in course of time. World Constitutionalism could elaborate on those principles for global application. Principle of National Governance in Adherence to World Constitutionalism: World Constitutionalism could require National Governments to adhere to World Constitutionalism in their governance.

World Constitutionalism and Fundamental Rights of Individuals World Constitutionalism may have to elaborate certain Fundamental Rights of Individuals. The task may be easier as far as research is concerned because the various Constitutions of the World have Fundamental Rights incorporated in them. Besides there are other international documents like the Charter of Human Rights, which contain the rights of the Individuals. So basing on all these material, it may be possible to postulate Fundamental Rights of Individuals under World Constitutionalism. A question that may be raised is whether it is redundant to have Fundamental Rights under World Constitutionalism in view of the Human Rights Charter and other conventions. It is to be noted that the Human Rights Charter has a unique position to perform, which is not the same as that of Fundamental Rights in a Constitution. It is experience of nations that Human Rights in Charter though similar to those under a particular Constitution, yet have different ramifications. The Human Right Charter has a special function to perform and in a way may give depth and dimension to Individual Rights in a Constitution. But it does not mean that one needs to be deleted and replaced by the other. The dynamics of Individual Rights in a national Constitution through the process of interpretation is perhaps not exactly similar to the process in a Human Rights Charter. In a National Constitution often harmonious interpretation is applied with respect to other clauses of the Constitution. Hence the objectives achieved by each may be the same but their ramifications may

14

World Constitutionalism

be different. Similar process may develop by having a special place for Human Rights in World Constitutionalism. This will not in any way lower down the priority of Human Right Charter and cannot be expected to act as a substitute. Under World Constitutionalism there will be need to harmonize the Fundamental Rights Of Individuals postulated, with respect to other provisions and principles of World Constitutionalism. Also the Fundamental Rights of the Individual have to be harmonized with the Fundamental Rights of the Nations which may appear in the same document. Hence the various rights that an Individual is entitled as a member of Human race must also form part of World Constitutionalism though they have a place in other international documents too.

World Constitutionalism and Fundamental Rights of Nations World Constitutionalism may have to take into consideration that Nations may also continue to exist under World Constitutionalism. At the initial stage it may be better to leave open several possible options to World Constitutionalism. All the possibilities can be part of research and different designs for a New World order could be considered. In a set up where there is still role to the nation-states as existing today, certain Fundamental Rights may have to be recognized to those entities.

Illustration of Fundamental Rights of Nations Assuming that the structure of nations may continue to exist at least for the present, here some Fundamental Rights of Nations are suggested as an illustration. In fact proper identification of Fundamental Rights of Nations requires a good deal of research. 1. Right to Nationhood- Every Nation existing in the world may require the right to continue to exist separately, unless the boundaries are changed through an internationally accepted process such as mutual agreement. Hence controls could be postulated on any sort of annexation by force and in violation of World Constitutionalism. 2. Right to Assistance in Times of Distress- Nations in distress caused by some calamity such as floods, famines, earthquakes or other reasons could be granted a Right to Assistance from the International Community or from a global fund created for the purpose under World Constitutionalism.

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

3.

15

Right to Equality- World Constitutionalism may postulate right to equality for nations of the world. Such a right may be expected to develop under different ramifications in course of time.

World Constitutionalism and Research World Constitutionalism must be backed by research for an innovative world order. A multi disciplinary research must be carried out with various subjects having ramifications into World Constitutionalism. Research will uncover the contributions of the past as well as provide for insights into the future. Also the methodology of building World Constitutionalism itself may be a subject of research. Some may support enactment of an International document by some authority, others may prefer that such ideas emerge from a discussion within communities by use of modern communication techniques. Research can be carried on all the options for evolution of World Constitution. Thus there can be field research in present values, historical research on past world order movements, doctrinal research on the various models on World Constitution suggested from time to time. Thus when the time is ripe, the world will not be wanting on ideas on World Constitutionalism.

Support of National Government and NGOs It is necessary to obtain support of National Governments in the process of building World Constitutionalism among the people. As the number of countries supporting the movement increases World Constitutionalism will become a reality. It will pave the way for a fair and just World Constitution in the future. Such process also will enable such a Constitution to grow at a rapid pace. NGOs can be big help in evolution of World Constitutionalism. Many NGOs are already working in the areas of Human Rights, Environmental Law, Right of the Marginalised and so on. With development of World Constitutionalism they will be able to put their agenda on a broader canvas. Also there could be specific NGOs constituted with the aim of promoting World Constitutionalism from the grass root level.

Peoples’ Movement For World Constitutionalism to be effective as well as for its own legitimacy, it must become a Peoples’ Movement. Peoples of the World

16

World Constitutionalism

could be involved in building World Constitutionalism. For such a movement several group techniques will have to be used, many of which are already applied in several related areas like Human Rights, World Peace, Rule of Law etc. Hence it will be easy to extend those techniques to build World Constitutionalism. It is possible to organize mega events like human chain, running, jogging, walkton , global races and other activities for the cause of World Constitutionalism . As far as possible the events should be based on participation and not on competitive spirit. Prizes if at all should be awarded to all, to turn every participant into a winner. One can also organize concerts, dramas, street plays supporting World Constitutionalism. Participation of schools, clubs, political figures and other celebrities will give a boost to the movement. Stress also could be laid in involving the common man in the remotest village performing as per his own socio-cultural environment. A particular day of the year could be specially set out as World Constitutionalism Day.

THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AT 59: AN ASSESSMENT DR. T.R. SUBRAMANYA

The idea of inalienable rights of the human being was often articulated by poets, philosophers and politicians in antiquity. Like the ideas of parliamentary democracy or Marxist political theory, like the ideas of science and technology, or of racial equality, the idea of human rights is gaining momentum and is increasingly becoming a master of political priorities throughout the world.1 Thus, the topic of ‘human rights’ is of universal concern that cuts across major ideological, political and cultural boundaries.2 The recognition and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms are an essential part of justice of a political community. The elimination of wars and the establishment of peace in the international community would have no value if human rights were not also protected.3 But then, in all issues pertaining to human rights the primary question that demands an answer from scholars is whether international law recognizes fundamental rights of the individual independently of the national law (municipal law) of his state? A majority of scholars would have said that prior to the commencement of the Charter of United Nations, the existence of such rights in international law was controversial. Their international recognition manifested itself in the precarious doctrine of humanitarian intervention, which was limited to

M.A., LL.M., M Phil., PhD (JNU), Professor of Law, Department of PostGraduate Studies in Law and University College of Law, Bangalore University, Bangalore. Former Legal Adviser to the Government of The Kingdom of Bahrain. 1 Elaine Pagels., “The Roots and Origin of Human Rights”, Alice H. Henkin (Ed)., Human Dignity: The Internationalization of Human Rights (1979), p.8 2 Theodor Meron (ed), Human Rights in International Law: Legal and Policy Issues, Vol.1 (1984), p.3 3 Tanaka Kotaro, ‘Some observations on Peace, Law and Human Rights’, Friedmann W., Henkin L, and Lissitzyn (Eds), Transnational Law in a Changing Society (1972), p. 245

18

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 59: An Assessment

cases in which a state treated its subjects in a manner, which shocks the conscience of mankind. However, this doctrine advocated by writers beginning with Hugo Grotious, was honored more in theoretical recognition rather than in practice. The Development of international protection of Human Rights may be said to have its roots in antiquity.4 But a real beginning in this endeavor was made only during the early 19th century. The three important Human Rights problems with which international law came to concern during this period related to the abolition of slavery, humanitarian laws of warfare and the protection of minorities. It should be noted that during this period and the latter part of the 19th century the concept of ‘state sovereignty’ dominated the international legal framework, and the individual except for a chosen few5, was a non- entity and often counted for nothing. However, after World War I, sincere efforts were made to protect minority groups by treaty. But there was no protection of individuals generally; it was attempted through a natural law basis only. Events in the 1930’s and World War II,6 focused attention upon this wider question and the guarantee of human rights7 became one of the purposes for which the allied powers fought.8

4

This is evidenced by the practice followed by nation states regarding pirates, who are considered, hostess humani generis at international law from very early times. 5 Foreign Sovereigns and diplomatic representatives enjoyed certain privileges and immunities 6 Anglo-American Declaration of August 14, 1941, American Journal of International Law, Vol.35 (1941), pp. 191-92. 7 Cited by Sunil Kant Ghosh., “ International Guarantees of Human Rights”, R.C. Hingorani (Ed), International Law through United Nations (1972), p. 104 8 In 1940 Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Franklin Roosevelt met on board a battle ship in the Atlantic. They formulated a statement of principles, which were shared by England and the United States. It was called the Atlantic Charter. Roosevelt stated these principles eloquently in a speech on 6 Jan 1941: “In the future days, which we seek to make to secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way_ everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear. See Lord Denning, What Next in the Law (1982), p. 277

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

19

1. Human Rights Provisions under the Charter of U.N The Charter reflects a new approach to the protection of human liberty and freedom, born of the experience of World War II and the years immediately preceding it, when flagrant violations of human rights and the denial of the basic dignity of man were the hallmarks of regimes challenging and violating international peace and security.9 The significance of the human rights provisions in the Charter may well be described in the Words of Lauterpacht: For its goals, the United Nations Programme, is heir to all the great historic movements for man’s freedom (including the British, American and French Revolutions and events they set in) to the enduring elements in the tradition of natural law and natural rights in most of the world’s great religions and philosophies, and their relations of simple respect for human dignity and all other individual and community values.10

Of the various human rights provisions contained in the Charter, the first is in the very preamble to the Charter,11 which provides, “We the peoples of United Nations”-not merely the members states, - reaffirm their “faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small…” Article 1(3) includes among stated purposes the achievement of “international co-operation in solving international problems, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex language or religion…” The General Assembly shall initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of “assisting in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all”.12 The most important provisions are probably those contained in Articles 55 and 56 of the Charter. Article 55 provides that the United Nations shall promote intrer alia, “universal respect for and observance of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion”, while in Article 56 “all members pledge themselves to take joint and separate action in co-operation with the organization for the achievement of the 9

Goodrich L.M., The United Nations in a Changing World (1974), p. 159 Cited by Myres S. Mc. Dougal and Gerhard Bebr., Human Rights in United Nations’, American Journal of International Law,Vol.58 (1964), pp.603-604. 11 The Preamble to the Charter was written by Field Marshall Smuts 12 Article 13 (1) (b) of the Charter of United Nations 10

20

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 59: An Assessment

purposes set forth in Articles 55.” The Economic and Social Council may also, “make recommendations for the purpose of promoting respect for and observance of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms for all”.13 Further, it is also provided that the Economic and Social Council shall set up commissions for ‘the protection of Human Rights’.14 Provisions are also made under Article 76(c) as the basic objective of the Trusteeship system, “to encourage respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion….15 The Charter thus spoke of the protection of ‘human rights’ without elaborating and indicating the content of such rights specially the rights that are eligible to protection necessitated the adoption of Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

2. The Adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights In his closing speech to the San Francisco conference President Truman stated that: We have good reason to expect the framing of an International Bill of Rights, acceptable to all the nations involved… The Charter16 is dedicated to the achievements and observance of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms. Unless we can attain those objectives for all men and women everywhere- without regard to race, language or religion-we cannot have 17 permanent peace and security.

To give effect to this proposal, and pending the adoption of an International Bill of Rights, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted on December 10, 1948 a declaration of principles and standards in the form of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was not conceived as imposing legal obligations on states. The operative part of the Resolution of the General Assembly stated: Now therefore, the General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for 13

Ibid, Article 62 Ibid, Art.66 15 The Charter refers generally to fundamental human rights in Articles 1 (3), 55(c), 62 (2), 68 and 76 (C). 16 The Charter of United Nations 17 Quoted in. Robertson A.H, Human Rights in the World, (Ed), (1972, p.25 14

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

21

all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society… keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of member states themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.18

The Declaration was drafted in pursuance of the dispositions of the Charter introducing the promotion of a respect for Human Rights, as an international concern of primary importance. The Declaration, in fact, elaborates on the Charter and gives a definition of substance.19 It expresses the spirit of the Charter by setting out in detail what in the Charter itself was already included20 as one of the principal aims and purposes of the United Nations. The legal significance of the Declaration therefore, rests upon the Charter provisions.21 The Declarations does not contain individual rights under positive law; it sets out a legislative programme in municipal and international law to be attained by joint and separate action of member states of the United Nations. The Universal Declaration contains 30 Articles, 21 of which set forth civil and political rights and 6 cover economic, social and cultural rights. There were 58 members of the United Nations at the time the Universal Declaration was adopted.22 Articles 23-28 guaranteed the economic, 18

Kelsen. H, Law of United Nations (1951), p.34. Pieter N. Drost., Human Rights as Legal Rights (1965), p.33 20 The Charter refers generally to fundamental human rights in Articles 1(3), 55(c), 62 (2), 68 and 76 (c). The statement of the purposes of the United Nations, in Article 1(3) includes international co-operation in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The General Assembly of the United Nations is authorized by the Charter to initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of ‘assisting in the realization’ of these rights and freedoms (Article 13). The promotion of Universal respect and observance of, Human Rights and freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion figure in the statement of the objects of the organization in the field of economic and social co-operation (Art. 55) and of the Trusteeship (Article 76). Moreover, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations under Article 62 of the Charter is authorized to make recommendations for the purpose of promoting respect for, and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. 21 Pieter N. Drost, See Note 19. p.33 22 Thomas W. Wilson Jr., “ A Bedrock Consensus of Human Rights”, Alice H. Henkin (Ed), Human Dignity: The Internationalization of Human Rights (1979) p.48 19

22

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 59: An Assessment

social and cultural rights of the individual, which demand recognition and protection under the modern developments of technical and industrial progress. The Declaration provided that ‘every one has the right to life, liberty and security of the person;23 to recognition as a person before the law;24 to equality before the law25; to specified judicial safeguards in criminal trials26; to freedom of movement with in the country and the right to leave it27; to a right to asylum28; to a right to nationality29; to the right of property30; to the freedom of thought conscience, religion, opinion and expression31; peaceful assembly and association32; to the right to social security33; right to work and to join trade unions for protection34; to the right to an adequate standard of living and education35; to participate in the cultural life of the community; to enjoy the arts and share in the scientific advancement and benefits36. These rights are provided for the over all development of the individual personality in political, economic and social fronts both in the national and international sphere. The Declaration is not addressed to the international lawyer; it is a declaration of principles directed to the peoples of the world.37 This has been considered as one of the greatest achievements of the United Nations. Mrs. Roosewelt, the then Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights, stated in the General Assembly, that the Declaration was, first and foremost a Declaration of the basic principles to serve as a common standard for all nations… “it might well become the Magna

23

Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 Ibid, Articles 6 25 Ibid, Art.7 26 Ibid, Art. 8& 11 27 Ibid, Art. 13 28 Ibid, Art. 14 29 Ibid, Art. 15 30 Ibid, Art.17 31 Ibid, Art. 18 & 19 32 Ibid, Art. 20 33 Ibid, Art.22 34 Ibid, Art. 23 & 24 35 Ibid, Art. 25 & 26 36 Ibid, Art. 27 37 Pieter N Drost Note, 21 p.34 24

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

23

Carta of all man kind…38 Its proclamation by the General Assembly would be of importance comparable to the 1789 Proclamation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Proclamation of the Rights of Man in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America and 39 similar declarations made in other countries.

3. Views of publicists The Late Prof H. Lauterpacht, an eminent authority, while examining the legal force of the Universal Declaration observed, “40not being a legal instrument, the Declaration would appear to be outside international law and its provisions cannot form the subject matter of legal interpretation.” On the other hand Prof Goodrich L.M. of the Columbia Law School, maintained that “the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has had a significant influence on the development of standards that states are not only expected to treat as goals, to be achieved but also as legal commitments to be respected.”41 The Declaration was also found support from many eminent scholars. Quincy Wright while commenting on the Declaration stated that, “while not a treaty, the Declaration is of great interpretative value, manifesting the opinion of the United Nations as to the scope of human rights and fundamental freedoms.42 But Prof. Sohn adopted a holistic approach, which sounds to reason when he said: There seems to be an agreement that the Declaration is a statement of general principles spelling out in considerable detail the meaning of the phrase ‘human rights and fundamental freedoms’ in the Charter of the United Nations. As the Declaration was adopted unanimously, without a dissenting vote, it can be considered as an authoritative interpretation of the Charter of the highest order. While the Declaration is not directly binding on United Nations members, it strengthens their obligations under the Charter by making them more precise.43

The adoption of the Declaration was recognized as a great achievement and it immediately took on a moral and political authority not possessed by any other contemporary international instrument with the exception of 38

Quoted by Robertson A.H., Human Rights in the world (1972), p. 27 Lauterpacht. H., International Law & Human Rights (1968), p.394 40 Ibid, p.416 41 Goodrich L.M., The United Nations in a Changing World (1974), p. 177 42 Quincy Wright, “National Courts and Human Rights – The Fuzii case”, American Journal of International Law, Vol.45 (1951), p.62 (77). 43 Quoted by Robertson, A.H., Human Rights in the World (1972), p.27 39

24

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 59: An Assessment

the Charter itself. One of the very few dissenting voices was that of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht, who in a book,44 published shortly after the adoption of the Declaration even questioned its (Declaration’s) moral authority. However, Prof. John P. Humphrey45 while replying to the doubts expressed by Prof. Lauterpacht, emphatically observed, “had this great lawyer, who was also a dedicated if impatient partisan of human rights, lived longer, he would have recognized not only the great moral authority of the Declaration but, it is submitted, its now binding character as part of the law of nations. There can now in any event, thirty years after its adoption be no doubt, that the Declaration does possess both moral and political authority”.46 The representative of Haiti described the Declaration as “the greatest effort yet made by mankind to give society new legal and moral foundations and as thus marking a decisive stage in the process of uniting a divided world”.47 In the Declaration of Tehran, the Official International Conference on Human Rights,48 it was proclaimed that, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states a common understanding of the people’s of the world concerning the inalienable and inviolable rights of all members of the human family, and constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community”.49 The Universal Declaration was not generally conceived as Law but as, “a common standard of achievement” for all to aspire to; hence its approval without dissent.50 Today the Declaration’s philosophical underpinnings are sufficiently electic, its text sufficiently flexible, and recent developments sufficiently responsive to ensure its continuing relevance as a ‘living’ instrument of

44

International Law & Human Rights (1948) John P. Humphrey served as the Director of the Division of Human Rights of the United Nations for a period of 20 years i.e, from 1946-1966. 46 John, P. Humphy, “ The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Its History, Impact and Juridical character”, in Dr. B.G Ramcharan (Ed). Human Rights: Thirty years after the Universal Declaration (1979), p.28. 47 Lauterpatch. H, International Law & Human Rights (1968), p. 395. 48 An Inter-governmental Conference convened by the United Nations at which 84 states were represented, was unanimously approved on 13, may, 1968. 49 Louis B. Sohn., “The Development of the Charter of the United Nations: The Present State”. In Prof. Dr. Marten Bos (Ed.) The Present State of international law and other Essays (1973, P. 55.For the complete text see 23 UNGA or UN.DOC A/Conf. 32/41 (1968) 50 Louis Henkin, The Rights of Man Today (1978) p. 96 45

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

25

incomparable importance in the field of human rights.51 The Declaration in the words of Prof. John P. Humphrey “ has changed not only the content but the very nature of international law”.52 The Universal Declaration has the ‘attributes of jus cogens’. For instance, the prohibition of slavery53 being just one example not only reflects customary international law but also partake of the character of jus cogens. This is true because the right in question appears both in the Universal Declaration and the Political Covenant.54 The latter, however, is binding conventional law only between states parties to it, but many of its provisions now can be said to have helped to create norms of customary international law-including ones having jus cogens status binding even on states which are yet to ratify it.55

4. The Impact of the Universal Declaration on Subsequent Declarations and Recommendations of the United Nations In a few of the important recommendations and declarations adopted by General Assembly of the United Nations since 1948, the Universal Declaration has been referred to as if it were on the same level as the Charter itself. Evidence to this is found in the following declarations: a.

The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples of 1960,56 which was adopted by 89 votes57 to none with nine abstentions, provides in its seventh and final paragraph that “ all states shall observe faithfully and strictly, the provisions of… the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”58

51 Philip Alston., The Universal Declaration at 35: Western and Passé or Alive and Universal” International Commission of Jurists,Vol. 31 (1983) p.61 52 John. P. Humphrey, “Human Rights and the Peace of Nations” International Commission of Jurists, Vol.31 (1983), p.72 53 Art. 4 of UDHR 54 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 55 Richard B. Lillich., ‘Civil Rights’ Theodore Meron (Ed)., Human Rights in International law, Vol. 1 (1984), pp.117-118 56 General Assembly Declaration 1514 (XV) of December 1960. 57 Including the votes of all the states except South Africa which abstained in the voting on the Universal Declaration in 1948 58 Brownlie, Ian (Ed.), Basic Documents on Human Rights (1981), p.30

26

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 59: An Assessment

b.

c.

d.

e.

59

The Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which the General Assembly, unanimously adopted on 20th November 1963, in Art. 11 provides that, “every state shall promote respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and shall fully and faithfully observe the provisions of … the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”59 In the same year, on 4th December 1963, the Security Council adopted a resolution, which speaks of “apartheid as being “in violation” of South Africa’s ‘obligations’ as a Member of the United Nations and of the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.60 On 27 October 1965 the General Assembly in its Resolution terminated the mandate of South Africa over South West Africa (Namibia) on the ground that the mandate,61 had “been conducted in a manner contrary to the mandate, the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.62 The Principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration have been directly incorporated in a series of subsequent international conventions adopted by the United Nations and its Specialized Agencies. For instance, mention can be made of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted by General Assembly on 16 December 1966, in its preamble stated that, “the state parties to the present Covenant in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations… Recognizing that, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the ideal of free human beings enjoying civil and political freedom and freedom from fear and want can only be achieved if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his civil and political rights, as well as his economic social and cultural rights.”63 Similar expression is found in

General Assembly Resolution, 1904 (XVIII) of 20th November 1963 Resolution S/471. 61 Provided under the League of Nations. 62 Resolutions 2145 (XXI) 63 See Brownlie Ian, Basic Documents on Human Rights, Mention can be made here the Convention for the Suppression for the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949); The 60

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

f.

g.

27

the preamble to the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights64. Art.2 of the Proclamation of Tehran of 196865, which was later endorsed by the General Assembly,66 declared that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “constitutes an obligation for the members of International Community”. Section. VII of the Helsinki Declaration of 197567 says, inter alia that “in the field of human rights and fundamental

Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951); the Convention on the Political Rights of Women (1952); the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons (1954); the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and the Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (1956); the Convention on the Nationality of Married Women(1957); the Convention on the Forced Labor(1957); the Convention on the Reduction of Stateless ness(1961); the Convention on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age of Marriage, and Registration of Marriages( 1962); the International Convention of Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination( 1965) ; the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages( 1977); the International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women,( 1979), Convention Against Torture, and other Cruel Inhuman and Degrading Treatment of Punishment(1984); the Convention on the Rights of the Child( 1989); Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families( 1990). Among the Conventions adopted by the Specialized Agencies mention can be made Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention (1949); Equal Remuneration Convention (1951); UNESCO Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960). 64 General Assembly Resolutions 2200 A (XXI) of 16 December 1966. The required number of 35 instruments of ratifications to the Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights was deposited on October 3, 1975, and Covenant entered into force on January 3, 1976 in accordance with Article 27. Likewise, on the depositing of the 35 instruments of ratifications on December 23, 1975, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights entered into force on March 23, 1976. The Optional Protocol also entered into force on March 23 1976. See Egon Schwelb, “Entry into force of the International Covenants on Human Rights and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”, American Journal of International Law, Vol.70 (1976), p.511 65 See- supra note 48 66 On 19 December 1968 67 Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe of 1975. The Universal Declaration has inspired even subsequent declarations like the Declaration of the Rights of Child (1959); Declaration on the Promotion Among Youth of the Ideals of Peace, Mutual Respect and Understanding between Peoples 1965; Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, 1967;

28

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 59: An Assessment

freedoms, the participating states will act in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The aforementioned references to the Universal Declaration in important international instruments on human rights speak volumes of its impact on the growth of the present day human rights law. The Declaration in essence is a yardstick to measure the degree of respect for human rights by Governments, by international conferences, by regional intergovernmental organizations, by specialized agencies, and by the United Nations. The Declaration was less than five months old, on 25 April 1949, the General Assembly invoked two of its Articles- Article 13 on the right of everyone to leave any country including his own and Article 16 on the right to marry without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion-in a resolution stating that “measures which prevent or coerce the wives of the citizens of other nationalities from leaving their country of origin with their husbands or to join them abroad are not in conformity with the Charter” and recommended that the Soviet Union withdraw measures of that type68. It is interesting to note that the said Resolution does not say in so many words that the Declaration is binding; but it does say after invoking the two articles in question that the measures adopted by the Soviet Union were not in conformity with the Charter. Since the Charter neither catalogues nor defines human rights; the logical and inescapable conclusion is that the states, which voted for the resolution, were using the Declaration to interpret the Charter.69 Declaration on Territorial Asylum (1967); Declaration on the Social Progress and Development (1969); Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons (1971); Declaration on the Use of Scientific and Technological Progress in the Interest of Peace and for the Benefit of Mankind 1975; Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons 1975; Declaration on the Protection of all Persons From being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel , Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1975; Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief; Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict; Declaration on the Human Rights of Individuals who are not Nationals of the Country in Which They Live, 1985; and many more until now. 68 General Assembly Resolution, 285 (III) 69 For an interesting discussion see John P. Humphrey, ‘ The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Its History Impact and Juridical Character’ in Dr. Ramcharan

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

29

5. The impact of the Universal Declaration on the Constitutions of newly emerged states and on some Regional Treaties and Conferences The other occasion in which the principles of the Universal Declaration were invoked includes the Caracas Conference of American States of 195470 and the Bandung Conference of Asian-African States of 1955.71 Further, the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 72 also reflects in its provisions the impact of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights73. The Special Statute for the Free City of Trieste,74 of 1954 and the Franco-Tunisian Convention of 1955 incorporated the whole Declaration as part of their substantive law.75 The Impact of the Declaration on the internal law of many states is reflected in the Constitutions of states such as the Republics of Guinea, Ivory Coast,76 Dahomey, Gabon, Madagascar, Senegal, Mali, Somalia and many others.77 We may add that the principles of the Declaration are also reflected, though not specifically referred to, in the new Constitutions of France, and the Federal Republic of Germany, India, Libya, Eritrea, the United States of Indonesia, El-Salvador, Costa Rica, Syria, Cameroon, the Central

B.G (Ed.) Human Rights: Thirty Year after the Universal Declaration (1979) pp34-35 70 Year Book on Human Rights for 1954, p.394 71 Ibid, p.339 72 The European Convention on Human Rights was signed in Rome on 4 November 1950 73 Paragraph 1, 2 and 3 of the Preamble to the European Convention on Human Rights, respectively provide: “The Governments signatory hereto, being Members of the Council of Europe; Considering the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948; considering that this Declaration aims at securing the Universal and effective recognition and observance of the Rights therein declared;” See Browlie Ian, Basic Documents on Human Rights (1981) p 241-242 74 Egon Schwelb; “The Trieste Settlement and Human Rights”, American Journal of International Law, Vol.49 (1955), p. 240 75 Year Book on Human Rights, 1955, p.340 76 Preamble to the Constitution of 1959 adopted by it. 77 See. Myres S. Mc Dougal and Gerhard Bebr., “Human Rights in the United Nations”, American Journal of International Law, Vol.58 (1964), p.639

30

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 59: An Assessment

African Republic, Chad, Sudan, Togo and Upper Volta78 and a host of newly emerged states of 1980’s and 1990’s. The Universal acceptance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the community of nations is harped in no uncertain terms at the International Conference on Human Rights in Teheran in1968, by (the then) Secretary-General of the United Nations U. Thant in the following words: there are no fewer than forty-three Constitutions adopted in recent years which are clearly inspired by the Universal Declaration and that examples of legislation expressly quoting or reproducing provisions of the Declaration can be found in all continents.79

This statement epitomizes not only the influence but also the role the Universal Declaration has played in shaping the Constitutions of newly emerged states all through-from the date of its adoption in 1948 until now.

6.The Universal Declaration and the Indian Constitution The Constitution of India80 made a striking departure from past precedents and English precedents by guaranteeing the fundamental rights of the citizen and providing the judicial machinery for securing those rights. Most of the human rights provided under the Universal Declaration81 find a proud place in the Chapter on Fundamental Rights of our Constitution.

78

Ibid Quoted by Robertson A.H., Human Rights in the World (1972), p.27 Recent trends show that not less than 90 national Constitutions drawn up since 1948, contain statements of fundamental rights, which are at least inspired by the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. See Agarwal H.O, International Law and Human Rights (2004), p. 703 80 Came into force on 26 January 1950, Part III of the Constitution exclusively deal with Fundamental Rights 81 A few of the rights provided in the Universal Declaration are: For ex, everyone as a member of society has a right to social security; that everyone has the right to work; that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family; the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old-age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond control and right to rest and leisure- see Part IV of the Constitution of India on the Directive Principles of State Policy for comparative approach . 79

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

31

We have equality before the law82 and equality of opportunity in matters of public employment; right to freedom of speech and expression;83 right to form associations;84 right to freedom of conscience; and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion are guaranteed. No person shall be deprived of his life and personal liberty except according to a procedure established by law.85 Furthermore, the Constitution establishesone of the cardinal principles in the administration of justice i.e. the rule of law. It also sets up an independent judiciary to act as the custodian of Human Rights. Even Parliament cannot deprive the citizen of his fundamental rights. The Constitution is supreme and sovereign and all organs of the state function under the Constitution and are subject to the Constitution.86The influence of the Declaration Of the Rights of Man and of the Universal Declaration in the making of the Indian Constitution perhaps was the reason for Dr. Ambedkar to make the following observation: The Declaration of the Rights of Man … has become part and parcel of our mental make up…these principles have become the silent immaculate premise of our outlook.87

In other words, the Universal Declaration is a living document. It outlaws arbitrary detentions, 88 arbitrary confiscations of property89, racial discrimination90 and forced labor91. All U.N members consider it a direct source of law92. Statistics go to prove that the Universal Declaration was

82 Art. 14 of the Constitution of India provides,’ the state shall not deny to any person equality before the law or equal protection of the laws within the territory of India’. 83 Art.19 (1)(a) of the Constitution of India 84 Art. 19 (1) c) of the Constitution of India 85 Art. 21 of the Constitution of India- the protection guaranteed under the Constitution is available to the Citizens and non-Citizens, See Dr. Satish Chandra, Civil and Political Rights of Aliens, 1982, p.92. 86 For an elaborate discussion See M.C. Chagla, The Individual and the State.1961, p.10 87 Nani Palkivala, We the People, (1984) p.200 88 Art. 9 of the UDHR, 1948 89 Ibid Art. 17 90 Ibid Art.23 91 Ibid 92 See.Subramanya T.R, The Rights and Status of the Individual in International Law (1984), p.121

32

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 59: An Assessment

referred to in later resolutions93 seventy-five times in the first nineteen years since its adoption in 194894. It is interesting to note that the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights of 1981, which in its preamble and operative parts95 singles out the Universal Declaration as a particularly important source of inspiration. Again, the Heads of State or Government of the Non Aligned Movement have, at each of their Summits96, reiterated, “their commitment to ensure respect for the promotion of human rights of individuals and rights of peoples in accordance with the UN Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights…” No other specific human rights instruments are referred to in the Non-Aligned documents.97 The above discussion proves beyond doubt that the Universal Declaration is now part of customary law of nations. Saario and Cass point out that ‘even the small number of member states which abstained from voting for the Universal Declaration have apparently re-considered their position, since all have voted affirmatively on may subsequent resolutions making reference to the Universal Declaration’.98 While commenting on the Universal Declaration the Late Dr. Nagendra Singh99 remarked, “…the Declaration was not a mere resolution of the General Assembly but a continuation of the Charter and had the dignity of Charter”.100 Prof. Louis 93

Either adopted by the U.N or by its specialized agencies or regional organizations 94 Bliecher., “The Legal significance of Re-citation of General Assembly Resolution” American Journal of Internationa law,Vol.63 (1969), p.444 95 Art. 60 of the OAU- Banjul, Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, 1981 provides: “The Commission shall draw inspiration from international law on human and people’s rights, particularly from the provisions of various African instruments on human and people’s rights, the Charter of the United Nations, the Charter of the Organizations of African Unity, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, other instruments adopted by the United Nations and by African countries in the field of human and people’s rights as well as from the provisions of various instruments adopted with in the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations of which the parties to the present charter are members”. See Alok Basu, Human Rights, (2002) p.987. 96 Of Havana in 1979 and New Delhi, 1983. 97 See Philip Alston, “ The Universal Declaration at 35: Western and Passé or Alive and Universal”, International Commission of Jurists, Vol. 31 (1983), p.63 98 See, Jack Greenberg, “Race, Sex, and Religious Discrimination in International Law”, Theodor Meron (Ed.) Human Rights in International Law, Vol. II, (1984). 314 99 Former President of the World Court 100 See, S.K. Kapoor., International Law (1983), p.50

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

33

B. Sohn has made a more forthright and relevant observation in this context in the following words, In a relatively short time the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has thus become a part of the constitutional law of the world community; and together with the Charter of the United Nations, it has achieved the character of a world law superior to all other international instruments and domestic laws.101

The Declaration is also binding on all states whether they are members of the United Nations or not.102

Conclusion The above discussion convincingly highlights the impact of the Universal Declaration on the development of human rights law by the community of nations. It finds a prominent place103 in several international and regional declarations and other related documents. Its place in the constitutions of newly emerged states is noteworthy. It has stood the test of time of the past 59 years. It is a living document. It has been interpreted to suit the changing environment both of the east and west. Besides acquiring the characteristics of customary international law it is also binding on all states whether they are members of United Nations or not.104 A plain interpretation of this would lead us to conclude that the Declaration would be binding even on an expelled (if), member of the United Nations105 under Article 6 of the Charter.106 The Declaration in essence has become

101

Sohn L.B., “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Common Standard of Achievement”, Journal of International Commission of Jurists, Vol. 8, (1967), pp.17-26. 102 Opinion of John Humphrey held as early as 1979. See, John P Humphrey, Note 46 pp.36-37. 103 Reference was made to it either in the Preamble or in the text. 104 Even the smaller number of member states which abstained from voting for the Universal Declaration have voted affirmatively on many subsequent resolutions making reference to the Universal Declaration 105 Prof. John P, Humphrey, “ The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Its History, Impact and Juridical Character”, in Dr. B.G. Ramacharan (Ed.) Human Rights: Thirty years after the Universal Declaration (1979), p.37 106 Article 6 of the UN Charter provides: “A member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.

34

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 59: An Assessment

what some nations wished it to be in 1948107 the universally accepted interpretation and definition of the human rights left undefined by the Charter.

107

Prof. Humphrey holds the same view. See Prof. John P Humphrey, “ International Bill of Rights: Scope and Implementation”, William & Mary Law Review Vol.17 (1976), pp.527-29.

HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AGE OF GLOBALISATION: SOME THOUGHTS DR. MARIA-SUZETTE FERNANDES-DIAS

The rise of ‘new humanitarianism” in the mid-1990s, symbolised by the endowment of universal jurisdiction to new global justice institutions – the establishment of UN war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia in 1993 and for Rwanda in 1994, the conviction of Dusko Tadic for crimes against humanity by an international tribunal (the first successful prosecution for crimes against humanity since the Nuremberg trials), the trial of Milosevic for genocide, and finally, the establishment of the International Criminal Court in July 2002 - resurrected interest in the Kantian discourse on cosmopolitan justice and world citizenship. Proponents of cosmopolitan law1 challenged the view that state sovereignty was inviolable and exalted the emergence of a ‘universal constitutional order’ which would protect basic standards and moral values globally, regardless of culture, through intergovernmental apparatus like international courts. This approach marked an abrupt end to the ‘universal human rights versus cultural relativism’ debate that had marked representation, cultural difference and identity politics in the global political arena in the early 1990s. Universalism and relativism ceased to be perceived as mutually exclusive but rather as reciprocally implicated. However, no matter how intellectually unengaging the old relativist vision of a ‘clash of cultures’ or the polarities of tradition versus modernity, or western versus non-western may seem, in the aftermath of September 11 and what Samuel Huntingdon describes as a ‘clash of civilisations’2, it is essential to revisit the clichéd 1

Advocates of this view include Held (1995: Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern Nation-state to Cosmopolitan Governance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), O’Neill (2000: Bounds of Justice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) and Pogge (2001:Global Justice, Oxford: Blackwell) among others. 2 See Huntingdon, S (1996): The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon and Schuster.

36

Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation: Some Thoughts

debate to comprehend the problems in translating a global rights language to the local level, that is, how officials use the human rights discourse and how people understand these rights in their everyday lives.

Universalism versus cultural relativism: multiplicity of discourses The debate over the universality of human rights and the challenge of cultural relativism has divided academics, legal practitioners, feminist organizations and those who work in the field of moral and social justice more generally. The modern notion of universal ‘human rights’ has a genealogy going back to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (26 August 1789) and it is culturally embedded in the principles of the French Revolution. This notion, inextricably interwoven into the paradoxes of Enlightenment humanism, based the entire question of what it meant to be ‘human’, on a set of social and cultural criteria that were defined in a largely European context. As early as 1947, advocates of the cultural relativist approach asserted that the distinctiveness of individual cultures and their divergent historical trajectories would result in the inapplicability of international human rights standards. Melville Herskovits prepared a draft "Statement on Human Rights" which the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association revised, submitted to the Commission on Human Rights, and then published (Executive Board, AAA: 1947). The statement begins with a fairly straightforward explanation of the relevance of cultural relativism: The problem is thus to formulate a statement of human rights that will do more than phrase respect for the individual as individual. It must also take into full account the individual as a member of a social group of which he is part, whose sanctioned modes of life shape his behaviour, and with whose fate his own is thus inextricably bound (…) Today the problem is complicated by the fact that the Declaration must be of world-wide applicability. It must embrace and recognise the validity of many different ways of life. It will not be convincing to the Indonesian, the African, the Chinese, if it lies on the same plane as like documents of an earlier period. The rights of Man in the Twentieth Century cannot by circumscribed by the standards of any single culture, or be dictated by the aspirations of any

Dr. Maria-Suzette Fernandes-Dias

37

single people. Such a document will lead to frustration, not realisation of the personalities of vast numbers of human beings.3

In 1963, African leaders who signed the Charter of the Organisation of African Unity, were invited to study the possibility of adopting an African Convention on Human Rights to give full effect to both the Charter of the UN and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The African Charter came into force in 1986. The uniqueness of the charter lies in the originality of its normative content which distinguishes it from both the European and the American Conventions - it covers economic, social and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights of both, individuals and people as a collectivity. Admitting that a person has duties as well as rights in the community, this charter amalgamates duties and rights and stipulates rights. However, although the charter grants the same protection to civil and political rights as is found in other international instruments, it does elucidate exceptions – it does not endorse the freedom from slavery, the freedom from forced or compulsory labour, the prohibition of the death penalty, the right to marriage and equality of the partners in a married relationship and the right to privacy. This significant diversion from the accepted trajectory of human rights discourse exemplifies the tension in the conceptualisation of human rights – opposing the overriding universalist approach, some African ideologists have argued for an African concept of human rights laws based on the notion that Africans are community- or group-oriented, rather than individualistic, hence the rights of individuals are not relevant to them, and consequently, the need to respect customs and traditions (like slavery, arranged marriages, bonded labour) practised by communities as collectives, not individuals. Similarly, the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam4 adopted on August 5, 1990 by forty-five foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, diverges from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in many respects, most notably in that the former unambiguously recognizes only those human rights that are in accordance with Sharia. Article 24 of the declaration states: “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Sharia.” Article 19 also says: 3

Executive Board, American Anthropological Association 1947 "Statement on Human Rights" in American Anthropologist 49(4) 539-543. 4 For complete text of The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, see http://www.religlaw.org/interdocs/docs/cairohrislam1990.htm

38

Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation: Some Thoughts

“There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Sharia.” The role of Islamic law as a sole source of legal opinion is confirmed by the Article 25, which asserts that “the Islamic Sharia is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any of the articles of this Declaration”. Thus, Article 22 restricts freedom of speech to those expressions that are not in contravention of the Islamic law: “Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Sharia.” Similarly, the right to hold public office is contingent upon such right being in accordance with Sharia. This declaration does not uphold the fundamentality of freedom of religion. Although Article 5 prohibits restrictions on the right to marriage on grounds of “race, colour or nationality”, it does not cover the instance where men and women may be prevented from marrying on the basis of their religion. Article 6 grants women equal dignity as their male counterparts, but not equality in other matters. The article also puts upon the husband the responsibility to maintain welfare of the family, while no similar obligation is placed upon the wife. Amidst the post-cold war chaos, the Bangkok Declaration on Human Rights (1993) drafted by the representatives of Asian states reiterated the cultural relativist argument that human rights “must be considered in the context of a dynamic and evolving process of international norm-setting, bearing in mind the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds”.5 In contrast, the Vienna Declaration reaffirmed the universality of human rights. Adopted in June 1993 by the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights in Austria, it stated that, "All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated", that the "the universal nature" of all human rights and fundamental freedoms is "beyond question". It reaffirmed the moral obligation of all States to promote "universal respect for, and observance and protection of, all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all"6, regardless of particular cultural perspectives.

5

Bangkok Declaration 1993. Report of the regional Meeting for Asia of the World Conference on Human Rights (Bangkok, March 29 – April 2, 1993), UN Doc. A/Conf. 157/ASRM/ 6 World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, 14-25 June 1993, Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, A/CONF.157/23, 12 July 1993.

Dr. Maria-Suzette Fernandes-Dias

39

This overproduction of human rights norms to incorporate politics of difference and identity, indicates the inherent difficulty in articulating the theoretical thought of the universal vocation of human rights into the national discourse of individual states – a discourse deeply rooted in culture.

The socio-economic and cultural debate: multiculturalism, globalisation and human rights The topic of cultural relativism and the inapplicability of universal human rights concepts have been much-debated in academic circles. With Boas, Pearson, Mach, Poincaré, James and Dewey, cultural relativism became a response to Western ethnocentrism. Steward (1948: “Comments on the Statement of Human Rights” in American Anthropologist 50(1) 351-352), Barnett (“On Science and Human Rights” in American Anthropologist 50 (2) 352-355) and more recently, Renteln (1988: “Relativism and the Search for Human Rights” in American Anthropologist 90(1) 56-72) have argued that the principle of cultural relativism could not be applied to moral problems and should be reserved as a heuristic and methodological tool in anthropology. Others like Stocking (1982: “Afterward: A View from the Centre” in Ethnos 47:172-286) and Diamond (1974: In Search of the Primitive) have opined that cultural relativism is a tool to mask the effects of Western colonialism and imperialism. Proponents of universalism such as Donnelly (1989: Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, Ithaca: Cornell University Press) argue that rights are unalterable and universally applicable. Advocates of a cultural relativist viewpoint disagree. They point to the distinctiveness of individual cultures in defence of the argument that international human rights instruments cannot be universally applied. The American Anthropological Association was one of the first exponents of this cultural relativist view. In 1947, it rejected the draft Declaration of Human Rights as "a statement of rights conceived only in terms of the values prevalent in the countries of Western Europe and America. More recent scholars such as Vinay Lal have reasserted the view that universal human rights declarations are deeply implicated in the politics of knowledge that would make them a part of a broader western imperialist discourse.7

7

Vinay Lal, Empire of knowledge : culture and plurality in the global economy (London: Pluto Press, 2002).

40

Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation: Some Thoughts

Alternatively, writers such as Abdullahi An-Na'im (1992: “Towards a Cross-Cultural Approach to Defining International Standards of Human Rights”, in An-Na'im (ed.), Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press) advocate a middle path. He argues that rights may be made universally applicable if they draw their legitimacy from local cultural mores. With the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, academics like Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab (2000: Human Rights: New Perspectives, New Realities, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner) who previously interrogated the universality of human rights, have been examining new perspectives on human rights, incorporating cultural, economic, political and social differences into the universal concept rather than directly challenging the notion of universality. Micheline Ishay’s The History of Human Rights (2004, London: University of California Press) written against the backdrop of September 11, analyses issues like the “triumph” of the Eurocentric vision of human rights over those of other civilisations, the role of globalisation in advancing and eroding human rights and strategies that can best promote human rights in the new millennium. Globalisation, the increasing integration of markets, the emergence of new regional political alliances and remarkable advances in communication technology and transport have resulted in unprecedented confluences of peoples and cultures. Ironically, globalisation has dehumanised human suffering - satellite-born images of human rights violations, far from engendering global compassion, have only led to widening the ‘us’ and the ‘other’ dichotomy. Even human rights reports written by NGOs and anthropologists keen on championing the cause of the underprivileged, seem to be wanting in veracity – written with the intention of galvanising readers to take action, they sometimes offer decontextualised and morally one-dimensional narratives of ‘oppressors’ and ‘victims’. They do not enable us to comprehend the perceived ‘threat’ of cultural claims to their addressees.8 The possibility of this jeopardy was exploited by some Asian leaders arguing for non-interference from human rights watchdogs into affairs relating to sovereignty of nation states, asserting that ‘Asian values’ provide a superior basis for social and political regulation. Singaporean leader, Lee Kuan Yew has been quoted among other ‘multi-religious, 8

As opined by Wilson, R. (1997): ‘Representing Human Rights Violations’ in R. Wilson (ed) Human Rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Perspectives, London: Pluto.

Dr. Maria-Suzette Fernandes-Dias

41

multicultural Asian nations’ leaders who expounded the particularities of ‘Asian values’, claiming that in some Asian nations, authoritarian regimes were needed to prevent conflicts between religious and ethnic groups, because unrestrained democratisation would allow the ethnic majority to oppress the minorities and cause violent ethnic strife. 9 The rationale used to support this line of argumentation also drew upon the alleged Westcentrism of the concept of universal human rights and the fallacy that for governments of developing countries, the duty to assure socioeconomic rights like the right to subsistence, takes precedence over the obligation to guarantee civil and political rights, perceived as luxuries which only developed countries can afford to enjoy. An increasingly global, multicultural world grapples to adapt to pluralism in the midst of tension, confusion and conflict. Deprived of a clear sense of identity amidst the turmoil of transition, individuals and societies have resorted to traditionalism and fundamentalism, which in turn have resulted in isolationism, ethnocentrism and intolerance. Culture has thus become a political resource and the basis for the differentiation of social groups. Multicultural societies have uncomfortably witnessed the resurgence of the fundamentalist fervour in terms of dress, education, practice of religious beliefs, incapable of restraining it, confronted by the question of respecting cultural diversity, a basic human right upheld by the Declaration of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.10 Be it the Affaire du Voile in France in 1996, the consequent attempts to ban the hijab in French Schools in the name of laicité as a state principle and finally racial riots in Oct-Nov 2005 attributed to social discrimination of immigrants, the assassination of controversial ‘free-expressionist’ Dutch film maker, TheoVan Gogh by a religious fundamentalist in 2004, the meteoric popularity of the extremist Front National leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 presidential elections in France and of Pim Fortuyn in the 2002 Dutch local elections, or the derogatory remarks about African and Asian migration to Australia made by Sydney based Canadian academic, Andrew Fraser and the Cronulla racial riots in Sydney in 2005, the dilemma dividing host 9

Lee quoted in Will Kymlicka, “Multiculturalism, Diversity in the Accommodation of Diversity”, Part 1 of his serial letures “The Future of the Nation-Staate”, given at Tokyo University and Doshisha University in 1998 as the 5th Kobe Lectures sponsored by the Japan Association of Legal Philosophy and IVR Japan, in the proceedings of the 5th Kobe Lecture, p. 56. 10 Adopted by UN General Assembly resolution 47/135 of 18 December 1992.

42

Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation: Some Thoughts

cultures- that of accepting cultural difference or of imposing a homogenising order - is overwhelmingly evident. Globalisation has precipitated the disappearance or the drastic modification of indigenous cultures in the name of progress. However, this argument in favour of progress also raises serious issues concerning ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, and the fundamental human right of different life-styles to exist. Over the last decade, considerable work has been done on the UN Draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous people, acknowledging that that indigenous peoples have been deprived of their human rights and fundamental freedoms, resulting, inter alia , in their colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, thus preventing them from exercising, in particular, their right to development in accordance with their own needs and interests and recognising the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent rights and characteristics of indigenous peoples, especially their rights to their lands, territories and resources, which derive from their political, economic and social structures and from their cultures, spiritual traditions, histories and philosophies11. Consequently, several landmark decisions concerning the repatriation of indigenous sacred objects and the recognition of native title and customary law, have been reached. For example, the 1992 Mabo decision gave legal status to the culture and customs of the Aboriginal people of Australia. The Native Title Act of 1993 recognised that native title could be claimed by Aboriginal people in accordance with their traditions, where it had not already been extinguished by incompatible government action, legislation was enacted to give effect to the decision. 12 The Australian legal system has acknowledged, Aboriginal customary laws, for example, courts imposing criminal sentences have sometimes taken into account that an indigenous person convicted of an offence may face traditional punishment from his community. The application of such punishments is not facilitated or condoned but recognised as a reality. Although no provision is legally made to ensure the return of sacred Aboriginal objects to traditional owners, the protection of heritage and sacred sites is taken into consideration in cases of development during the construction of dams, roads, mining activities and the exhibition and sale of objects. 11

Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/2/Add.1 (1994). The working group met recently at the Palais des Nations on 30 January – 3 February 2006. 12 Native Title Act 1993

Dr. Maria-Suzette Fernandes-Dias

43

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Nicargua and Paraguay are among nations that have adopted constitutions and constitutional amendments since the early 1980s to include references to indigenous cultural rights. In the context of human rights and cultural relativism, the Vienna Convention recognises “that the primary responsibility for standard-setting lies with States” and that “while the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds must be borne in mind, it is the duty of States, regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.”13 In the absence of clearly defined standards and the dispensation given in the name of cultural difference, to what human rights are cultural minorities entitled? For example, homosexuality is threatened with punishment by death in some cultures under Islamic law; gay marriages are still not accepted even in Western societies; excision though condemned is a reality in Africa; slavery remains a historical reality and part of the acceptable cultural discourse in Niger; and, the caste system, deeply rooted on the principle of discrimination, continues as the defining feature of the Indian social fabric. This quandary is further complicated in nations with hegemonic cultural groups wherein the dominant group defines national culture in terms of the cultural identity of its adherents. For instance, the Turkish state has systematically denied cultural rights to the Kurdish minority, labelling the Kurds as ‘Mountain Turks’. Until the constitutional amendment of 1997, the Fijian Constitution of 1990 denied descendants of Indian immigrants the same citizenship rights as native Fijians. Acknowledging the complexities of global refugee crisis, the Vienna convention calls for the recognition of the rights of refugees, including “the provision of effective protection and assistance, bearing in mind the special needs of women and children, as well as the achievement of durable solutions, primarily through the preferred solution of dignified and safe voluntary repatriation”14 Yet, host nations struggle to come to terms with the cultural upheavals that asylum seekers and refugees catalyse; detention centres have metamorphosed into “convenient” transit lounges. This situation sharpens a long-standing dilemma: How can universal human rights exist in a culturally diverse world? As the international community becomes increasingly integrated, how can cultural diversity and integrity be respected? Is a global culture inevitable? If so, is the 13 14

Adopted by UN General Assembly resolution 47/135 of 18 December 1992. ibid.

44

Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation: Some Thoughts

world ready for it? How could a global culture emerge based on and guided by human dignity and tolerance?

Discursivity and problematics of universal human rights The perception of human rights as “the gift of the West to the rest” 15 has impeded any intercultural, multi-civilisational discourse on the existence of the notion of human rights in other cultures. Dictatorial regimes have thus brandished this originary question to refute the universality of human rights, to endorse the applicability of these rights in their countries on grounds of socio-cultural incompatibility and to legitimise the denial and violations of human rights. On the other hand, human rights language has been used by economically powerful nations to justify the unjustifiable like domination, vigilantisme and neo-colonialism. In recent years, nations like the United States have been in the forefront to declare nations like Iraq and Afghanistan as états voyous or rogue states and initiating military action to curb terrorism and denial of human rights to the local population or to detain individuals without a trial in Gautanomo Bay or to impose trade sanctions on nations not ratifying human rights of its citizens. But US was one of only seven nations (joining China, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Qatar and Israel) to vote against the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998. According to Human Rights Watch, “the crux of the U.S. concern relates to the prospect that the ICC may exercise its jurisdiction to conduct politically motivated investigations and prosecutions of U.S. military and political officials and personnel.”16 Similarly, the US and Somalia are the only nations that have not ratified the 1992 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Although the US government and several corporate donors finance human rights programmes in Africa, Asia or Latin America, they refuse to provide even the minimal funding to monitor torture or degrading treatment of US prison inmates. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 20,000 prisoners in the US housed in super-maximum security units who live in inhuman conditions. They spend “their waking and sleeping hours locked in small, sometimes windowless, cells sealed with solid steel 15

Baxi, U(2002): The Future of Human Rights, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 24 16 see http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/us.htm

Dr. Maria-Suzette Fernandes-Dias

45

doors” and are subjected to all kinds of pointless suffering and humiliation. 17 For the implementation of human rights at the nation state level civil and political rights, social and economic rights, and minority and group rights should be entrenched into national law and practice. However, human rights norms are not incorporated into national law without some element of selection and modification resulting from national political and social circumstances. Canada and South Africa, for instance, have chosen to entrench particular human rights norms in their national law as part of a process of constitutional transition. Canada has Human Rights Commissions at federal and provisional levels but their mandate is generally limited to advice on areas like public sector employment. Although they may have some influence on good administrative practices and raising public awareness of human rights, their role is limited. By contrast, in addition to human rights commissions, South Africa has a Commission for Gender Equality, as well as a Commission on the Restitution of Land Rights. The South African Human Rights Commission monitors public administration, encourages the development of a human rights culture in the public sector and educates the public about their rights.18 Interpretation of cultural relativism in the extremist sense poses a dangerous threat to the effectiveness of international law and the international system of human rights that has been painstakingly constructed over the decades. If cultural tradition alone governs State compliance with international standards, then widespread disregard, abuse and violation of human rights would be given legitimacy. As for the universalism of Human Rights, how adequate are these rights in protecting the fundamental rights of minorities not identified in the Charter? How tolerant are host cultures when confronted with the dilemma of accepting cultural difference and imposing a homogenising order? It is necessary to move beyond the ‘simplistic’ reasoning about the inalienability of human 17 ‘HRW Briefing Paper on Supermaximum Prisons’, www.hrw.org/reports/200/supermax quoted by De Senarclens in ‘The Politics of Human Rights’in Coicaud, Doyle, Gardner (eds) (2003): The Globalisation of Human Rights, Hong Kong: United Nations University Press, p. 158 18 As elaborated by Claire Archbold in Coicaud, Doyle, Gardner (eds) (2003): The Globalisation of Human Rights, Hong Kong: United Nations University Press, p. 80

46

Human Rights in the Age of Globalisation: Some Thoughts

rights, to explore how differences between conceptions of human rights can be negotiated. Negotiation may mean the recognition and acceptance of the right of difference in pluricultural systems or it may mean, in the context of cultural practices which are in contradiction of human rights, engaging minorities and indigenous cultures in an open dialogue to effect change and understand the source of limitations, thus identifying practical examples of conflict resolution.

ENVIRONMENTAL SOVEREIGNTY: DILUTION OF NATIONAL BOUNDARIES. A CASE FOR WORLD CONSTITUTION DR. SAIRAM BHAT1

The ecological crisis is not mainly a technical, but a moral problem; its cause is over-consumption. If the process continues, our beautiful earth will be reduced to a garbage can flying through space. To reverse the cycle, we must change our habits. We must change our ideals, we must change our life-style; we must change our concept of development; turn the consumer culture topsy-turvy. Profit making cannot continue to be the only motivation in business and industry. The poor and the indigenous are those who suffer most from the destruction of the environment, both in developing countries like India and developed countries like the USA. Uprooted from their habitat they are deprived of their livelihood, forced to migrate to jungles much worse and more cruel than the natural jungle in which they have been living for centuries.2

Introduction The ‘luxury emission’ levels of one US citizen in 1996 were equal to the ‘survival emissions’ of 19 Indians, 30 Pakistanis, 17 Maldivians, 49 Sri Lankans or 269 Nepalis.3

1

Assistant Professor of Law, National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India. You may reach the author @[email protected]. 2 Felix Raj, SJ Healing the Environment An Exhortation For A New World Order http://www.goethals.org/envir.htm 3 CSE, Green Politics, 2000. Can a World have such inequalities among human beings, If yes for how long, if no, there is a need for ‘integration’. Integration of resources, ideas and visions.

48

Environmental Sovereignty: Dilution of National Boundaries. A Case for World Constitution

The basis for successful political life is a common language, history and culture, which create "a people" sufficiently cohesive for democracy or self-rule to arrive at compromises that reconcile conflicts.4 TERRORISTS, ARMS DEALERS, MONEY LAUNDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, TRAFFICKERS in women and children, and the modern pirates of intellectual property all operate through global networks.2 So, increasingly, do Governments. Networks of Government officials--police investigators, financial regulators, even judges and legislators-increasingly exchange information and coordinate activity to combat global crime and address common problems on a global scale.5 These Government networks are a key feature of world order in the twenty-first century, but they are underappreciated, undersupported, and underused to address the central problems of global governance.6 Globally, the Global Environment Facility [GEF]7 offers technical assistance to environmental agencies around the world, holds global conferences at which environmental regulators learn and exchange information. Further many more agencies have spurred across during the last 10 years, among them United Nations Development Program, Commission on Sustainable Development, Inter-Government Panel on 4 http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/24000/article/24024. Dilution of national cultures by immigration is the basis for the European Union. A weakened sense of nationhood in Britain, France and Germany means no effective opposition to bureaucratic rule by the European Commission in Brussels. In order to criminalize national patriotism and opposition to immigration, the European Union is pushing forward legislation that makes xenophobia and racism crimes. Once this legislation passes, a European who, for example, criticizes immigration as an antidiversity measure that is wiping European civilization off the face of the earth, can be found guilty of racism and sentenced to two years in prison. 5 The UN’s founding Charter mandates you to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character and to be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations (Article 1). 6 The basic formation of UNEP was to bring about efforts in the cooperation among Nation in the protection and conservation of the Environment. Years down the lane, policy makers expected the UNEP to become one the strongest body for the enforcement of cooperation among the ‘developed’ nations towards the cause of the ‘global environment’. 7 The GEF formally established in 1991 was initially a pilot project implemented by UNEP, UNDP and the World Bank. The GEF is the largest multilateral source of grant funds available for environmental protection. See Instrument for the Establishment of the Restructured Global Environment Facility 1994 preamble, para 2.

Dr. Sairam Bhat

49

Climate Change, European Commission etc are prominent. Finally, even legislators, the most naturally parochial government officials due to their direct ties to territorially rooted constituents, are reaching across borders. International parliamentary organizations have been traditionally well meaning though ineffective, but today national parliamentarians are meeting to adopt and publicize common positions on the death penalty, human rights, and environmental issues.8 They support one another in legislative initiatives and offer training programs and technical assistance.7 Each of these networks9 has specific aims and activities, depending on its subject area, membership, and history, but taken together, they also perform certain common functions. They expand regulatory reach, allowing national government officials to keep up with corporations, civic organizations, and criminals. They build trust and establish relationships among their participants that then create incentives to establish a good reputation and avoid a bad one. These are the conditions essential for long-term cooperation. They exchange regular information about their own activities and develop databases of best practices, or, in the judicial case, different approaches to common legal issues. They offer technical assistance and professional socialization to members from less developed nations, whether regulators, judges, or legislators. In a world of global markets, global travel, and global information networks, of weapons of mass destruction and looming environmental disasters of global magnitude, Governments must have global reach. In a world in which their ability to use their hard power is often limited, Governments must be able to exploit the uses of soft power: the power of persuasion and information.8 Similarly, in a world in which a major set of obstacles to effective global regulation is a simple inability on the part of many developing countries to translate paper rules into changes in actual behavior, Governments must be able not only to negotiate treaties but also to create the capacity to comply with them.

8

Most of the Environmental Legislations in India have been passed while keeping the objectives of international commitments. The Water Act 1974 and the Air Act 1981 both acknowledge the contribution of the Stockholm declaration 1971 as the inspiration for enactment. See the Preamble of the Air Act 1981. Also See the Hazardous Waste Management Handling Rules, under Sec. 3 of the EPA 1986. 9 On the Global scale Networking of Governments has arisen on several fronts. Some of the specific subject issues are Oil and Natural Gas, Nuclear Power, Antarctic explorations, Space research etc.

50

Environmental Sovereignty: Dilution of National Boundaries. A Case for World Constitution

Understood as a form of global governance, Government networks meet these needs. As commercial and civic organizations have already discovered, their networked form is ideal for providing the speed and flexibility necessary to function effectively in an information age. But unlike amorphous "global policy networks" championed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in which it is never clear who is exercising power on behalf of whom, these are networks composed of national Government officials, either appointed by elected officials or directly elected themselves. Best of all, they can perform many of the functions of a world government--legislation, administration, and adjudication--without the form. The concept of sustainable development, with its inherent requirement of integrating both environmental and developmental concerns, has meant that literally dozens of international institutions have laid down some role in environmental protection. This in itself might not be so bad, if there were a clear mechanism for coordination, cooperation and leadership, but the Environmental instruments have been given narrow mandates, small budgets and limited support.10

Environment, Development and World Constitution: Basic Premise Environmental problems are often interrelated. As Lester Brown suggests, food security11 is dependent on climate. Climate change is expected to shift growing zones and to produce more extreme weather events, with the potential major effect on food production.12 The priorities of development are usually said to be the reduction of poverty, illiteracy, hunger and disease.13 Economic growth and development obviously involve changes in the physical ecosystem. Every ecosystem everywhere cannot be preserved intact. World in which poverty and inequity are endemic will always be prone to ecological and other crises. Sustainable development 10 Daniel Esty, Greening the GATT, 78 [1993], For more See David Hunter James Salzman, and Durwood Zaelke International Environmental Law and Policy, second Edition, University Casebook Series, p. 241. 11 There are more hungry people in the world today than ever before in human history and their numbers are growing. Poverty, development and environmental protection are interdependent. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, 29-31 [1987] 12 David Hunter, p. 16. 13 Robert Goodland and Herman Daly; Environmental Sustainability: Universal and Non-Negotiable, Ecological Applications 6[4], at 1003-13 [1996]

Dr. Sairam Bhat

51

requires meeting the basic needs of all and extending to all the opportunity to satisfy their aspirations for a better life.14 Is our world working towards sustainability, can a World Constitution provide a sustainable world? These are Questions which are not easy to answer or implement. The basic premise argued in the present paper is: x

the need of Governments to realize that sovereignty has diluted in form and substance;

x

borders and territories do not limit the level of governance, trade or business;

x

Government have larger international responsibilities than domestic one;

x

sovereignty in the environmental text means that ‘environment’ does not belong to one Nation, but the mankind and other living creatures on planet earth.

There can, of course, be no blueprint for world order, especially in environmental matters. The proposal advanced here is part of an active and ongoing debate. In the spirit of such debate, it is important to acknowledge that the model of world order, which can be summarized in basic terms are:

14

x

The State is not the only actor in the international system, especially in the protection of the Environment, but it is still the most important actor.

x

The State is not disappearing, but it is disaggregating into its component institutions, which are increasingly interacting principally with their foreign counterparts across borders.15

Our Common Future [The Brundtland Report], 43-46, 364-66 [1987] The World Commission on Dams is one such classic example. The Commission not formed under any Government or world body, went on to shock the world through its report in the year 1999. The report categorically stated that building large dams are not only hazardous to a country but are largely responsible for the destruction of life forms and livelihoods of people. The Government of India had to take notice of this report and also react in changing its mind set policy on dam building in the country. 15

Environmental Sovereignty: Dilution of National Boundaries. A Case for World Constitution

52

x

These institutions still represent distinct national or state interests, even as they also recognize common professional identities and substantive experience as judges, regulators, ministers, and legislators.16

x

Different states have evolved and will continue to evolve mechanisms for reaggregating the interests of their distinct institutions when necessary. In many circumstances, therefore, States will still interact with one another as unitary actors in more traditional ways.17

x

Government networks exist alongside and sometimes within more traditional international organizations.18

Sovereignty v International Environmental We are too small and our statecraft too feeble to be seen by a spacecraft between the Earth and the Moon. From this vantage point, our obsession with nationalism is nowhere in evidence. On the scale of worlds…………….. humans are inconsequential.19 Sovereignty is a predicate of self-government.20Internal sovereignty21 is also increasingly threatened by the development of international law in outlawing certain state activity irrespective of the assent of the State concerned in this limitation of sovereignty. An example is concern over genocide22 or ill16 The World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002 by far the most successful in terms on private-public-non government partnership summit, was a model for future dialogue among policy makers. 17 The basic premise of the world must be that: On planet Earth ‘environment’ and ‘natural resources’ do not belong to one Nation, Government or entity. The community of ‘beings’ own it for the posterity. 18 Anne-Marie Slaughter; A New World Order; Princeton University Press 2002. 19 Sheila Jasanoff; Constitutional Implications of Global Environmental Change; http://hdgc.epp.cmu.edu/mailinglists/hdgcctml/mail/1 20 George F. Will; 2005, Washington Post Writers Group. 21 Nations have the right to the exploitation of all natural resources within their territory. 22 While we consider ‘genocide’ as an International Crime and establishment of the International Criminal Court under the Rome Statute, we do not attribute destruction of the Ozone layer, above the stratosphere as an international offence.? How much of ‘air’ ‘space’ does one nation own in its sovereignty? USA has not ratified the Kyoto protocol despite being the largest and the biggest contributors to

Dr. Sairam Bhat

53

treatment of ethnic minorities. Such concerns led to the intervention against Serbia in Kossovo in 199923, although the merits and legality of this action is currently the subject of heated debate.24 External sovereignty consists of such matters as entering treaties, declaring war, making peace, using military force against another state. This has been restricted in the last 60 years in that international law has developed so as to outlaw aggressive war. Nazis were tried and convicted of this at Nuremberg. The United Nations Charter outlaws unilateral aggressive war though only permitting force, other than that authorized by the Security Council25, to be used for self defense. This has generally been interpreted as including collective self defense of a declaration against the slave trade. Environmentalism is a kind of religion,26 it cuts across boundaries, borders and territories. It is not owned property of one State, individual or corporation. Attachment to nature and its resources is not driven by patriotism or fear of the uncertain. Deep ecology is based on "ecoegalitarianism", the notion that human beings have no privileged place in the natural order. While not all of its proponents are overtly misanthropic, at the very least deep ecologists believe that they can present a thoroughgoing critique of Western thought and civilization, for its basic error in having posited the primacy of human purposes.27 Many of the environmental problems are widely recognized and logical inferred to arisen from politically unpalatable. Restructuring needs to be rigorous if resources are to be saved and priorities redirected. No organization commands clear power to coordinate international environmental negotiations. Each negotiation proceeds differently and parallel. The quantity of international regulation and the momentum of its increase has reached the point where national sovereignty of nation states is being the carbon emission and the Ozone depletion. Does the economic super power of the USA give it a sovereign right to use and exploit the Ozone layer? 23 Can ‘Intervention’ into another State be justified on the grounds of protection and conservation of ‘environment’? International law may have to amend its grounds of ‘intervention’ to include ‘environment’ as one of the grounds. 24 Ibid. 25 The mandate of ‘maintaining peace and security’ in the UN Security Council must also include security of natural resources across national boundaries. 26 Robert Nelson; see http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/onprin/v4n4/rubin.html 27 Charles T. Rubin; Environmentalism, Constitutionalism, and the Public Good; Ashbrook October 1996, Ibid

54

Environmental Sovereignty: Dilution of National Boundaries. A Case for World Constitution

rapidly diminished. The United Nations General Assembly and Security Council may be seen respectively as the embryonic legislature and executive of a world government. A major landmark is the establishment on 1 July 2002 of the International Criminal Court28, which may be seen as the prototype of the judicial arm of a future world government. An extremely significant aspect of the arrangements surrounding this Court is that its jurisdiction purports to be binding not only on States that have ratified the treaty establishing it, but also on other States. This is a fundamental departure from the principle that sovereign states are only bound by their consent. It is all too easy to regard the decline in national sovereignty as good for international trade and business through limiting the adverse operation of sovereign risk.29 The liberalization and structural adjustment and the growing process of global integration arising out of increasing contacts among peoples across the globe, emergence of World Trade Organisation30 to enforce agreements on national governments, dominance of markets and diminishing role of State in many vital sectors of collective life created new conditions for further eroding the authority of Parliament in almost all countries. In the context of the efforts to create a European Union and a Constitution for the member countries of the Union it has been recommended that the sovereignty of the Parliaments of member countries has to be curtailed in the interest of the supranational body. 31

Constitutionalism towards Right to Environment: A Case for World Constitution There is no doubt that the environmental agenda of the 1970s has expanded and grown in a very complex manner. A nation’s constitution is more than an organic act establishing governmental authorities and competencies. With heightened environmental awareness in recent 28 The ICC under the Rome Statute is furtherance of the International War Crime Tribunal in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. 29 Alun A Preece; The tension between National Sovereignty and International Law; www.iipe.org/conference2002/papers 30 Few belief that the WTO Dispute Settlement Body and the Appellate Tribunal opposes far greater and wider power of affecting life and livelihood than the International Court of Justice. While the ICJ limits it role between State entities WTO may adjudicate between State and non-State entities. 31 Dr. Yogendra Narain; Secretary General, Rajya Sabha; Parliament and Transfer of Sovereignty; Paper presented at Seminar of Parliamentarians, Geneva, 2002.

Dr. Sairam Bhat

55

decades, the environment has become a higher political priority and many constitutions now expressly guarantee a ‘right to a healthy environment’32, as well as the procedural rights necessary to implement and enforce this right.33 The Indian Supreme Court has championed the cause of ‘right to environment’ with many landmark decisions.34 But no right would be meaningful unless and until State has the ‘political will’ and the ‘economic resources’ to fulfill these rights, protect the interests and conserve the resources for the benefit for mankind. The Outer space, Sea and the Antarctica have been declared as ‘Common Heritage of mankind’. State is merely a trustee of all natural resources and the application of the ‘public trust doctrine’35 is well found basis of Common law. Declaring the environment the common heritage of mankind has brought with it the need to determine its legal form of protection, both internationally and nationally. The consideration of a fundamental law of the human being, which has as its purpose access to a suitable environment, has as a logical consequence the need for the State to carry out all those actions capable of ensuring man effective enjoyment of this new fundamental freedom. Current approaches to global environmental management and sustainability are inadequate. To date, international action has focused primarily on Transboundary movements of pollution and sectoral issues. We need to move towards a coherent and integrated management framework, which addresses individual challenges in the context of the global ecosystem. The institutional structures which govern international environmental agreements are fragmented. Agreements are often managed

32 For more see the Constitution of Brazil. If right to safe drinking water is to be meaningful, does State equip itself of the legitimate expectation from its citizens to provide the same to the 1 billion population in the country? Several declarations, Protocol, Principles have laid down that the right to environment shall be ensured. Do any of these international declaration have the tooth to bite if the right is infringed? 33 Carl Bruch, Wole Coker and Chris VanArsdale; Constitutional Environmental Law: Giving Force to Fundamental Principles in Africa, 26 Colum J EnVTL.J. 131, 133 [2001] at 133-160 34 RLEK case, The M C Mehta [Ganga pollution] Case, Subhash Kumar case, Vellore Citizen case all have cleared established the ‘right to clean and healthy environment’ as a fundamental right under Art. 21 of the Constitution. 35 As stated by Mr. Justice Kuldip Singh in the now famous Span Motel case, M C Mehta v Union of India 2002 3 SCC 653.

56

Environmental Sovereignty: Dilution of National Boundaries. A Case for World Constitution

independently with little coherence or coordination.36 The emerging issues are so big and so all-embracing that current ways of doing things will not solve these problems. In spite of these developments, the most crucial challenge to solving environmental problems is integration-integration of the environmental perspectives into the larger agendas of sustainable development and economic globalization.37 Hence the strengthening of international environmental governance is important to meet the challenges of the 21st century and to implement multilateral environmental agreements. Each of the stages in the evolution of constitutionalism has been characterised by the recognition of a generation of rights. This has led to a particular form of exercising control and a model of State, with consequences in the relationship between the ruled and the ruling.38 Human rights is growing convergence towards globalized efforts to ensure and protect the basic and fundamental rights of all citizens equally over the globe.39Today the world over, Activists are speaking in favor of the third generation of rights, i.e. environmental right.40 Environmental pollution knows no geographical or political barriers and the environmental pollution is a global problem. Pollution is one state does not only affect the environment of that particular State but also causes environmental degradation in the neighboring and other States. The Trail

36 Canada, International Environmental Institutions: Where from Here? Discussion paper for the Bergen Informal Ministerial Meeting [Bergen, Norway, 15-17 September 2000]. 37 S Shanthakumar; World Environment Organization: Need of the Hour for Global Environmental Governance, Kare Law Journal November 2005, p. 70. Prof. Shanthakumar in this article emphasizes the need for a World Environmental Organization in lines with the WTO to protect and conserve the earth’s environment. 38 Daniel A. Sabsay; Constitution and Environment in Relation to Sustainable Development; Chapter updated in June, 2003, of the book Ambiente, Derecho y Sustentabilidad. Walsh, J. R.; Di Paola, M. E.; González Acosta, G.; López, H.; Rovere, M. B.; Ryan, D. E.; Sabsay, D. A.. La Ley, septiember 2000, pp. 67- 82. 39 See Draft Universal Human Rights Guidelines for Companies, Addendum 1, U.N. Doc.E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/WG.2/WP.1/Add.1 [2001]. This draft proposal insist that Companies shall respect the right to health, adequate food and adequate housing and refrain from actions that obstruct the realization of those rights. 40 The first generation rights were political, the second generation, economic, social and cultural and presently we are fighting for our third generation right on ‘environment’.

Dr. Sairam Bhat

57

Smelter41 and the Nuclear Tests42 cases prove the weakness of the constitutionalism towards right to environment. There exists today a set of inescapably global environmental threats that require international ‘collective action’. According to the UNEP Report43 more than 500 Multilateral Environmental Treaties are in existence and more than a dozen international agencies share environmental responsibilities. Devised during the infancy of environmental awareness, when problems were perceived as largely local, relatively distinct, and subject to technological fixes, the current environmental regime is weak, fragmented, lacking in resources and handicapped by a narrow mandate.44 Many vital issues are tackled effectively at a global level, such as the environment, biodiversity and climate change; international security and disarmament; international trade, finance and labour rights; epidemics; communications; and international crime. The International tendency to favor collective over individual action is combined with the codifiers, tendency to wish to see the world in neat static terms. Above and beyond practical considerations, there is an aesthetic antipathy to the ‘disaster’ of non-uniformity, and a general distrust of the possible benignness of self regulation dynamic processes.45 Throughout the past century there have been well meaning and sometimes eloquent calls for world government; calls which pointed to the unfairness, inequality and injustice of the present distributions of wealth, power and policy making - which mean that today one in five of us lives in absolute poverty.

Conclusion It is that in many ways we now have world government. It is not to be found at the United Nations. Rather, the UN has been sidelined, while the real business of world government is done elsewhere. Global policies are 41

1941, United States v Canada ICJ Reports, 1974, p. 253. 43 UNEP 2001, International Environmental Governance: Report of the Executive Director, United Nations Environmental Program, Nairobi, Kenya. 44 Daniel C Esty and Maria H Ivanova, ‘Revitalizing Global Environmental Governance: A Function-Driven Approach’, Indian Journal of Environmental Law, June 2002, Vol 3 No. 1, p. 38. 45 Charter 99 A Charter for Global Democracy Our call for international accountability, justice, sustainable development and democracy; www.webpal.org; Westminster UNA, 32 Carisbrooke Road, London E17 7EF 42

58

Environmental Sovereignty: Dilution of National Boundaries. A Case for World Constitution

discussed and decided behind closed doors by exclusive groups, such as the G8, OECD, the Bank of International Settlements, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation and others. These agencies are reinforced by informal networks of high officials and powerful alliances such as NATO and the European Union. Together they have created what can be seen as dominant and exclusive institutions of world government. All too often they are influenced by transnational corporations which pursue their own world strategies. Initiating the process of democratic global governance, principles of openness and accountability, of environmental sustainability and justice must be followed. The aim should be to make the already existing processes of world administration and governance accountable. Then we need to ensure that all decisions to be taken in compatible with public criteria of environmental sustainability. It is important to negotiate new global structures which give the world's people an effective role in solving this planet's problems. In our era everyone is linked through our shared environment, trade and communications. We live together as neighbours, and as neighbours we must respect the rights of all persons to address common problems. A joint effort of learning and negotiation, of trial and error, will be needed. Whichever path is chosen, the task will not be an easy one. The ideas presented here are not a systematization of the principles that inspire any existing constitution, but rather the elaboration of the fundamentals of a constitution that does not yet exist, and which has the challenge of reconciling two distinct frameworks. If the integration process is to progress and consolidate itself, it cannot dispense with the supremacy of International law over national law, or the uniform application of International law by all member state. Equally important is the principle of sovereignty, by which national constitutions invest public bodies with authority and establish the validity of law.46 More importantly, it is unlikely that a world Constitution will provide a solution to the material problems47 facing the community, unless ‘will’ of the people persists. The integration of Europe is one step forward.

46

http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/98/985006.html NYU School of Law; See http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/98/985006.html

47

Dr. Sairam Bhat

59

Annexure Children’s Right: A Case for World Constitution; for the cause of saving planet earth from the destruction and exploitation of resources Children have a right to inherit a world free from pollution, contamination and to enjoy resources vital for their survival and existence. Kids4Earth The Children's Environmental Constitution48 Amongst the partners we seek, we turn especially to children. We appeal to them to take part in this effort. Clause 22, World Summit Declaration, UNEP Vision Children welcome the new millennium by introducing the Children's Environmental Constitution to the world. With access to knowledge and information about environmental issues, and possessing the gift of a New World Vision, children everywhere are taking action! The Children's Environmental Constitution proclaims their natural birthrights to the Pillars of Life: clean air, pure water and fertile soil. Decades of pollution, habitat destruction and changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere threaten life on Planet Earth. The Earth is an interconnected network of life-sustaining natural resources that are cycled and recycled by a diversity of life forms that continually weave the web of life - now and for all future generations.

48

The Children's Environmental Constitution is a foundation of the National Heritage Foundation. Copyright © 1997 Children's Environmental Constitution.

Environmental Sovereignty: Dilution of National Boundaries. A Case for World Constitution

60

Children, who represent almost half of the world's population, lead by their vision and example to bring about change. Mission Statement Our Mission: To empower children individually and collectively to help restore the Earth and become its responsible stewards. The Children's Environmental Constitution empowers children, individually and collectively, to reach their full potential as future leaders of the world through implementation of practical and life-proclaiming projects in action. Through a network of communication systems that include an interactive website, an educational text in progress, live theatrical presentations, documentaries, educational television, newspaper articles, educational publications and outreach programs - children become recognized as stewards of the environment. The Children's Environmental Constitution embraces visionary projects undertaken by children through a variety of affiliations: memberships, sponsorships and grants. Mission in Action x

As a "living document," The Children's Environmental Constitution will be presented to the United Nations by the year 2000. It will be offered as The Children's Bill of Rights to be adopted by world governments.

x

The Children's Environmental Constitution will continue as environmental projects that are based in sound democratic principles. These young world visionaries will pledge to nurture and care for the environment and as future leaders of the world, maintain a beautiful, healthy planet for all generations that follow - their gift of life to life.

Goals and Objectives x

Children learn the history and significance of the democratic process together with its inherent responsibilities, and directly

Dr. Sairam Bhat

61

apply these principles to the writing of: The Children's Environmental Constitution.

49

x

Through the development and application of educational outreach programs, children are brought naturally to a deep and committed understanding of the web of life that connects all living systems. While discovering their role and relationship in nature, children simultaneously enjoy life with a deep sense of wholeness, optimism and dignity; knowing that each has the power to make a difference in the world.

x

An interactive website allows the children of the world to exchange ideas with other young people. In addition, the website will increasingly provide a valuable resource guide to worldwide government agencies, environmental groups, scientific organizations, universities and educators.

x

The website will provide accredited programs in environmental studies. Teachers' Guides will be published for use in homes and in schools, and scholarships will be offered.

x

A newsletter will publish global progress by the world's children, includes articles by guest contributors, current events, projects in action and involvement opportunities.

x

Children will endorse products that are environmentally "friendly," honor the accomplishments of their peers, and recognize businesses and governments who make significant contributions toward enhancement of the environment.49

http://www.kids4earth.org/mission.html The Children's Environmental Constitution is a foundation of the National Heritage Foundation. Copyright© 1997 Children's Environmental Constitution.

LOOKING BEYOND NATIONAL BOUNDARIES IN THE ERA OF GLOBALISATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS VISHWANATH.M’

Introduction The sovereignty of any state is the supreme control exercised by it over its boundaries and protection of its people. Sovereignty is one of the most controversial concepts in political science and international law, and is closely related to the difficult concepts of state and government, independence and democracy. Originally, as derived from the Latin term “Superanus” and the French term “Souverainete”, sovereignty was meant to be equivalent of supreme power. Bentham defines sovereignty as “Any person or assemblage of persons to whose will a whole political community are (no matter on what account) supposed to be in a disposition to pay obedience; and that in preference to the will of any other person.1It has departed, however, quite often from this traditional meaning.2 The statement in the French Constitution of 1791 that “sovereignty is one, indivisible, unalienable and imprescriptible; it belongs to the nation; no group can attribute sovereignty to itself nor can an individual arrogate it to himself”. The idea of popular sovereignty exercised primarily by the people became thus combined with the idea of national sovereignty exercised, not by an unorganized people in the state of nature, but by a nation embodied in an organized state3.

’

Lecturer, University College of Law, Karnatak University, Dharwad. John. D. Finch. Chap.4.p73. Introduction to Legal Theory. 2nd edition. Universal law Publication. Pvt.. Ltd. 2 Encyclopedia Britannica on social sciences. P.1030.Vol.20. 1969. 3 Ibid. 1

Vishwanath.M

63

In the context of theology and the constitutional theory of the unitary state, sovereignty means omnipotence. Yet, if several entities, none of which is able to attain supremacy over any of the others resign themselves to coexistence with one another, the meaning of sovereignty undergoes subtle changes. Each will still refuse to recognize the superior authority of any other outside authority; it will, however, be prepared to accept on a basis of reciprocity the claim by others in a similar position to be also free from external control.4 In the dynamics of international law and relations, coordination between political and legal sovereignty is sometimes termed interdependence. It is clear that the concept of state sovereignty is not of its supremacy but is mainly based on law of reciprocity. The sovereign power is dependent on the strength of state, no state is however selfsufficient; a reciprocity of give and take with other sovereign nations thus make the states more superior and friendly towards other states. The era of globalisation in terms of economic and social factors has made a substantial change in the relations of nation states from various aspects; the world has come closer and figuratively speaking, has become smaller in this era of advanced communication system, trade & tourism. This had broken barriers and bound the north and south, east and west, irrespective of their national boundaries in close ties. The reality is that nations have become more interdependent, more than ever before. This paper tries to analyse certain issues pertaining to Environment, Human Rights, Health, Education and Trade, which are not on the agenda of one nation but are a matter of concern for all nation states because of their universal relevance.

I. Environment The protection of environment is a global issue and it is not an isolated problem of an area or nation. The problem of environmental pollution in an increasingly small world concerns all countries irrespective of their size, level of development or ideology. Not withstanding political division of the world into national units, the oceanic world is an interconnected whole and the winds that blow over the countries are also one.5 The Stockholm Declaration on Human Environment resulting from the United Nations Conference on Human Environment in 1972 was the first global 4

George Schwarzenberger. Chap.3.pp.64-65.A Manual of International Law. 5th edition. Universal law Publication. Pvt.Ltd. 5 M.C. .Mehta v. U.O.I. (1991) 2 SCC 353 at 354.

64

Looking Beyond National Boundaries in the Era of Globalisation: A Critical Analysis

move to bring nation states together and place the issue of protection of our biosphere on the official agenda of international policy and law. The UN expressed its serious concern about degradation of environment around the globe and suggested steps to be taken to preserve environment on a war footing; it incorporated certain principles, aims and objectives. The Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development in its report OUR COMMON FUTURE brought into common use of the word ‘Sustainable Development’. The commission has given a very comprehensive definition of sustainable development as: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs”. In its broadest sense, the strategy for sustainable development aims to promote harmony among human beings and between humanity and nature. Dominic McGoldrick6 has suggested that sustainable development can be structurally conceived as having a pillared, temple like structure, the attractiveness of such a simple structure is that it presents sustainable development as integrating and interactive. The pillar like structure indicates the interdependence of states for fulfillment of sustainable development. The current trend of development with out the principle of SUSTANIABLE DEVELOPMENT Internation al Human rights Law. Pillar-2

Internation al Environmen t Law.

Internation al Economic Law

Pillar-1

Pillar-3

sustainable development is evident from the facts stated bellow: ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ 6

40% of the world’s population now faces chronic shortage of fresh water for daily needs. Contaminated water kills around 2.2 million people every year. Half of the world’s wetlands have been lost and one fifth of 10,000 freshwater species is extent. 75% of the world’s marine capture is over fished or fully utilized.

Sustainable Development and Human Rights: “An integrated conception”. 796818 at 796.97. International and comparative quarterly. Vol.45 (1996)

Vishwanath.M

¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾

65

Since 1990 2.4% of the world’s forest have been destroyed. The rate of loss is now 90,000 sq.km. every year. Two-third of the world’s farmland suffer from soil degradation. 800 species have become extinct and 11,000 more are threatened. Of the 9,946 known bird species, 70% have declined in 1990’s. In 10yrs the world will have to feed and house another one billion.7

Humanity stands at a defining movement in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy and continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration of environment and development concerns and intensive attention to them will lead to the fulfillment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystem and a safer, more prosperous future. No nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can, in a global partnership for sustainable development.8 It is evident that each nation-state is grappling with the problem of environmental degradation, which is not its problem alone but also of the globe. The current global mantra is sustainable development. The means to achieve it is mutual cooperation and understanding for the betterment of the mankind. Let us hope that the next decade will give the coming generation a better and a healthier environment.

II. Human Rights “Samani prapa saha vaha annabhagaha Samane joktre saha vaha yunajmi Araha nabhimiva abhitaha.”

All have equal rights in articles of food and water. The yoke of the chariot of life is placed equally on the shoulders of all. All should live together with harmony supporting one another like the spokes of a wheel of the chariot connecting its rim and the hub.9 Human rights do not depend on an individual’s nationality and therefore the protection of these rights cannot be limited to the jurisdiction of any state and cannot be a matter within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. Recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of 7

“ 10 years later- What on Earth we have” India Today p.38-39 (02.09.2002) Preamble of the Agenda 21. 9 Justice M.Ramajois in the opening ceremony address in Judicial Colloquium in Bangalore.24-26th Feb 1988. 8

66

Looking Beyond National Boundaries in the Era of Globalisation: A Critical Analysis

all members of the human family is the foundation of the freedom, justice and peace in the world.10 The formation of U.N in 1945 was basically to bring peace and not to repeat the blunders of the world wars. In 1948 the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) ignited the need of global unity to protect human rights, it brought with it certain responsibilities among nation states to respect the rights of the people because of whom they are recognized as sovereign states. Today human rights have been the core point of issues in building international relations among the states. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights11, Whereas the people of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men & women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in large freedom.12 But the questions that always remain are: are human rights applicable only to men? Are they not applicable to women and children? The global ratio of men and women in terms of the population constitutes 50% of men and 50% of women, if we include children below the age of 18 yrs (both boys and girls) it is almost 70% of the total population of the globe and men constitute only 30%. It is sad to note that a majority of population is still deprived of basic rights and what they deserve. The issue is beyond boundaries, as most parts of the world even today do not protect the rights of this vulnerable group. Discrimination against women is incompatible with human dignity and the welfare of the society and constitutes an obstacle to the full realization of the potentialities of women. The status of women in different societies of the world is different; almost all the present and contemporary societies in different parts of the world are male dominated. In some societies they are only chattel, contractable, saleable and endowed with the duty to serve male and are subject to cruelty, ill treatment and all sorts of misbehavior from men.13 The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against women 1967 and Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 1979, have remained in the statute books. “Distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of 10

Preamble of the UNDHR 1948. Article 1 of UNDHR 1948. 12 Preamble of UNDHR 1948 13 Manjula Batra “Women & Law & Law relating to children in India” p.2. 2nd edition 2003. 11

Vishwanath.M

67

equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, social, cultural, civil, or any other field”.14 If the above words in the article can be put into action it could be a grand step towards providing justice to women around the globe. “Man kind owes to the child the best it has to give”,15 among human being children are among the most exploited classes, nearly 5 million children under the age of 15 have been infected with HIV/AIDS since the start of the epidemic, a large proportion of them girls. In 2005, at least 7 lakh children were newly infected with HIV. Globally a child dies of AIDS every minute of every day.16 It is shocking to know that mankind is so cruel to its little fellow. Children are employed in hazardous industries, hostile places, which are harmful to their health, morals; hamper their normal development or many a time dangerous to life. This is common in most parts of the globe. Reasons may be many but if this menace is not stopped it will slowly kill the growth of any nation which in turn effects the globe. The Convention on the Rights of the Child 1959 has done a little to keep the promise made, as the nation states have failed to fulfill their promises. Children have the same importance as man because he is the man of tomorrow. Children cannot fight for their rights. If he does so, people may not take his word as valid because he is a minor. It is presumed that he does not understand what is in his interest. Therefore it is for adults to consider, formulate and fight for their rights.17 Until women and children do not progress and enjoy equal rights, the world will always tumble in its progress.

III. Health Martin Luther King Jr. has observed: “Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane”. These words are indeed as true as this nature! But the fact is, what we have done to nature we have done to health also. It is true that the world is divided into ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. Health is an important aspect, which is an indicator of progress of any individual irrespective of his economic status. ‘Epidemic’ like AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria etc., have spread across the world irrespective of the status of nation states. Countering this kind of epidemic is not in the hands of one or few nations but is a task to be achieved 14

Article 1 of CDAW 1967. Proclaimed by the declaration on the Rights of the Child adopted by the General assembly on 20th November 1959. 16 www.un.org/who.htm 17 Dr. Anjani Kant “Law relating to Women & Children” p.2. 1st edition, 2003. 15

68

Looking Beyond National Boundaries in the Era of Globalisation: A Critical Analysis

together. The only constraint to fight this epidemic is money, which is available in plenty among the rich but not the poor; however, a determination to rid the world of this epidemic, which is a threat to the very existence of the human race, is necessary. An Overview of the Global Epidemic”(AIDS)

”

http://www.globalaidsalliance.org.

Vishwanath.M

69

The overview indicates that there are 40 million people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, roughly 95% of them in poor developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to more than 25 million people with HIV/AIDS, roughly 63% of the global total. But AIDS is spreading rapidly in Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and many parts of Asia, particularly India and China. WHO estimates that 6 million people in developing countries need antiretroviral treatment immediately. But only 4,00,000 or 12% of those in need, are currently receiving such therapy, primarily because the medications are too expensive. Current global spending to address HIV/AIDS is only $3 billion, the global fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria requires $ 7 to $ 10 billion a year to be fully operational18. The wealthy nations should also play their part to enable the Global Fund to renew existing grants and disburse new grants to successful prevention, treatment, and care programs in hard-hit countries. The urgency to meet the problem was well highlighted by Collin Powell when he observed: "No war on the face of the Earth is more destructive than the AIDS pandemic. I was a soldier. But I know of no enemy in war more insidious or vicious than AIDS. Will history record a fateful moment in our time, on our watch, when action came too late?"19 It is evident that measures on war footing are to be adopted to fight out these epidemics, which are universal in nature. If we don’t act it may erase the human race FROM mother earth.

IV. Education ‘A man cannot leave a legacy to the world than a well educated family’. A man with ignorance is the most unwanted among his fellow men; education can get those things which money cannot. Every one has the right to education20. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the U.N for the maintenance of peace.21 Right to life is not mere animal existence; it includes right to live with dignity. Education is a basic right of every human being, which guides him to lead a dignified and successful life. The problem is to define what is literacy. The standards to 18

http://www.globalaidsalliance.org. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Address to the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS. June 25, 2001 20 Article 26 (1) UDHR 1948 21 Article 26 (2) UDHR 1948 19

70

Looking Beyond National Boundaries in the Era of Globalisation: A Critical Analysis

measure levels that constitute ‘literacy’ vary among societies. The United Nations defines illiteracy as the inability to read and write a simple sentence in any language.22 The traditional definition of literacy is the ability to read and write. In the modern context the word literacy means reading and writing at a level adequate for written communications and generally a level that enables one to successfully function at certain levels of society if that society is one in which literacy plays a role in providing access to power23. According to the UNESCO, in the world today, there are about 1 billion non-literate adults. This 1 billion is approximately 26% of the world's adult population. Women make up two-thirds of all nonliterates. 98% of all non-literates live in developing countries. In the least developed countries, the overall illiteracy rate is 49%. The following table compares numbers of male and female illiterates by region for 1990 and 2000:24 Numbers of adult illiterates - 000's 1990 Total Male World 879130 324914 21970 6660 Developed countries/countries in transition 857159 318254 Developing countries 62400 23118 Arab States Central and Eastern Europe Central Asia East Asia and the Pacific Latin America and the Caribbean

22

16519

3833

2000 Female Total Male Female 554216 861966 3133231 548643 15311 14895 4862 10033

538905 847071 308461

538610

39282

67473

24310

43162

12686

12518

2857

9661

480 98 232904 71924

383 222 73 160979 186404 53412

149 132992

41932

23689

21819

18243

39254

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#World_literacy_rates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#World_literacy_rates 24 www.unesco.literacy/htlm. 23

17436

Vishwanath.M

71

11363 4024 7339 7873 2935 North America and Western Europe 382151 151980 230171 412242 159705 South and West Asia 131380 51693 79687 135980 52595 Sub-Saharan Africa The gender gap in literacy has narrowed in all regions, and is expected to continue till 2015:25

4938 252538 83385

It is quite heartening that the world literacy rate has increased and moving north, but the meaning of literacy, as the ability to read and write in any language should not remain the same; literacy should include the overall necessities required for an individual to progress. The chart and graph indicate the world literacy growth and also indicate the imbalance between the globes literate and illiterate, highlighting the correlation between income and illiteracy.26

25 26

¾

Per capita income in countries with a literacy rate less than 55% averages about $600

¾

Per capita income in countries with a literacy rate between 55 and 84% is $2,400

www.unesco.literacy/htlm. www.sil.org/literacy/litfacts.htm

Looking Beyond National Boundaries in the Era of Globalisation: A Critical Analysis

72

¾

Per capita income in countries with a literacy rate between 85 and 95% is $3,700

¾

Per capita income in countries with a literacy rate above 96% is $12,600

The urgent need of the hour is to set the balance right, which will in its turn create a balanced world for the better understanding of the nation states and for their development, harmony and peace.

V. Trade and Commerce As commerce, education, and the rapid tranisition of thought and matter, by telegraph and steam have changed everything, I rather believe that the Great Maker is preparing the world to become one nation, speaking one language, a consummation which will render armies and navies no longer necessary.27

Globalisation is not a new phenomenon. The world has experienced periods of extensive economic and political integration in the past centuries; some have been even more pronounced. The early 16th century or late 19th century were, most notably, two "golden eras" of commerce, characterised by open markets and extensive international trade. Yet the current globalisation process is fundamentally different in its scope, depth, and institutional characteristics. The current process of integration is truly global, as well as multidimensional. It is market-based, driven by powerful economic forces, and accelerated by a technological revolution. It is also supported and shaped by an extensive and ever-growing web of international organisations and rules, formal and informal, public and private28. The last 50 years have seen unprecedented economic growth, with considerable impacts on societies around the world. Global gross domestic product (GDP) multiplied more than six times in real terms between 1950 and 2000, while per capita GDP expanded almost three times. During the same period, international trade multiplied more than 14 times. In 1998, international trade represented 14% of the world GDP (US$39,300 billion), compared to only 6% in 1950. In the decade from 1987 to 1997, the share of trade in global gross domestic product jumped from 10% to 15%. Foreign direct investment (FDI), the other major component of financial flows, has grown faster than international trade in 27 28

Ulysses.Saloman.Grant. President of United States of America.1873. http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/scholar/johnson2000/johnson2.htm

Vishwanath.M

73

recent years. It has thus become an important driver of economic globalisation. Total FDI reached US$644 billion in 1998 — a gain of 39% over the previous year — driven by cross-border mergers and acquisitions. The share of FDI inflows to developing countries in 1998 was 42%, having risen from an 18% share in the mid 1980s. However, of the total FDI going to developing countries and the eastern European economies in transition in the 1990s, more than 80% went to only 20 countries. More than one quarter went to China alone. In 1998, the top five developing countries received 55% of total FDI inflows to the developing world. FDI has considerable impact on economic growth in the countries where it is massively channeled. It has thus become a powerful factor that cannot be neglected. Indeed, FDI has become much more important than Official Development Assistance (ODA) in major developing countries, with obvious structural effects on their economies. The world is concurrently witnessing another unprecedented transformation with its development into an information-based society, driven by major technological changes in communications and computers. The number of television sets per 1,000 people doubled between 1980 and 1995, i.e., from 121 to 235. In 1990, there were 33 billion minutes of international telephone communications; this figure had more than doubled by 1996, reaching 70 billion minutes. The number of computers with a direct connection to the Internet rose from 100,000 in 1988, to 36 million 1998. There were 140 million Internet users in 1998. This number has increased to 700 million in 2002. The volume of data traffic on the Internet has been doubling every 100 days as the 20th century is giving way to the 21st. This technological revolution also has a deep structural effect on the world economy. The Internet economy now represents US$300 billion or 5% of the American GDP. It generates almost a third of US economic growth and employs 1.2 million workers. The Internet sector is now equivalent to the automobile industry in the US in terms of labour force and market. The value of electronic commerce totaled US$2.6 billion in 1996. It may reach, by some accounts, as much as US$300 billion in 2002. More than half of the GDP in major OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries is now knowledge-based. The share of high technology products in international trade doubled from 12% to 24% over the 1990s. Clearly, a new wave in technological and social development has begun. All of these trends of increased trade and financial flows are accompanied by powerful asymmetrical demographic trends and information systems development that must be analysed and put in the perspective of developing economies.

74

Looking Beyond National Boundaries in the Era of Globalisation: A Critical Analysis

The above facts and figures indicate what trade and commerce have done for the world today; no nation is in a position to fulfill its necessary requirements and has to invariably depend on one or many nation states to satisfy its needs. These requirements are not new but the era of globalisation has broken all the boundaries and developed new concept of trade, unifying nations and bringing them closer, made them dependable, friendly and acceptable on a common platform for the betterment of mankind.

Conclusion Every minute, thirty children die due to lack of food and inability to afford expensive vaccines. Ironically every minute $1.3 million of public funds are spent on the world's military budget. The world's current war budget is approaching one thousand billion dollars per year. One thousand billion dollars every year is spent on warfare, and every year fifteen million people die from malnutrition and disease. Right now each nation spends tremendous sums (in the trillions worldwide) on their defense. How do standing armies, tanks, battleships and fighter jets feed, house or educate the people of the world?29 All this is a pure waste. What good or service it does to humanity in terms of fulfilling basic needs like food, education and health? Economic growth, environmental degradation, and human development are intimately linked, as was recognised at the Earth Summit in 1992. This recognition has led the international community to develop a series of international instruments to protect the global environment and promote a sustainable model for globalisation. As noted in a 1999 WTO report on trade and environment, the "ongoing dismantling of economic borders reinforces the need to cooperate on environmental matters, especially on transboundary and global environmental problems that are beyond the control of any individual nation". The era of globalisation has indeed shattered the dreams of military rulers, dictators, monarchical rulers, who were under the cover of absolute sovereignty. Today we are in a stage of oneness that has united people for various reasons. It is high time that we start thinking beyond national boundaries. When we come to understand that land resources and opportunities of the natural world, are common property, to which all human beings, now and in the future, have an equal share, the concept of a “national boundary” will have a different connotation. We see that the arrangements that societies have made in this regard are provisional, 29

www.johnkarms.com.

Vishwanath.M

75

politically motivated, and finally without either moral basis or economic rationale. Photos of the Earth from space show no national boundaries. They exist for political reasons; they delimit spheres of influence and control. The earth is the same on either side of a national boundary; the wind makes no announcement when it crosses a border. The issues raised involving Environment, Human Rights, Health, Education and Trade& Commerce are the common needs of any nation states and no nation state is able to set right these issues on their own because the issues are universal in nature and we need unity to fight for these issues. Sovereignty of the people on Earth is not by a single state or a single ruler but is represented by those who seek universal, human, political, social, and economic rights. Those who seek universal economic justice and the common good of all who live on Earth represent the sovereignty of the people on Earth. Those who promote Rule of law on Earth represent the sovereignty of the people on Earth.

GLOBAL DEMOCRACY OR GLOBAL ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISM? FERNANDO A. IGLESIAS

a. the problematic relationship between the emergent world society and the global NGOs At least since the start of the campaign against nuclear war, a growing number of topics of the global political agenda (preservation of environment, promotion and defence of Human Rights, disarmament, struggle for gender-racial-sexual Equality, humanitarian aid in catastrophes and extreme poverty) were neglected by national-states and inter-national agencies. The universal character of these values as well as their world-wide dimension originated new forms of organisation, mostly supranational, transnational and global, of the civil society. In perfect accordance with the new paradigms of a society based upon information, knowledge and communication, they have progressively adopted the form of planetary networking structures. For many decades, the value of the work of global NGOs’ was enormous. Meanwhile the nation-centred political system was progressively overcome by global processes and affected by universal disinterest and discredit, an emergent civil network sustained the highest principles of human civilisation. Global NGOs built remarkable barriers to political despotism, corporate abuses, technological manipulation and nationalistic outrages. Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Transparency International, Jubilee2000, Human Rights Watch, Médécins sans Frontiers (among uncountable others) captured for long years the attention of the world public opinion throughout their global claims and campaigns. They also convened the action of millions of young people desolated by the increasing inefficiency and corruption of national political organisations and otherwise unable to develop any form of political action.

Fernando A. Iglesias

77

At the beginning of the new millennium, the celebration of the first editions of the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre -Brazil- and the emergence of a global social movement whose most meaningful expression was the campaign and mobilisations against the invasion of Iraq marked a new degree in this process. Global NGOs, which took in their hands many goals and tasks traditionally consecrated to national parties, trade-unions and governs, inaugurated some kind of rustic global assembly and arrived to an embryo deliberative level through the World Social Forum. Nevertheless, precisely in this zenithal apparition, the replacement of traditional political institutions by a global social movement and its organisations have arrived to insuperable frontiers. The World Social Forum showed both the potentials of the global social movement and its insurmountable limitations, in particular: its lack of democratic representation and its impotence in front to consolidated global powers. Despite the opposition of most of the world population and a global mobilisation with no precedent, the invasion of Iraq did occur. Despite the repudiation of the G8, the UN Security Council, the IMF and the WTO, the unfair inter-national order continues to be. Even if global, social movements are impotent in front of political organisations and institutional architecture, time and time again, the last few years have demonstrated that there will not be a more democratic global order without global political institutions, democratically organised at the global level of decision-making and legitimised and empowered by the participative support of the citizens of the world.

b. farewell to Westphalia 1st - for a 2nd Westphalia The end of the War of Thirty Years in Westphalia (1648) meant the start of National Modernities. About that time, the abolition of the feudal principle “Cujus regio - ejus religio” and the distinction between the lay character of politics and the private character of religion were necessary conditions for a more peaceful, equal and progressive world. The secularisation of the state power, the relegation of religious belief to the private sphere and the end of the religious wars that had devastated Europe for centuries opened the road to a period in which national states would be the central subject of an efficient all-pervading modernisation. In contrast, after the “Second War of the Thirty Years” formed by the First and the Second World Wars, no universal order was established. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the convocation (by the

78

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

UN) to a First People’s World Constitutional Convention (Geneva, 1950) and the initial building of the European Community of Carbon and Steal (1950) were consistent advances towards the surpassing of national frames. They announced new promising developments directed to overcoming the nation-centred context established such a long time ago by Westphalia 1st. But the War of Korea and the new division of the world into “West and East” wasted any possible continuation of these efforts and left the work unfinished. The supranational character of Democracy and Republic, the universal dimension of modern citizenry and the benefits of the trans-nationalization of economy were then jibarised and restricted to European limits, so that national states conserved their role as central political actors in the global scenario. In this sense, the period opened after the two World Wars constituted a failed “2nd Westphalia”. Now, the situation perfectly reminds the prolegomenon of the historical period that preceded Westphalia 1st. As religious discriminations disrupted national unity before 1648, national discriminations and institutions divide now the political unity of the world, determine the most consistent violations of common rights and favour ethnic conflicts and inter-national wars. Human beings live in a world of changing frontiers and values. The religious order was conceived as constitutive for human nature before the 1st Westphalia. Then, religious prophets advertised to people that the suppression of coercive religion and ecclesiastic influence on earthly matters would be the end of any possible morality1. In a similar way, the current apostles of Nationalism insist on the unfeasibility and utopianism of the displacement of national states from the centre of the global political arena. But national conceptions lost their liberating character and became oppressive and restricting of human development. They have confirmed the thesis enounced by Thomas Huxley: “The usual destiny of new truths is to start by being heresies to finish by being superstitions”2. Religious ascription was discarded as the base of rights and political belonging by Westphalia 1st. National origins and passports must now be discarded in favour of new cosmopolitan instruments and institutions by a Second Westphalia. Even if the signs of the need for this crucial change are increasingly visible all over the world, political institutions and leaders are still hesitating. 1

“If God does not exist, then all is allowed” said one of Dostoievski’s characters. Thomas H. Huxley, “Science and Culture” (quoted by Amartya Sen in Development as Freedom).

2

Fernando A. Iglesias

79

c. the Hamletian dilemma of the United Nations If a first global wave of Globalisation had almost buried national states during Nineties, a second wave is covering now the inter-national system created at the end of the Second World War, the greatest tragedy caused by nationalism within the context of an incipient globalisation. The international institutional system led by the UN has failed too many of its main objectives. Since the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (12-101948), approximately 200 armed conflicts were declared and more than 8 million soldiers and 35 million civilians had died, not to mention related wounded victims, violated women, refugees, and general suffering, illness and impoverishment. This is about the same number of victims of World War II. Furthermore, far away from the promised world where “free-frompain-and-misery human beings” would enjoy “common equal rights”3, the attempt of turning universal Human Rights concrete through the action of national states have led to three worlds -First, Second and Third Worlddefined by the different rights of their inhabitants. Most of the UN goals expressed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subscribed by most of the UN members remain unachieved, and the recently proclaimed Millennium Goals, which are a very humble collection of good-will objectives, are also going to fail. Ambitious principles and humble goals, all of them are unachievable within the framework established by a political structure whose decision-making system is controlled by the most powerful national states. There will continue to be utopian dreams meanwhile the G8 continues to act as a world executive power, the UN Security Council continues to depend on the veto of its five permanent nuclear members and while just seven nations (among 184) continue to have about half of the votes in the cabinets of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Two centuries ago, Immanuel Kant defined as “imperfect rights” those that had no concrete institutions responsible for their accomplishment. A World-Modernity states that Human Rights must overcome their character of mere utopian principles and imperfect rights, to become concrete and “perfect” universal rights defended by accountable democratic institutions. The list of the democratic deficits of inter-national institutions is enormous. But the organisations, intellectuals, politicians and inter3

Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

80

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

national functionaries that criticize it have yet not arrived to the elementary conclusion on the structural character of its fails and defeats. At the beginning of the two last decades, the two Gulf Wars have showed the UN system trapped within its intrinsic Hamletian dilemma: to be the agent of the interventions of the most powerful nations (as during the First Gulf War) or not to be able of contrasting them in order to keep the world peace (as during the Second Gulf War or invasion to Iraq). After five long decades of similar experiences, the international system continues to express both these perversion and submissiveness. Its unfairness and undemocratic character is not due to the unavoidable imperfection of every human reality, nor to the corruption or incapacity of its functionaries. On the contrary, it depends on that behind the general Assembly and Mr. Kofi Annan and his brave functionaries and agencies resides the truly UN power: the Security Council and its five permanent members, the new sovereigns of the world. The global democratic deficit is not the fruit of their evilness but the coherent result of the anachronic attempt of nationally/inter-nationally managing an emerging global universe. Inter-national institutions are increasingly perceived as an elitist form of Global Governance unable to make any decision on behalf of common human interests. It is not just by chance that, while the emergent world public opinion questions its legitimacy, representation, transparency and accountability, inter-national institutions have started to “open its doors” to the “legitimate representatives of the world civil society”, that is to say: global NGOs. As this “democratic” initiative is highly suspicious, some basic questions should be raised. For instance: Could inter-national/inter-governmental institutions be “representative” in some way? Are global NGOs as “legitimate” and “democratic” as inter-national institutions suddenly claim? Could they solve the “democratic deficit” of the global decisionmaking system? The example of the recent creation of the International Criminal Court, which is globally vindicated as the most relevant institutional success of global NGOs, could offer some interesting perspectives on these topics.

d. the International Criminal Court and the new international forms of impunity The International Criminal Court (ICC) is founded on the same principles of the entire international system: the ideas that inter-national agreements

Fernando A. Iglesias

81

can be a rational and efficient base for a global and democratic decisionmaking, that international delegates of national executive powers can be “legitimate” and “accountable” representatives of the citizens of the world and that a democratic global order can be created while the sovereignty of national states is kept intact. The ICC was established after a successful world-wide campaign developed for a global coalition of NGOs -the International Coalition for an ICC- and acclaimed as the most valuable institutional goal ever reached by the collaborative agreement among inter-national multilateral institutions and non-governmental organisations. Yet, the limits of its inter-national conception of Justice can be raised by the most simple and schematic question. Were the United States to bomb Iran with nuclear weapons and to murder the whole Iranian population in order to stop the Iranian development of nuclear weapons4, could the International Criminal Court judge just one of the American governors and military authorities responsible for this –truly hypothetical- genocide? The answer to this question is “Definitively: NO”. First, because the American citizens that compose the U.S. national government and armies cannot be judged by the ICC because the United States have no part in the ICC agreements. Article 13 of the Statute of Rome that constituted the ICC is clear on the matter: only the citizens of signatory nations are subjected to an international “justice”. In addition, “the United States unsigned the treaty and withdrew in May 2002[...] because of fears that U.S. nationals will be brought to trial through a process that it finds questionable”5. This assumption, made by one of the most prestigious agencies of the UN, rises new questions on the ICC’s functioning. For instance: Are the inclusion in the ICC agreements definitive or reversible? Can every national administration “un-sign and withdraw” whenever it wants? Would this not be the easiest strategy in defence of the impunity of defendants by the government of their own national states? In case these national discriminations against universal Justice were not enough, the most powerful national governs of the world can also avoid the International Criminal Court’s action through other methods. For example, a simple resolution of the undemocratic UN Security Council can stop for a year every process started by the ICC’s prosecutor. According to the Statute of Rome, this interruption could also be 4 5

Of course, I am not even suggesting that this is a possible scenario. UNDP 2002 Report

82

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

indefinitely prolonged by the reiteration of the same method, which puts all the modern notions of Justice as Equity far away of the standards of the International Criminal Court. Within a global world, inter-national “Justice” means global impunity. The architecture of the juridical global system is so unbalanced and unfair that even a dictator can denounce it. In fact, Slobodan Milosevic’s critics on the UN special trial that judges him for the crime of “genocide” in former Yugoslavia can be perfectly applied to the standards of the ICC. As Milosevic pointed out, there are only trials for judging Third World’s governors but none of them can touch the world citizens of first category; that is to say: the inhabitants of the United States of America and, more particularly, the American authorities. As usual for the entire UN galaxy, the lack of efficiency of the International Criminal Court and its subjection to the largest national powers derive from its lack of democratic representation. Indeed, not any World Parliament has established it according to the dictates of a democratically sanctioned World Constitution and Code of Justice. When the president of the United States, George W. Bush, remarks that the ICC has no democratic legitimacy because it was created for un-elected delegates, he establishes a challenge that cannot be answered without overcoming the elitist inter-national context moving forward towards a global-democratic one. The creation of the International Criminal Court has meant both a significant step in developing a global Justice and an ambiguous precedent for universal jurisprudence, since it left intact the obsolescent rule of national sovereignty. Through its so-called “complementary” character6, the International Criminal Court recognises a territorialnational jurisdiction on crimes such as genocide, international aggression, ethnic cleansing, slavery, abduction, torture and Apartheid that were previously considered “Crimes against Humanity”. This return to a nationcentred system means a consistent step-back with respect to international standards that had been achieved after Nüremberg. The complementary principle constitutes a partisan outrage to universal rights. It means the abandon of the principle of subsidiarity that had been gaining universal acceptance as central juridical concept in global affairs. The embryo of a universal Rule of Law according to which universal 6

This is the juridical expression to say that the ICC can only intervene in the case of reluctance or evident partiality of a national state to judge a criminal act committed by a national citizen.

Fernando A. Iglesias

83

crimes must be judged by universal world courts and not by territorial/national trials is destroyed by the idea of complementarity vindicated by the ICC, which re-establishes and empowers national jurisdictions on universal crimes. About 200 million human beings have been killed by national states during the past century according to the reports of the United Nation’s agencies. The complementary principle puts the responsibility of judging Crimes against Humanity in the hands of the worst criminals: national states. It develops this operation under the aegis of the United Nations, that is to say: under the beneath of national states. The putting of Justice in the hands of potential criminals, the acceptation of concrete risks of destruction of evidences and the feasible recognition of national farce-trials transform universal Justice in an inter-national affair subjected to the power of nations. In an article published by “El País”7, Phillippe Kirsch makes funny pirouettes for absolving these unacceptable limitations of the Court he presides and for defending the ‘resolution 1422’ of the UN Security Council that reinforced the limitations for judging citizens of non-adherent countries. Forsaken by the journalist, Mr. Kirsch finishes by declaring “When the global political situation will be easier, then the ICC will turn into a Universal Court”. Unfortunately, the crimes that the ICC was created to judge use to happen when “the global political situation” is not “easy”. This is exactly the limit of inter-national institutions, which use to be wonderful umbrellas for sunny days and inefficient strainers when it rains. Some of the NGOs that proposed these inter-national principles now claim against the American unilateralism and denounce Mr. Bush. They seem to ignore an elementary rule: within an inter-national framework, the most powerful national states play a hegemonic role. Working for a democratic global order means now working for a global order that overcome the current national/inter-national one.

e. inter-national privileges and democratic global order Realist people that insist on the United Nations as the only possible source of universal rights ignore the real effects caused by the application of inter-national principles and institutions to a global universe. Many general questions can be raised on these matters, for instance: How does 7

Madrid, 08-31-03.

84

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

the current inter-national “Global Governance” actually work? Which are (beyond its rhetoric about Democracy, Legitimacy, Accountability and Transparency) the principles that guide its concrete interventions? In theory, the UN should establish “equal rights among peoples and nations”. In practice, it acts according to double standards. In theory, the IMF and the World Bank should offer global liquidity to nations in financial difficulties in order to keep full employment and high levels of growth. In practice, through the “structural adjustment programs” promoted by the “conditionality” of their loans, they act like neo-classicalmonetary agents; drying markets, deepening global recession and defending financial and corporate interests. In theory, the WTO should abolish national protectionism in order to accelerate the global growth. In practice, it acts like an agency of developed nations that establishes double standards in the economic field and promotes a one-directional/onedimensional model of globalisation. Finally, according to the hopes of their promoters, the International Criminal Court should be responsible for universally prosecuting crimes against humanity. But in practice, it expresses the supremacy and sovereignty of national states over the Human Rights of the citizens of the world. In spite of the persistent common sense that considers the United Nations to be a democratic global actor, the basic elements of its current internal architecture should be recalled: 1) The UN supreme organ is the Security Council, whose attributions are superior to those of the General Assembly. 2) In every real crisis, the Security Council is the only UN body able to make concrete decisions, whereas the Assembly is inhibited of even giving opinions and advice when not requested by the Security Council (which means: always). 3) Any reform of the UN structure requires a reform of the UN Charter, which is impossible without the unanimous approbation of the five selected permanent members of the Security Council. 4) The ever-criticised members of the sacred economic trilogy IMF-WB-WTO are “specialised agencies of the UN galaxy”8.

8

According to United Nations’ statements.

Fernando A. Iglesias

85

Thus, despite the intentions of the UN founding fathers, despite the goodwill of its functionaries, beyond its capacity of recruiting zealous volunteers, the inter-national system legitimizes the prerogatives of the most developed and richest national states. The International Criminal Court could hardly be the exception to the basic trends that rule global affairs.

f. one dollar-one vote, one nation-one vote, not any democracy The inter-national economic structure of the world deserves a similar analysis. After the economic crises started in Asia by 1997, continued in Russia, Turkey, Mexico and Brazil and crowned by the collapse of Argentina; the World Bank, the International Monetary Found, the World Trade Organisation and the entire system based on international financial institutions are being buffeted by a global hurricane of justified criticism. In a global world where the paradigm of Democracy is almost universally accepted, the decision-making system based upon the “one dollar = one vote” principle is at the centre of this polemic. Unfortunately, the replacement of the undemocratic principle “one dollar = one vote” for the “democratic” principle “one nation = one vote” continues to be proposed as a suitable solution by those who claim for oxymoron such as “democratic banks” and “charitable funds”. A crucial question on this must be raised: Would the application of the “one nation = one vote principle” to the economic and financial inter-national institutions be capable of solving their democratic deficit? This question is answerable by simple experience: if tomorrow the “one nation = one vote” principle were to be accepted by the IMF and the World Bank, both of them would acquire a structure similar to the World Trade Organisation, whose unequal policies have determined an unfair international trade and a unidirectional globalisation. Has the WTO been democratic or an instrument in the hands of the most powerful states of the world? Has it managed the globalisation of trade according to universal paradigms (such as “bi-directional global fair trade”) and considered the interest of all human beings, or has it been impotent in front of the manipulation of the global economy by the interests of global corporations, financial speculators and First-World governments? Has it universally promoted the benefit of economic and technological development or has it rather created an unidirectional/onedimensional globalisation? Has the WTO helped Third-World countries or

86

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

has it condemned them to a global economic Apartheid by keeping the First-World subsidies to agriculture and the barriers against textiles whereas imposed global and free financial flows? The answers to these questions are so obvious that they do not deserve to be developed. The last collapse of a WTO meeting (Cancun) has expressed the dissatisfaction of the developing national states in front of the unfair system of global commerce. Yet, the WTO continues to be incapable of proposing and impelling a better order. In fact, it is another inter-national institution trapped in its intrinsic Hamletian dilemma: to be able to follow the will of the most powerful nations of the world or not to be able of blocking their undemocratic global interventions. Despite the general common sense that proposes the mechanic translation of the democratic principle to the field of nations, the political institutions based on “one nation = one vote” have repeatedly resulted in failure. The League of Nations has had a “one nation-one vote” structure with no beneficial results for the peace of the world. The United Nations have been able of avoiding the Third World War but are turning progressively incapable of managing a global context and to promote the spread of truly Human Rights. These are the most evident facts to be taken into consideration no matter what “realistic” people use to ignore on behalf of a paradoxical “realism”.

g. blind-in-one-eye institutions and Copernican revolution Since the beginning of the past decade, human contexts are being rapidly reconfigured by globalisation according to a de-territorialised logic. Beyond global processes started together with human history (indeed, the history of humanity is the history of its Globalisation), phenomena of fastGlobalisation started during the last part of the XXº Century and were deepened and accelerated by the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has led to a Copernican revolution in social affairs: the world, which once rotated around national states, has occupied the centre of the social scenario. As a curious historical revenge, universal categories reign on nationalparticularistic ones, inverting the previous Ptolemaic scheme. Deprived by Globalisation of almost any autonomous brightness, current national states have become satellites: they spin around the globe and reflect the energies given to them by globalising phenomena. Within this new configuration of the solar system, national political institutions have turned into ‘blind-in-one-eye’ institutions unable to

Fernando A. Iglesias

87

perceive the double dimension of global de-territorialised processes. The obsolete fixation to a territorial and fragmented conception of human society consecrates the sunset of the National Modernities to chance and chaos. It is not about national states disappearing. It is about the narrow-minded and short-sighted models adopted by national institutions playing havoc on themselves. Nevertheless, even if universal for goals and structure, global NGOs are also blind-in-one-eye institutions organised around fragmented and specialised visions. In fact, the troubles in Ecology, Civil Rights, Humanitarian Aid, Political Transparency, Third-World Debt and Global Poverty are so strongly linked that they cannot be solved without global actions, which means both “planetary” and “multi-disciplinary” interventions. Globalisation has a territorial dimension for which social phenomena become planetary, and a systemic one, for which every field of human activity is increasingly inter-connected with all others. If national governments are universal in terms of issues but territorially fragmented, global NGOs are universal as extension but truncated in terms of spheres of action. The UN system, which is composed by national delegates and specialised agencies, constitutes an imaginative combination of both of these blind negations of a multidimensional global context. Within the global political field, global NGOs and national institutions are the perfect expression of “truncated perspectives”. They can only offer one-dimensional/unidirectional visions whose deficits express their territorial or specialist partiality. Their structurally-determined discarding of the elements that escape from their partial viewpoints is at the origin of their ineffectiveness. Despite their pretension of representing the interests of the entire humanity, inter-national multilateral institutions as the UN are prisoners of both territorial and specialist limitations: their agencies (from the UNESCO to the UNCTAD) are specialised agencies, their power is a vicarious power that continues to stay in the hands of national states. Consequently, the future of the global world is now in the hands of blind-in-one-eye institutions and fully blind organisations. The results are predictable. When the perception of the worrying blindness of the existing global order reaches the core of the system, it generates institutional schizophrenia. For instance, a valuable “Report on Human Development” prepared by the United Nations Development Program has an amazing title: “Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World”. It could win the Nobel Prize for the most contradictory program never expressed by any institution.

88

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

As the same UNDP9 has consistently marked, we live in a world that is more democratic at the national scale than ever before. In the first page of one of its global Report, the UNDP established: In the 1980s and 1990s the world made dramatic progress in opening up political systems and expanding political freedoms. Some 81 countries took significant steps towards democracy, and today 140 of the world’s nearly 200 countries hold multiparty elections, more than ever before”.

Then, the authors extract a wrong conclusion: “The world is more democratic than ever before”. But even if the world is nationally more democratic than ever before, it enacts, at the same time, a global scenario where the most important decisions on Economy, Ecology, Demography and Peace escape almost completely any democratic determination. The polarities that had characterised the previous period of National Modernities have been inverted by the Copernican revolution promoted by Globalisation. From now on, since global phenomena determine national ones and not the contrary, a global democratic order cannot be obtained through the sum of national democracies. Therefore, in direct contrast with the UNDP wills, Democracy cannot be “depth” in a “fragmented world”. On the contrary, the surpassing of the fragmentation of the political unity of the emerging world society becomes a necessary condition for the deepening of Democracy within and outside national boundaries. Although the democratic deficit of inter-national institutions is recognised as “insuperable” by its own agencies as the UNDP, the UN organisation is structurally unable to propose another way to a democratic global order that an ambiguous and unfeasible “democratisation of the Global Governance”, which is theoretically pursued through the “reform of the UN system”. This program, if reduced to the application of the “one nation = one vote” principle, does not mean any guarantee of Democracy, specially when the members (meaning: national states) are not requested to be democratic. The democratic character of the national principle (one nation = one vote) is also controversial. How much democratic is the UN General Assembly (UNGA) when “the national members whose inhabitants represents just 5% of the planet’s entire population dispose the UNGA majority10”? How could it be democratic when the decisional weight of the 435,700 9

In honor of its members and functionaries, it must be said that the UNDP is one of the most advanced and transparent UN agency. This is precisely why their documents and works show so clearly the Hamletian dilemmas that the UN faces. 10 According to Daniele Archibugi, “Cosmopolitan Democracy and its critics”.

Fernando A. Iglesias

89

inhabitants of Luxembourg worth the same one vote that the 1,261,830,000 Chineses, which means that each citizen of Luxembourg have a decisional power equivalent to 2,896 Chinese human beings? Moreover, because of the institutional distance established through its intergovernmental system, the accountability of any inter-national system is problematic, indeed: how could an inter-national organisation act on behalf of humanity if their members are only accountable to national governments and inter-national bureaucracies? “United Nations must be united” claimed recently the General Secretary Mr. Kofi Annan; but the national principle tends to divide humanity even in the many emergent fields (such as ecological preservation, demographic control, de-militarising policies, regulation of financial markets, taxation of global corporations, prosecution of universal crimes and terrorism) that should be the expression of common human interests.

h. global NGOs: new counsellors for the global Prince? The UN symbol is a vision of the world as it is seen from the North Pole. It expresses with amazing clarity the real sources of power that the organisation does have beyond the good will of their functionaries. But the situation is more or less the same in the universe of the world civil society, in which about 87% of the 738 NGOs accredited at the WTO’s ministerial conference11 have their headquarters in developed and rich countries. Despite their universal goals, even if mostly composed by well intentioned volunteers, despite their valuable work, they can hardly escape from the predominance of North over South. The role of NGOs inside the “UN galaxy” has been recently recognised by official resolutions of the UN General Assembly. NGOs have been invited to participate in the work of UN agencies as “consultative” actors. So, more than 2,150 NGOs have already acquired a “consultative status” at the UN Economic and Social Council and about 1,550 of them are associated with the UN Department of Public Information. All of them were consistent steps in order to create a permanent framework for the alliance between the UN and the world of global NGOs12. But, throughout these practices, all the valuable organisations of the emergent world civil society are taking the position that was of Nicoló Macchiaveli: “Counsellor of the 11 12

Seattle, Washington, U.S., 1999. Data from UNDP 2002 (op. cit.)

90

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

Prince”. According to the current rhetoric of “accountability” and “transparency” respect to the “truly representatives of world civil society”, this coalition of un-elected bodies (both NGOs and UN functionaries) pretends to be universally legitimised... by their mutual recognition. This new kind of voluntarism that bets on simple goodwill and ignores the institutional conditions of political action raises a justified criticism. For instance, Alain Minc affirms: As once Bolsheviks considered themselves the militant vanguard of proletariat, so the more dynamic NGOs consider themselves the vanguard of public international opinion.

Of course, the alliance between powerful-but-discredited international organisations and powerless-but-prestigious global NGOs have the support of other elitist actors, as the governors of the eight more powerful states of the world (G8), which are highly interested in appearing as “democratic”, “legitimate” and “accountable” as they can in front of the world public opinion. Thus, the so-called “Global Governance” hides its undemocratic character behind the “democratic-civil” veil provided by global NGOs. Moreover, the integration of global non-governmental organisations to (inter)governmental institutions represents also a heavy risk of betraying their own legitimacy, which is defined (as their name invokes) by their independence to governments. Which is the basic program of the Triumvirate composed by global NGOs, Intergovernmental-International Institutions and the most powerful national governs of the world? 1) None of them were elected for making global decisions. 2) All of them pretend to do it on behalf of their mutually recognised “legitimacy”. Therefore, what do they represent if not a new version of the “Enlightened Despotism” program, which was always “Governing for the people without the people”? The motto “Governing for the people of the world without the participation of the citizens of the world” describes the principles defended by the UN-G8-NGOs’ global alliance. The eight sovereigns of the world, joined to a subsidiary structure of local aristocrats and guided by the wise advisers of their counsellors, governs the globe (when the global financial system and the economic corporations allow them to do so). The central values of political Modernity (democracy, accountability, representation, majority, division of powers, check and balances, transparency) are being reshaped by the emergent rhetoric of the “world

Fernando A. Iglesias

91

civil society” in order to legitimise undemocratic projects. A Global Enlightened Despotism is being promoted world-wide in the form of “Democratic Global Governance”. The insistent use of the expression “world civil society” is also a pitiful desire, or a mere abuse. As Ralf Dahrendorf has correctly marked, “the historic task of creating a world civil society will not be completed until very citizen rights will be concretely recognised to every human being”13. The concepts of “national sovereignty”, “national citizenry” and “national determination”, to which the idea of “democracy” has been tied from centuries ago, have turned into a barrier for the accomplishment of this goal. The nation-centred system led by the UN and the G8 constitutes also more a concrete barrier than a promise of redemption. Also at the global level, as Democracy is the government for people and by people, then open debate, public participation, elective representation and universal suffrage are sine-qua-non conditions for a truly democratic order. The only possible “democratic representatives of the world society” shall be the elected members of a democratic World Parliament granted by clear attributions, duties and responsibilities by a World Constitution. None of these parameters can be reached or met through a Global Enlightened Despotism. Liberal-democratic-representative global institutions like a World Parliament and a World Court of Justice established through a global compact14 or –better- by a World Constitution become necessary tools for the building of a genuine democratic global order. The assumed “democratic deficit” of the inter-national order cannot be abolished by a “democratic” Global Governance but by a Global Democracy. Only democratic legitimated institutions could be able to make real and concrete the proclaimed principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Only democratic legitimated institutions could respect the essence of the UN Charter, which starts by “We, the people…” and not by “We, the nations…”. What could NGOs and the world social movement born in Seattle do in order to help the achievement of a Global Democracy? A short consideration on the development of civil and political society becomes necessary in order to consider this matter inside an appropriate historical perspective. 13 14

Ralf Dahrendorf, “El conflicto social moderno” As David Held has recently claimed for.

92

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

i. the missing link between civil and political society Just 150 years ago the life of workers was unanimously miserable even in developed countries. The hard conditions in which they lived were described in essays like Friedrich Engel’s “The situation of working class in England” and by the Charles Dickens’, Victor Hugo’s and Emile Zola’s novels, among others. General impoverishment and increasing misery were described in Karl Marx’s masterpieces15 and constituted the fundament of his apocalyptic prophecies on the “unavoidable end of capitalism”. At present, when approximately half of the world’s population lives in degrading conditions that are basically similar to those that reigned in central countries 150 years ago, a correct analysis of the road that led them from general poverty to welfare-state becomes crucial for the future of the humiliated and offended part of human kind. The current decline of the prestige of trade unions hides the importance they had in past. Indeed, they were the first and most significant NGOs for almost a century. The battles developed by them consecrated fundamental rights such as “the 8-hour day”, the prohibition of child labour, the equal treatment for women, worthy wages, paid holidays and guaranteed pensions,. Despite the unavoidable incompleteness of the results, the action developed by trade unions improved substantially the conditions of life of billions of human beings. Nonetheless, conferring the whole merit of social evolution in developed countries to trade unions would be unfair, since none of these improvements would have been possible without the building of democratic systems at the national scale. First, being a national citizen is not the same at the USA than in Subsaharan Africa. Consequently, the inhabitants of developed nations have become the only world citizens that preserve a certain capacity of preserving high standards of life through their participation in democratic institutions. But this minority the citizens of the world who have concrete global powers derived from democratic representation constitute a discouraging 20-25 percent of the world’s population. Meaningfully, this was about the average of the French, American and German population that acceded to the right of voting at the start of democratic institutionalisation in central nations (by about 1870). Secondly, as political institutions remain territorialised whereas Finance, Economy and Technology become global, even these world citizens of first-category are 15

For instance: his notes on child labor and night shifts in “The Capital”.

Fernando A. Iglesias

93

losing control on global and national decisions. Thus, a justified suspicion about politicians and politics arises even in developed rich societies. Within the others, the citizens of the Third World who are deprived of concrete political rights and oppressed by economic poverty have become the Third State of a planetary Republic: their liberation from the yoke of misery cannot be separated from the political battle for democratic representation at each level where decisions must be made, which includes the decisive global scale. In the emergent context, exclusion must be redefined. Exclusion means both the impossibility of acceding to global economic processes and social rights and the incapacity of participating in the global decisions that affect their own life. This reality fixes severe limits to the battle for Peace, Ecology, Human Rights and Equality developed by unelected global NGOs: global problems are well-known, possible solutions have been developed for scientists and experts, the source of global mass-media has resulted in the emergence of a world public opinion sensitive about global crises and favourable to universal ideas such as “Democracy”, “Human Rights” and “battle against poverty”. Nevertheless, as the national/inter-national decision-making system remains unchanged, the global situation continues to deteriorate. The key words of the current inter-national system, “Governance” and “Accountability”, which are uncritically repeated throughout the emergent global public space, are the soft version of the key-words of political Modernity: Democracy and Representation. Since a fairer distribution of economic resources cannot be separated from a democratic distribution of global political power, the current spread of proposals about the “reform of the IMF” and the “democratisation of the international economic order” leads to a blinded alley. The entire global political order (and not just the economic order) must be democratised according to the parameters that have already been established at the national scale. The entire global order should reach the democratic standards that were effective at the national scale for more than a century. What could NGOs do in order to help the human society to achieve these goals? How can the self-proclaimed delegates of the world civil society contribute to improve the conditions of life of billions human beings? The lessons given by the trade unionist “ancestors” of global NGOs are relevant in order to remember that the civil society cannot replace the universal suffrage.

94

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

Trade unions, NGOs and other agents of civil society do not have representation and they never will have. Therefore, the democratic deficit of the current global order cannot be solved by non-governmental organisations. Instead, trade unions, NGOs and other agents of civil society can help to create genuine democratic global institutions by using their efficient and well-tested methods for spreading the concept of “Democratic Representation at each and every political scale, local, national, regional, international and global”; this is to say: “Global Democracy”. This is the only possible strategy for the accomplishment of their universal goals: Peace, Sustainable Development and Human Rights. Any project for the democratic reform of the United Nations and other inter-governmental institutions must face the barrier of the undemocratic character of inter-national organisations and the limits fixed by their structure and founding documents. Richard Falk, one of the best analysts on the UN and an associated collaborator to the UNDP, expresses this situation through bitter words: Within a reformist perspective, the UN Charter is a rigid instrument. It can only be modified through the approbation of the five permanent members of the Security Council and 2/3 of the General Assembly... Structural changes... depend on the unanimity of those States that probably will lose influence in the process.

Falk concludes: The fundaments of the UN Charter as they were redacted correspond less and less to the patterns that control the most significant aspects of the 16 global life .

These are not merely words. Even when promoted by the main charge of the institution, the reform of the United Nations is unfeasible without replacing the inter-national principle by the democratic principle. The failure of the “Agenda for Democratisation” proposed ten years ago by the UN Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali has perfectly showed it. Globalisation does not mean the end of national states but does mean the end of their previous centrality in the global arena. Similarly, a global democratic order means that the principles of a Global Democracy (global representation, universal suffrage, cosmopolite identity, world citizenship and human rights) gain a progressive centrality respect to the 16

Richard Falk, “Depredador Globalisation”.

Fernando A. Iglesias

95

national/international principles that ruled the period of National Modernities. A Global Enlightened Despotism born from the alliance of UN agencies and global NGOs is not an appropriate answer for any of that. If democratic, every project of reform of the United Nations must include these aspects and consider itself as a step towards a Global Democracy in spite of the necessary graduality of the steps to be done. Every project for the democratic reform of the United Nations must be also led by democratic methods. But this issue exceeds the limits of this essay.

Conclusion In his treatise on Western philosophy17, Bertrand Russell affirms: “The problem of finding a group of sage men and leaving them the government is insoluble. This is the most profound reason for supporting Democracy”. The global citizenship insistently recalled by the UN General Secretary Kofi Annan cannot exist without establishing democratic institutions at the global scale. Democratic representation based upon the principle “one man - one vote” and universal suffrage have become the missing link between the civil and the political world society. Both the United Nations and the global NGOs have a crucial role in the process of elevating Democracy to the global scale already reached by Technology and Economy, but the intrinsic condition is that they not consider themselves as the truly democratic representatives of the citizens of the world, because they are not and they will never ever will be so. There are two mistakes to avoid about the United Nations. The first one is considering the UN Organisation as a nest of evilness, inefficiency and corruption, and judging it as completely unable to be reformed according to the principles of Democracy and Justice. The second one is considering the UNO as the only way of reaching a global democratic order. The United Nations is (together with the European Union) the most developed political organisation ever reached by human beings and probably we would not be here if it had failed in keeping the peace of the world during the long decades of the Cold War. Yet, it is also a truly undemocratic institution that has been founded on a post-war reality that has disappeared and that is failing in its attempts of interpreting the needs of the new one shaped by Globalisation. Over all, the UN is not a God to be worshiped. 17

Bertrand Russell, “Storia della Filosofia Occidentale”.

96

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

Many initiatives are recalling the attention of the world public opinion to the democratic deficit of the United Nations and proposing the constitution of a UN Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA). The global campaign for a UNPA led by the “Committee for a Democratic UN” Andreas Bummel (from the World Federalist Movement) is the most developed and active. The “parliamentary dimension” of the UN has also been recently supported by initiatives and resolutions of the International Parliamentary Union, the World Parliamentary Forum of Porto Alegre and the elected parliaments of Germany, Swiss, Japan and the European Union. It is up to the United Nations and its members, it depends on its own future developments and its own capacity for self-reforming, whether the UN is to be thrown to the trash of History or to be consecrated as the cradle of a truly democratic global order.

Fernando A. Iglesias

97

Global Enlightened Despotism and Global Democracy GLOBAL ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISM

GLOBAL DEMOCRACY

National/inter-national Ptolemaic conception of global politics Territorial visions and interests Partial viewpoints Inter-governmental representation One dollar-one vote

Copernican conception of global politics Global conceptions Global paradigms World democratic representation Universal suffrage (one person-one vote) Universal suffrage (one person-one vote) Democratic-representative institutions

One nation-one vote Alliance between Inter-national / Inter-governmental institutions and global NGOs International elitist order Inter-national hypercompetitiveness G8, UN Security Council, WTO, IMF, WB National Courts plus International Courts plus an International Criminal Court based upon complementary principle and subdued to national trials Confederalism Reversible inter-national agreements Unelected political bodies in the global scale Executive powers are central Pyramidal structure (from nations to UN) Accountability to authorities and governments National citizenship National prerogatives and privileges Global Apartheid regulated by

World democratic order International collaboration and integration World Parliament World Court of Justice based upon the principle of subsidiarity and on a world Code of Justice established by a World Constitution sanctioned by a democratic World Parliament Federalism World Constitution Elected bodies at each scale No authority without democracy Parliamentarian power are central Federal network of integrated subsidiary structures Accountability to world citizens World citizenship Human Rights Free world-wide circulation of

98

Global Democracy or Global Enlightened Despotism?

national states Blood and land privileges Government on behalf of the people without the people Nationality, personal identity and collective belonging as a public state affair Blind-in-one-eye and truncated specialist perspectives Secrecy of State - Elitism Soft-nationalism Extreme nationalism National Patriotism Inter-national secrecy and agreements Anarchy and despotism Power in the hands of the most powerful national states Hypothetical world civil society with no institutions Intrinsic democratic deficit

human beings Concrete equal rights for all Government for the people and by the people Nationality, personal identity and collective belongings as a private affair (2nd Westfalian principle) Thought of Complexity, Globality and Unpredictability Transparency, public world-wide debate and global participation in every public sphere Supra-nationalism Anti-nationalism World Patriotism World Constitution World federalism - Power in the hands of the majority of the world citizens World civil society World political society Global Democracy

CONSTITUTIONALISM IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ABROAD DR. JOSEPH PRESTON BARATTA

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. —Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence, 1776 The foundation of the United States under the federal Constitution of 1787 has been a landmark for all traditions of federalist thinking—national, European, and world. The 13 states were legally independent after the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the Articles of Confederation (unanimously ratified and in force only by 1781) were, strictly speaking, a treaty in international law between sovereign states. So their “more perfect union” under a federal government has exerted a powerful example on other peoples seeking to establish peace, even though the American states were far less diverse and riven by national jealousies than those of Europe.

The Founding Fathers at Philadelphia were acutely conscious that the eyes of monarchical Europe were upon them. James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution, once remarked at the convention that the delegates were “deciding forever the fate of Republican Government,” and he contrasted a union based on law, as was being proposed in America, with mere treaties based on voluntary compliance, as had been tried for centuries without success in Europe.1 Benjamin Franklin, after the Constitution was signed, wrote to a friend in France:2 1

Max Farrand, ed., Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 4 vols. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937, 1967), 1: 423, 446. Cf. 464. 2 Franklin to Grand, 22 October 1787, ibid., 3: 131.

Constitutionalism in the United States of America and Abroad

100

If the Constitution succeeds, I do not see why you might not in Europe carry the project of good Henry IV into execution, by forming a Federal Union and One Grand Republick of all its different States and Kingdoms by means of a like Convention, for we had many interests to reconcile.

The essential elements of the U.S. Constitution drafted at Philadelphia were: x x x

x

x x x x

x x

A strong central government (as opposed to a continued association of sovereign states); Legislation for individuals (as opposed to pretended legislation for states); Popular representation in at least one house of the legislature to bring “energy” into the government (as opposed to state representation, though this was eventually accepted for the Senate, in the great “federal” compromise); Majority rule of popular and state representatives to determine the “public interest” for enactment of the laws (as opposed to the rule of unanimity in the old unicameral Congress of the Confederacy); Enforcement of the laws by courts on individuals (as opposed to use of the army or military force against states); Delegation of enumerated powers from the states or the people to the common government (as opposed to reservation of all powers by the sovereign states); Separation of executive, legislative, and judicial powers (as opposed to the highly unitary system that had evolved in the British Parliament); Checks and balances to set special interest against interest so that, even in the absence of republican virtue, only the general interest would prevail (as opposed to the supremacy and corruptions of Parliament); The federal structure representing states in the Senate and the people in the House of Representatives (as opposed to a unitary state); and a Bill of political and civil rights demanded during the ratification conventions and designed to protect the people from any abuses of power by the federal government.

Dr. Joseph Preston Baratta

101

All of these elements have been present in the minds of those who have looked to world federation as a solution to the problem of war. The necessity of a government was set out clearly in the debates on the formation of the United States. The great debate at Philadelphia and during the ratification period (1787–88) was about the necessity for an “energetic” (or “strong” or “national”) government, enabled, by delegation of powers from the states or their people, to rule by law reaching to individuals. The debate was not originally about the federal form of government, in which the states are given equal representation in one of the two houses of the legislature. That developed later as a solution to the problem of representation. John Jay later set out very eloquently in the Federalist, Nos. 2–5, the inadequacies of the Confederation against foreign force and influence; and Hamilton, in Federalist, Nos. 6, 15–17, 23, and 51, set out its inadequacies against war between the states and internal disorder. Again and again Hamilton explained that the essence of a confederation was pretended legislation for states, which rapidly degenerated into anarchy or a war of all against all; while the essence of government was legislation for individuals, or real law, which amounted to accepting, as the price of civil society, the “mild and salutary coercion of the magistracy” in place of the “destructive coercion of the sword.”3 Hamilton commented often on the necessity for such a power. “Why has government been instituted at all?” he asked. “Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.”4 To meet the ends of a government for the United States, he insisted, we must will the means, that is, a national republic so designed that a free people can safely delegate their personal and state powers to it.5 When Hamilton discussed the principle of separation of powers, he remarked:6 It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies is this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. 3

Federalist, No. 20, p. 124. Federalist, No. 15, p. 92. 5 Federalist, No. 23, pp. 142–46. 6 Federalist, No. 51, p. 337. 4

102

Constitutionalism in the United States of America and Abroad

In an international context, the necessity of a government of the world is generally demonstrated similarly for a national government, since it makes possible the rule of law. The difficulty lies in the degree of world community needed to undertake a popular government—a point to which we will often return. Readers of the Federalist Papers, who may wonder why its arguments do not instantly apply to the United Nations in the modern world, must bear in mind that Madison, Hamilton, and Jay were writing for a community in which the Patriots outweighed the Tories and those indifferent to the Revolution. Federalism has been the unique “American contribution to politics,” historians find,7 and its influence has spread throughout the New and Old Worlds. Some 30 federal states have been established on the U.S. model. Even more influential has been the model of a written constitution, especially the American example of the deliberate establishment of a state in order to secure the rights of the people. The “struggle for constitutionalism” of modern democratic states has become part of world history.8

Historic Federal Unions United States of America United Provinces of Central America Gran Colombia Mexico Switzerland Argentina Venezuela Canada Austria–Hungary Germany Brazil Australia Austria Czechoslovakia Russia (R.S.F.S.R.) 7

(1787) (1821–38) (1822–30) (1824, 1857, 1917) (1848, 1874) (1853) (1864, 1947, 1961) (1867, 1982) (1867, 1919) (1871, 1919, 1949) (1891) (1901) (1920, 1945) (1920, 1948, 1960) (1922, 1993)

Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (New York: Norton for University of North Carolina Press, 1972), 519–64, 593–615. 8 Albert P. Blaustein and Gisbert H. Flanz, eds., Constitutions of the Countries of the World, 18 binders (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana, 1971). Ann L. Griffiths, ed., Handbook of Federal Countries, 2002 (Montreal: McGill–Queens University Press, 2002). The Constitution Society: www.constitution.org/cons/ natlcons.htm

Dr. Joseph Preston Baratta

U.S.S.R. Yugoslavia India Ethiopia Central African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland Pakistan West Indies Federation Malaya, Malaysia Mali Federation Nigeria Micronesia St. Kitts and Nevis Cormoros Bosnia and Herzegovina United Arab Emirates

103

(1924, 1936, 1977–91) (1946, 1953, 1963, 1974) (1949) (1952, 1995) (1953–63) (1956, 1962, 1973) (1956–62) (1957, 1963) (1959–60) (1960, 1963) (1986) (1983) (1992) (1995) (1996)

Former Federal Unions United Provinces of Central America Gran Colombia Central African Federation West Indies Federation Mali Federation U.S.S.R. Czechoslovakia

(1838) (1830) (1963) (1962) (1960) (1991) (1992)

Federalist Experiments South Africa Burma Libya Peoples Republic of China United Arab Republic Jordan–Iraq Federation Cyprus Yugoslavia

(1910) (1948) (1951) (1954) (1958–61) (1958) (1960) (1991)

“Federalist Experiments” does not include proposed federations, like Sukarno’s Malphindo (Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia). Ireland and Puerto Rico were never incorporated into a federation, though the idea was discussed.

104

Constitutionalism in the United States of America and Abroad

Decentralizations and Devolutions Italy Belgium Spain France Great Britain

(1948) (1980) (1982) (1982) (1997)

Source: Joseph E. Schwartzberg, “The U.S. Constitution: A Model for Global Government,” Journal of Geography, 86 (November–December 1987): 246–52.

HOW WORLD FEDERALISM WILL LIKELY COME INTO EXISTENCE JAMES T. RANNEY

Most world federalists over the years have repeatedly split into two warring camps1: (1) those who believe (with Emery Reeves) that “[t]here is no ‘first step’ to world federalism,” that “[w]orld government is the first step.”2 and (2) those who believe that there are short-term goals and functionalist and neo-functionalist approaches (including UN reform) which are worth pursuing on the way to world federalism.3 If one wanted to attach unfairly one-sided labels to the two groups, one could say that there are “World Federalist Fundamentalists” and “Thoughtful World Federalists.” It should be obvious on which side the author’s sentiments lie. I have in fact taken to describing myself, at times, as a “thoughtful world federalist.” And I would indeed submit that if one engages in a bit of “thought” about precisely how world federalism might someday come about, one realizes that it will almost certainly not be some kind of millennial moment of instantaneous creation of a global government (ala the U.S. Constitution), but will instead come about, if at all, more gradually.4 1

See L. Wittner, One World or None: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement Through 1953, at 162 (1993): “Ironically, for a movement emphasizing unity, world federalism was actually rather divided [including along these lines].” Cf. id. At 327. Cf. also L. Wittner, Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954 to 1970, at 257-58 (1997) and W. Wooley, Alternatives to Anarchy: American Supranationalism Since World War II, at 80-81 (1988). 2 E. Reeves, The Anatomy of Peace, at 283 (1945). 3 Cf. generally C. Hamer, A Global Parliament: Principles of World Federation, ch. 7 (1998)(listing several such approaches). 4 I wonder if we world federalists have not been somewhat misled by 1787. I have spent a large part of my career as a law professor studying 1787 and the creation of the U.S. Constitution. My obsession with it is indicated by the fact that I have a slideshow called “1787” (part of a larger slideshow called “Heritage of Our

106

How World Federalism will likely come into Existence

If one takes a calm look at (a) the world as it is; and (b) how social change occurs, one almost inevitably reaches the above conclusion. The chances of world federalism occurring at one stroke seem to be pretty close to zero.5 For those of us who have long thrilled to the messages in the classic world federalist tracts, that is the bad news. The good news is that if one takes a long view of where we are already heading, and merely projects that a decade or so (or even less time) into the future, one can envision a gradually accreting global constitution, piece by piece, brick by brick, international agreement by international agreement. What I am saying is this: Imagine, if you will, a future in which the United States returns to its “glory years,” when we created the Marshall Plan (rebuilding our former enemies) and started the United Nations (as defective as it is), and, in short, began to act with some little semblance of maturity on the international stage. And what if, then, we finally adopted the ICC (International Criminal Court) Treaty, and the Law of the Sea Treaty, and all the other treaties6 which only the United States and a few other renegade (if not rogue) nations have refused to sign? What if, finally, we agreed to create, as representatives of the United States and the Soviet Union at one time (1961) agreed to create,7 Freedoms”). I even plan to host a conference (possibly called “Global Constitution Forum”) with the “conceit” that “1787” and Philadelphia may have something to say about and serve as a model for what could eventually become a Constitution for Earth. Cf. www.globalconstitutionforum.org. But I have to say that as cute as that model may be, I believe we are unlikely to repeat that very lucky performance at the international level. For one thing, Catherine Drinker Bowen didn’t title her book “Miracle at Philadelphia” (1966) for nothing. But cf., of course, W.H. Auden: “We who are about to die demand a miracle.” 5 Cf. B. Russell, Toward World Government, at 8 (1948)(“And [world government] can be approached gradually, by the building up, one by one, of organs of international control.”) and Robert Schuman Declaration of May, 1950 (“Europe will not be made all at once, according to a single general plan. It will be built through concrete achievements, which first create a de facto solidarity.”), as cited in Weiler and Trachtman, “European Constitutionalism and Its Discontents,” 17 Nw J. of Int’l L. & Bus. 354, 361 (1997). 6 See C. Eisendrath and M. Goodman, Bushleague Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk, at 147-66, 173-74 (2004) and P. Sands, Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules from FDR’s Atlantic Charter to George W. Bush’s Illegal War (2006). 7 In the famous “McCloy-Zorin Agreement,” U.S.-USSR Report to the General Assembly, UN Doc. A/4879, reprinted in the Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 45, No. 1163, pp. 589-90 (Oct. 9, 1961). Cf. generally Ranney, “Beyond ‘Minimal Deterrence’—an Approach to Nuclear Disarmament,” 4 J. of World Peace 18

James T. Ranney

107

what could be called a new International Disarmament and Peacekeeping Agency?8 Now it is true that in order to create any such agency we would need at a minimum to reform dramatically the United Nations (or bypass it altogether), such that the P-5 (Permanent Five nations) would no longer have their veto power in the Security Council.9 And it is also no doubt true that eventually (or sooner) we would want to address not only needed institutional reforms (such as the “democracy deficit” in international institutions)10 but also a whole host of global problems currently being neglected (including the usual list, global warming, poverty, etc.), via a variety of possible reforms to existing institutions or, again, via a completely new superstructure, or, more likely, via structures modeled after those created by the Law of the Sea.11 (1987)(outlining 4-stage plan to reach total disarmament, including such an international agency) and Samson, “The McCloy-Zorin Agreement: The Reflections of Mr. John J. McCloy” (unpublished student seminar paper, 1986)(amazing interview with John J. McCloy). 8 Cf. generally Hamer, supra, at 186-89; Schwartzberg, “A New Perspective on Peacekeeping: Lessons from Bosnia and Elsewhere,” 3 Global Governance 1 (1997); H. Langille, Bridging the Commitment-Capacity Gap: A Review of Existing Arrangements and Options for Enhancing UN Rapid Deployment (2002); Partnership for Effective Peace Operations, www.effectivepeacekeeping.org; Project on Peacekeeping and the UN, www.clw.org; and International Peace Operations Association, [email protected]. 9 Cf. generally Peace Through UN Veto Reform, www.peacethroughunvetoreform.org (Benjamin Freeman); Center for War/Peace Studies, www.cwps.org (Richard Hudson); and J. Schwartzberg, Revitalizing the United Nations: Reform Through Weighted Voting (2004). For information on a pending measure to create a new “United Nations Emergency Peace Service,” cf. Global Action to Prevent War, www.globalactionpw.org (bill being drafted by Prof. Robert Johansen and others). 10 Cf., e.g., Falk and Strauss, “On the Creation of a Global Peoples Assembly: Legitimacy and the Power of Popular Sovereignty,” 36 Stan. L. Rev. 191 (2000) and Franck, “The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance,” 86 Am. J. Int’l L. 46 (1992). 11 In 1978 Richard Hudson interviewed Ambassador Elliot L. Richardson, chief U.S. negotiator at the Law of the Sea Conference. Cf. “What Elliot Richardson Thinks,” Global Report, No. 4 (1978). On being asked “How do you see the Law of the Sea Conference in the perspective of the long-term pull toward global order?”, Ambassador Richardson replied: “To me the Law of the Sea Conference offers the hope of a major contribution in the building of a global order. It may well be the single most important potential to build it. This more than anything else is what spurs my effort to forward the work of the conference.” (p.1). See also Wooley, supra note 1, at 179-81.

108

How World Federalism will likely come into Existence

This, I would submit, is how viable worthwhile changes are likely to occur. And if I am right about this, then we might actually end up almost sliding unthinkingly into what could be considered a world federalist structure, or at least something roughly analogous to Great Britain’s unwritten constitution (a trend toward “global constitutionalism” that some scholars already detect12), even though it would consist in part of numerous subsets of writings. But its entirety would consist of not only such written treaties, but also a host of global institutions, working practices, and norms. As difficult as it is to predict the future (it is axiomatic that only fools try doing so), if one has to make a calm probabilistic assessment of how world federalism might come into existence, then I believe this is how it will happen. But if I am wrong in this guesstimate, will I be upset and get my nose out of joint because the “World Federalist Fundamentalists” are right after all? Of course not. As stated by my favorite author on world federalism, Professor Christopher Hamer: The direction we want to go is clear. Increased international cooperation, leading to an eventual world federation, will bring peace and prosperity for all. In time it will allow the abolition of nuclear weapons, and even the eradication of war itself. It will allow a joint attack on the problems of environmental degradation, over-population, disease and poverty. It will establish new standards of human rights and democracy worldwide, and it will open a great new era of progress and harmony in human affairs, as energies are released from the unprofitable business of preparing for war. The principles of association are also fairly clear. Democracy, human rights and the rule of law would be taken for granted as founding principles. Important principles established by the European experiment include subsidiarity, to preserve national autonomy wherever possible, and solidarity, to promote economic and social cohesion within the community. The ideas of participation, flexibility and equity have also been discussed.

12

See generally “Symposium: The Emerging Transnational Constitution,” 37 Loy. U. LA L. Rev. 187 (2003); Petersmann, “Constitutionalism and International Organizations,” 17 Nw J. of Int’l L. & Bus. 398 (1997); and K. Urata, Reflections on Global Constitutionalism (Tokyo, 2005). Cf. also Weiler and Trachtman, supra (thoughtful caveats to overly ambitious application of concept of “constitutionalism”)

James T. Ranney

109

The route by which we shall achieve these goals is much less clear, but the important thing to recognize is that everyone is pulling in the same direction. World federalists, UN reformers, functionalists, neofunctionalists, regionalists or Atlantic Unionists, all are working towards increased international collaboration and integration as the answer to the world’s problems. We can see the new Jerusalem shining on the hill, and though it may take decades or even centuries to arrive there, the struggle will be well worthwhile in the end.13

Moreover, even though there is inevitably a need for peace activists and world federalists to choose which goal or goals they will pursue, it may not be all that abrupt or severe a choice. We may find that what is an action priority will change over time, or that we may want to pursue shortterm goals and long-term goals more or less simultaneously, and what we are best able to do depends upon what suits us individually. And collectively we may find, all of us—peaceniks and punk-rockers, military leaders and Mayors for Peace, Softballers for Social Responsibility [a group I “formed” instantaneously when asked for the name of an informal group wanting to reserve a baseball field] and scientists, Abolition-Nowers and aborigines, and just all kinds of ordinary people—that each of us has a role to play in this great mystery we call life. Many years ago, I sat next to a ponytailed peacenik at a mid-winter peace conference held up in the mountains of Montana at a temporarily abandoned resort, and he said something that I have always remembered: he said his group believed in what they called “total tactics,” by which they meant that you (both collectively and individually) push on this front and that front, changing tactics as circumstances change, and just keep plugging away until somehow or other we all come out right. Something very like this was said at the conclusion of another of my favorite books on the peace issue, by Professor Larry Wittner: Working together, citizens’ movements (on the grassroots level) and a strengthened United Nations (on the global level) could rein in warmaking states until, like New Jersey and New York, these semi-sovereign jurisdictions would never think of resolving their disputes through war, much less nuclear war. Adopting a long-term strategy of taming the war-making nation-state through the creation of an international security system does not eliminate the need for pursuing a short-term strategy of fostering nuclear arms control and disarmament. Indeed, the two are complementary. Without a 13

C. Hamer, A Global Parliament: Principles of World Federation, at 196-97 (1998; Australia)(available for free by Googling “Global Parliament”).

110

How World Federalism will likely come into Existence program that goes “deeper” than the weapons—one that addresses their underlying basis in the nation-state system—we seem likely to be left, at best, with the present kind of unsatisfactory, unstable compromises between arms races and disarmament. Conversely, without an arms control and disarmament strategy, we are likely to be obliterated in a nuclear holocaust long before our arrival in that new world of international peace and security. But by pursuing both strategies simultaneously, we have the possibility of turning back the threat of nuclear annihilation and, along the way, transcending the disgraceful international violence that has accompanied so much of the human experience. We live at a potential turning point in human history, for the latest advances in the “art” of war—nuclear weapons—have forced upon us a momentous choice. If nations continue to follow the traditional “national security” paradigm, then—sooner or later—their leaders will resort to nuclear war, thus unleashing unspeakable horror upon the world. Conversely, this unprecedented danger could be overcome through arms control, disarmament, and transformation of the nation-state system. Are the people of the world capable of altering their traditional institutions of governance to meet this challenge? …If one looked solely at their long record of war, plunder, and other human folly, one might conclude that they are not. But an examination of the history of the nuclear disarmament movement inspires a greater respect for human potential. Indeed, defying the national barriers and the murderous traditions of the past, millions of people have joined hands to build a safer, saner world. Perhaps, after all, they will reach it.”14

The way forward is clear: We will need (1) a new global consciousness,15 which will lead to (2) a new global consensus, (3) a new global democracy, and, eventually, (4) a new global constitution.16 The coming Peace Revolution17 will obviously require fundamental social and political change. Social and political change will require attitudinal change. 14

L. Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present, at 491 (2003. 15 Cf. C. Coon, One Planet, One People (2005)(suggests that evolution is leading inevitably to such a new global consciousness, perhaps faster than we realize). Query, if true, whether my opening dichotomy is once again at least not as stark as initially suggested. 16 Cf. Symposium, supra note 12, at 187 (a constitution functions as a superior law because of fundamental tacit agreement that it be such). 17 Which will be every bit as important as the two earlier fundamental revolutions in human evolution, the “religious revolutions” of 900 to 200 BCE and the “scientific/enlightenment revolution” of the sixteenth century, cf. K. Armstrong, The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions (2006).

James T. Ranney

111

Attitudinal change will require education: education of ourselves and others.18 It is that simple, and also that difficult. Although the hurdles we face are immense, similar obstacles have been overcome in the past.19 We’re on the way.20

18

Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, when just a fledgling reporter attending the conference leading up to the creation of the United Nations, wrote the following to a P-T boat friend about the conference: “The international relinquishing of sovereignty would have to spring from the people—it would have to be so strong that the elected delegates would be turned out of office if they failed to do it….” A. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: JFK in the White House, 88 (1965). 19 See, e.g., A. Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (2005)(must reading for world federalists; read the book and you’ll see why). 20 And change, when it does come, may come faster than we could now anticipate, with the sort of suddenness associated with the fall of the Soviet Union or, as one commentator put it, with the suddenness associated with the crystallization of liquids. Email comment on early draft of article by Charlie Brown, President of Citizens for Global Solutions (3-31-06).

NEIGHBORHOOD DISCUSSIONS ABOUT GLOBAL CONSTITUTIONS MIGHT HOPEFULLY INVENT GIMMICKS THAT COULD BE BLENDED INTO A RATIFIABLE CONSTITUTION FOR A SUPRA-NATIONAL FEDERATION

JOHN R. EWBANK

Copyright Feb. 10, 2005 by John R. Ewbank, 18940-2401- Suite J-112. Free license for English editions if with credit and providing copies to author. Copyright to minimize distorted excerpts or revisions.

Our remote ancestors observed “pecking order” and “hierarchy” in nature, and imitated it with an abundance of “downward directed” authority. An infant spontaneously submits to the domination of parents, but develops some “self-liberation” as its time-perspective broadens. Cultural factors often make it difficult for an individual to be significantly aware of either the self-liberation or the submissiveness. When the extent to which one has ongoing pragmatic modifying of the blend of self-liberation and submissiveness is perceived, it sometimes enhances the fascinating adventure of life. Such modifications of the blending are affected by an individual’s experience of time. Children can experience life as a midpoint of an ongoing year. The transformations of adolescence feature an ongoing decade. Each individual grows older automatically. How much maturity is chosen is an individual choice. Even a 40 year old can choose some of the patterns of a child or adolescent. Mature adults of the approximately 35-85 range can flexibly shift how they experience time. When sustainability is adequately emphasized, a mature adult can experience time as a mid-point of a score of millennia. To the extent that mass media promotes a disdain about more than a

John R. Ewbank

113

decade, the sustainability aspirations nurturing interest in federalism are absent. Moreover, a mature adult has had a sufficient amount of experience that decision-making can be based purely upon such unique experiences while ignoring all external authority. Most hopes for a better society depend upon the choices by mature adults who have taken both individual responsibility and social responsibility as important commitments while generally ignoring external authority. However, toddlers, children, adolescents, and youth are advantageously trained to recognize their need to rely significantly upon remote authority, and thus to be submissive to hierarchy. In a wolf pack, hierarchy is significant. In human tribes, egalitarian fellowship can be experienced among mature adults so that teamwork coordination is attainable predominantly through spontaneous voluntarism. If world federalism is viewed as being predominantly voluntarism, its attainable seems plausible. In the past some activists have tried to impose global uniformity, a merger of neo-colonialism, and other One World centralizations. Some futurologists deem the Lakewood of a collapse of civilization to exceed the hope for a United World. The organization of business projects, ethical culture guidance, etc. necessarily involves ongoing pragmatic blends of both hierarchy [downward allocation of authority] and egalitarianism [upward allocation of authority from the sovereign individual]. If federalization is perceived as adequately sponsored by individual sovereignty, then its adoption is more hopeful than if opponents successfully portray it as coercion from remote bureaucracies. Sovereign nations must voluntarily ratify a proposal adequately recognizing the sovereignty of individual in a United Peoples type of organization. This is among the jurisprudence problems making a world constitution so uniquely different from all previous constitutions. Upward allocation of authority involves voluntarism. Long existing downward allocation of authority can be routinely accepted by many, notwithstanding defiance by a few. Proposals for additional downward allocation of authority tend to stimulate widespread opposition unless their advantages and necessity are appropriately clarified. World Federalists have the responsibility for thus preparing humanity for the needed federalization of all humans because of the voluntary ratification by sovereign nations of a proposal for a world constitution. To be ratifiable, it

114

Neighborhood discussions about Global Constitutions

needs a package of features that apparently has not heretofore been invented. Every mature adult is potentially an inventor of at least one of the components that might be incorporated in a ratifiable package. Methods are needed for stimulating mature adults to strive toward such inventiveness. In the ‘50s, Robert Greenleaf was a management consultant promoting the maximizing of voluntarism and the minimizing of domination, using the term “servant leadership” for such approaches. Since his death, a Greenleaf Center in Indianapolis has promoted the readership of his books. This tiny Greenleaf Center, with a two person office, has “turned the world upside down” so that in the 21st century hundreds of businessmen on each of the occupied continents are taught “servant leadership” as wise business management. Similarly, world federalism might be launched by a plurality of relatively small advocacy groups that would not stimulate as much fear as big budget bureaucracies. The term “decentralist-federalism” communicates such effort to minimize the fear of domination by remote democracies while “turning the world upside down” by a drastic transformation of the entire institutional matrix. Hopefully the grass roots can have confidence that the benefits from enhanced empowerment at the neighborhood level is more attractive than any disgruntlement about modifications among remote bureaucracies. Eventually decentralist-federalism is marketable to humanity even though some goofs might have been made in its marketing in some earlier decades. Some adolescents recognize their intuitive leadership skills. If they aspire for happiness, the choice for servant leadership may be then. Some servant leaders are much appreciated by their subordinates with significant problem-solving by their teamwork coordination. Some servant leaders are not promoted to the upper levels of a bureaucracy. Some multi-level organizations have undergone the deterioration such that some middle levels feature efforts to steal power from higher and lower levels with only incidental attention to proficiently fulfilling the assigned responsibilities. Some promotions within bureaucracies thus become more political than on a meritocracy basis. Within collaborating networks sufficiently committed to servant leadership, servant leaders can identify each other and sincerely emphasize voluntarism and upward allocation of authority. Some decentralist-

John R. Ewbank

115

federalists aspire to organize from scratch a plurality of relatively small collaborating groups each emphasizing three aspirations: [a] servant leadership; [b] per capita happiness for all humanity; and [c] minimizing military hostilities. Millions can comprehend such abc aspirations and collaborate in launching a Competitive Ratification Contest that could be worthwhile even if the future brings some surprises. If a Competitive Ratification Contest can be launched, then experienced Servant Leaders in at least five continents can organize themselves into either Opposition Campaigns or into Campaigning Cabinets. The Contest could not certify any Campaigning Cabinet unless its matching Opposition Campaign was functioning. Servant Leaders would thus be altruistically volunteering to spend a few years on the difficult task of educating humanity concerning federalization. Fair debates and adequate discussion by neighborhood groups could stimulate confidence that wise discernment was sought about how long the unfettered sovereignty of nations should be prolonged. Decentralist federalists have confidence that the grass roots preferences will favor federalization while being open-minded about further prolongation of significant national sovereignty. Mass media could publicize some of the debates. Only those who had heard the debates would be permitted to participate in the “talking circles” at the neighborhood level. The egalitarian fellowship of seeking to avoid taints of hierarchy would feature the talking circles of from about 5 to 15 individuals. Each individual would be granted an opportunity to clarify their perspectives during each of at least three rotations. Adequate clarification of individual preferences would be the objective, assuming prolongation of disparity of viewpoints. The preferences expressed after such grass roots discussions would be transmitted by the Internet to each of a plurality of Continental Registry Offices, leading to global tabulation of preferences. A borough council or other local government body could validly vote upon Proposals after the preferences aggregated at least 20% of the vote by which some local official had been elected, or 20% of the population in towns without elections. A provincial government could validly vote after 20 towns had voted. A national government could validly vote only after 75% of the provinces had voted. An important aspiration is to minimize the potentiality that a national government might ratify some Proposal that had not been adequately

116

Neighborhood discussions about Global Constitutions

evaluated at the grass roots level. The 20 town requirement assures some debate at the local level. The 75% requirement prevents geographical factions from excessive domination. Moreover, such grass roots debates and voting would continue even after a nation had voted. In the event of a tie in the contest, the grass roots preferences would terminate the tie. By thus immediately empowering neighborhoods to terminate a tie concerning the federal constitution, grass roots activists could recognize some of the potential benefits of making national governments less tyrannical through federalization. In keeping with the concept of national sovereignty, how the provinces had voted would be irrelevant, but whether they had voted would be critical. Each ratification would be rescindable after the third Dec. 31, and would expire, unless renewed, after the seventh Dec. 31. Any Proposal ratified by such a procedure would have sufficiently widespread grass roots support that its viability could be assured. During the early stages of the Contest, persuading mass media to broadcast debates might be troublesome. During the latter stages of the contest, as the potentiality for Ratification Day approached, the political advertising budgets might far exceed anything previously known. Because of the fairness always extended to the opposition, no federation would actually be launched unless by procedures that seemed plausibly fair to the dissidents. No federalization should be contemplated unless most opposition factions are reasonably persuaded that they were fairly defeated. Any federation launched without adequate fairness to the opposition might encounter enhanced opposition during its early years. Postponing the launching until prolonged viability of the federation seems politically wise. This is among the abundance of distinctions between launching a national constitution and launching a supra-national constitution. Fair competition among Campaigning Cabinets of Servant Leaders can provide the education needed by the grass roots and Establishments concerning the need for federalization and a global constitution. The data gathered by the Competitive Ratification Contest could clarify what kind of Proposal seemed likely to be ratified. Then powerful nations might organize a Constitutional Convention to preempt the Contest. As long as great doubt exists about what kind of world Constiution could be ratified

John R. Ewbank

117

by an adequate clout of nations, there are valid reasons for postponing any attempt to organize a constitutional convention. This again illustrates the abundance of unique aspects of a world constitution distinguishing it from any national constitution. Because the goal of decentralist-federalists is to accelerate federalization by adequately educating the grass roots about the need and nature of federalization, such pre-empting might be gracefully accepted or might be assertively rejected by neighborhood empowerment. Postponing any postponeable decisions is a part of decentralist-federalist strategy. Currently, many hurdles delay the launching of such a Competitive Ratification Contest. Great emphasis must be placed on the potential of the inventiveness of grass roots discussion groups inventing gimmicks eventually merged into what might become a ratifiable Proposal. Each expert tends to be so immersed within his/her specialty. At the grass roots, innovativeness has fewer shackles. Performance record as a servant leader is what can inspire the trustworthiness needed for members of the cabinet of the Initial Administration of a federal government. Hence appropriate education about servant leadership is needed. Some adolescents choose to seek power and wealth, and discover that the addiction for such fruits is truly insatiable, leading to less happiness than had been expected. Conversion to the “servant leadership” may occur as retirement approaches, and be practiced for the several years during which the passion for power dwindles away. Self-certification as a Servant Leader seems appropriate because procedures for de-certifying servant leadership should be manageable. Several small groups could certify those groups of sincere Servant Leaders from at least five continents who were prepared to handle the awesome responsibilities of the Initial Administration of a Supra National Federation. A Supra-National Federation cannot be launched unless there is widespread trustworthiness that the individuals and their successors would comply with the requirements of a Proposal for a Constitution and not seek the type of “creeping expansion of power” that has characterized early decades of many national constitutions. Servant leadership is the individual character aspect that hopefully can distinguish from excessively fearing what has sometimes occurred upon launching a national constitution. Servant leadership can hopefully provide the marginal trustworthiness needed to assure ratification of such a drastic transformation of the global matrix of institutions. By fair competition

118

Neighborhood discussions about Global Constitutions

between campaigns both opposing and supporting each explicit Proposal, and by fair competition among the alternative Proposals, adequate education about federalism is attainable through the Competitive Ratification Contest. Such cabinet members must have had problem solving experience as Servant Leaders, but must not be the politicians ambitious for political power. Recruiting such servant leaders is a task that is needed everywhere so that there can be an adequate number of Campaigning Cabinets participating in the Competitive Ratification. The ambitious politicians are sure to be seeking positions as consultants to such servant leaders. Some blunders are inevitable in such a complicated reorganization. Proficiency of management cannot be guaranteed, but the probabilities of success can be enhanced by wise discernment of the abundance of hazards in such a complex reorganization as the world now needs. Individuals who have clearly demonstrated their commitment to servant leadership by adhering to servant leadership patterns for more than ten years can self-certify their qualifications, knowing that the procedures for de-certification are adequate for ousting insincere scoundrels. The Competitive Ratification Contest uses the term “servant leadership” for the maximizing of voluntarism and upward-directed allocation of authority. A two person office of the Greenleaf Center in Indianapolis has truly “turned the world upside down” because in the 21st century on all occupied continents, hundreds of business leaders are being taught about “servant leadership”. Those interested in achieving world federalism need to emulate the Greenleaf Center and invent ways for world federation to be launched with less emphasis upon big-budget bureaucracies and more reliance upon relatively small entities that do not excessively frighten those skeptical about world federalism. Hopefully, a supra-national federation will be launched by applying some of the teamwork-coordination voluntarism concepts to global structure. Jurisprudence, as a realm of hierarchy, focuses upon rules winning widespread compliance because of rule-enforcement. Jurisprudence. as a realm of voluntarism, is concerned with resolution of disputes as a perennial need. Although “win-win” terminations are desirable, society benefits from a termination of a dispute, with or without widely recognized justice. Some disputes can be ended on a “case by case” basis without creating the precedents glorified by those seeking the clout to coercively enforce rules.

John R. Ewbank

119

Coercive government generally achieves “legalized theft” but is pragmatically accepted because dispute terminations are expedited. The wealthy are more likely than paupers to exploit “statutes of limitation” permitting squatters to gain title to land, one of the many examples of “legalized theft” attributable to coercive governments. Ethical culture congregations can stimulate individual honesty, gentleness, etc. Governments can propagandize for such aspirations, but their criminal justice systems, as isolated components, often fail to stimulate individual honesty, gentleness, etc. A human’s willingness to assume individual responsibilities is the significant criteria concerning how much freedom should be permitted, whether talking about a toddler or a mature adult’s choices. As long as there are individuals susceptible to bribery, a wealthy terrorist can potentially locate a collaborator willing to comply with the instructions of the terrorist. Minimizing international military hostilities is a trivial problem compared to the task of minimizing terrorism in a world as complex as prevails in the 21st century. The term “generalist” can be used to describe a mature adult making some efforts toward ongoing self-liberation. Specialists tend to stress their interpretations of causation during recent centuries. Generalists acknowledge that the conflicts of opinion prevailing within all specialties jeopardize the evaluations by any of the conflicting factions of specialists. Generalists seek wise discernment about what can enhance the per capita happiness for all humanity. This is quite different from those aspiring merely to enrich a particular family, corporation, province, nation, or clique. All varieties of ambitions for groups can be grouped with “specialization” and/or denominations of fascism. In earlier centuries, the limited opportunities for generalists led to an abundance of evaluations that [with hindsight] were conspicuously pertinent only for that particular time and culture, but which enslave important segments of remote centuries. Theories about governments arising from the consent of the governed, as distinguished from governments being necessary for deterring undesired invasions, continue to be “worshiped” notwithstanding Internet technology. Generalists acknowledge that every century predominantly adheres to traditions derived from previous centuries, shedding only selected

120

Neighborhood discussions about Global Constitutions

traditions, but clinging to appropriate traditions. When generalists encourage each century to seek self-liberation, tradition is not being “scrapped” but more carefully re-evaluated for its contemporary usefulness. Possibly a Proposal for federalization would provide that during the last decade of the century, all constituencies would seek to choose by competitive ratification constitutions suitable for the next century. Millions can recognize that there is small likelihood of survival of civilization even into the 31st century unless some current trends are modified. Generalists stress the importance of wise discernment concerning sustainability for civilization. For example, millions of dollars are now being futilely wasted on excessively complicated taxation that cannot be “reformed” because of the clout of the factions benefiting from such complexities. This is the issue that led me to start advocating a Supra-national federation in 1936. I suspected that there might be segments of establishments sufficiently annoyed by tax complexity to collaborate in the difficult problem of persuading an adequate number of sovereign nations voluntarily to ratify a Proposal for a Constitution for a Supra-National Federation. One fringe benefit from a world federation might be a minimizing of military hostilities. Unfortunately some world federalist groups have stressed the fear of military hostilities as the almost sole incentive for federalization. My hopes have been for “minimizing” military hostilities, as distinguished from “abolishing” them. Mutual Assured Deterrence has had amazing effectiveness in decreasing military hostilities among European nations and in other areas. Hopefully a network of tiny Rebellion Deterrence Corps could minimize military hostilities through the centuries or millennia. Ongoing research and updating of technology and fair competition among an adequate number of non-governmental entities seems critically necessary if humanity is to be protected from the risk that some terrorist might recognize the military application [or fringe benefit] of some civilian invention. China’s contemporary competition with the USA is significantly more in the monetary realm than concerning weapons. The Pentagon defeated the Kremlin predominantly by monetary manipulation for bankrupting the USSR through larger military disbursements than the economy could afford. If military hostilities are to be minimized, a parallel independent

John R. Ewbank

121

network of an adequate number of non-governmental entities providing monetary services also seems essential. Any concept of long term manageability of a world successfully seeking the twin aspirations of [a] enhancing per capita happiness for all humanity; and [b] minimizing military hostilities is useful. Such twin aspirations help to decease the cynicism explosion, the most hazardous problem in the early 21st century. When millions experience realistic hope that civilization can be prolonged into the 31st century, most of the hurdles have been overcome. Many mature adults are aware of their “individual sovereignty” in both its internal and external aspects. Seeking individual integrity is spontaneous to an amazingly universal extent, thus enhancing internal sovereignty. External sovereignty of an individual is illustrated by how others tend to interpret one’s behavior. It can either inspire or repulse others. Some cultures stress such external sovereignty. Some individuals are almost unaware of what is their impression on others. The future seems likely to resemble the past in this regard. Hence federalization must cope with wide ranges of potentialities of individual attitudes instead of making assumptions of utopianism. The Cole Porter slogan about “anything goes” seems appropriate when evaluating what kind of problems might trouble a future federation. It seems likely that a federation must cope with problems more complex than humanity has previously faced. All efforts of an individual to influence what happens outside his/her immediate neighborhood can be properly labeled as a form of “colonialism”. Having ownership in voting securities in enterprises in zones outside one’s neighborhood can be interpreted as “personal colonialism”. However, those who are “passive investors” not seeking to “dominate” enterprises in remote areas can be excluded from the colonialist label. Decentralist-federalists seek a world in which the many varieties of colonialism are of predominantly historic interest with ongoing explorations for the twin aspirations of enhancing per capita happiness for all humanity and minimizing military hostilities. Robert Greenleaf taught the distinction between dominance and teamwork coordination. He employed the term “servant leadership” for such teamwork coordination. In Indianapolis the Robert Greenleaf Center has essentially turned the world upside down under the guidance of an office having two individuals. Ratification of a Constitution for a durable

122

Neighborhood discussions about Global Constitutions

decentralist-federation of the world can desirably emulate the patterns by which Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership is taught to business executives on all continents. Politicians and diplomats generally seek larger and larger budgets for remote bureaucracies. A supplemental Federation prolonging the treaty system for whatever can be managed by the treaty system, but utilizing federation for minimizing terrorism, etc. might flourish [after the Initial Administration] on an annual budget that was constitutionally restricted to half of what the treaty system spent on global governance ten years ago. The important need is for stimulating adequate confidence in the trustworthiness of the administration of the federation. After the world has been adequately reorganized for making each member nation less dangerous because of the transfer of all military and monetary power to the independent networks, then subsequent administrations of the federation would have relatively simpler responsibilities. Launching a federation requires adequate trustworthiness in both the phraseology of the constitution and more importantly the trustworthiness for its Initial Administration. This is among the many differences from the ratification of any previous constitution and bolsters the need for some competitive ratification system. Few would want the awesome responsibilities for reorganizing the world. Unless within a matrix adequately stressing servant leadership, the mere ambition for such tremendous political power should be sufficient proof that he/she should not be trusted with such tremendous power. None of the individuals having name recognition by reason of their eminence as entertainment stars, provincial leaders, businessmen, etc. can win the necessary trustworthiness. Only individuals who have been significantly committed to Servant Leadership for at least ten years seem likely to win the global trustworthiness needed for launching a world federation. A federation might provide a “Dispute Termination Tribunal” having a panel of hundreds of generalists nominated by reason of their reputation for fairness and general knowledge. A tribunal administrator might offer litigants a short list from which the litigants would choose the judges after the litigation had started, thus discouraging any “forum-searching”. Random assignment of a panel of five could result if the litigants failed to agree. If four of the five could agree upon a decision, then the parties would be bound by it. Otherwise, a replacement panel would be selected at random until an 80% agreement was achieved or until the parties

John R. Ewbank

123

acknowledged that their dispute was irresolvable. Such a system could stress the “case by case” perspective analogous to early jury decisions as lacking any precedent value. Some “experts” focus on the value of precedents and rules and the coercive enforcement of rules. Federalization needs to stress the termination of disputes with or without justice, and at minimized waste of time, energy, funds, etc. in achieving resolution. Polyanarchy contemplates an egalitarian fellowship of governance entities having minimized hierarchy. Federalization featuring appropriate polyanarchy might be ratifiable more readily and stimulate more trustworthiness and arouse less fear than some of the proposals for merging of colonialism that have heretofore been promoted. Any person who has ever read any “world federalist” literature such as the “ismilda Website” or the Earth Constitution is more of an expert concerning world federal constitutions than any typical professor of international law. Expertness always injects prejudices concerning alternatives among conflicting opinions. Hence laymen and generalists can be more inventive and creative than arrogant experts. Each neighborhood needs egalitarian discussions about world federalization. The components needed for a package that could be globally ratified seem more likely to come from grass roots discussions than from any international conference. If individuals are adequately acquainted with each other by hours of eyeballing conversations, then the Internet permits collaborative editorial revision of a document at less expense than an international conference. Although the constitution must be ratified by nations, there is no need for nations to be involved in its formulation. Weighting within a World Parliament might not be attainable if based purely on allocation of Delegates to nations. There is no need, except for ceremonial purposes, of having any representation by nations in the world parliament. Different vocations might each provide Delegates, each representing all humanity, for a ratifiable Proposal. Although some minimum clout is needed for an effective federalization, not all nations need to be members from the first. Establishing procedures for the plausible “secession” of a nation from the federation can probably enhance both ratifiability and long term viability. Any doctrine of “indissoluble union” concerns science fiction and utopia more than political reality.

124

Neighborhood discussions about Global Constitutions

During the past decade, few person-hours have been devoted to inventing “gimmicks” that might accelerate attainment of a ratifiable Proposal. Hopefully, thousands of neighborhood discussions will generate the gimmicks that can be packaged into a ratifiable proposal. Some national constitutions have been proposed and ratified by a welldefined constituency. Launching of a Supra National Federation requires ratification by a suitable aggregation of sovereign nations. Some type of Competitive Ratification might expedite federalization by permitting each nation to ratify or reject each of a plurality of Proposals until one gained the needed aggregate. Continuing to recognize the ongoing sovereignty of nations until the launching is of critical importance. Federalization is a truly drastic transformation of the entire institutional matrix. Humanity will be making an unprecedented leap upon federalization. Maximizing the probability of such leap being successful is of importance. If the Proposal is sufficiently attractive, complications concerning its ratification procedure are not likely to defeat it. Stimulating interest in the process is likely after some nations have ratified some Proposals. Nothing succeeds like success. World federalism suffers today primarily because of the failure of its advocates to obtain donations in recent years. The opponents of world federalism have generally acknowledged the desirability of world federalism eventually. Opponents have glorified the “culture of peace” that theoretically would stimulate the diplomats to terminate most of their clout by federalization. Luring federalists to imagine any significant relationship to international law or diplomats proved an effective weakening of the movement. At the Treaty of Versailles, proposals for the world organization to administer Intellectual Property such as patents were on the table but ignored by the diplomats. Roswika Schwimmer and others sought to end World War I through a reconciling federation. John Ewbank and the Peace Now Movement made similar efforts during WWII. Federalization might happen at any time that nations choose to attempt such a drastic transformation. Grass roots education about how irrelevant all aspects of traditional international law are to global problems to be dealt with on a global basis has been the great need for a century, and continues to be the great need. Excessive submissiveness to politicians, diplomats, and experts on international law has long delayed federalization. Hopefully, mature adults of the 21st century will recognize their opportunities for enhancing hopes for prolongation of civilization through federalization.

John R. Ewbank

125

John R. Ewbank, Esq. Home Rule Globally 1150 Woods Road Southampton PA 18966-4545 TEL: 215-357-3977 FAX: 215-322-2673 E-Mail: [email protected] Web: http://home.comcast.net/~home rule globally/

PLANETARY HUMANISM CARL COON

Global Governance, Sooner or Later? As science advances and our technical skills expand, urgent problems keep bubbling up that cannot be solved on a national basis, like the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, international terrorism, and environmental degradation. Necessarily, the world’s nations are already giving up bits and pieces of their sovereignty to a variety of new international institutions. This is the only way most of these problems can be solved, and there seems to be no end to the problems themselves. Already, therefore, many important matters are being governed by an increasingly dense web of transnational institutions and commitments. The trend appears unstoppable, unless some kind of natural or manmade holocaust wipes out most of us and renders most of the planet unable to sustain human life. Many people cannot see the forest for the trees. They recognize, and often resent, the stresses produced by rapid changes in our lives, but they cannot or will not raise their sights and look at where all these changes are taking us. There is a failure of imagination here, a short-sightedness that keeps them from envisioning a situation in which humanity as a whole has achieved peace with itself and the environment. Antagonists in regional conflicts may prefer to fight on, rather than compromise. National leaders often see their goals in narrow terms, ignoring the larger interests of humanity, while special interests will pursue their own goals at the expense of the common good. The so-called tragedy of the commons is replicated in a thousand ways in a million places. Each of these forces resisting the current tide will change when it comes to realize that the issue is to adapt or perish. Our species is conservative, but not suicidal, and it is, ultimately, supremely capable of adapting to new

Carl Coon

127

challenges. It is reasonable to hope, therefore, that eventually humanity as a whole will learn to cope with relatively new transnational issues like global warming, nuclear weapons proliferation, and international terrorism. The problem is timing: when popular understanding lags behind, catastrophe looms. Humanists everywhere have a special responsibility to inspire others with a vision of a future world at peace, and to encourage constructive steps toward creating a global order that will realize that vision. As I write, in early 2006, nowhere is this task more important, or more urgent, than in the USA.

The Problem in the United States The current political leadership in Washington is doing many things wrong, in terms of the needs I have just described. To cite just a couple of examples: Its disregard for global environmental concerns is exemplified by its abstention from the Kyoto agreement. Its opposition to efforts to extend the writ of international law is shown by its rejection of jurisdiction by the International Court of Criminal Justice. The philosophical basis for the administration’s behavior comes mainly from the so-called neocons, a small group whose ideas were conceived in a midwestern university and incubated during the ‘80’s and ‘90’s in rightwing think tanks. How did the exponents of such radical views achieve power? By offering a convenient rationale for certain wealthy power brokers in the right wing of the Republican Party who saw it as a convenient way to shoulder their way to the top. And where did the votes come from to put them on top? From a large group of Christian fundamentalists in the country’s so-called Bible belt, who have been persuaded (gulled might be a better word) to vote for them for reasons that run from the mendacious to the ridiculous.

Getting Back on Track, towards Global Governance Probably there will be a serious change in the administration’s policies and attitudes after the 2008 elections. We cannot count on it, but we can certainly hope there will be a new broom that will strive to recapture America’s moral leadership in the world and set a new course toward making that world a better place, rather than simply aggrandizing America’s position in it. Even so, the conservative and narrow-minded

128

Planetary Humanism

nationalistic attitudes that have guided the present administration will continue to be held by many, and we shall have to address them. It is true that many new experiments in global approaches to global problems have failed to live up to expectations. But citing past failures as an excuse to abandon all such approaches, as neocon apologists have, is a recipe for disaster. And it is not even justified by the facts. The evidence is not all negative; when one looks, there is plenty that is positive to be found and built on. Solutions are being found constantly by individuals and governments that are chipping away at pieces of world disorder, operating pragmatically in new and bewildering environments. The UN is actually keeping the peace in a number of regional conflicts around the world. The Europeans are slowly uniting, regional trade groupings exist almost everywhere, global environmental threats are being addressed, and genocide is increasingly accepted as a crime against all humanity. It’s a genuine evolutionary process, and humanists can take hope from the fact that it works on a ratchet. That is, measures that fail are soon forgotten, while the ones that work best become accepted and used wherever they can be applied. It is this ratchet effect that makes the process unstoppable, and guarantees that eventually the UN will either evolve into or be replaced by some form of global governance that is strong enough to bring our vision of a world at peace into reality. As I said, the question is not whether, but when, and how. The naysayers can slow the process down, but they cannot stop it. I cannot predict how long this change will take. It might take as much as a couple of hundred years, or perhaps less. Nor can I predict how centralized the new governing authority will be, or how democratic, or very much else about it. I think it likely that many of the present nation states will continue to exist, but will slowly be relegated to a subordinate status, like the individual states in the USA today. I also have no clear idea about the historic process that will get our descendants from here to there, whether it will proceed in a reasonably amicable fashion through negotiation between the most important current and emerging power centers, or whether its trajectory will be punctuated by repeated wars, or, most likely, through some combination of both. But the evidence is overwhelming that a tide is running, and sweeping us inexorably in this direction.

Carl Coon

129

Erosion of the Old Religions At present there’s a contest going on in many of the world’s more technologically advanced countries between science-based rationalism and religious fundamentalism. There are similar tensions almost everywhere else, between traditional faith and modernizing trends. This seems to be true particularly in regions dominated by the Islamic faith. On balance, these days religious fundamentalism seems to be getting stronger. However, I am reasonably confident that over the next couple of hundred years, the onward march of scientific knowledge will effectively deprive the world’s major religions of most of their strength. They may continue as social organizations supporting community solidarity and providing a level of comfort to individuals, but they will lose their power to explain the universe, and much of their authority as a source of ethical guidance. I see this dim future for the old religions as an integral part of the tide that is sweeping nation-based political structures into global superstructures. The old religions are by nature parochial rather than global. Some religious denominations have mellowed, but the truest of the true believers still hew to doctrines and practices that strengthen the “us versus them” sense, the notion that “we” are better than all those other people out there who have lost the truth, or never knew it at all. There’s a lot of talk about ecumenism in the air, and a lot of dialogue between leaders of different faiths, but when you come right down to it, these religious groups have always been and remain rivals, competitors. Otherwise why would there be so much proselytizing in many parts of the world? And if this is so, why should our struggling species continue to look to these parochial sources for ethical guidance when what we urgently need are ethical principles that everyone on the planet shares?

The Need for a Global Ethic Any society has to be able to command a minimum degree of cooperation from the individuals who comprise it if it is to survive. This applies equally to democracies, dictatorships, and old-fashioned authoritarian countries like monarchies and empires. There are two ways of achieving this minimum level of cooperation. The first is voluntary acceptance by most individuals of learned rules of behavior that lead people to cooperate because “it’s the right thing to do.” The second is involuntary cooperation,

130

Planetary Humanism

based on fear, and induced by institutionalized instruments of coercion. Societies that rely mainly on voluntary cooperation are happier and more stable over the long run than those that rely heavily on top-down measures of coercion. But in times of rapid change and social stress, any society is likely to increase its reliance on instruments of coercion. I take it as given that there is an ethical component to this balance, in that voluntary cooperation is better than the enforced variety. It follows that democracy is better than dictatorship because the glue that holds a democratic society together starts with the individual’s sense of right and wrong, while a more authoritarian society’s cohesiveness relies on fear and top-down coercion. Of course, even in the most democratic societies, the ethical guidelines learned in early youth have to be backed up with more specific guidelines and some elements of coercion. The law of the land is the answer to the problem that ethical guidelines are imprecise, and as society evolves, issues arise that require more specific rules. Police forces and jails back up the law to supply the minimum level of coercion that may be needed to deter or isolate lawbreakers. In the more successful democracies, the law has co-evolved with a social contract consisting of generally accepted ethical principles. This is the prevailing condition in the USA and most of the other so-called Western democracies. Most Americans assume that this kind of co-evolved balance is the natural human condition, from which some countries have strayed, and to which they will return if given the opportunity. But it isn’t; as any historian should know, democracy as we know it is something that has evolved painfully and slowly out of earlier top-down authoritarian structures. This failure to understand where we are coming from explains the widespread misconception that we have some mission to spread democracy in the Middle East, and that the nations out there will become just like us, or at least more like us, once their leaders are replaced. But nothing could be farther from the truth. If there is no social understanding to begin with, and a code of legal do’s and don’ts is imposed on a society in which the individuals share no common sense of social responsibility, the result is usually either a failed state or a dictatorship. Some African nations, assembled by the colonial powers without reference to existing tribal configurations, fall into one or the other of these categories. More commonly, present authoritarian states preside over two or more distinct societies separated by language or ethnicity or religion, like present-day Iraq. Our whole postwar policy there

Carl Coon

131

has been predicated on being able to find enough Iraqis whose first loyalty was to the state and not to one of the three main communities. We are failing because there are not enough of them. Where loyalty to the smaller unit trumps loyalty to the larger entity, the larger one has only dim prospects of surviving, unless it relies for its cohesion almost entirely on coercion. All of this is a rather roundabout way of laying a basis for the observation that the present tide toward eventual global governance is suffering from lack of an ethical component. That is, it is based more on fear of the consequences of not cooperating than on a shared ethical sense that the world is basically a single community, and cooperation is the right way to go. The people who are forging the new links are international lawyers and statesmen concerned with practical consequences of failure to act. Philosophers and ethicists are relatively silent. The spokesmen for the great world religions speak for the most part against what they see as immoral consequences of modernization; they are protesting the existence of the new tide toward togetherness, and ignoring their responsibility to contribute to its outcome. There are exceptions: the philosopher Peter Singer has addressed the ethical issues of globalization, and the Dalai Lama has spoken to universal human values that transcend the precepts of individual faiths. But such voices are too few, and have had little impact on the general discourse. There is a vacancy here, a role waiting to be filled, and as I look around it seems to me that it is up to the international humanist movement to step up to the plate and fill it. Like the old religions, humanism is a kind of faith, but it is a faith in all humanity, not a faith based on doctrines that divide. The world urgently needs to take the next step beyond recognizing that global cooperation is necessary, and internalize the ethical principle that all human life is important, and that the rules of behavior we apply to insiders (sometimes known as the Golden Rule) need to be applied to everyone, everywhere.

The Humanist Role The fate of our descendants may well be determined by the issue of whether a humanist ethic can be introduced to help guide and fashion the general movement toward global integration. I said at the beginning of this essay that I really didn’t know whether the world authority that holds sway a couple of hundred years from now would be authoritarian or democratic.

132

Planetary Humanism

If the statesmen and international lawyers are inspired by a humanist perspective as they fashion the new ties that will bind all nations, the prospects of a democratic outcome will be much greater than if the world’s leaders are inspired only by considerations of realpolitik and the bottom line. For the immediate future, I don’t much fancy the prospect that existing humanist organizations can persuade the whole community of nations, all by themselves, to internalize new ethical standards of international behavior. But that’s no reason for humanists to stay apart from the fray, contenting themselves with reassuring each other that they are the only sane voices in a crazy world. We have a particular point of view which is well positioned to inject both reason and compassion into the contentious and confused arguments raging around us, arguments that concern issues like regional conflicts and global environmental threats that have implications for the future development of the world community. We should seize every opportunity to inject our own perspectives wherever and whenever we can. Humanists can have at least as much influence on the future of humanity by engaging in this area as they can by intervening in more familiar battle areas, like the separation of church and state within the US.

What’s To Be Done We might start by reviewing how we describe the kind of world that humanism seeks. In the USA, Paul Kurtz’s “Humanist Manifesto 2000, a Call for a New Planetary Humanism,” speaks for the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH) and has been endorsed by a distinguished list of scientists, philosophers, and others. Most of the latter half of its 64 pages deal with the evolving international scene in one way or another. It is quite detailed for a document of this scope, and not all humanists will agree with every part of it, but it stakes out high ground and sets the agenda for what can and should become a major sector of humanist thought and activity. The CSH is not the only humanist organization in the US that is concerned with the global importance of developing humanism as the guiding world view for the future. The American Humanist Association is currently working on a new “mission statement” that will emphasize humanism’s future importance in guiding nations and their leaders to a world governed by reason, compassion, and tolerance.

Carl Coon

133

Meanwhile there is much to be done. It is beyond the scope of this paper to attempt a detailed agenda of issues and arguments humanists ought to be using in discussions of world affairs. But there is a basic principle that can serve as general guidance: if we really believe in universal human rights, if we are really convinced that people all over the world should have a crack at the good things of life, then we should be prepared to apply the golden rule across the board, in international affairs. It’s time to enlarge the scope of the sense of altruism that we all are born with. We need to learn to feel it as equally applicable to everyone, not just to those within our own family, community, and nation. Genocide or ethnic cleansing is commonly viewed as a crime against humanity. Humanists should strongly support this view, and follow through by supporting measures such as the International Court of Criminal Justice which are aimed at ending such antihuman situations. Humanists could be more outspoken in taking an ethical stand against certain other bad habits that many modern states (including the US) sometimes take against other nations in pursuit of national objectives. I have in mind such measures as torture, targeted political assassinations, black propaganda, bribery, and other forms of covert funding. In principle, they equate with murder, lying, stealing and similar forms of antisocial behavior. If we really believe in the community of all humankind, we should be as troubled when this kind of behavior occurs between states as we are when it occurs within our own community.

Humanism and the UN There is a natural affinity between the philosophy of humanism and the world view of the international civil servants who staff the UN Secretariat and its affiliated organizations. And why not? The UN has a global responsibility and a global reach. It cannot do its job if it is the agent of a single power or a single religion. This is why Kofi Annan’s speech accepting the Nobel Prize sounded so much like a humanist manifesto. A senior UN official once remarked to me: “Of course, we are all humanists here!” This affinity constitutes an opportunity waiting to be exploited. Let me give an example, based entirely on wishful thinking to be sure, but illustrating my point: A billionaire philanthropist produces a check for a hundred million dollars to establish an International Humanist Center in

134

Planetary Humanism

Manhattan, across the street from UN headquarters, and persuades Kofi Annan to lead it when his term at the UN expires. This center rapidly attracts leading humanist thinkers from many countries and grows into a major nodal point collecting information from everywhere on developments of interest to humanists. This information is collected and sifted and passed back as perceived knowledge to humanist centers everywhere. Meanwhile the staff at the center develops close personal relations with the officials in the UN Secretariat, from the top down. Gradually the center becomes a new channel through which peoples can bypass their governments in communicating with the UN, while the UN can use it to bypass national governments in getting its thoughts and interests across to the world community. Control of information and access to authority beget power and additional resources pour in. The process accelerates as the UN itself moves to a more dominant position on the world stage. As this trend continues, the international humanist community comes to be seen as an important interest group with rapidly growing clout; humanism finally emerges as a major actor on the world scene. Operating as a facilitator and a source of ideas in the gray area between national governments and an evolving UN organization, such a humanist center could enable the humanist movement as a whole decisively to shape the course of history in the direction of a humane and democratic world.

Pie in the Sky? Yes, I hear you saying, pie in the sky, it’ll only happen when pigs can fly. Well, I respect your cynicism, and I have to agree that it’s pretty unlikely that my scenario will take place starting next year after Kofi Annan’s term ends. But as I said, my little pipedream was only for purposes of illustration. Something like this will eventually happen. We may never see an international humanist center in New York, but we shall eventually see humanism triumph over the old religions and the old myths of national supremacy. We shall eventually see some form of humanist ethic providing the philosophical and ethical basis for a new world at peace with itself and its environment. It will happen. It will happen because circumstances will force the hands of the naysayers. We shall do the right things because we have to, not because we want to. And we shall do them reluctantly and grudgingly and, usually, almost too late. But we shall do them.

Carl Coon

135

It will probably not happen in our time. I cannot foretell the future any better than anyone else, but as I said earlier, I wouldn’t be surprised if the transition from our present turmoil to that future promised land actually took another couple of centuries. Two hundred years seems a long time to us, but if you look at the whole span of human evolution, going back to a hundred and fifty thousand years ago, when our first anatomically human ancestors appeared, a couple of centuries isn’t all that much. It took a hundred thousand years before people started to think as we do, using verbal symbols not just for tangible things but for mental constructs. It took another forty thousand years, until only about ten thousand years ago, for people to develop agriculture. Then another five thousand, before we started building cities and monuments and began to create what we know as history. Of course I’m rounding off here, these transitions didn’t just occur like switching on a light. They took place over millennia for the most part. What we’re witnessing in the here and now is another change in the human condition that is at least as profound as any of the transitions I’ve just cited.. Seen from that perspective, two hundred years is not a very long time. The way scientific knowledge is accelerating these days, I find it entirely plausible that sometime in the 23rd century, some biotechnician with a sense of humor will actually go ahead and create a pig that will fly!

Note: This is a slightly edited and condensed version of an article that first appeared in 2005 in the “Green Book” of the Washington Area Secular Humanists (WASH) The author, Carleton S. Coon, Jr., is a retired US diplomat. He was the US Ambassador to Nepal from 1981 to 1984. He is presently the Vice President of the American Humanist Association. He lives in Washington, DC.

PROPOSAL FOR A NEW VISION AND STRATEGY OF GLOBAL DEMOCRACY TROY DAVIS, PRESIDENT/CEO, THE WORLD CITIZEN FOUNDATION

"A global social contract: precondition for global democracy?"

From Plato to Rawls, via Hobbes, Lockes and most prominently JeanJacques Rousseau, the theory that societies function according to an implicit or explicit social contract is well accepted. The main questions are what form the contract takes, what rights and responsibilities do people have under it, how does it come about or change and how is it enforced? Democracy is a special sort of social contract where the people are sovereign and which can take many different shapes. The appeal of the social contract concept (encompassing more generally a civic and political contract too) is that it allows people to agree to a basic compact to live in peace and optimize freedoms and responsibilities. As a contract implies some sort of consent, compromise, and reciprocity which in a world of physically relatively equal humans is necessary for a sustainable peace, a social contract is necessary for any democracy thus far invented. In essence, a global social contract can be construed as a global "deal" for world citizens to solve their problems, or a "new global deal" or "global new deal" if one wishes. The claim is made that global democracy cannot come about without an explicit global social contract, for the simple reason that the scale of the world does not allow informal and implicit contracts to function as they might at the level of small human units. Two other reasons for a global social contract as a precondition of global democracy are argued to be that first the many global problems cannot be solved in isolation (therefore that their solutions need to be explicitly negotiated in tandem with the related problems and they need to be contractually linked since they are linked in the real world), and secondly that even for unrelated issues, some world

Troy Davis

137

citizens would lose and some would win, so that here too one basic global social contract rather than many separate social contracts should be negotiated (global environmental issues are a typical win-lose issue in many people's minds). If, as is the case today, issues are discussed in isolation, then whoever is the loser in a particular negotiation will oppose the deal (even if it is a global optimum). If one fundamental contract were negotiated (such as a world constitution based on basic human rights), it is more likely that everyone would agree since everyone would gain and lose some. Finally, it is claimed that the stability of a global social contract would be optimized if it were 1) freely and openly negotiated by the world's peoples, 2) based on the equal human dignity of all, 3) explicit rather than implicit so as to allow full scrutiny and participation, 4) based on a process that is widely perceived as fair. The idea of a global social contract is a powerful instrument for human progress and allows humans to reassert conscious democratic control on a globalization process that does not work to the benefit of all people. Traditional objections to social contract theory, namely that it is implicit and imposed as an accident of one's birth rather than by explicit consent, is answered in the case of a global social contract that is explicitly negotiated by the world's citizens. Troy Davis, democracy engineer, [email protected] President, World Citizen Foundation/Fondation des Citoyens du Monde (www.worldcitizen.org) Président, Association de soutien à l’Ecole de la Démocratie (www.ecoledelademocratie.org)

TOWARDS A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK TO EVALUATE WORLD PARLIAMENT PROPOSALS TROY DAVIS, PRESIDENT/CEO, THE WORLD CITIZEN FOUNDATION EDITED BY JOYCE MITCHELL

Purpose of this paper The purpose of this paper is to explore how a conceptual framework can be created to evaluate the concepts of global democratic institutions directly or indirectly representing the people of the world. It is to sketch scenarios and present trails for further exploration, as well as guidelines for evaluation founded on some basic design principles. It is our hope that this paper will stimulate comment and discussions.

Reforming the global political architecture After a lull of about 50 years, proposals for global bodies representing the people are, once again, the subject of open discussion (the first People’s World Constitutional Convention was held in December 1950 in Geneva.) These World Parliament-type bodies are meant to represent the people of the world – to provide an independent and countervailing voice to the dozens of global inter-governmental institutions existing today; institutions that are basically clubs of the executive branches of governments. The basic idea of a World Parliament (WP) is essential if one is to consider reforming the global political architecture. Tremendous attention has been given to the need to reform the global financial

Troy Davis

139

architecture while the phrase “global political architecture” is relatively unrecognized. The time has come to realize that the political architecture is fundamental and that the financial architecture should derive from it, rather than the reverse. In addition to the obvious political (end of the Cold War), economic (globalization) and technological (information, agricultural and industrial technologies) changes, there are striking similarities between the present and the early 1950’s. After 40 years of relative obscurity, there has been a return – since 1989 – to the awareness, at both the grassroots and official levels of society, of the need for the inclusion of democracy in global institutions. Many politicians, including heads of state and their foreign ministers, as well as journalists and activists have expressed their support for the concept of world democracy or of a world parliament. They join the many former or retired politicians who have endorsed these concepts1. This is a net contrast to the period from the 60’s to the end of 80’s when references to supranational bodies were rarely heard from those in office.

The need for a global body representing the people At the grassroots level, the great dissatisfaction with the present state of globalization (as expressed in virulent protests in Seattle, Washington, Prague, Melbourne, Davos, Québec and in other meetings like the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre) is evident, and may be only the tip of the iceberg. This dissatisfaction cannot be swept aside – as many mainstream commentators and business media have begun to recognize2. There is an obvious need for at least one major global body to be able to claim that it legitimately represents the peoples of the world; the mesh of 1

See “Useful Quotes”, World Citizen Foundation, (will be on web site). Jerry Useem,There's Something Happening Here, Fortune magazine, vol 141, no 10, 15 May 2000. “Decision-making is migrating to the international level, effectively stripping nation-states of some of their sovereignty. That in itself may not be a bad thing, but unlike national governments, these global institutions aren't bound by a broader system of checks and balances. In the meantime, there is literally no forum where representatives for workers, communities, human rights, or the environment can make their case at the global level with any hope of being heard. Except, of course, the streets.” http://library.northernlight.com/LH20000505020000790.html?cb=13&sc=0#doc

2

140

Towards a Conceptual Framework to Evaluate World Parliament Proposals

existing global bodies are based on the exclusive principle of national sovereignty rather than the inclusive one of human sovereignty. And unfortunately, while many states recognize in their constitution3 the ultimate sovereignty of the people, in practice, they put their own sovereignty and interests above that of the people (often, above that of the citizens from whom they admit they derive their sovereignty.) Yet, even though the issue of global democratic institutions is again on the front burner, it has been expressed in a diffuse manner and few people have connected to it. Even fewer have expressed it in an intellectually rigorous way; the tendency seems to favor relinquishing basic principles and reason in favor of emotional appeal.

Kindling an intellectually rigorous dialogue We seek to bring some clarity into the globalization debate so that it becomes more rational and more focused, thereby improving the quality and the level of public discourse. We believe that the world is better served by an intense but respectful intellectual debate of ideas than by mouthing slogans or repeating rhetoric. We want to promote dialogue and create bridges; avoid the kind of deadlock, which the recent live television debate between Davos (World Economic Forum) and Porto Alegre (World Social Forum) produced. The hundreds of very diverse people who have signed the Common Statement on World Democracy are evidence that the concept of world democracy can create a common ground for fruitful discussion, which will lead to widespread public debate.4 In the end, our goal is to democratize the very debate about democracy, which is today, ironically, conducted by a small elite on both sides of the issue. As a result, it loses much of its legitimacy and leads us to the problems faced by the European Parliament (EP), which has not managed to create an emotional connection with its citizens, who do not feel a sense of ownership of their Parliament. The main commentary in the European 3

Study of all world constitutions by World Citizen Foundation, (will be on web site). 4 See http://www.worldcitizen.org for a partial list including signatories of people from civil society, the public and private sectors.

Troy Davis

141

media after their last continental elections confirmed this after they witnessed voting participation reach a scant 50%. This perception of distance endangers any representative institution. Sustainable democracy at any level requires strengthening the link between the people and its representatives. This is all the more important if one talks of a World Parliament. The greatest danger to our cause does not lie in the lack of soundness of the idea of global democratic representation, but in a lack of intellectual discipline and focus, which will lead misinformed or prejudiced opponents to try to ridicule the entire idea by focusing on specific weaknesses We must, therefore, try to create a rigorous conceptual framework that can help to evaluate present and future proposals – a framework that is based on broadly accepted and easily defended principles that make both common and political sense. This is what we are attempting to demonstrate. We hope to stimulate a discussion on this methodology, these principles and these indicators. While they may be short of perfect, they can be used as a guide to discussion and progress; and we invite open critique and debate so as to improve them. (A note to those believing a World Parliament will be implemented sooner if they push for a pet proposal at this time: we believe that on the contrary a more rigorous measured approach will gain time overall. It will allow us to weed out the weaker ideas and select the best, the most effective ones. Political scientists, the media and politicians will pay much closer attention to a well-developed argument, even though it may at first seem idealistic, even visionary. But we must not forget that human progress, such as the abolition of slavery, was always considered at first idealistic and visionary.) There is a real danger that ideas be rushed forward, based on the present notion of what is politically convenient, or on what public opinion is willing to accept today, and therefore limit themselves to unimaginative and flawed schemes. But there two problems with that push-first-thinklater approach.

142

Towards a Conceptual Framework to Evaluate World Parliament Proposals

First, no one really knows what politicians and the public are ready to accept5, and secondly, if even, for argument’s sake, politicians and the public today were against a World Parliament modeled on “traditional” parliaments, this could change very quickly, especially if a strongly reasoned case were made. Therefore it would be foolish to restrict our proposals to fit into a box framed by our prejudice of what we believe prevailing opinions are today, as we really don’t know. In fact, common sense tells us that if we really were to ASK the citizens of the world whether they wished to be DIRECTLY represented at the world level, in a World Parliament whose function would be to decide about global problems, that an immense majority would answer yes. And tactically, a narrowly-framed proposal is likely to fail to inspire people. History and psychology teach us that it is impossible to affect public opinion with narrow ideas. And since, as we shall demonstrate, the strong support of global public opinion is a sine qua non condition of the success of any WP-type body, we must put forth concepts that truly inspire, so that the youth, as well as elders of the world, can visualize this pragmatic Utopia. Finally, it would be a serious disservice to the cause of a WP if, because of careless methodology, the public would relegate it to the realm of wishful thinking and idealism. Our goal is to design and engineer the best WP that we can, using the best basic principles that will enable quick realization. A working World Parliament must be sturdy and solidly made so that it, in turn, serves to build a better, prosperous and more peaceful world.

Proposals for basic principles Before talking about indicators, we need to establish some basic principles that should guide the design of any world parliament-type body or any global democratic body. The following are a set of principles of design that may seem obvious, but need to be stated. A simple example is the principle of using only peaceful means. While this may seem obvious 5

I know of no scientific poll either of politicians or of the world public on this issue.

Troy Davis

143

today, we are not writing for today only. We must be as broad and thoughtful as possible and attempt to cover as many potential future scenarios as possible. If we do so, the rationale for peaceful means becomes clear. We would want to avoid, and would disavow, any violent actions to be undertaken under the pretext of establishing a WP. These could range from a lone terrorist like Timothy McVeigh bombing some government or other building, to a third World War, between the USA and China for example, with the victor establishing under its auspices what really would be a sham World Parliament to justify its global hegemony. These are the basic principles we suggest are required in order to design sustainable and legitimate global bodies representing the people: 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

The ultimate political sovereignty resides in the people (which means that national or state sovereignty is derived from the sovereignty of the people, and is therefore subsidiary to it) The collective sovereignty of the people must be expressed through direct or representative democracy. The rule of law must be implemented (as opposed to the rule by specific individuals like Kings or dictators; this prevents arbitrariness and puts the rule of law above special interests.) Implementation of the Subsidiarity Principle. (this means that decisions are taken at the lowest possible level, and concomitantly that only global problems be addressed by the World Parliament. This principle is a constitutional principle of the European Union and is a refinement of a principle of federalism). The transparency principle: complete institutional and procedural transparency is needed as this is the only way to create the necessary trust and to prevent corruption. Use of peaceful means to build such institutions Non-discrimination (according to article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) Being inclusive and creating a sense of ownership by the people.

The origin of every single one of these principles is derived from the philosophical and pragmatic recognition that, in order to earn the trust and participation of the world’s people, each one must be implemented. In

Towards a Conceptual Framework to Evaluate World Parliament Proposals

144

turn, earning and maintaining the trust of the people is a consequence of a deliberate choice between two options: -

either the WP enforces its decisions by force, thereby creating tremendous concern of a potential slide into global authoritarianism or dictatorship, or the WP “enforces” its decisions by moral force, playing the role of the collective conscience of Humanity.

We can choose only the latter. The WP, to succeed, must become the most trusted human political institution in existence so that its decisions are respected through the strength of an almost irresistible force of global public opinion. Political neo-realists will object that without physical enforcement, the value of a WP will be reduced to that of an irrelevant sideshow. This position ignores the developments of technology that have reversed the old rules of the game. In days gone by, governments could rule in secret and there was little organized transnational civil society. Most national political action was conducted, by and large, in secret, and the gun was still the mightiest sound on the international scene. Recent events, part of a positive “civic globalization” indicate that the power of public opinion is greater than ever, and that global civil society is a force to be reckoned with. A graphic example is $40 million spent by the US government to help the opponents of Milosevic in peaceful elections, vs. the $20 billion spent on the war in Kosovo. The former terminated Milosevic's reign in a few weeks while a war that killed thousands left him bloodied but unbowed. It is even possible that the Kosovo war could have been totally avoided if the West had helped opposition forces during the daily demonstrations in Serbia that started at the end of 1996 and that went on - incredibly enough in the face of constant harassment by the Milosevic regime -for several months. Globalization and technology serve to empower ordinary people, activists but also potential terrorists. While it is true that moral force today may not fully sway all regimes, it is telling that the Russian government was severely criticized for its lack of sensitivity and its opaqueness when the nuclear submarine Irkutsk sank in August of 2000. The protests of

Troy Davis

145

indignant mothers and other citizens did more to topple the Red Army from their traditional pedestal than any other event since its creation. And the classical examples of global civil society power these past years are the international treaties on the banning of landmines and on a permanent International Criminal Court (like the one which judged the Nazis in Nuremberg for crimes against humanity). But there is yet no global institutions representing the people so all these global treaties are the result of diplomatic conferences, backroom negotiations and a lot of horse-trading, instead of a transparent process where the entire world participates via its representatives. In practice, the greatest value of a WP therefore is to create a framework of accountability to the citizens of the world for all other global institutions. It is difficult to imagine that the President of the World Bank or the Director-General of the WTO would refuse an invitation by the WP to address its members and answer questions from the world parliamentarians. This is true today, though it might not have been true in the past because the WP could not have benefited from the force of global public opinion relayed by modern technologies.

Indicators of evaluation for WP proposals An important methodological point to remember is that we must be sure that the parameters we decide upon to evaluate the quality of proposals are formally independent of one another. Otherwise, we run the risk of discarding perfectly good elements of a given proposal simply because we discard one part of it and at the same time another part which we mistakenly assume to be correlated with the first, when in fact it is not. So to evaluate proposals, we must first dissect them into their constituent components, analyze each component in turn, and keep those that fit the criteria we choose. Ideally, we should also rank how well each component fulfills our criteria. Finally, to go faster, we can try to build “from scratch” an “ideal” proposal from the best components based on first principles. Some of the following can be turned into quantifiable indicators that can be used to measure all submitted proposals.

146

Towards a Conceptual Framework to Evaluate World Parliament Proposals

Examples of some questions to be asked of a World Parliamenttype body which can be used to create a useful evaluation framework How representative is it? How accountable is it to the people of the world? How well does it succeed in creating (actual and practical rather than formal and theoretical) accountability to itself from other global bodies? How does it communicate with the peoples of the world ? How does it maintain the trust of the citizens of the world? How transparent is it? How close is it to the people? What is the accessibility factor? How efficiently does it impact global public opinion and do its decisions get carried out on the ground? How inclusive is it of the world’s population, of different political points of view, etc.? How practical is it to establish? How quickly can it be established? How independent of existing institutions is it? How can the process of its creation avoid being tainted by the historical precedents of existing institutions? How quickly can it respond to change? Avoid institutional crystallization? How can we build into it corrective and evolutionary mechanism to improve its performance? What is the expected return on the investment? The cost versus benefit ratio?

Next steps The above criteria can help us to effectively evaluate proposals. As we have seen above, we need to follow a rigorous methodology so as to accelerate the discovery of the “best” proposals and to accelerate their diffusion and the necessary widespread public debate which must follow. As an example of evaluation, let us examine a current proposal for a WP that does not meet physically, but only on the Internet. Following the above criteria, it seems obvious that the greatest value of a WP will reside in its capacity to call other global organizations to account by the

Troy Davis

147

irreplaceable device of requiring the personal, physical presence of their representatives (a sort of “global democratic Habeas Corpus”.) Since we do not envisage any such body to have enforcement capabilities beyond its capacity to pressure, admonish or call to account, and that such capacity is dependent on its brick-and-mortar character, to design a body incapable of that function does not meet the evaluation for practicality and efficiency. A purely “virtual World Parliament” is thus just a variation on the innumerable elitist proposals put forward which are just band-aids and which forget the fundamental rule of sustainable democracy: the participation of the people. One need only imagine a concrete element of an Internet-based World Parliament - the tremendous volume of email or Internet based interaction needed, and which could still not replace physical presence - to plainly see one of its fatal flaws. Councilors or Parliamentarians at any level are busy people who are unlikely to spend hours reading in front of a screen, and to decide global issues by remote voting. This would be deeply unsatisfactory both for them and for the general public which would not trust that their representatives have done all their homework before deciding. This would undermine the public trust and would make the WP ineffective. Thus proposals (such as that put forward by a coalition of NGOs called EarthAction) for a E-(World) Parliament may do more harm than good. Reasoning from first principles allows us to say with confidence that to promote this type of “remote control” WP is likely to discredit the entire concept rather than advance the cause of global democracy. This concrete example shows the value of developing an objective evaluation framework (objective in the sense that it is designed independently of existing proposals and is not geared to justify someone’s pet proposal, but is designed from basic principles). Obviously, these are just proposals and we may need to develop other indicators and maybe quantify them. Following are basic questions we need to address, and some suggested answers: 1.

What are the advantages of a WP compared to the present world situation?

Towards a Conceptual Framework to Evaluate World Parliament Proposals

148

A WP is the embodiment of a permanent “deep dialogue”6. It is the institutionalization of a permanent political dialogue. Democracy is founded on the “let’s talk” paradigm rather than on the “let’s fight” paradigm. Most people will agree that differences and issues can best be dealt with through honest dialogue. Dialogue takes time and profound dialogue requires more time. Seeking solutions to global problems via diplomacy is like trying to download videos over a 2400-baud line. It simply does not have the required bandwidth. Diplomacy is narrowband. Democracy is broadband and a WP is the “fat pipe” that supplies it. 2.

6

What are the problems to avoid? a. Those which sometimes occur in national parliaments. i. Top-down. ii. Far away from citizens, no sense of ownership. iii. Perceived as corrupt. iv. Not independent: perceived as instruments of executive or financial powers. b. Those inherent to the scale. i. An scaled-up increase in the problems of national parliaments. ii. An exacerbation of language and cultural differences7. iii. Others c. Those inherent in the lack of precedent. i. Resistance to new ideas - particularly visionary ones. ii. How can we actually begin? iii. Differences of opinion on basic structure and operation. iv. Others d. Following from the only existing concrete example: the European Parliament.

See the Deep Dialogue Institute at Haverford University, Haverford, PA, USA. See article on the European Parliament, The Economist (April 2001), which points out that the fact that the European Parliament operates through translators, and that jokes are not allowed, makes it less entertaining and thus less close to citizens. 7

Troy Davis

149

i. Citizens do not emotionally connect – do not have a sense of ownership. ii. Created in top-down way by governments, not because of public opinion iii. Genesis in a succession of intergovernmental treaties rather than an innovative constitutional beginning (like most national parliaments). iv. Others Issues to consider for the creation of a World Parliament. 1. What are all the possible means by which parliaments can be created? 2. Which among these are the ones that best suit the principles and conditions we have previously decided upon? 3. Do we need a World Constitution, and if so, how do we create it? 4. What are the scenarios and roadmaps that could lead to a WP? 5. What are the pros and cons of each scenario according to our evaluation scheme? 6. Is it really necessary to obtain the “authorization” of nation-states, or is the expressed wish of the people enough?

Conclusion All these questions deserve serious consideration. However, we draw one obvious conclusion: a WP will only be successful if it is composed of representatives who meet physically on a permanent basis and do not have other political commitments (e.g. as national parliamentarians). This is the condition for the necessary “bandwidth” which is the basic condition of success of any WP worthy of its name. Any scheme which weakens these conditions is bound to fail the basic hurdles of public trust, of creating the necessary bonds between the parliamentarians, of allowing enough time for a serious deliberative process, and, in general, of creating the necessary collegiality and psychological camaraderie needed. The world deserves no less than the full and undivided attention of its representatives. Global problems are too dire for us to economize on this

150

Towards a Conceptual Framework to Evaluate World Parliament Proposals

most fundamental requirement. While the material cost will be greater, it will be minimal in comparison to the tangible benefits that the WP will bring if our true dividend is peace and social progress. By tearing down the walls of distrust by the daily interaction of our representatives, people and countries can realize progress toward a secure and equitable world. In the end, we urge prudence and evaluation of each specific idea, and caution against acceptance simply on the basis of the profile of its supporters. We need to create an intellectually rigorous framework for discussion, to push for as broad a debate as possible, and to evaluate all proposals employing a "grid" of criteria upon which we ideally should agree beforehand. Such a debate would respond to the demands of antiglobalization protesters to democratize supra-national decision-making. Many national governments frequently use the rhetoric of democracy as a defining value (it was mentioned 15 times in the final declaration of Québec City of 22 April 20018.) Multi-nationals share the same rhetoric (see the latest report of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development9.) The debate we recommend is one practical way to build a bridge between the Davos and the Porto Alegre crowds, between business and labor, between rich and poor countries and populations, and to shift from a dialogue of the deaf to one of hope.

8 9

see http://www.americascanada.org/eventsummit/declarations/menu-e.asp see http://www.wbscd.org

THE INTERNET AND THE FIRST STEPS TOWARDS A WORLD CONSTITUTION OTFRIED SCHROT

An enacted World Constitution binding every human being to the same World Law is undoubtedly the goal of all World Citizen Movements, World Government Movements , Non Governmental Organisations ,Civil Rights Movements and Grass Roots Movements no matter whether they have it expressed this way in their by – laws or not. The INTERNET is an excellent means to expedite our efforts because it helps us saving time for travelling by plane, by train or by car. The question is – however: how do we cosmopolitans organize our methods of thinking, of global co-operation and of using the INTERNET for our common purpose? I am witnessing a lot of debates of World Citizens in the INTERNET on details of the future order of the world, for example over a future flag of World Citizens. I am witnessing many World Citizens debating over many subjects – criss cross. It is a little bit chaotic and not really leading towards progress. The debate of World Citizens about the future order of the world in the INTERNET suffers from a lack of discipline of communication. Lets us change that! Let us appoint a leader of the debate! Let us determine a goal of the debate! At this point, I come up with the following suggestions: 1.

LEADER OF THE DEBATE A distinguished World Citizen Organization – for example the Coalition For Democratic World Government – appoints a Director

152

The Internet and the First Steps towards a World Constitution

of Internet Communication aiming at the introduction of a World Constitution. 2. GOAL OF THE DEBATE The goal of the debate is the creation of a draft of a World Constitution supported by a majority vote of all world citizens. 3. MISSION OF THE LEADER OF THE DEBATE The leader of the debate will 3.1. Take all measures necessary to reach the defined goal of the Internet debate 3.2. and for this purpose – directly communicate with all world citizens – directly communicate with all Presidents of Parliaments – directly communicate with all Prime Ministers 3.3. Execute his work with the support of a staff as described hereafter. 4. THE STAFF OF THE DIRECTOR OF INTERNET COMMUNICATION AIMING AT THE INTRODUCTION OF A WORLD CONSTITUTION 4.1. Identification Division The identification division screens the Internet in order to identify all World Citizen Organisations, World Government Organizations, Non Governmental organizations , Civil Rights Movements, Green Movements, Grass roots movements owning a home page in the Internet and puts the addresses of all organizations found together into a list. 4.2. Selection Division The selection division picks all those organizations from the list that will be invited to submit proposals - for the structure of a future World Constitution (Chapters, Articles, Items) - for the contents of a future World Constitution ( Human Rights, Human Duties) - of complete drafts of world constitutions 4.3. Invitation Division Based upon the list prepared by the Selection Division, the invitation Division will extend invitations to all recipients selected to submit Contributions - for the future structure of a World Constitution - for the future contents of a World Constitution - or a complete draft of a World Constitution

Otfried Schrot

153

and receive the answers. Evaluation Division The personnel of the Evaluation Division is composed by highly qualified experts of International Law and Constitutional Law. They evaluate the incoming answers having been submitted by the Invitation Division. The result of the evaluation should be a Proposal to the Director of Internet Communication either to propose two or three drafts of a World Constitution to the constituency for voting. 4.5. Suffrage Division The suffrage division proposes to and obtains from the Director of Communications a decision on the voting weights to be allocated to the participants of the voting. It would be too simple if an organization with 10 members hat a voting weight of 1 vote and an organization with 1000 members had also a voting weight of 1 vote. 4.6. Voting Division The Voting Division sends the voting documents to the participants of the voting - gets the answers - evaluates the answers - reports the result to the Director of Internet Communication 4.7. THE DIRECTOR OF INTERNET COMMUNICATION AIMING AT THE INTRODUCTION OF A WORLD CONSTITUTION 1. He convenes the Presidents of all World Government Organizations, Non Governmental Organizations , World Citizen Organizations, Civil Rights Movements , Grass Roots Movements and Green Movements and announces the result of the voting to them. 2. He is commissioned by the participants of the conference to submit the World Constitution selected by the World Citizens to the Prime Minister of India with the following comments: 2.1. “Mr. Prime Minister, the World Constitution I submit to you reflects the will of all organized World Citizens !” 2.2. “Mr. Prime Minister, I ask you to convene all Heads of Parliaments of the World in New Delhi, hand out this document to them and ask them to obtain the majority vote of approval of this document by their parliaments! This decision will open the door to a better order and a better future of the world!” 4.4.

The Internet and the First Steps towards a World Constitution

154

My comments on my proposal: 1. 2. 3.

The whole procedure suggested by me, if we can get it started, might last three to five years. The majority of the governments – foreseeing that they will have to abandon power – will not like the idea of the World Constitution. However , other governments suffering from the omnipotence of the USA , Great Britain, France , Russia and China , understanding that the “Big Five” will lose power under a World Constitution , will support a World Citizen Movement on behalf of a World Constitution !

This completes my proposal. May it find the support of the citizens of the World !

POLITICS OF OPPORTUNITY HANK STONE

In the marketplace of ideas, Western Culture has been an unqualified success. Capitalism, science and technology, natural resources, and democratic government have raised the standard of living of large numbers of people. Advertising and television have sent the ideas of individualism and consumerism and economic growth around the world. But even as many worldwide are striving for a high-consumption Western lifestyle, the planet is being overtaken by problems caused by that lifestyle. The world doesn’t have the resources for its 6.5 billion people to be rich. There are looming shortages of fresh water around the world. We are approaching peak oil, which will sharply curtail the automobile society, and which calls into question whether world agriculture can grow and distribute enough food to keep us all alive. Global climate change is emerging as a greater threat than scientists first believed. This is not simple pollution. Our rate of burning fossil fuels is building up carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and warming the planet. It is causing droughts, heat waves, hurricanes and floods. It threatens to disrupt the ocean currents, making Great Britain, among other places, unlivable. Global warming may flood low-lying costal areas worldwide as melting Antarctic ice raises the sea level. The Cold War has left a legacy of nuclear terrorism. Around the world, countries are confronting the risk of owning nuclear weapons, and comparing that to the risk of not owning them. Historically, greater military power meant greater security. But in the age of nuclear proliferation and terrorism, we need a new plan. Western Culture is obsolete. It has become unsustainable and too dangerous to pursue. We need a new cultural story for the world, one that can help us balance population with resources, protect the environment,

156

Politics of Opportunity

and provide a peaceful future. And we need it before living conditions on the planet get worse. To my world government friends, the above argument is reasonable, not to say obvious. We speak out, write letters, write books, and petition our governments to address the global problems. But at least so far, our successes have been few. What’s wrong? Why do governments fail to respond? There are three barriers. First, the same system we seek to change has led to ”the good life” for many, and conferred wealth and power on decision makers. These decision makers continue to make choices they believe will be most profitable and least disruptive to business as usual. Continuing the existing systems profits them, and does not have to be explained to the public. Secondly, ordinary citizens, after working hard all day and tucking in their children at night, are ready to watch TV and ignore heavy duty questions. When we bring people problems, we are asking them to pay attention to our distressing messages and to annoy their legislators. People imagine that if global warming (for example) were really serious, then “they” would do something about it. Not necessarily. Politicians, like everyone else, can be paralyzed with denial. So as long as life is reasonably comfortable, people can relax, ignore warnings, and simply trust that everything will turn out all right. Lastly, much problem solving in Western culture is based on the idea of making small adjustments, to get by, while preserving the benefits of the status quo. But we can’t continue “business as usual” while devising patches to address the effects we don’t like. Because business as usual is the problem! A new system, a new concept of how to live in the world in harmony with nature and with one another has to be invented. We are trapped in an obsolete worldview, upon which we rely for our sense of our identity, our jobs, our food, our relationships, our shelter, and the shirts on our backs. And we don’t know in detail what the future we want should look like. We learn about problems and educate people about them, but it just turns people off. Things are as they are for a reason, and

Hank Stone

157

any policy change in the public interest will be painful to some interest group. Nobody wants to be forced out of a comfortable situation. The rich man does not want to give money to the poor man, no matter how reasonable that prospect may seem to the poor man. Consumers do not want to stop consuming. Politicians and industrialists do not want to give up their power. If the negative consequences of what we are now doing will happen in the future, or will happen to someone else, or (who knows?) may be avoided entirely, there has to be a good reason to undertake change. Opportunity is that good reason. If a citizen or decision maker is offered an opportunity to achieve something thought to improve his or her value proposition, change can happen. To convince voters to choose a candidate, that candidate must be seen as representing an opportunity for the voter to participate in a better future. An example of the politics of opportunity is the Apollo Project, in which businesses, labor and non-governmental organizations have come together to create the jobs necessary to make America energy independent in ten years. Their plan includes $100 billion of government spending (over the 10 years) to create over three million jobs in renewable energy and energy savings through insulation and efficient appliances. The Apollo Alliance members are not complaining about lack of jobs, or global warming, or peak oil, but offering an opportunity for industries to make money by creating new jobs in renewable energy. That’s a winner! Spaceship One is a privately built airplane / rocket system that won a $10 million prize for making two sub-orbital space flights within two weeks. The prize wasn’t enough to even cover the costs of the enterprise, but the opportunity was irresistibly dramatic, promising bragging rights and future financial gain, and called forth genius and daring from the winning team. Why not offer prizes for breakthroughs in physics and chemistry that could transform our energy landscape? Plants like soybeans know how to turn sunlight (and rainwater and air) into oil--oil capable of running trucks, tractors, and cars. Chemists don’t know how to synthesize oil efficiently and renewably in a chemical plant, because oil has always been cheap. How about a prize for anyone who can develop the chemistry to synthesize oil renewably and efficiently, without using farmland? A $1

158

Politics of Opportunity

billion prize might stimulate creativity, and it would represent the value of just 6 hours of world oil consumption. Prizes could also be offered for political breakthroughs, including those enabling the transition from the war system to world peace. The world now spends some $900 billion per year on militarism, yet continues to have wars. How much would a just world peace system be worth, and to whom? Problems can’t be solved until they are turned into opportunities. This is done routinely in business, where the payoff is in money, and the concept of investment is understood. In America, elected officials hold office for only 2-6 years. They can’t address global warming, and other long-term problems, because a get-well plan would have up-front costs, but a delayed payback. So we need to process problems into opportunities--opportunities for politicians, citizens, and corporations. If we start with a problem, we can “work backwards” to find ways it could potentially be solved. For example, if we would like to end the war system of dispute settlement, we need to puzzle out what a world system to assure peace and justice would look like. How would it function? What would have to happen first? Who would benefit? One or more rich men could commission blue ribbon panels of visionaries and experts to create a plan. Their payoff (opportunity) would be to become some of the most important people in the history of the human race. They could pay for public relations companies to present the idea to the public. The opportunity for citizens would be to require candidates for public office to implement the plan, in order to secure our future. And the opportunity for elected officials would be to be elected, or re-elected. We have not created an opportunity until we have found some people (or corporations or governments) whose interests will be served by solving the problem. If the solution is not known, we have not created an opportunity until we have created an incentive for a good solution to be found. When a workable solution can be paired with someone capable and motivated to deliver it, there is opportunity.

Hank Stone

159

Problems will be ignored until opportunities to solve them can be created. Opportunities require a business plan: What will be done? Where will it be done? How? Who will benefit if it is done? And what will motivate this person (or corporation or government) to implement this solution instead of doing what they are now doing? What is the frame needed to sell the enterprise? We have a new world to build, and need to encourage those with the vision to process problems into opportunities. Trying harder, or fixing individual problems, or trying to muddle through with minor adjustments will not be enough. We will need to create a positive vision of success, a positive paradigm, to pull us forward to a successful future. Most politicians and citizens want to do the right thing. No one alone can cope with the web of global problems we face. But everyone loves a good opportunity!

SOME THOUGHTS ON UNESCO AND REFORM OF THE UNITED NATIONS MR IAN ANDERSON

An article based on a presentation by Mr Anderson to the 2003 National Conference of the United Nations Association of Australia, when he was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for UNESCO at the Australian National University

Abstract UNESCO’s role as a specialised agency of the United Nations is to contribute to world peace by promoting international cooperation in education, science, culture, the social sciences and communications. In human rights it has particular responsibility for human rights education. UNESCO can also be considered as an intellectual “think tank” for the United Nations system as a whole. In this presentation, the author proposes some fundamental changes to the UN system as a contribution to the current debate about reform of the United Nations. *** Within the UN system, UNESCO’s role is to promote peace through international cooperation in its fields of competence – education, the natural and social sciences, culture and communications. UNESCO also has a particular responsibility in the UN system for human rights education. UNESCO’s Constitution includes the statement “Since wars begin in the minds of men it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”. UNESCO can also be regarded as an intellectual “think tank” for the UN system.

Mr Ian Anderson

161

The Centre for UNESCO at the Australian National University to which I am attached as a Visiting Fellow, was established eleven years ago to augment the work of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO. The Secretariat of the National Commission is located in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is responsible for Australian participation in UNESCO. Recent international events indicate to me that dialogue among civilisations might now be improved if there was greater emphasis placed on the individuals who make up nations and civilisations, their human rights and their culture, rather than civilisations as a whole. There would then be increased dialogue among individuals whatever civilisation or nation they come from. Individual members of civilisations differ vastly in many ways. This needs to be emphasised more. There may be a particular political group largely confined to a particular civilisation. That should not necessarily mean that the views of that group are supported by the civilisation as a whole. Any dialogue or action between civilisations should as far as possible take full account of the range of views and cultures represented by the individuals in that civilisation. A further point to strengthen the case for emphasising the individual rather than the civilisation is that most civilisations are no longer based entirely in particular geographically distinct locations. Increasingly individuals from what are traditionally regarded as separate civilisations are scattered throughout most parts of the globe and adopting aspects of cultures different from the cultures of their source civilisations. It appears then that a dialogue among civilisations will work best when it is accepted that civilisations are but collections of the individuals who make them up with their multitude of differences. A global system, which takes as full an account of these individual differences and gives primacy not to nation states or civilisations and their governments but to the people of the world as individuals with human rights, seems to me to be the most desirable option today. The ANU Centre jointly hosted a seminar recently in Canberra, which included presentations about two of Australia’s most successful biosphere reserves in the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program, which promotes sustainable development. Both biosphere reserves referred to partnership with government but stressed that a vital factor in their success was the structure of their management committees, which consisted

162

Some Thoughts on UNESCO and Reform of the United Nations

mainly of community leaders, with one or two government representatives. The principle that the community leads, with government in a supporting role, was seen as crucial to their success. In situations such as this, if governments lead, the community can lose their sense of ownership, their interest wanes and their creativity, abilities and willingness to contribute may be lost. It seems logical that such an emphasis on the importance of the individual in civilisations and the proper place of government in organisations today should now be carried through into a restructuring of the United Nations. When the UN was established immediately after the Second World War, the primacy of the nation state was an overriding concern. It had been nation states who waged war against each other. It is not surprising then that the UN was established on the basis of the nation states and their governments. The five most powerful states at the time were given a veto power in the UN Security Council. The world has changed a lot since then. Globalisation and the new technologies transcend national boundaries and those of civilisations. Yet the United Nations has hardly changed, perhaps affected by the veto power in the Security Council which does not seem to conform to widely accepted principles of democracy, such as each individual however weak or powerful having equal voting rights. Events in 2002 and 2003 have had a significant effect on the United Nations. As a result it was reported that surveys in a number of countries indicated the prestige of the UN has declined significantly among the community, even in countries such as Germany and France, which opposed the action of the US-led coalition in Iraq. The attack on the UN in Iraq demonstrated that this loss of prestige has now escalated into individual acts of violence against the UN. Without significant change, the United Nations and all it represents may not be able to recover its lost prestige. What can be done to assist the UN in these circumstances? The United States, with its pioneering history in the practical application of democracy only returned to UNESCO at the UNESCO General Conference in September/October 2003 after an absence of almost 20 years. This also makes it seem particularly timely to apply the two principles of (1) primacy of the individual in civilisations and (2) that of people leading with governments of nation states in a supporting role, to

Mr Ian Anderson

163

the United Nations structure. This could have the potential to increase the status and effectiveness of the United Nations though major changes would need to be made. A suggested first change would be to the UN name to reduce the likelihood of a loss of prestige. A minimal change new name could be “New United Nations”, along the lines of “New Labour” in the United Kingdom. Or the name could be changed to take account of the increasing emphasis on the role of the individual in the Organisation. An example could be UPANO (United People’s and Nations Organisation). The General Assembly, representing the Governments of the Member States in the UN, could be retained as a house of review. In place of the Security Council however a Governing Council of similar size (about 2025 members) could be established. It might for example consist of (1) two representatives elected by the General Assembly; (2) some representatives of international NGO’s affiliated with the UN, (3) some eminent people specialising, for example, in fields such as education, the natural and social sciences, culture and communications, and (4) representatives elected from or nominated by the global business community. It could also include one or two global celebrities elected by the global community using the internet if this is possible, so as to give the people of the world a direct interest in the membership of the body. If this is not possible, the General Assembly may have to decide on the suitability of these celebrities and invite them. Membership could also include one or two youth representatives and should if possible include an individual or individuals from different civilisations. In short, this new body would be a global National Commission for UNESCO. Establishment of such a revamped UN central structure need not be through the current UN arrangement where it could be blocked by use of the veto in the Security Council. It could be achieved for example outside the Security Council by calling a special global conference to establish it, if necessary initially for a trial period in parallel to the existing United Nations. Specialised agencies of the UN would not be directly affected at this stage although the same two principles of primacy of the individual and the appropriate role of government could in time promote reviews and reform of them.

164

Some Thoughts on UNESCO and Reform of the United Nations

Governments should continue to underwrite the new structure although the business community should also contribute, perhaps through extrabudgetary funding for particular projects. I believe that any positive contribution to the debate about the structure and role of the UN is most welcome in the current international climate. Such debate will be doubly valuable since it will also contribute to dialogue among civilisations.

WORLD HEALING DOUG. N. EVERINGHAM MB, BS 1

Six Rs of basic education Tradition widely calls for schooling in 'three Rs' - reading, writing, reckoning. In our budding world citizenship roles we need extra Rs: reasoning, reconciliation and responsibility

Reconciliation Psychology Brock Chisholm, the first World Health Organization Director General2, called on all concerned with global and social harmony to push for widespread primary and secondary education in simple psychology. He stressed the need for understanding of emotionally charged self-image defence mechanisms and prejudice formation. He stressed widely and deeply embedded cultural traditions perpetuating guilt and fear, as in common interpretations of the Garden of Eden story. This problem area is well understood by professionals but too often hidden in technical terms.

1

Address: 5 Eriboll Close, Middle Park QLD 4074, Australia. Tel. +61 7 3376 7763. Fax +61 7 3376 0763. E-mail: [email protected] Douglas Everingham has practised in Australia and England as a hospital and family doctor and registrar in psychiatry. He was Australian Minister for Health 1972-75, a Parliamentary Adviser to Australia's UN Delegation where he spoke on apartheid in 1982, and a member of the National Consultative Committee on Arms Control & Disarmament for the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade 1998-2000. 2 Chisholm, GB. 'The psychiatry of enduring peace and social progress'. Reprint of memorial lecture series from Psychiatry, Washington: William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation, 1946.

166

World Healing

Conciliation training Conflict resolution techniques are promoted by Dr Stella Cornelius of the Conflict Resolution Network, which provides courses, kits and mediation3.

Flexible, not dictatorial culture Our most deeply ingrained 'memes' (cultural elements or community customs) include our first language, accent, speech rhythm, body language, etiquette and courteous priorities. These develop with our earliest feelings towards people, sentiments hard to change and largely unconscious, particularly those laid down in our first three years when our developing relationship and communication skills are most flexible. We distinguish people by scent, sound, shape, social stance, haunts, affiliations or manners as members of 'us' or 'them' groups. We 'justify' such choices often by hunches, learned intuition or plausible reasoning more than by logic. Perhaps more importantly, we develop mainly in the pre-kindergarten learning 'window of opportunity' habits of balancing two opposing ways to approach others and communicate. This balance I see as a 'babbler scaffolding' for supporting and steering later character, cultural, ethical and esthetic development - a 'meta-meme' or way of dealing with later memes by rejecting, incorporating or modifying them. Most of this scaffolding withers away as the age of babbling and toddling becomes largely unconscious and becomes overshadowed by other skills - running, dancing, climbing etc. Education professionals traditionally leave to parents this crucial pre-kindergarten learning. We can distinguish these contrasting approaches to 'babbler scaffold building’ thus: • Flexibility. One parent, mentor or authority proposes an opinion - a 'thesis'. This is discussed, deliberated or amended by another parent or authority figure - a different opinion or 'antithesis'. Constructive interaction of these two ideas - demonstrating, for the child or other audience, 'flexibility' - encourages initiation of views within the child's, or the audience's, developing capacities - reconciling, discussing, cooperating - producing a consensus or compromise, a 'synthesis'. This thesis + antithesis --> synthesis process is also called 'dialectical development' or 3 , PO Box 1016, Chatswood NSW 2057, Australia, phone 61(0)2-9419-8500.

Doug. N. Everingham MB, BS

167

'triadic convergence'. It lets us develop our maturing critical abilities, reasoning and fairness to others including minorities and those outside 'our' groups, avoiding destructive clashes of views. The more authoritarian trend. This dominates global culture ever more as the multicultural world shrinks with wider communication systems. Typically one parent (or other authority - academic, actor, guru, cleric, minister, news commentator or whatever) is hailed as best fitted to make decisions for the family or group. A secondary recognized (parental etc.) authority agrees, or avoids contradiction of the more dominant view. We tend to defer to principles like "ma knows best", "pa is the family head", "my country right or wrong", "doubts are disloyal", or "rejecting the true faith is the unforgivable sin". This pattern tends to persist into adulthood respecting influential authorities or an 'in' group seen as right or conforming, while rival authorities, ideologies or dissidents are seen as alien, barbaric or terrorist. Child psychiatry innovator Antonio Rossin, describes this authoritarian pattern as a world-wide growing disorder, LFS4 .He discussed it as 'The Less Flexibility Syndrome” at the 9th Conference on 'Medicine and Culture', European Society of Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care, International Hippocratic Foundation of Kos, Greece, September 20-24, 1995. He stresses that we all have some degree of blending of these two trends. Which one dominates is largely determined in our first three years, when we most avidly, lastingly and in part unconsciously, absorb language and other basic interpersonal memes. Rossin quotes the male-gendered dominance of Taliban fundamentalism as an extreme example of LFS. In typical 'representative' rule, which claims mostly to be democratic, we become used to waiting passively and trustingly for what top officials decide. They 'represent' the common welfare, decide 'on behalf' of those below. Militant nationalism becomes more comfortable than treating 'the others' as fellow members of one human family.

Avoiding ‘top-down’ representation Political decision-making is often 'top-down' or authoritarian systems, pyramid-like hierarchies which tend to invade and take over 'democratic' representation. More flexible and, in the long run, more stable systems of 4

, www.flexible-learning.org.

168

World Healing

representation are sometimes described as 'bottom-up', direct democracy, or 'DD'. To develop DD, people need the space to express directly their own questions and needs, putting DD discussions before DD decisions or policy making. Rossin calls this 'triadic' discussion - at least two speakers and one audience, three interdependent but autonomous participants thesis and antithesis producing synthesis - a 'dialectical' process - public as well as within families - keeping our final users (children or audience) fully aware of what they seek, and encouraged by the other participants to initiate discussion points within their developing capacities. Rossin says, "let the initiative of the agenda always be the prerogative of the people. ... put your own arguments into the debate quietly, without asking for any one's consent. ... taking steps to get the majority of people to speak in this way... the final user learns, together with language, how to share in social relationships: finally dialectically as part of a triad of actors , not hierarchically and passively.”5 The most ominous results of the current dominance of LFS may be in international relationships, where the vilest paternalistic or patriarchal crimes become patriotic virtues.

Meeting drug problems as an approach to global crises To build awareness of LFS among parents and other early infancy carers, perhaps we should stress first how parental guidance towards flexibility may be the chief way to reverse the spread of dependence on the escapes and make-believe appeals of gambling, eating disorders, or dependence on mind-altering substances - tragically common ways to handle self-image problems. Parents are unlikely to favor a radical change in their traditional LFS family education or social training for a world political goal. Closer to their hearts is primary prevention of drugs misuse. So Rossin suggests that it should be feasible to promote this revolution by concentrating on its potential to prevent addictions.

5

'Speaking Democracy (Triadic Communication)'. 2 Nov 2000, first NDDIE Conference on direct democracy, Munich. Rossin also refers to Marketos S.:'Medicine is an aspect of civilisation. Lessons from the Hippocratic Medicine’, Microsurgery , 4-5 , 1973.

Doug. N. Everingham MB, BS

169

Growing community concern about drug problems prompted development of Life Education Centers (LECS) some 30 years ago6 The LEC movement fascinates children with spectacular displays of nature and student-guided exploration of social causes and effects of drug use. LECs include mobile classrooms that visit primary and secondary schools yearly, equipped with transparent anatomical mannikins, state of the art advertising technology and follow-up classroom resources for teachers. Typically diet, smoking and alcohol use are discussed at successive stages. LECs' learning programs have been shown to reduce drug use and anti-social behavior over a few years. The late Ted Noffs, founder of LECs, hoped to include in LECs education for world citizenship, but he died too soon. Doubtless he would have promoted Rossin's early infancy approach. He pioneered many community healing initiatives.

Educating for world citizenship Richard Mochelle7 convenes CIVIDA. He points out that all of us, by consent or acquiescence, impose on each of us the current global order. This allows and encourages states to ignore human and environmental abuses. Global power elites often stimulate the most disadvantaged people to resort to illegal migration, theft or violence. We each thus should deliberate on how we can change the world's constitutional structure, including use and care of Earth's resources. Democrats, says Dr Mochelle, should motivate and enable people to exercise a sovereign right and responsibility as autonomous moral agents. If he is right, perhaps educators should motivate people to make this world citizenship involvement a priority among curriculum elements. If education is compulsory it should include training in competent exercise of rights and duties.

6

P.O. Box 1454, Elmhurst, Illinois 60126-2127, U.S.A., phone (708)530 8999; P.O. Box 66, Potts Point N.S.W. 2011, Australia; and in other countries. 7 , Phone (61 7)3862 4529, 4/65 Stuckey Rd, Clayfield Qld 4011, Australia.

170

World Healing

Reforming public and private governance Dr Shann Turnbull8 points out that ever larger public and private complexes frustrate and alienate telephone callers. Ever more publicly traded corporations, even among the biggest, fail. They are too complex for a single chief executive officer (CEO) to manage with the diligence and vigilance required by the law. Ministers can no longer be held accountable for the actions of officials in their hierarchies. Unitary boards, centralizing control hierarchies and ever more complex enterprises, public and private, have suppressed "natural" human scale checks and balances, feedback networks and nesting (networks of networks). This has led to corruption and recent high profile business collapses. Turnbull outlines feedback networks developing governance alternatives. He gives examples of such organizations which enrich democratic trends while improving efficiency and effectiveness. His examples include the stakeholder-controlled enterprises around the town of Mondragón in northern Spain9 Turnbull likens them to the non-hierarchical organization of bodily functions in living organisms. None are wholly dominant, all being subject to checks and balances under mutual control. A World Bank study found that these firms were more efficient than many 8

Principal, International Institute for Self-governance, PO Box266, Woollahra NSW 1350 Australia, phone +612 9328 7466 [email protected], http://www.aprim.net/associates/turnbull.htm 9 A New Way to Govern: Organisations and society after Enron. 2002. London. New Economics Foundation (NEF), . Academic version with other Turnbull papers at:

and 'The science of corporate governance' prepared for Corporate Governance: An International Review, 10:4, Sept. 2002. Turnbull's ISA papers include 'Grounding social theory in the natural sciences' for RC33-10 (Fundamental issues in social research) and 'Grounding sociology in cybernetics' in RC51-16 (New paradigms of social analysis) -- claimed to provide the foundations for a "science of organisation". Details of the ISA congress are at

Doug. N. Everingham MB, BS

171

investor-owned firms in "sales, exports and employment, under both favourable and adverse economic conditions...”. Like mutual enterprises, the stakeholder firms do not require equity investors to start them or to make them efficient. Over 80% of investor-owned firms fail in their first five years compared with less than one per cent of the Mondragón firms. Each basic co-operative unit is limited to about 500 people, so any growth produces offspring units, co-ordinating with each other in nested networks (networks of networks), not hierarchies. Stakeholder panels elect a council, and a small senate which appoints auditors and advisers, mediates between stakeholders and can veto board actions. Council and senate are chaired by a representative of “non-strategic” stakeholders through their community governance board. A culture of feedback develops where directors cannot "mark their own exam papers". Human diversity is reconciled, avoiding the need for cumbersome government regulation. Employees, suppliers and clients are strategic stakeholders in sustainable (self-financing) enterprises. Equity investors are not. Under orthodox neo-liberal economics these investors (and sometimes their managers who 'cook the books') appropriate the 'surplus profits' - the fruits of the co-ordinated inputs of all stakeholders, accumulated after an enterprise successfully recoups the original investment.

How governments can motivate company reforms Networks of cottage and village scale organisations achieve economies of scale and scope. To minimise information overload by managers of the networks, each operating unit in the network needs to be as self-governing as possible. To become self-governing, Dr Turnbull finds organizations require a division of power along the lines found in the US constitution. Each operating unit then itself becomes a network, providing checks and balances, decentralizing decision making. Multiple control centers crosscheck accuracy while increasing the variety of information and control agents. No activity that is better managed at a lower level should be carried out at a higher level - the subsidiarity principle mentioned below with regard to representation systems.

172

World Healing

Network organisations introduce internal interdependence, a rational basis for developing trust, cooperation and efficiency. Yet they introduce internal competition for job satisfaction and other self-interests. Unlike traditional command and control hierarchies, such networks allow individuals to be at the same time competitive and cooperative, suspicious and trusting, self interested and altruistic and so on. These are nature's ways of introducing the checks and balances required for efficiently sustaining the self-regulation of social creatures. The selfinterest of executives can be harnessed to further the public good by introducing more open contestability for diverse, and less exclusively senior positions. Network governance is found in the most complex and dynamic industries like fashion textiles, movie making, electronics and biotechnology. There, it is common for firms to both cooperate and compete with each other because of their specialisations of talent, knowledge or production techniques. The employee-owned John Lewis Partnership that operates chain stores in the UK illustrates both network governance and its competitive advantages. That partnership, like the Mondragón co-operative, has over 50,000 employees. Another example is VISA International Inc., which has a network of over 1000 boards of directors within the one legal entity. Each board has autonomy over a particular function or geographical area. The absence of a public market for shares in such firms removes the ability for senior management to ramp up the share price or cash-up their stocks options and then depart. Firms grow organically, rather than through acquisitions and asset-stripping takeovers that are too often driven by the ambition of a CEO and commonly result in the loss of shareholder value. If viable, firms become independent of investors, but no firm can exist without employees, customers and suppliers who are therefore strategic stakeholders. They need only a small tax incentive to attract shareholders to agree to transfer their ownership over twenty years to stakeholders. The traditional system of permanent control multiplies gains exponentially in

Doug. N. Everingham MB, BS

173

the hands of market dominators beyond their public benefit and personal risk-taking phase, an ethical black hole in world capital control. Stakeholder networking firms sponsor new ownership transfer 'offspring' firms to raise the funds required to expand the size and scope of their operations through establishing network relationship with their offspring, rather than extending compounding debts to banks. This process could convert multi-national corporations into nested networks of firms owned and controlled by stake holding citizens. Citizens would democratize firms that are now owned by anonymous alien, institutional investors. In Democratising the Wealth of Nations from new money sources and profit motives10 Turnbull recommends four practical ways to share new wealth without either the legal theft of private cartels or the stagnating centralization of state monopoly. He lists these four as 1. Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOPs) 2. Ownership Transfer Corporations (OTCs) with tax relief in the establishment phase, and hand-over to stakeholders after recoupment of initial investment. 3. Land Banks (town-owning co-operative) with dual property tenure site value changes to accrue to the relevant community, not the land holder, and to be tradeable separately from the occupant’s approved improvements to the property. 4. Producer-Consumer Co-operatives (PCCs - recognizing other stakeholders) He wants governments to encourage such democratic alternatives to 'limited company' structures. This can be done with economic incentives rather than making new development laws. Louis Kelso developed the ESOP in the United States. Since 1974, the US government has passed encouraging laws. Thousands of US companies have responded. Turnbull developed OTC, Land Bank and PCC bout 1972-75.

10

1975. Company Directors Association of Australia Limited. Downloadable at

174

World Healing

An orbiting satellite surveillance co-operative Lt-Col. (USAF retired) Howard Kurtz visited Russia soon after the second world war to negotiate airline contacts between the USA and the Soviet Union. He was impressed by a weapons parade in Moscow. This prompted him to devise a cooperative project using artificial satellites for earth surveillance to display, on large screens in resource centres in cities world wide, remote sensing data and analyses in real time. It could monitor disarmament and troop movements, map mineral, water and soil resources, predict weather, vegetation, fisheries and other changes, facilitate disaster rescue operations and communications11. Robert Muller, a UN Secretariat head under several Secretaries-General, persuaded France to move at the UN for an expert committee to report on the feasibility of the Kurtz scheme. A special UN session on disarmament in the 1970s found the proposal feasible for around one per cent of the cost of the arms race. The superpowers, with a lead over France in most spy satellite know-how, failed to support the project.

Representation by affiliation rather than by region Mostly governments enroll electors according to their home addresses within geographic electoral boundaries. Instead, a community could create constituencies purely on the basis of voluntary groupings. A religious or non-religious, ethnic, partisan political or other group, possibly focussing on a narrow range of policies, could register with the national electoral authority as a specialized electorate enrolling agency. Anyone registered as a member of such a group could apply to transfer her/his geographic voter enrolment to such an electorate, effective when the new electorate list reached an assessed minimum size for a geographic electorate. The specialized electorate list would be closed when it reached the maximum size for a geographic electorate, but any applicants beyond that number could be put on a waiting list and reconsidered once the specialized group, including those previously admitted, reached the size needed to entitle the group to an extra electorate. The new electorate(s) 11

Personal communications and Dr Colleen Driscoll, Director, The Kurtz Institute of Peacemaking, PO Box 1330, Cheshire CT 06410. Tel. 203-272-0754, , [email protected]

Doug. N. Everingham MB, BS

175

and list(s) would take effect if registered before the start of the next due redistribution of geographic electorate boundaries. Alternatively, every voter could continue to belong to a geographic electorate but have an option to join a specialized electorate, and specialized electorates together could elect an extra legislative or advisory chamber of the parliament.

Democratizing globalization Recently, excavations in Peru have exposed a pyramid-building culture as old as that of Egypt12. There the city of Caral is unique among ancient cities in having no symbols, tools or fortifications of war. It evidently flourished by its location as a trading centre for a variety of terrains for hundreds of kilometers around. Like the peaceful growth of Asoka's much later empire of India, and various matriarchal cultures, this offers hope for a global peaceful order if our culture can revive its 'matriotism', overcoming the self-centered 'patriotism' that rules today. Sovereign individuals of the world community are uniting to forge and support a world democracy that will regulate transnational undertakings13. UN reform movements push for gradual changes that could build mutual trust among peoples and governments towards an eventual global democracy. Hopefully the mighty USA will recover from its siege complex, agree to multinational democratic controls as superior to 'America first' philosophies. It will be a great day when most Americans sing 'America, America' with pride in their country's fading image of humane tolerance but sing even more proudly 'humanity, humanity’ from sea to shinning sea.

12

The Big Picture, channel 2 Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2 Oct 2002. Among promoters of federal or other 'bottom-up' democratic structures for a peaceful world are Dr Glen T. Martin, Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies Radford University, Secretary-General of the World Constitution & Parliament Association (WCPA) www.wcpa.biz, and Vice-President of the Institute On World Problems (IOWP)www.worldproblems.net — and Garry Davis, Coordinator, World Government of World Citizens, www.garrydavis.org 13

JUSTICE, PEACE AND EQUALITY DR. FATIMA MASCARENHAS E NORONHA

Justice The very idea that there could be a constitution for the whole world expresses a deep faith in the equality of all human beings. I regard this as a belief in the inalienable and equal dignity of every child, woman and man. It is with reference to this value, of every human being as an end in herself or himself, that a legal system needs to operate. Without this vital core, any body of constitutional principles or concrete laws would be hollow. I use the word ‘faith’ advisedly, because such a principle must be grasped by the whole person and not by the mind alone. Most of all, it must become visible in action, for of lip service there has been more than enough. Living in India, with its own lofty constitution and a multitude of progressive laws, I am acutely conscious of the gap between word and deed. Consider the attitude of an unfortunately large section of the judiciary. Navratna Chaudhary, while appearing in the court of Justice S N Dhingra on January 7, 2006, was told by the judge that he knew how women lawyers make it, implying thereby that they use immoral means.1 This from one entrusted to deliver justice to women, no less than to men. The concept of human equality is therefore but a pretty truism unless it is applied concretely. One of the inescapable aspects of this concretisation is gender justice. No world constitution can afford to remain vague about

1 Indira Jaising, “It Was A Crime That I Was Born A Woman”, Rediff.com, 15 February 2006.

Dr. Fatima Mascarenhas e Noronha

177

gender.2 Right away, let it be clear that women’s equal participation3 is essential in the process of drafting such a constitution. Gender perspectives cannot be mere addenda to a programme aimed at peace with dignity and justice. They have to be integral to be meaningful. In October 2000, Dr Theo-Ben Gurirab, Namibia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, who acted as President of the UN Security Council when Resolution 13254 was unanimously passed, asked “Women are half of every community … Are they, therefore, not also half of every solution?” At one end of the spectrum of gender mainstreaming5 is the language used to express constitutional or any other propositions. Exclusive language is still widely used in national constitutions and laws. The very use of ‘he’ or ‘his’ in statements of principle betrays a male-only viewpoint. Inclusive language, in contrast, ensures that at least the existence of women is also remembered at every stage. At the other end of the spectrum, the myriad forms of violence against women must be seriously acknowledged before they can be seriously redressed. As is obvious from the legal history of most nations, this cannot be done within a patriarchal framework. Patriarchy trivialises women and their view of their own experiences. Till today ‘women’s rights’ have not become an inseparable component of ‘human rights’ in courts of law or at 2

The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action established gender mainstreaming as a major global strategy for the promotion of gender equality. The strategy of gender mainstreaming was later defined in the ECOSOC Agreed Conclusions (1997/2). 3 Tradition and cultural practices can present formidable obstacles to the inclusion of women in positions and processes of societal significance unless a formal mechanism is in place to support this. To date, the use of quotas has been one of the most successful methods for guaranteeing a minimum percentage of women in official negotiations, government positions and other heretofore male preserves. 4 Resolution 1325 mandates gender mainstreaming in the area of peace and security. 5 Gender mainstreaming requires specialised expertise and training. It requires programmatic integration of gender into all elements of activity. It requires regular monitoring, reporting and evaluation of progress made and obstacles encountered, as well as systems for holding institutions accountable to achieving its goals. Key aspects of this work include collecting and disseminating information, disaggregating data, assessing lessons learned, and fostering cross-regional and inter-agency collaboration and learning. Finally, it requires adequate human and economic resources to put all of these measures in place and to ensure that women's specific experience is made visible. [UN sources]

178

Justice, Peace and Equality

conference tables. A world constitution must provide the framework for parity between women and men, rich and poor, brown, black or white, and so on. When we speak of world constitutionalism, possibly the first idea that comes to mind is of a world guided by a uniform set of legal principles or even laws. There is a danger that efforts may be directed towards uniformity rather than to justice, which is indeed why a world constitution is needed. To illustrate this danger, we need only note the Indian Hindu right-wing demand for a uniform civil code. It seems to be merely a stick to beat the Indian Muslims with. So long as the latter resist legal mainstreaming, they can be branded ‘reactionary’ or even ‘un-Indian’. On the other hand, equal rights activists have long demanded a gender just civil code for all Indians. Their objective is to change any inequitable laws currently applicable to whatsoever section of the Indian population, and to bring those laws in line with principles of universal justice. If equal rights activists succeed, the result may indeed be a uniform civil code, but a gender just one. Such a code would be strenuously opposed by the Hindu Right whose entire ideology is exclusivist and patriarchal. Therefore, the goal of a world constitution needs to be justice for each and every human being. This does imply uniformity of attitude, classically if negatively captured in the image of blindfolded Justice holding up the scales. But the means to this end will certainly place equity before uniformity, in order to take into account the plurality among individual human beings, when age, gender, economic status and other crucial factors like moral tenets, are considered. For this, Justice will have to not only remove the blindfold, but examine the practical impact of particular laws on differing groups of persons.

Peace The other goal of a world constitution, inseparable from justice, is sustainable peace. Within a patriarchal framework, only temporary truce periods are possible. Militarism and group chauvinism are the very life breath of patriarchy. For several millennia, and in most recent contexts, we have seen the folly of expecting peace to result from ‘peace talks’ among warlords.

Dr. Fatima Mascarenhas e Noronha

179

Women are the worst affected by conflict of any dimension. Their expertise in building peace is underutilised to a criminal extent. Training6 and opportunities7 for significant decision making must be consistently opened to women if humanity is to experience genuine peace. Many women’s groups work tirelessly for human rights, including in their ambit various sections of society – e.g. orphans, refugees, single parents, the destitute, the aged – mostly overlooked by governments. These women have in their hands the tools to create peace, and their contribution is essential. Across the board, gender sensitivity is not an accident of birth. Certain men have proved to be more gender sensitive than certain women. Definitely the structures of patriarchy are maintained to an amazing degree by women too. Ironically, in order to make an impact in a male dominated world, women often adopt typically macho strategies. A female government or corporate head tends to succeed by being the best man around. On the other hand, the phenomenon of ‘gender is in the mind’ frequently becomes an excuse to exclude women from decision making. Therefore, assurances from male decision makers are no substitute for the actual presence of women at the conference table. This principle applies in most situations.

6 Organizations like Search for Common Ground, International Alert, the US Institute for Peace and many other groups have been providing training for women to develop negotiation skills and leadership. 7 UNIFEM is one of the pioneers of this approach. In July 2000 UNIFEM and the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Foundation convened the All-Party Burundi Women’s Peace Conference in Arusha, Tanzania. The process has been replicated in other parts of Africa as well as in Afghanistan. In December 2001Equality Now, the European Women's Lobby, V-Day, the Center for Strategic Initiatives of Women and The Feminist Majority Foundation hosted the Afghan Women's Summit for Democracy in Brussels, in collaboration with the Gender Adviser to the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations and UNIFEM. At its conclusion, 40 women participated in a two-day Women's Roundtable, hosted by UNIFEM and the Belgian Government, which brought the women together with donors and heads of UN agencies. The Brussels Action Plan – which included recommendations on education, media and culture, health, refugees and internally displaced persons and human rights and the constitution – was adopted and informed the UN Transitional Assistance Programme for Afghanistan in 2002.

180

Justice, Peace and Equality

Having been trained to believe that masculinist aims8 are in the community’s best interests, (most people and certainly) most men need some measure of re-training9 to be able to accept women’s voices as legitimate and representative of that very community. In the din of conflicts in the Indian subcontinent, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Sierra Leone, in Kosovo, women’s groups have opposed war. Their national establishments have called them traitors. The words of Marieme HelieLucas should resound in the minds of those who make and apply a world constitution: History will acknowledge the crucial role of women human rights defenders in building up sane and safe societies . . . Which values are we betraying when exposing crimes committed in our name by our own governments? Certainly not the values that are enshrined in each and every one of our constitutions – values that our governments and armies so often trample. Rather than ‘traitors’, we are the very guardians of these values.10

Justice and peace are inextricably linked with equality between women and men.11 Several explicit mandates have been established to mainstream gender in specific areas of UN work.12 These provide valuable clues for world constitution experts to follow. They cannot afford to be as general as the experts of earlier times. There is a need to formulate clearly inclusive clauses, in the context of gender as well as other factors such as age, ethnicity, economic status, religious affiliation and so on. Only then can a new just order hope to become permanent.

8

So-called national interests are usually the vested interests of the powerful of the land, traditionally men. 9 Gender sensitisation programmes have met with mixed success. 10 Marieme Helie-Lucas, “Introduction,” Public Hearing on Crimes Against Women in Recent Wars and Conflicts: A compilation of testimonies. New York: Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, 11 December 2000. 11 See International Women’s Day Statement, Security Council press release SC/6816, 8 March 2000. 12 These include conflict resolution, disarmament affairs, electoral processes, health statistics, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping operations and others.

THE KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN: THE PEARL OF THE ARABIAN GULF DR. T.R. SUBRAMANYAx

The word ‘Bahrain’ in Arabic means “two seas”. Bahrain is located with in 20 miles of the eastern industrial province of Saudi Arabia, and is approximately 30 miles to the west of Qatar, 270 miles southwest of Kuwait and 270miles north-west of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On 14th August 1971, Bahrain became a fully independent sovereign State ending its, dependence on Britain in matters of defense and foreign affairs.1 Prior to independence, Bahrain was ruled by the Amir (Ruler) and the Council of State. The Council of State was composed of 12 members who headed the 12 Departments of the State. The Council of State was delegated administrative, executive and semi legislative powers. The Council of State was given cabinet status by an Amiri Decree issued on 15th August 19712. The President of Council became the Prime Minister. The Amir authorized his Council of Ministers in 1972 to work on presenting a draft Constitution for the State. For this purpose a Constituent Assembly consisting of 22 members to be elected by Universal secret suffrage and not more than 10 members nominated by a decree were constituted3. The x

M.A., LL.M., M. Phil., Ph. D (JNU), Professor of Law, Post Gradate Dept of Studies in Law and University Law College, Bangalore University, INDIA. Formerly Legal Adviser to the Govt. of Bahrain. 1 For a historical and legal account of Baharin’s status see.. Hussain M Al Baharna, The Arabian Gulf States (Beirut: Librairie due Liban, 1975) P.XXVIII. The total area of Bahrain is 665 Sq. km and it is archipelago in the Persian Gulf. 2 Decree No. 2 for 1971, On the Administrative Reorganisation of the State, AlJaridah al-Rasmiyah, No.930 dated 19th August 1971. 3 Decree No. 12 for 1972, concerning the Establishment of Constituent Assembly for preparing a Constitution for the State. See Al-Jaridah al-Rasmiyah, No. 974 dated 22nd June 1972.

182

The Kingdom of Bahrain: The Pearl of the Arabian Gulf

Constituent Assembly thus elected and nominated, completed its work in June1973 and the Amir on 6th December 1973 finally ratified the Constitution.4 The legal system of the Kingdom of Bahrain is the culmination of the entire economic, social political and cultural factors representing the Arab region. The 1973 Constitution of the Kingdom of Bahrain lays down the political and legal foundations of the State, defines the functions of the State organs and provides for the separation of powers between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. Islam is the religion of the State and Islamic Shariah (Islamic Law) is a main source of legislation and Arabic is official language of the State. The citizens are entitled to participate in public affairs and enjoy political rights. The Constitution recognizes and guarantees the protection of basic fundamental human rights to its citizens. Art.18 of the Constitution provides that ‘people are equal in human dignity and citizens shall be equal in public rights and duties before the law, without discrimination as to race, origin, language religion or belief. Right to personal liberty, prohibition of the extradition of political refugees, freedom of speech and the right to express and propagates one’s opinion in words or in writing, freedom of the press, printing and publication and freedom to form associations and trade unions on a national basis are guaranteed under the Constitution.

1. The Legislative Power The Legislative power of the State is vested in the Monarch (Amir/Ruler) and the Consultative Council –Shura Council and the Executive power is vested in the Monarch (Amir) and the Council of Ministers.5 Art. 37 of the 1973 Constitution spell out the Constitutional requirements as regards the conclusion of treaties. The power to conclude treaties by decree is vested in the Amir. A treaty will come into force only when it is signed, ratified and published in the official gazette.6 However, certain specified class of treaties like treaties of peace and alliance, treaties 4

The Constitution comprises 109 Articles- See Al-Jaridah at Rasmiyah, No. 1049 dated dated 6th December 1973. This Constitution has been replaced by a new Constitution on 14th Feb 2002. 5 Under the new Constitution of 14th Feb 2002. At present the Legislative Branch is Bi-Cameral- which consists of the Shurah Council ( 40 members appointed by the King and the House of Deputies directly elected to serve a four year term. 6 Called in Arabic as Al-Jaridah al-Rasmiyah

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

183

concerning the territory of the State, its natural resources or sovereign rights or public or private rights of citizens, treaties of commerce, navigation and residence, and treaties which entail additional expenditure for which provision has not been made in the budget of the State, or treaties which involve amendments of the laws of Bahrain, require approval by law.

2. Organization Powers and Functions of the Judiciary Chapter 4 of Part IV of the 1973 Constitution deals with organization and functions of the judiciary. The independence and impartiality of the judiciary are guaranteed under Art. 101, which states: In the administration of Justice judges shall not be subject to any authority. No interference whatsoever shall be allowed in the conduct of justice.

The Judiciary in the State of Bahrain is organized in a systematic way under Law No.13 for 1971,7 concerning the Organization of Judiciary. By Art. 9 of this Law the Civil Law courts are empowered to decide: 1) all civil and commercial cases 2) all criminal cases except those which are excluded by a special provision in the Law; 3) all cases involving disputes connected with personal status of non-muslims. An important feature provided in Art. 3 of the Law Concerning the Organisation of the Judiciary, provides: in the event that a judge finds no provision of law capable of application, he shall deduce the basis of his judgment from the principles of the Shariah and the provisions thereof, and in the absence of any such provision, custom shall be applied. A particular custom shall be preferred to a general custom, and in the absence of custom the tenets of natural law or the principles of equity and good conscience shall be applied.

The above provision makes clear the sources of law that a judge ought to consult in the rendering of a decision.

7

Law No. 13 for 1971 Concerning the Organisation of the Judiciary. See AlJaridah al-Rasmiyah, No. 929, dated 12th August 1971.

184

The Kingdom of Bahrain: The Pearl of the Arabian Gulf

Hierarchy and jurisdiction of Courts: According to Art. 7 of Law No. 12 for 1971 concerning the Civil and Commercial Procedure, the hierarchy of courts are structured on the following. At the lowest level the courts of minor causes called the lower courts and courts of Execution are established. An appeal would lie from the courts of minor causes to the High Court. Above the High Court, the High Court of Appeal, which entertain cases dealing with both civil and criminal matters are established. In addition to these courts, the Supreme Court of Appeal called Mahkamat-al Tamyeez (Court of Cassation), was established in 1989,8 which is not only the highest Court of Appeal in Bahrain but also has jurisdiction in civil, criminal and penal matters. It can also by way of appeal hear cases involving the personal status of non-Muslims. It consists of five members including a Chairman and a Vice Chairman and three other judges.

3. The Shariah Law Courts Besides, there exists the Shariah Law Courts, which are divided into 1) Sunni Law Courts and 2) Ja’afri Law Courts. These Shariah Courts take up all disputes relating to personal status of Muslms, namely, marriage, dower, divorce, custody of children and maters related to inheritance, gifts, will and wakf , with the exception of cases relating to assets of inheritance which come under the jurisdiction of Civil Law Courts. The Jurisdiction of Shariah Law Courts extends to hearing religious arguments and examining of eyewitnesses.

4. Labour Courts A worker who has been dismissed from work9 may request within 10 days of such dismissal, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs to settle the dispute amicably between the Worker and his Employer. In the event of failure of reaching such settlement within 15 days, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs will refer the entire case along with it’s findings to the Civil High Court for Adjudication.

8

See Law No. 8 for 1989 This is provided by Art. 110 of the Law No. 23 for 1976 concerning Labour Law for the Private Sector.

9

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

185

5. Law Practice in Bahrain Law practice in Bahrain is governed by the Legal practice Act of 1980. A Bahraini lawyer with a law degree from a recognized University could register his name on the rolls. Application for enrolment must be submitted to the Minister of Justice and Islamic Affairs. There is a Rolls Commission consisting of three members, which shall be chaired by the President of the Civil High Court and one of the Judges of the said court and a practicing lawyer appointed by the Ministry of Justice and Islamic Affairs. A Lawyer should have put in a minimum of four years of practice in order to become a judge of a lower court. For appointment as a judge of a High Court a lawyer at least should have six years of law practice. A judge of High Court of Appeal before he is appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court should have put in the legal profession at least 10 years of Law practice. The legal profession in Bahrain is refined and competitive that there are many women advocates practicing before the courts of Bahrain. In addition to the above, there is a Legal Aid Committee constituted under Art.39 of the Legal Practice Act, of 1980. This Committee consists of three members who are appointed by the Minister of Justice and Islamic Affairs. Parties to the proceedings, if they are insolvent, and are unable to pay the legal fees, and are not in a position to defend they can seek legal aid.

6. Creation of the Directorate of Legal Affairs The task of drafting laws and giving legal opinion on important matters has been considered very much for the growth of a legal system. Realising its importance the Directorate of Legal Affairs was created in 197210. This Directorate under the supervision of the Minister of Cabinet Affairs has been assigned with the following functions: 1.

10

To prepare and draft laws suggested by the Cabinet and the Ministers- at- interest, and to prepare and draft the necessary decrees, regulations and decisions.

By Law No. 11 for 1972

The Kingdom of Bahrain: The Pearl of the Arabian Gulf

186

2.

3. 4.

5. 6.

To prepare draft International treaties and Conventions to be ratified or entered into by the State and verify provisions of such treaties and Conventions to make sure that they do not contravene the laws, decrees and regulations in force, and to express about legal procedures necessary to ratify or enter into such international treaties and conventions. To express opinion about matters referred to it by the Cabinet or Ministers which are in connection with the application of Laws; and decrees and regulations of the interior affairs of the State. To express opinion about contracts made between the Government and Individuals or companies, which are referred to the Ministry by the Cabinet or Ministries for verification or for expressing opinion about the consequences of the implementation of such contracts. To compile laws (both national and international), treaties and conventions which are in force. To represent the Government and its Ministries or Directorates in Legal proceedings started by or taken against them before law courts. The work of the Directorate has been published in three volumes.

The Directorate of Legal Affairs since 1972 has been doing its best to carry out the work assigned to it. In addition, all laws, Decreed Laws, Decrees, or Decisions become legally effective after their publication in the official Gazette. The official Gazette is published by the Ministry of Information is a main source of legislation. Important decisions of the Mahkamat – al Tamyeez (Court of Cassation) are published in Arabic from time to time. Even the Bahrain Bar Association has from time to time brought out Legal Journals containing legal articles, besides text of some Bahrain laws. The British connection resulted in leaving an imprint on the Law of Contracts and obligations of 1969 in Bahrain, which continues to this day. The Bahrain Civil Wrongs Ordinance of 1970, is still common law based. The law concerning the Inheritance and the Administration of Estates of Non-Muslim Foreigners is a good piece of legislation which protects a majority of the Foreigners present in Bahrain. The Penal Code of Bahrain was enacted in 1976, which has been amended from time to time which not only defines Crimes listed therein and provides punishment for such crimes.

Dr. T.R. Subramanya

187

Bahrain Civil and Commercial Procedure Law of 1971, Bahrain Commercial Companies Law of 1975, Bahrain Commercial Agencies Law of 1992, The Law Commerce of 1987, are some of the excellent pieces of legislations adopted by the Kingdom of Bahrain. These legislations have responded to the changing realities the world order, and are best in the Arab world.

7. Commercial Hub of the Middle East Bahrain being an International center for trade, commerce and finance, is acknowledged as the hub of Middle East. A strong and sound infrastructure, modern and sophisticated system of communications, a government machinery that understands and appreciates the evolving trends and more than all, the humility, hospitality and the will of the people to strive hard are factors that have enabled Bahrain to register phenomenal growth. The emergence of Bahrain as a major regional banking and financial center, linking the east with the west besides serving the needs of the business men of the Gulf prompted Bahrain to establish the Bahrain Center for International Commercial Arbitration11. It envisages the Center12 to render services concerning arbitration in commercial disputes of an international character. Awards made under the Bahrain Center for International Commercial Arbitration are enforceable in accordance with the NewYork Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of 1958.13 It is interesting to note that the Kingdom of Bahrain is a member of the WTO14 and has approved in 1995 its accession to the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), there by it volunteered to protect the copy right of authors publishers and artists. The concern for the protection of environment is unique among the Bahrainis. The State has approved by (Decree No.7 for 1994) the United Nations Convention on Climate Change. The State of Bahrain, besides ratifying the Convention on the Law of Sea of 1982, is also a party to Vienna Convention for the protection of Ozone Layer, 1987 and the UN 11

Constituted under Law No. 9 for 1993. Bahrain Center for International Commercial Arbitration 13 The Kingdom of Bahrain ratified the New York Convention by Decree Law No. 4 for 1988. Furthermore, Bahrain is also a party to UNCITRAL Model Rules by Law No. 9 of 16th August 1994. 14 By Law No. 7 for 1994 12

188

The Kingdom of Bahrain: The Pearl of the Arabian Gulf

Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992. The State of Bahrain has since signed Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreements with several countries including France and India. Moreover, it is an investment destination and has investment agreements with U.K., Germany, Malaysia, peoples Republic of China, Pakistan, Philippines and many other countries. The above significant developments reflect the needs of a changing society and evidence the role of law in the emergence of Bahrain into a modern State.

HAS INDIAN NEGOTIATING POWER, TO ACHIEVE AN INTERNATIONAL ORDER BASED ON JUSTICE AND THE RULE OF LAW, INCREASED SINCE THE 1998 NUCLEAR TESTS? KLAUS SCHLICHTMANN, PH.D.

From the “Quit-India Resolution” of 1942 to Nehru’s visit to the United States in 1948, and the numerous carefully worded statements of Indian diplomats at the United Nations thereafter, India has supported global disarmament and a peaceful and just world order based on the rule of law. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, the Cold War prevented an early implementation of the UN Charter provisions for collective security. Thereafter, the world organisation, with its parliamentary assembly, executive and international court, continued to exist but “never quite recovered from its [initial] failure to live up to” the original expectations.1 While today, the need for an effective international system is not questioned, we are still looking for a safe way “how to get to it.”2 This article supports and investigates the principal idea of a democratic OneWorld order or world federation, and India’s role, to establish a binding world structure that would be able to cope efficiently with world problems.

1

Brian Urquhart, ‘Looking for the Sheriff,’ New York Review of Books, July 16, 1998, online: http://www.globalpolicy.org/reform/sheriff.htm. 2 See Kenneth E. Boulding, Conflict and defense. A General Theory, New York: Harper & Row, 1963, pp. 335-6: “The case for world government to police total disarmament … seems to me absolutely unshakeable … In general, we know the main lines of the kind of world organization that can eliminate the present dangers and” give us permanent peace. What we do not know is how to get to it. … Where, then, are the new ideas and the new images of the future that look like upward paths? One is clearly the idea of non-violent resistance associated with the name of Gandhi...”

190 Has Indian Negotiating Power Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests?

I. History Mahatma Gandhi had already in the 1920s answered the question of world organization positively, arguing in favour of interdependence rather than independence: “The better mind of the world desires today not absolutely independent States warring one against another but a federation of friendly inter-dependent States.”3 Gandhi and all of Congress approved not only of the United Nations, as the Powers had first named their Alliance in January 1942,4 but also of universal federation in the famous “Quit-India” Resolution, adopted on 8 August of that year. In the Resolution the Congress Committee expressed its “opinion that the future peace, security and ordered progress of the world demand a world federation of free nations.” True enough, it also declared that “the immediate ending of British rule in India is an urgent necessity, both for the sake of India and for the success of the cause of the United Nations,” arguing that the “continuation of that rule” was “degrading and enfeebling India … making her progressively less capable of defending herself and of contributing to the cause of world freedom.” Apart from a free India being able to contribute more effectively to the allied cause and “affect materially the fortunes of the war,” such measure would “bring all subject and oppressed humanity on the side of the United Nations,” filling “the peoples of Asia and Africa … with hope and enthusiasm.” This was the voice of reason and compassion. World federation was considered an absolute necessity, because on no other basis can the problems of the modern world be solved. Such a world federation would ensure the freedom of its constituent nations, the prevention of aggression and exploitation by one nation over another, the protection of national minorities, the advancement of all backward areas and peoples, and the pooling of the world’s resources for the common good of all. On the establishment of such a world federation, disarmament would be practicable in all countries, national armies, navies and air forces would no longer be necessary, and a world federal defence force would keep the world peace and prevent aggression. An independent India would gladly join such a world federation and cooperate on an equal basis with

3

Presidential Address, 26 December 1924, CWMG, Vol. XXV, pp. 481-2 (emphasis added). Elsewhere I have dealt with this problem in detail: Klaus Schlichtmann, ‘Gandhi and the Quest for an Effective United Nations: The Stakes, 1917 to 1947,’ Gandhi Marg, vol. 26, no. 1 (April-June 2004), pp. 57-81. 4 ‘Declaration by the United Nations,’ of 1 January 1942. Online at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/decade/ decade03.htm.

Klaus Schlichtmann, Ph.D.

191

other countries in the solution of international problems. Such a federation should be open to all nations who agree with its fundamental principles. In view of the war, however, the federation must inevitably, to begin with, be confined to the United Nations, such a step taken now will have a most powerful effect on the war, on the peoples of the Axis countries, and on 5 the peace to come.

It is true that these aims, which India originally sought to pursue after the war, were little known outside India. Outside India this aspect of Indian foreign policy was ignored, in spite of the fact that there had been an upsurge of world federalist thinking and activities after the war,6 which were, however, brought to naught by the oncoming Cold War. Nevertheless, for some years, not only in the United States and some European and other countries, as well as in Japan, world federation had been an attractive prospect after the calamities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and two world wars in the first half of the twentieth century. The UN Charter itself can be seen as the blueprint for bringing about such a universal order. Shortly after the end of the war, Gandhi and Nehru tried to keep the subcontinent from being broken up, and at the same time find a formula to further define Indian policies for preserving and strengthening world peace. A ‘World Pacifist Meeting’ was planned for 1948 in Shantiniketan, 7 with Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru and international pacifists, including Aldous Huxley, Rabindranath Tagore and Reginald Reynolds8 as participants, “to provide an opportunity for devoted workers for peace all over the world to meet and discuss with Gandhiji the ways of achieving a Pacifist World Order.”9 Before the project could be realized,

5

CWMG, vol. LXXVI, pp. 460-461. See Joseph P. Baratta, The Politics of World Federation. United Nations, UN Reform, Atomic Control, Westport, Connecticut and London: Praeger, 2004. 7 At the Visva Bharati University in West Bengal, founded by Rabindranath Tagore. 8 Gandhi’s co-worker in publishing the weekly journal New India, a British Quaker. Reynolds had also been a council member of War Resisters International in the 1930s, and carried Gandhi's historic letter to the British viceroy Lord Irwin on March 2, 1930 announcing the launching of civil disobedience. 9 Rajendra Prasad, ‘Foreword’, in: Kshitis Roy (ed.), Gandhi Memorial Peace Number (Santiniketan: The Vishwa-Bharati Quarterly, 2 October 1949), p. ix. See also Arthur Moore, ‘World Government’, ibid., pp. 196-203. I thank the chief librarian at Vishwa Bharati’s Rabindra Bhavan, Mrs. Supriya Roy and her staff who helped me find some of the documents I was looking for in this connection. 6

192 Has Indian Negotiating Power Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests?

Gandhi was assassinated. Nehru repeatedly after independence spoke up for political world union, in order to bring about and preserve freedom, peace and prosperity. In September 1946, Nehru said in a broadcast: The world, in spite of its rivalries and hatreds and inner conflicts, moves inevitably towards closer cooperation and the building up of a world commonwealth. It is for this One World that free India will work, a world in which there is free cooperation of free peoples, and no class or group exploits another.10

Similarly, on 22 January 1947, Nehru emphasized: We wish for peace. We do not want to fight any nation if we can help it. The only possible real objective that we, in common with other nations, can have is the objective of cooperating in building up some kind of world structure, call it One World, call it what you like. The beginnings of this world structure have been laid in the United Nations Organization. It is still feeble; it has many defects; nevertheless, it is the beginning of the 11 world structure. And India has pledged herself to cooperate in its work.

Between October and November 1948, while the Indian Prime Minister traveled in the United States where he addressed these and similar issues, including economic aspects,12 with US President Harry Truman, he met a great number of people with world order objectives, including Eleanor Roosevelt, John Dewey, nuclear physicists J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. Before the Chicago Chamber of Commerce and the Foreign Policy Association he asserted that “World Government must come ... The alternative to a World Government is a disaster of unprecedented magnitude.” The basis for this much-needed development was the United Nations.13 Reference to these aims, including “general and

10

Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches, vol. I, Sept. 1946-May 1949, Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, Revised Edition, Third Impression, 1967, p. 3. In 1960 Arnold J. Toynbee published a book, One World and India (Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Orient Longmans, Calcutta 1960). 11 In a debate on the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly. Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches, p. 21. 12 In 1951 India accepted the first loan over 190 million dollars from the United States, a deal that was signed by Jawaharlal Nehru and President Truman. 13 Pandit Nehru’s Discovery of America, foreword by Eleanor Roosevelt (Madras: The Indian Press Publications, 1950?), p. 56. Under the leadership of Chicago University president Robert M. Hutchins, the Committee to Frame a World

Klaus Schlichtmann, Ph.D.

193

complete disarmament under effective international control” can be found in many speeches by Indian diplomats.14

II. India, Disarmament and the Nuclear Question In 1948, India established an Atomic Energy Commission for exploration of uranium ore. India had supported the UN General Assembly Resolution on Principles Governing the General Regulations and Reduction of Armaments 41 (I), adopted on 14 December 1946, which called for the “early establishment of international control of atomic energy,” and an “early general regulation and reduction of armaments and armed forces.” It also called upon the UN Security Council “to expedite consideration of a draft convention or conventions for the creation of an international system of control and inspection,” without which disarmament and control of nuclear power would not be possible. It was evidently not “practicable to disarm before an effective system of general security has been created” 15 or at least started to materialize. Between 1948 and 1959, jointly or with other nations, India submitted altogether eight disarmament resolutions at the UN.16

Constitution had published its Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution in the same year (1948). 14 See some of the speeches by Mrs. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Sir Benegal N. Rau and Krishna Menon in the early years at the UN, in: India at the U.N. Speeches 1945-1995, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, 1997, vol. I. 15 Andrew Martin, Collective Security. A Progress Report, Paris: UNESCO, 1952, p. 27. 16 Gopal Singh and S.K. Sharma (eds.), India’s Nuclear Disarmament Policy (3 vols.), vol. I, Nehru Era, Delhi: Anamika, 2000, p. xvi, give the following: “’Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy’ (1948); Declaration on the Removal of the Threat of a New War and strengthening of ‘Peace and Security Among Nations’ (1949); Standstill Agreement (1954); Dissemination and Information on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and on the Effects of Experimental Explosions of Thermo-Nuclear Bomb (1955); note variable for ‘Cessation of All Explosions of the Nuclear and Other Weapons’ (1956); Composition of the Disarmament Commission (1958; ‘Suspension of Nuclear and Thermo-Nuclear Tests’ (1959) and lastly the ‘Directives on General and Complete Disarmament’ in 1959 itself.” It is not clear, however, which resolution in 1948 is referred to, since the book itself does not give the text, unless it is the “Text of the UN General Assembly Resolution on Reports of the Atomic Energy Commission 1912 (III), adopted on 4 November 1948” (p. 6), which, however, does not use the term “Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy.” “Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy” is used in the Resolution of

194 Has Indian Negotiating Power Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests?

India had first suggested suspending nuclear tests in 1954. After several years of negotiations at the UN and between the Soviet Union and the United States, and perhaps not altogether without input from India and the non-Aligned movement, on 20 December 1961, the McCloy-Zorin Accords were unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly. “Conceived by Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, the McCloyZorin Accords between the USA and the Soviet Union established a foundation or ‘roadmap’ for all future negotiations and international treaties with regard to nuclear and general and complete disarmament under effective international control.” 17 It stipulated far-reaching measures, calling for the abolition of all military institutions and arms production and empowerment of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. Not surprisingly, the project was supported by many Third World countries. After the McCloy-Zorin Accords were agreed upon, however, “very soon differences of opinion and a divergence of interests arose … [and] the efforts of the two powers and later also of some non-aligned and Third World countries remained unsuccessful in bridging the gap...”18 What is surprising is that those countries who had historically been the main cause of the problem, had been responsible for two world wars that led to this situation, and who presumable would be most affected by future war, i.e. the European countries, and Germany in particular, don’t seem to have joined in these international efforts, to see that the Accords were implemented. The Indian Ambassador to the UN, V.K. Krishna Menon, stated with regards to the McCloy-Zorin Accords: “Today we are in the happy position that almost for the first time [it] is not only an agreement on a resolution but a joint statement between the United States and the Soviet Union accepting general and complete disarmament as the purpose of disarmament negotiations and also the principles on which they are to be based.”19 The experienced Indian diplomat observed that “a higher level of

the General Assembly, November 23, 1949 (1). 17 See online: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCloy-Zorin_Accords. 18 United Nations, Comprehensive Study on Nuclear Weapons: Report of the Secretary General, UN Document A/35/392, 12 September 1981, as reprinted in T.T. Poulose, Nuclear Proliferation and the Third World, New Delhi: ABC Publishing House, 1982. The text here quoted is a translation from the German document, Chapter VII. 19 Statement Made by V.K. Krishna Menon in the Political Committee on 20 November 1961 on the Question of Disarmament, in: Gopal Singh and S.K. Sharma (eds.), India’s Nuclear Disarmament Policy, vol. I, p. 474 (emphasis

Klaus Schlichtmann, Ph.D.

195

negotiation” had been reached, where “war is no longer to be the instrument for settling international problems.” This agreement was a confirmation of the Indian Government’s policy which had “repeatedly pointed out that disarmament is but a step to something more important: namely, the outlawing of war,” which was now “incorporated in this agreement.” Disarmament was to be accompanied by the establishment of reliable procedures for the peaceful settlement of disputes; that is to say, that something is to be substituted for arms, if arms are taken away, in order to maintain what arms are supposed to be doing: to keep the peace.20

After the McCloy-Zorin Accords, a further step was taken in 1970, when the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force. In Article VI, the Treaty codified the McCloy-Zorin Accords.21 But since the nuclear powers were unable to implement the Treaty’s Article VI, and agree on an “early date,” India did not become party to the Treaty. Addressing India’s security concerns, former Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral pointed out that not only had military manoeuvres by the US, NATO and Australia increased in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s, the region was heavily nuclearized. The constant movement of warships, submarines and aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, many of which carried nuclear weapons, gave Indian added). 20 V.K. Krishna Menon, ibid., p. 475 (emphasis added). Strangely, however, the compilation does not give the text of the McCloy-Zorin Accords, but only refers to them. Also in 1961, “India supported UNGA resolution 1653 of 24th November 1961 which called on the Secretary-General to ascertain the views of member states on the possibility of Convening a Special Conference for concluding a Convention on the Prohibition of Use of Nuclear Weapons.” (The Associated Press, “Nuclear History in India, Pakistan,” New York Times, 28 May 1998.) Later, in 1965, “India (along with a group of non-aligned countries), had put forward a proposal for an international non-proliferation agreement under which the nuclear weapon states would agree to give up their arsenals, provided other countries refrained from developing or acquiring such weapons.” And in 1978, “India proposed negotiations for an international convention that would prohibit the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.” (New York Times, 28 May 1998, quote at: http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/nuclear2.html.) 21 Article VI reads: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

196 Has Indian Negotiating Power Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests?

politicians reasons for concern.22 It was the dispatch of the US Seventh Fleet, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise, to the Bay of Bengal during the 1971 Bangladesh war, which had threatened India;23 this was said to have triggered India's first nuclear test in 1973.24

III. From one Missed Chance to Another? While there was some movement towards multilateral agreement in the beginning of the 1980s and 1990s, there has been concern in India (and the peace studies community in general) about the “aggressive manner in which the US and its NATO allies targeted Iraq and Yugoslavia.” Because/Although an effective UN system of collective security is absent, enforcement action by a powerful coalition of the willing is highly problematic, especially if national interests determine the action. India’s Additional Secretary (UN) at the United Nations Disarmament Commission in New York, Dilip Lahiri, on 13 April, 1999 raised the question of the US bombardment of Yugoslavia saying: Apart from the impact which it has already had on regional peace, the implications of NATO action in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are far-reaching. If a group of countries or a regional arrangement take it upon themselves to act outside the UN Charter, in violation of its provisions, using violence against another sovereign state without the authorization of the Security Council, the legal foundations on which international relations have been built up since the end of the Second World War are

22

In an interview with Rakesh Sharma of Deccan Herald News Service. Ibid. “Indian policy was subjected to military pressure by a Nuclear Weapon State when the USS Enterprise entered the Bay of Bengal in an attempt to force a ceasefire on India…” Arundhati Ghose, ‘Negotiating the CTBC: India’s Security Concerns and Nuclear Disarmament,’ Journal of International Affairs, vol. 51, no. 1 (summer 1997), online: http://www.fas.org/news/india/1997/ctbtghose.htm. Ghose does not, however, mention the need for a One-World Order or world federation or establishing a system of collective security. 24 See ‘Challenging Nuclear Hegemony,’ South Asian Voice. Views from Asia (June 2000 Edition, online), http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/nuclear2.html. I am not sure how reliable this Indian source is. For example it states somewhere that the wellknown journalist Kuldip Nayar published a book with the title 1971 - The Untold Story (having to do with the war and genocide committed by Pakistani forces in East Bengal prior to the creation of Bangla Desh). No book with this title exists, however. Kuldip Nayar has published a number of books though that are relevant in this connection. 23

Klaus Schlichtmann, Ph.D.

197

gravely undermined. So too is the confidence of states in agreeing to disarmament measures, because if countries can be attacked without sanction, because its opponents are militarily more powerful, none would be prepared to lower its guard. Events in the Balkans therefore will 25 inevitably have repercussions on the international disarmament agenda.

India had earlier also criticized the United States for the “manner in which the US conducted its wars in Korea and Vietnam,” and complained that “the US took the war to civilians on an unprecedented scale.” The UN Charter “clearly prohibits the deliberate targeting and destruction of civilian infrastructure” but in Iraq and Yugoslavia NATO and its allies did just that.26 While India saw the collapse of the former Soviet Union as potentially destabilizing, its non-aligned policies27 had most likely also contributed to keeping the Soviet Union in check during the Cold War. Similarly, earlier on, by dividing India, the British had wanted to keep India in check. The repeated wars with Pakistan served to weaken India, in spite of its superior manpower. Pakistan is known to have aimed for decades at acquiring nuclear capabilities with the help of China and US money, although the CIA on several occasions successfully thwarted Pakistan’s attempts at importing vital components and materials for its nuclear program, and building an underground plutonium factory, the latter with the help of German engineers. India, on the other hand, prided itself at having developed its nuclear capabilities by indigenous scientific efforts 28 and, from its own perspective, mainly as a reaction to the developments in 25

Quoted online: http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/nuclear2.html. Ibid. 27 In 1947, presumably because the then emerging antagonism between the United States and the Soviet Union went against the principle of One World and the objective and determination “to remove war as a means of settling difference,” India had declared that it saw itself under “no compulsion to identify ourselves wholly, or to associate ourselves systematically, with either of the different groups. On the contrary, we consider it of paramount importance that the distance between them should be narrowed down. We believe that our conduct should conduce to that end…” Speech by Mrs. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 2nd Session, 85th Plenary Meeting, 19th September, 1947, in: India at the U.N. Speeches 1945-1995, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, 1997, vol. I, pp. 14 and 13. 28 See the Speech by Mrs. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, 18th Session,1239th Plenary Meeting, 11th October, 1963, in: India at the U.N. Speeches 1945-1995, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, 1997, vol. I., p. 373: “…the fourth nuclear power plant will be designed and constructed entirely from Indian resources of men and material.” 26

198 Has Indian Negotiating Power Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests?

Pakistan and other countries not friendly to India’s cause. 29 K. Subrahmanyam’s Kargil Report to the Indian Parliament in March 2000 showed that Pakistan could increase its violence against India “because it had acquired a credible nuclear capability by 1990.”30 Most people will agree that following the Pokharan tests in May 1998, India’s defense policy experts and foreign policy analysts have displayed caution and restraint. … India's nuclear analysts have worked extra hard to define a nuclear policy that is rooted in a strongly defensive posture - that can disarm its non-nuclear friends in the developing world offer mutually binding no-use pledges to other nuclear nations, and ameliorate the possibility of accidental launches and avoidable escalation. A series of conciliatory statements have been issued in an attempt to disarm the US and its allies, as also China and Pakistan.31

Later that year the Indian President, Shri K.R. Narayanan reiterated the need for political union that would make disarmament and a One-World order possible: We are as intensely interested in peace and in a world without arms, as we have always been, and we have declared our willingness to join any international agreement and agreements that are non-discriminatory to rid the world of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. … Pandit Nehru had pledged … to work for a One World, a world in which there was free co-operation of free peoples, and where no class or group exploits another. To-day on behalf of the people of India I renew that pledge.32

IV. Is There a Solution? Should India’s foreign policy perhaps have focused more on its ‘One World’ idea 33 and less on disarmament? In any event, India tried

29 See Arundhati Ghose, ‘Negotiating the CTBC: India’s Security Concerns and Nuclear Disarmament,’ Journal of International Affairs, ibid. 30 Quoted online: http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/nuclear2.html. 31 Ibid. 32 Address to the Nation by Shri K.R. Narayanan, President of India on the Occasion of Closing Function of Golden Jubilee of India’s Independence, Central Hall of Parliament, Saturday, August 15, 1998, New Delhi (from private archive, no longer online). 33 There actually were in the Indian Parliament a number of resolutions, the first one introduced in 1977 by Hari Vishnu Kamath, which called for an amendment to

Klaus Schlichtmann, Ph.D.

199

persistently to obtain assurances against the use of nuclear weapons but perpetually failed to get the support of the major powers concerned.34 Or would it be more accurate to say that India, Russia and the United States lacked and failed to obtain the support of the (West)Europeans? Anyway, what could the Europeans do? The atomic bomb has changed everything except our way of thinking” (Albert Einstein); it also remains the prime reason, at the same time presenting the possibly and the means, to bring about disarmament and a One World order. The prospect of “vesting in the United Nations … the monopoly of atomic weapons,” in order to be able to disarm and create common security, was already discussed in the early years after the war, but “this possibility was [too] remote” at the time as it “would have cut right across the Charter.35

Article 51 of the Indian Constitution. The amendment read: (the Indian Government should endeavor to) “[e] work together with other nations to convene at an early date a world constituent assembly, in order to draft a constitution for a world federal government.” (Text translated from the German.) After the demise of H.V. Kamath, in February 1981 the Bill was reintroduced into the Parliament by Eduardo Faleira from Goa. And in August 1981 a similar Bill was introduced into the Upper House of Parliament by Mulka G. Reddy. However, apparently none of these bills were put to the vote. 34 In 1961, the long-time Indian ambassador to the UN, V.K. Krishna Menon had criticised the “resumption of nuclear tests,” which “disturbs my Government greatly.” The question of the suspension of nuclear tests had been first brought up by India in 1954 (See Disarmament Commission, Official Records, Supplement for April, May and June 1954, document DC/44 and Corr.1., referred to in India at the U.N., p. 342), and since then it had “incurred the opposition of the United Kingdom. When first India brought the idea that nuclear tests ought to be suspended, it was opposed by the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom for three reasons. First of all, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd said it was not disarmament and therefore it need not be discussed. Secondly, it was said by the permanent representative at that time that the fall-out was negligible: that there was natural radiation, there was always radiation. Therefore, there was no such thing as radiation hazard. That was the second reason for which our appeal was not to be considered. Third, in the second or third year, when these things were wearing down, it was said that tests were not detectable: in other words, you could explode an atom bomb in your pocket! That was the idea. For those three reasons, our proposal was opposed.”the Speech by Mr. V.K. Krishna Menon, 16th Session, 1025th Plenary Meeting, 4th October 1961, in: India at the U.N., p. 342. 35 “The vesting in the United Nations of the monopoly of atomic weapons would have cut right across the Charter. Admittedly, the resolution of 24 January 1946 called for the elimination of atomic weapons from ‘national’ armaments only, and

200 Has Indian Negotiating Power Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests?

Yet the world was waiting with bated breath for a positive step towards making sure that … ‘these awful agencies will be made to conduce peace among the nations and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe, they may become a perennial fountain of world prosperity’,36

including the peaceful uses of atomic energy. In any way, to achieve the purposes of the United Nations, member states must be “willing to delegate to the Security Council, for the performance of its police functions, a sizeable portion of their sovereignty.” 37 If some European nations were to start delegating powers in favour of a UN sovereign authority with the purpose of organizing and defending the peace, as many of their constitutions stipulate,38 this would bring a significant change in the direction and conception of how force is employed. If this were to happen, the permanent (and nuclear) members in the Security Council would temporarily assume transitional authority, i.e. until all nations have disarmed, all military institutions have been dissolved, all budgets abandoned etc.

left the door open to the suggestion that they should be turned into ‘international’ armaments. Yet this possibility was so remote and its adumbration so vague that it has never caught the imagination of the masses or led to any noticeable popular pressure for the modification of those national policies which were to shape the course of the negotiations.” Andrew Martin, Collective Security, p. 68. This pressure seems now to be coming from India. 36 Martin, op.cit., p. 65. The quote in the quote if from The Times, London, 7 August 1945. 37 Martin, op.cit., p. 23. 38 For an overview of constitutional clauses for ‘pooling security sovereignty’ (Tinbergen) with the United Nations, see (all by this author, K.S.) ‘A Short History of the “Constitutional Law of Peace” and its possible Application in the Light of Article IX of the Japanese Constitution,’ Indian Journal of International Law, vol. 39, no. 2 (April-June 1999), pp. 291-310; ‘Linking Constitutional Laws of Peace and Collective Security’, Indian Journal of Asian Affairs, vol. 17, no. 2 (December 2004), pp. 1-22; and ‘Kenpou daikyuujou ga toikakeru. Kokka shuken no seigen -kakkoku kenpou to hikaku shi nagara’ (Investigating Article 9. Limitations of national sovereignty — a comparison with other constitutions), The SEKAI (Tokyo, Iwanami), 3 (2006 March, no. 750), pp. 172-83, which is a comprehensive summery of an earlier German publication. An online rendering of the same article in English is available at http://www.ne.jp/asahi/peace/unitednationsreform2007/A9inContext.html.

Klaus Schlichtmann, Ph.D.

201

Obviously, “during the period of transition to the ultimate status of collective security, the system might be exposed to a few shocks.” However, with the permanent members operating on the principle of unanimity, these would be of “measurable proportions.”39 Some pacifists still seem to believe that unilateral or international disarmament might be possible without a supervising authority or organisation. This is an illusion. The good will among some nations would be exploited if the security vacuum that will inevitably manifest itself in the transitional period is not filled. Already at the Hague Peace Conferences in 1899 and 1907, it was realised that disarmament creates a security gap that has to be filled by an institution that would replace the institution of war, i.e. an international court.40 In the UN Charter the five permanent (and nuclear) powers, backed by the United Nations, are designated to fill the vacuum. To doubt their commitment and belittle or underestimate their obligation under the Charter is not an option. In the “[m]odern Age the West has taken the initiative in bringing mankind together,” 41 albeit in theory only. While to all intents and purposes, the Europeans have a historic obligation to initiate a process that would lead to a better and more just, governed world, India should also assume a special position and function “to deprive local [individual nation-]states of their traditional prerogative of making war.” 42 Arnold Toynbee stated the obvious when he said that in the Atomic Age, “world unity on any plane cannot be achieved by the military method that was employed by the founders of … world-empires in the past.” 43 In his practical design, India filled “a key position in the World,” like it had “always done,” being the “central link in a chain of regional civilizations that extends from Japan in the north-east to Ireland in the far northwest.”44 In fact, “India holds the balance in the world-wide competition between rival ideologies.”45 If this is true, should India not be able to hold 39

Ibid., p. 24. The Hague Peace Conferences failed mainly because Germany would not agree to binding international arbitration. 41 Arnold Toynbee, One World and India, New Delhi: Orient Longmans, 1960 (Indian Council for Cultural Relations), p. 24 (Azad Memorial Lectures). 42 Toynbee, op.cit., p. 27. 43 Toynbee, op.cit., p. 35. 44 Toynbee, op.cit., pp. 40-1. “This chain of comparatively ancient Old-World civilizations had a name of its own in the Ancient Greek language. The Greeks called it collectively the Oikoumenê, meaning the inhabited part of the world…” 45 Toynbee, op.cit., pp. 41-2. 40

202 Has Indian Negotiating Power Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests?

the balance even today? Is it too far-fetched to assume that as a representative of the Global South in the UN, India as a nuclear power would greatly “contribute towards building a multi-polar world?” And that India’s nuclear tests therefore “should be greeted with tolerance and understanding, rather than with fear and trepidation.”46 Granted of course that the ‘transitional security arrangements’ in the UN Charter will be put into effect. If atomic weapons are the main cause and if they can also be used as the means to achieve disarmament and bring about a peaceful world order, India’s “commitment to pursuing global nuclear disarmament in order to achieve a nuclear-weapon free world”47 should be welcomed, as also its active participation in “multilateral discussions to bring about such a regime in a non-discriminatory manner within a definite time frame.”48 The failure of the international community to effectively address the threat posed by nuclear weapons over the past fifty years makes it all the more necessary that we redouble our efforts for their elimination in the coming years. … The goal of global nuclear non-proliferation can be achieved if the international community looks beyond the old framework and embraces a new security paradigm that can ensure international peace and security on the basis on equal and legitimate security for all through global disarmament.49

The Veto Like many scholars and politicians, Indians early on objected to and criticised the provisions about the veto,50 because they give the powers 46

See ‘Challenging Nuclear Hegemony,’ South Asian Voice. Views from Asia (June 2000 Edition, online), http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/nuclear2.html. 47 Statement by Ambassador Savitri Kunadi in the Plenary Meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, August 6, 1998, online: http://www.fas.org/news/india/1998/08/980806-prst068.htm. 48 J.N. Dixit, ‘The Rationale of India Going Nuclear,’ Discover India, August/September ’98 (emphasis added). 49 Statement by H.E. Ms. Savitri Kunadi Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations in Geneva at the General Debate in the First Committee, New York October 15, 1999, online: http://meaindia.nic.in/disarmament/dm15oct99.htm (emphasis added). 50 Speech by Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar, 1st Session, 14th Plenary Meeting, 18th January 1946, in: India at the U.N. Speeches 1945-1995, New Delhi: Ministry of

Klaus Schlichtmann, Ph.D.

203

that were victorious in the World War II a privileged position and status. But does the veto have other than transitional import? I believe it was meant not to preserve the status quo but to create a power hub to ensure that necessary change will happen, and to make possible the transition to the next stage. The text of the UN Charter suggests that as long as the Security Council has not been truly enabled to begin the full exercise of its responsibilities, in accordance with Article 106 of the UN Charter (and the other provisions relevant in this connection like Article 24 and 43), the veto has only preliminary significance. After the transitional period, when the system of collective security is fully operational, it loses its meaning. It becomes powerless and obsolete, because all the power is now with the UN, and all national military institutions under the sovereign authority of single, individual countries are abolished. The permanent members of the Security Council are also the main nuclear powers. The nuclear predicament compels us to adopt a one-world view and policy. At the same time it provides the opportunity for a safe passage through a supposed transitional period to a disarmed world.51 In 1961 it was said that “with regard to the maintenance of international [police] forces … [u]ntil there is an international law in the world and until the one-world principle has been agreed upon this is an impossibility.” 52 When much later in 1992 France suggested sharing its nuclear status within the context of Europe53 and to provide permanent troops to the UN External Affairs, 1997, vol. I, p. 5. 51 The question of whether “the [US] president (could) order American troops into action under a collective security agreement without congressional concurrence” may not concern us here. The issue of whether the “UN Security Council (could) order American troops into battle in defence of international peace and security” is likewise not important, since the System of Collective Security will only start functioning effectively after the transitional period is over, and disarmament has become a reality or progressed to such an extent that the UN is in a position to exercise effective police control. It is also not necessary to think of the transitional period, during which the Permanent Members of the Security Council would be under obligation to guarantee the peace and security of the world, as necessitating a ‘battle,’ as Urquhart seems to presume.51 Indeed, taking into account India’s role, and having India and also Japan and may be some other countries co-opted, an additional stabilising effect could be achieved for the transitional period. Brian Urquhart, ‘Looking for the Sheriff,’ ibid. 52 Speech by Mr. V.K. Krishna Menon, 16th Session, 1025th Plenary Meeting, 4th October 1961, in: India at the U.N., p. 351. 53 “[President Francois] Mitterand, in what is seen as a gesture to Germany, has broken a 30-year taboo by suggesting that France’s nuclear deterrent could be

204 Has Indian Negotiating Power Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests?

Security Council,54 it was conceived as a step towards this end. Yet it was not reciprocated by the other European powers, especially its main partner in the EU, Germany. Britain, too, because of its commitment to the Commonwealth, presumably wanted some guarantees first, to ensure international peace and security, and co-operation. If the Europeans were to agree to a single representation in the Security Council instead of the two permanent seats not occupied by Great Britain and France, the vacant seat could go to India as a representative of the Global South – at least as a first step requiring little change in the UN Charter text.55 Nevertheless, from the point of view of implementing the Transitional Security Arrangements, and setting off on the transition toward a weaponless world, in which war is abolished as an institution, Europe is destined and possessed with the historical responsibility to take the initiative.

V. How India can contribute to create One World and make the UN effective India can contribute to the creation of a One World and making the UN effective only if it is given a position and a mandate enabling it to do so. So far the UN and its members have failed to bring about a durable, positive peace,56 even after the Cold War has come to an end. What are the extended to protect the European Community.” Paul Zaylor, ‘France might share its bomb,’ Japan Times, 15 January 1992. See also the now historic article by Jacques Amalric in Le Monde, 12-13 January 1992, ‘La France suggère a ses partenaires d’étudier une doctrine nucléaire pour l’Europe.’ 54 “In 1992 French President François Mitterand called for revitalising the UN Military Staff Committee and offered to commit 1,000 French soldiers at its disposal on forty-eight hours' notice with another 1,000 ready for UN service within a week.” H. Peter Langille, ‘Conflict Prevention: Options for Rapid Deployment and UN Standing Forces,’ in: Oliver Ramsbotham and Tom Woodhouse, (eds.), Warlords, Hawks and Doves: Peacekeeping as Conflict Resolution, London: Frank Cass Publishing, 2000, note 11. Online: http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/reform/canada2.htm. See also the section on ‘Presidential Support’ and ‘International Support’ in Capt. Edward I. Dennehy, LTC William J. Droll, Capt. Gregory P. Harker, LTC Stephen M. Speakes, and LTC Fred A. Treyz, III, A Blue Helmet Combat Force, (Policy Analysis Paper 93-01, National Security Program, Harvard University, 1993), pp. 9-10. 55 See Klaus Schlichtmann, ‘A Draft on Security Council Reform’, Peace and Change, vol. 24, no. 4 (October 1999), pp. 505-535, for a comprehensive proposition for UN Reform in two stages. 56 For the classical distinction between negative (armed) and positive (unarmed)

Klaus Schlichtmann, Ph.D.

205

reasons for this failure? One reason may be that important regulations in the UN Charter have been misunderstood, disregarded and forgotten. The UN Charter is not static; it anticipates and provides for change. Change is imperative, an indispensable part and parcel of the original blueprint. The Charter and the corresponding national constitutions point the way and provide the institutional scaffolding. Interestingly, in 1990 the USA “dug out the ‘transitional’ security arrangement of Article 106 of the UN Charter,” as though expecting someone to actually initiate a process of empowering the United Nations. The author states that these “transitional security arrangements … enable(d) the permanent members to act on behalf of the UN outside the context of the Charter if necessary,” but he fails to add (or realise) its real purpose. According to the author this was a diplomatic trick “in order to hedge against a failure of its power of persuasion.”57 As I have tried to show, its real purpose should be to guarantee safe passage toward establishing an effective system of collective security, achieve disarmament, and help fill the “large hole in this ramshackle international structure - the absence of consistent and effective international authority in vital international matters.” 58 Strangely - and unfortunately - “[h]ardly anyone now recalls that a primary objective of the UN Charter was disarmament, without which the founders believed that the UN’s system of collective security could not work.”59 Of course, whether we like it or not, in the absence of a “constitutional, legally enforceable international system, it is scarcely surprising that governments,” like the US, “take their security into their own hands at great cost.”60 And in the case of the US one might say that, in the absence of an effective system of collective security or world government, the American government takes action, if and when the need arises, but - not strangely but unfortunately - only if it is in its own national interest. peace see for example David P. Barash, Approaches to Peace. A Reader in Peace Studies, New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 61-166. 57 Niels Blokker, Towards More Effective Supervision of International Organizations: Essays in Honour of Henry G. Schermers, Martinus Nijhoff, 1994 (International Studies in Human Rights), S. 56. 58 Urquhart, ‘Looking for the Sheriff.’ 59 Urquhart, ‘Looking for the Sheriff.’ According to Article 26 of the UN Charter, a system of collective security entails a system for the regulation of armaments, in order to ensure the “least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources.” 60 Urquhart, ‘Looking for the Sheriff.’

206 Has Indian Negotiating Power Increased since the 1998 Nuclear Tests?

Furthermore, a single government trying to ‘police’ the world is bound to end up making mistakes, as has happened repeatedly in the past. Without the “Transitional Security Arrangements” today’s international regimes “do not provide the kind of guarantees and protection that will persuade governments to delegate their national sovereignty to an international system,”61 although numerous European constitutions’ aim is just that. If India is to be given responsibility to achieve greater balance and representation in the UN Security Council, there must be sufficient ground to believe and trust India’s good intentions. The “Draft Report of National Security Advisory Board on Indian Nuclear Doctrine,” of 17/18 August 1999, states that it is “India’s endeavour to proceed towards this overall objective (an environment of durable peace and insurance against potential risks to peace and stability) in co-operation with the global democratic trends and to play a constructive role in advancing the international system toward a just, peaceful and equitable order.” 62 However, there are obstacles. In the context of the newly emerging US nuclear and security co-operation with India, it has been argued that “while the strategic benefits of expanded co-operation with India may be considerable, the non-proliferation costs may outweigh the benefits.” 63 This criticism though valid becomes obsolete, however, the moment the Europeans accept their responsibility, and take steps in accordance with their constitutional mandates, to start empowering the United Nations and through legislative action, giving shape to the future peaceful world order. In this context India would be a useful, powerful and auspicious addition to the concert of nations guaranteeing a representative balance to achieve the transition to a true One World international order.

61

Urquhart, ‘Looking for the Sheriff.’ See also point 1.4.: “India’s security is an integral component of its development process. India continuously aims at promoting an ever-expanding area of peace and stability around it so that developmental priorities can be pursued without disruption.” 63 CRS Report for Congress, U.S. Nuclear Cooperation with India: Issues for Congress, July 29, 2005, by Sharon Squassoni, Specialist in National defense, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division (Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress), online: www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33016.pdf. “On July 18, 2005, President Bush announced the creation of a global, partnership between the United States and India to promote stability, democracy, prosperity and peace throughout the world.” Ibid. 62

SECULARISM IN INDIA, U.S.A. AND UNITED KINGDOM RANJANA FERRĂO

We are born equal, where does the similarity end? In ancient times, before the advent of Christianity, there was no separation between "church" and state. Religion was generally considered as one of many functions of the community. In monarchies, the ruler was usually the highest religious leader and sometimes considered divine. Under republican government, religious officials were appointed just like political ones. In some cases a religious authority also held the the position of highest civil authority. The father of the Indian Secularism, Jawaharlal Nehru, together with the Congress Party of India developed a strategy which created a distance between the state and the religious passions of the society. In India all religions are encourged to flourish equally , which is different from the Western concepts of secularism. India lives on the matra “unity in diversity”.1

Western democratic nations place high importance on the separation of the institutions of church and state. Some nations, such as the United States of America, Australia and Canada, even have specific clauses in their constitutions which are widely interpreted as forbidding the government from favoring one religion over another. Other democracies, such as the United Kingdom have a constitutionally established State Religion, but are inclusive of citizens of other faiths. In countries like these, the head of government or head of state or other highranking official figure may be legally required to be a member of a given 1

Sudipta K. Crisis of the Nation-State in India. In Political Studies, Vol. XLII Special issue Contemporary crisis of Nation–State ed. John Dunn, 1994, 115-6

208

Secularism in India, U.S.A. and United Kingdom

faith. Powers to appoint high-ranking members of the state churches are also often still vested in the worldly governments.2

Secularism The English word ‘secular’ comes from the latin word ‘saeculum’ which means ‘an age’ or the ‘spirit of an age’. It has the same meaning of the Greek ‘aeon’ which is used in the New Testament for an ‘age’ or an ‘era’.3 The conflict between religious faith and human reason started in the Middle Ages.4 The earlier notions of belief in the laws of God were soon replaced by scientific principles which challenged the very existence of God. The term Secularism was coined in 1851 in England.5 Nowadays the words secularism is used to refer to a process by which society and culture are removed from religious denominations and institutions, since religion is considered a threat to modern nations. 6

Secularism In The Indian Constitution India will be a land of many faiths, equally honoured and respected, but of one national outlook. —Jawaharlal Nehru 24th January, 19487

In the Indian Constitution term “Secular State”8 did not appear. Professor K.T Shah in the Constituent Assembly attempted on two occasions to secure inclusion of the word "Secularism" in Fundamental Rights but without success. In his second attempt he proposed a new article which 2

Jones M. W.H- More Questions than answers in Asian Survey . Vol. XXIV, No. 8, Aug 1984, 811 3 Sumantra B. Hindu Nationalism and the Crisis of Indian State. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1998, 11-2 4 Chatterjee P, The Nation and its fragments, Oxford University Press, Delhi 1994 5 Madan T.N, Secularism in its Place . Oxford University Press, Delhi 1998, 297-8 6 Beger Peter L, The Social Reality of Religion, London 1973, 113 7 Gandhi M.K, An Autobiography or the Story of my Experiments with Truth, Navjivan Publishing House Ahmedabad, 1940, 383 8 The term “Secular State” is commonly used in the present day to describe the relation which exists or ought to exist between State and Religion. The Secular State is a state which guarantees individual and cooperate freedom of religions, deals with the individual as a citizen irrespective of his religion who is not constitutionally connected to a particular religion, nor does it seek to promote or interfere with religion.

Ranjana Ferrao

209

read, “The State in India being Secular shall have no conception with any religion, creed or profession of faith.” But it was rejected. Nehruji declared “the Government of a country like India with many religions that have secured great and devoted followings for generations, can never function satisfactorily in the modern age except on secular basis.” The term Secularism in India means a State has no religion of its own as recognized religion of State. It treats all religions equally. In a secular state the State regulates the relation between man and man. It is not concerned with the relation of man with God. There is no state recognized church or religion. No one is disabled to hold office on ground of religion. There is only one electoral roll on which are borne the names of qualified voters. The essential basis of the Indian Constitution is that all citizens are equal. The Constitution ensures equal freedom for all religions and provides that a religion of the citizen has nothing to do in socio-economic matters. The two words “Socialist” and “Secular” were not there originally in the Preamble of Indian Constitution, but were added to it by the 42nd Amendment in 1976. In the Preamble of the Constitution9 India has been defined as Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic that secures for all its citizens: social, economic and political justice; liberty of thought, expression, belief , faith and worship; equality of status and opportunity; and promotes among them fraternity assurign the dignity of the individual and unity and integrity of the nation.10 The problem is that the Constitution does not define what is meant by a secular Indian state and how religion should be separated from politics and state.

Courts Interpretation of Secularism In Keshavnanda Bharati V State of Kerala11 Khannna, J. said that the state shall not discriminate on grounds of religion only.

9 Outlines of Indian Legal and Constitutional History , M.P. Jain, 5th ed. 1999 , Wadhwa and Company 10 Franz Gisbert H. Constitutions of the Countries of the World Release, Oceana Publications , Dobbs Ferry New York 1997 11 A.I.R 1973 SC 1461

210

Secularism in India, U.S.A. and United Kingdom

In Indira Nehru Gandhi V Rajnarain Rai12 Chandrachud, J. explained the basic feature of secularism to mean that the State shall have no religion of its own and all persons shall be equally entitled to the freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion. The ingredients of Secularism were founded in Bommai V Union Of India.13 The Constitution prohibits the establishment of a theocratic state. Not only the state is prohibited to establish any religion of its own but it is prohibited further to identify itself with or favouring any particular religion because the state should give equal treatment to all religions and religious denominations.

Secularism a Basic Feature of the Indian Constitution In Valsamma Paul V Cochin University14 Pluralism is the keystone of Indian culture and religious tolerance is the bedrock of Indian secularism. It is based on the belief that all religions are equally good and efficacious pathways to perform for Gods realization. It stands for a complex interpretative process in which there is no transcendence of religion and yet there is no unification of multifarious religions. Secularism as a basic feature of the Constitution is the guiding principle of state policy and action.

Inter-caste marriages and adoption are two important social institutions through which secularism would find its fruitful and solid base for an egalitarian social order under the Constitution. Secularism in the Indian context is that the State shall not interfere in the religious affairs of its people and shall not discriminate on the ground of religion. The Constitution discusses the role of religion within the state. Religious rights were put into the Constitution as a solution to problems of religious turmoil, which existed in pre-independent India and led to formation of India and Pakistan.15 The Chapter on Fundamental Rights guarantees the minority groups that their interests are not overridden in a majority democracy. 12

A.I.R 1975 Sc 2299 A.I.R 1994 SC 1918 14 A.I.R 1996 SC 1011 15 Article 25 to 28 of the Constitution focus on Religious rights. 13

Ranjana Ferrao

211

Article 15 dealing with equality prohibits the Indian State from discriminating any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. However the State can make special provisions for the advancement of the backward classes or scheduled tribes. Such special quotas in employment and education, or reserved seats in representative bodies have led to controversies in India over the last decade. These quotas are seen as a positive discrimination in favour of schedule castes. In order to qualify as a member of the schedule caste, a person must be a Hindu, Muslim or a Sikh by religion. A public declaration of adoption of any other religion would disqualify a person from the quota16. Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment of any office under the state. For example the Muslims of Kashmir claim they have not been granted government posts because of their religion. Similarly Sikhs have been refused posts because of their religion in the Indian Army in the mid 1980s17. The Constitution of India, abolished untouchability and its practice in any form was prohibited. Special preferences in the name of religion do not exist. In India, secularism does not mean mere separation of religion and state but, the abolition of the practice of untouchability and promotion of castelessness (Article 17). The Untouchability (Offences) Act was renamed in 1976 as Civil Rights Act. The change in nomenclature was in tune with the aims and aspirations of the people The State in India is officially secular since there is no particular religion or an instrument of the church which is applied. Yet in practice the Indian state does not separate itself from religion but tries to give a picture of itself as a neutral country by publicly recognizing all religions and social practices. Religious rituals often with preference for the Hinduism are a part of public functions held under the auspices of the state. India claims to be Secular state and has special features of secularism. The freedom of religion, gives to every citizen not only equal right to free 16

Hasan Zoya, Changing Orientation of the State and Emergence of Majoritarianism in 1980, Manohar Publications, New Delhi, 1991 , 143 17 Pannikar K.N, Introduction to Communalism in India, Manohar Publications, New Delhi 1991, 10

212

Secularism in India, U.S.A. and United Kingdom

conscience but also the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion. However the state has right to regulate ‘any economic, financial, political or secular activity which may be associated with religious practice to provide for welfare and reform for all sections of society 18. The Freedom of Religion conferred is not only available to citizens of India but also to aliens. This was held in Ratilal Panachand Ghandhi V State of Bombay19. The State in exercise of its sovereign power can acquire places of worship like mosque, temples, churches if it is necessary for maintenance of law and order. Right to worship does not include the right to worship at each and every place. As laid in Ismail Faruqui V Union of India20, the word “Religion” is personal to the person having faith and belief in that religion. Hereditary rights of appointment of a priest are not essential to religion and religious practice. 21 Religion is that which binds a man with the cosmos his creator.22 A person has a right not to be converted into another man’s religion or even to have no religion at all. Every religion has right to propagate its tenets. The State has a right and duty to intervene in the activity of conversion if it offends the Secular character of the Constitution. The State can prohibit and penalize forceful conversions. Propagation does not mean forceful conversion but conversion by persuasion or dictates of one conscience.23 Secularism was seen as the only option to provide for a harmonious living together for different tribes and people of India. Indian understanding on secularism failed to provide satisfactory relationship between state and religion and the founding fathers were unable to explain to the people the precise definition of secularism.24 The All India National Forum and the Baratiya Janata Party (BJP) both Hindu organizations seek to abolish two crucial articles of the Constitution 18

Article 25 A.I.R 1954 SC 388 20 A.I.R. 1995 SC 605 21 A.S. Narayan .V. State of Andhra Pradesh 22 A.I.R 1977 SC 908 23 After the riots and forceful conversion in Gujarat the Government has proposed an Anti Conversion Bill 24 Pannikar K.N, Introduction to Communalism in India, Manohar Publications, New Delhi 1991, 10 19

Ranjana Ferrao

213

that give concessions to minorities or the minority dominated states. Article 30(1) permits religious and linguistic minorities to establish and run their own educational institutions, which the forum believes to be against national unity. Article 30 grants special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir where Muslims constitute a majority. According to the forum granting of such a status to the minority dominated state will encourage other minorities to seek special status within the Indian union and eventually lead to an imbalance. 25 The Constitution advances principles of Secular democracy in Article 325 by prohibiting electoral reservations on the basis of religion and outlaws the establishment of a special electorate for Muslims. All voters can vote under one general electoral roll and there is no reservation of seats on grounds of religion or community.26 The Representation of the People Act provides that appeals made on the grounds of religion to gather votes would be deemed to be a corrupt practice and would disqualify a candidate, but this happens as a rule in all Indian elections. All political parties use religion to gather votes. This starts from the selection of the candidates taking into account the communal character of the constituency. Vote banks are systematically built on the basis of caste and religion and the very leaders who take advantage of these vote banks do so in the name of secularism. This has been the hypocrisy of our secular democracy. In India the characteristics of a secular state can be outlined as follows: 1. The principle of liberty, which requires the state to permit the practice of any religion within the limits, set out by other basic rights, which the state has to protect. 2. Principle of Equality by which the state does not give preference to any religion over other. 3. Principle of Neutrality by which the state does not give preference to religious over non religious.

25

http://www.bjp.org/manifes/chap9.htm Chatterjee Partha, Secularism and Tolerance, Oxford University Press, Delhi 1998, 178

26

214

Secularism in India, U.S.A. and United Kingdom

Secularism in the Constitution of United States Founding Fathers based the US Constitution on God’s word. The Founding Fathers meant the Constitution to be understood as a Christian document of governance for a Christian nation. In the 1600s and 1700s, many Europeans emigrated to the United States. Some had a desire to worship freely in their own fashion. Others did not believe in religious tolerance and some came to America with the explicit aim of setting up a theocratic state.27 The later views taken by the Supreme Court were that human rights are determined by secular, natural laws, and not by any god or religion.28 Everson V Board Of Education Of Ewing Township The S.C had the opportunity for the first time to deal with the State religion relationship in an established context. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were of the view that a true religion did not need support of any law. No person either believer or non believer should be taxed to support a religious institution of any kind. The best interest of the society required men to be free.29 In Reynolds V United States30 Chief Justice Waite held laws are made for government actions. They cannot interfere with religious beliefs but they can control practices31.

The principle of Separation of the Church and the State In America a great variety of religious practices and beliefs exist peacefully. Under the Constitution the state does not involve itself with religious affairs or organizations. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is also the first section of the Bill of Rights. It is the most important part of the U.S. Constitution, as 27

“Theocratic state” - Iin which the state is founded upon the institution of religion, and the rule of law is based on the dictates of a religious court. Examples include ancient Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and Iran. 28 Chatterjee Partha, Secularism and Tolerance, Oxford University Press, Delhi 1998, 178 29 Jerome A. Baron, C. Thomas Constitutional Law Principles and Policy cases and materials, The Bobbs-Merill Comp, inc. Indianapolis , New York, 1975 30 98 U.S. 145 (1878) 31 The Constitution allows “free exercise” of religion

Ranjana Ferrao

215

it guarantees freedoms of religion, speech, writing and publishing, peaceful assembly, and the freedom to raise grievances with the Government. In addition, it requires that a wall of separation be maintained between church and state. It reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances32.

The First Amendment tried to resolve religious controversies. They are as follows33: 1. Decided that there would be no religious test, oath or requirement of any Federal elected office. 2. Allowed Quakers and others to affirm (rather than swear) their oaths in office. 3. Refrained from recognizing the religion of Christianity or one of its denominations as an established state church. But there was no specific guarantee of religious freedom. The Bill of Rights in the first Amendment adopted the founders' principles of separation of church and state. Neither a State nor a Federal government can pass laws which aid one religion or all religions. Neither can they force nor influence a person to go to or remain away from the Church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non- attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small can be levied in support of any religious activities or institutions whatever they may be called or whatever form they may be adopted to teach and practice religion. Neither a State nor the Federal Government can openly or secretly participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice-versa. The Constitution grants the freedom of Religious belief. This means the right to “Worship God according to the dictates of one’s conscience.” 34 32

A.A. Lipscomb & A.E. Bergh, editors, "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson", Washington, (1907), Vol. 16, P. 281. 33 E.S. Gaustad, "Faith of Our Fathers: Religion and the New Nation", Harper & Row, New York NY, (1987)

216

Secularism in India, U.S.A. and United Kingdom

Man’s relations with his God were made no concern of the State. He was granted the right of worship at his or her choice. 35 Restrictions are permissible only with regard to external acts of a person by way of professing, practicing or propagating religion. Mere belief cannot be subject to any legal or state control. In the United States no one can be punished for “heresy”. Freedom of practice is absolutely granted in the Constitution36. The right to act in the exercise of a man’s religious belief can not override the interests of the society and that it is competent for the legislature to suppress such religious practices which are dangerous to public morals, safety, health or good order.37 Compelling the school students to salute the national flag when they feel a religious obligation of not doing so on the ground that it amounts to image worship, which is forbidden by their religion, is unconstitutional38. Classrooms in a public school cannot be used for religious instructions nor can the public school use its power to further a religious program by releasing its pupils on condition that they attend religious classes. 39 If public school simply offers the opportunity to its pupils to join the religious classes held outside the school premises without the use of coercion, there is no unconstitutionality. Another issue was of Compulsory Bible reading in public schools. The educational policies of the state were in conflict over this. Various state courts justify the requirement of Bible reading in the schools as an appropriate means to familiarizing pupils with the most lasting expression of the English language. As held in United States V Kauten .40

34

Downes - V- Bidwell (1901) 182 U.S. 244 U.S. V/S Ballard SC USA 1944, 322 U.S 7 36 Davies –V/S Beason (1890) 133 U. S 333 37 West Virginia State Board Of Education –V- Barnettee (1942) 319 Us 624 38 ibid 39 Mecollum –V/S- Board Of Education (1948) 333 U.S. 203 40 133 F.2d 703, 708 35

Ranjana Ferrao

217

The Courts are bound by the judgment of the Church body and will not interfere in any strictly ecclesiastical matter except when conflicting claims arise respecting the use of property41. Religion plays a strong role in national politics, especially in controversial issues like abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality. Direct church-state issues also arise, currently including the question of whether or not school vouchers should be used to help parents pay for education at private schools which may have religious affiliations. The principles of the American Constitution are: Firstly “non interference”, the state or the government shall not establish any church. Second is “entitlement” , the citizens have right to follow a religion of his or her choice or none at all. 42 In USA the Congress cannot make any law respecting any establishment of any religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Religion and government both are left free to work in their own sphere. The principal religion in western hemisphere has been Christianity since the 16th century; it continues to be the choice of about 75% of the U.S. adult population. But, "religion" in the U.S. involves much more than Christian Churches it includes:43 1. Churches, circles, groves, gurdwaras, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc., and the organizations of which they are a part. 2. Solitary practitioners of an organized religion. 3. People who consider themselves religious, but are not affiliated with any specific group. 4. Humanists, secularists, Agnostics, Atheists, etc. all of whom have specific religious beliefs. Although some would consider them nonreligious. Many lawsuits about the entanglement of religion and government have involved conflicts between Christian churches and state laws and regulations 41

Weston V/S Jones 1872 U.S Wall 679 Smith D.E India as a Secualr State Oxford University Press, New Delhi 1998 43 http://atheism.about.com/od/godlessliberals/p/Constitution.htm 42

218

Secularism in India, U.S.A. and United Kingdom

Secularism in the Constitution of United Kingdom Inter-Relation of State and Religion The Church of England (Protestant Church) is an “established church” and the King of England is the Supreme head of the church and patron of all its clergy (or clergies) within the United Kingdom. The Church of England has been established by the acts of Supremacy and uniformity by the law established built into the fabric of the English Constitution. (Marshall V Graham44 ). The process of establishment means that the state has accepted the (Protestant Church) as a religious body in its opinion truly teaching the Christian faith and given certain legal position and to its decrees and certain legal sanctions45. The members of the church have special privileges such as relating to marriage. There are political disabilities attached to the Roman Catholics and other nonconformists. A Roman Catholic and those who marry Roman Catholics are excluded from the throne. Only the Bishops of the Church of England have seats in the House of Lords . (Bowman V Secular Society46) The ordinary law again makes a discretion between the Christian religion and other religion in so far as offence of blasphemy is committed if a person denies and ridicules the Christian religion in such terms as is likely to lead to a breach of peace.

Freedom of Religion Every person in England has freedom of conscience and that of professing his own religion and the freedom goes to the extent of propagation for non-religious society. In England there is no written constitution. Either there are laws of the Parliament or Decisions of judiciary which work as rights of the people47.

44

(1907) 2. K.B 112 B.V. Rao, World History , Sterling publications Pvt. Ltd, 1991 46 (1917) A.C. 406 47 http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/uk00000_.html 45

Ranjana Ferrao

219

1. Worship and religious teaching take place without any interference from the State. There is complete freedom of thought, conscience or form of worship and no restriction on the right of any citizen to change his or her religion. Atheists and agnostics are also free to propagate their views. 2. A person may, however, be held guilty of blasphemous libel if he or she publishes scurrilous and offensive references to Christianity that go beyond the limits of proper controversy. This does not apply to debate and discussion about the truth of Christian doctrines. 3. Churches and religious societies of all kinds own property, run schools and propagate their beliefs in speech and writing. Inquiries are not made about religion in population censuses or other official returns. 4. There is no religious bar to the holding of public office except in the case of the Sovereign who must by law be a Protestant. The Church of England and the Church of Scotland are the established 'official' churches for state ceremonies of a religious nature. Their members, however, do not obtain any advantages from being members of an established church rather than of any other church. 5. Religious education has to be provided in all schools financed from public funds and is part of the national curriculum. Parents have the right to ask for their children to be withdrawn from such classes. Some publicly maintained schools are provided by religious denominations and receive varying amounts of public finance, according to type. 6. Television and radio programs are broadcast on religious topics; these include religious services as well as programs in which adherents of the main religions and non-believers discuss their views. Advertising aiming to promote religious ends is not permitted on television or radio48. In England there is a combination of State and Religion. The Queen of England is the temporal head of the established Church of England. The Queen possesses the sole right of printing or licensing to print the Bible the Book of Common Prayer and state prayer. At the time of coronation and other ceremonial occasions, the Bishops of the church do important ceremonies. Christianity is the State Religion and in other words it is the established Church of England

48

http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/

220

Secularism in India, U.S.A. and United Kingdom

Threats to Secularism Secularism receives challenges from many fronts. Casteism and communalism are losing their credence, because of the spread of science and technology and communication, as well as due to liberal and progressive outlook. But on the contrary, casteism and communalism are getting a new lease of life because of the short-sighted policies of powerhungry politicians and the narrow outlook of the administrators and the leaders. With our global society, it is likely that we will meet people from every corner of the planet. Understanding the religious beliefs of these people is one of the many steps which mankind must take in order to someday prosper together in peace. The time has come to strengthen the secular values, institutions and practices in an uncompromising manner and to accelerate the pace of change to bring about peace in the world.

HISTORY OF WORLD DEMOCRACY KENNETH KOSTYO

Most people think of the world democracy movement as a new phenomenon or even one whose time has not quite yet come to pass. A closer examination of history, however, reveals that this has been the hope and dream as well as practical project of many political thinkers, activists, and leaders throughout the world and throughout the ages. To analyze the history of the quest for democracy at the supranational level, we must do so through a closer examination of its component parts: democracy (and republicanism) and the position of nation-states as the primary unit for organizing affairs in our world. One of these concepts is as old as humankind itself, and one of these concepts in basically brand new – which one is surprising to most people. The first and therefore presumably most “natural” way of organizing affairs of man was through small communities. These were something that we could recognize as democracies and/or republics, but not as modern nation-states. This is contrary to the common perception of history as a slow move away from the inevitable rule of kings to government by the people – a modern idea originating in Europe. These assumptions are wrong on every level. Studies of Native American, Mesopotamian, and North Indian tribes reveal that democracy and republicanism have been around since before recorded history and long pre-date the nation-state system. Every corner of the Earth, at some time, has experienced shifts from republican to tyrannical forms of government and/or back again. Written history is filled with nearly countless ancient democratic city-states (Athens) as well as republican systems (Carthage). In such systems, ultimate power over all matters, including international affairs, resided with the citizens and/or their representatives. This would mean that the decision to go to war or treaty for peace or lower tariffs or other “foreign” matters were voted upon in the same manner as regulation of the trades and other “domestic” matters.

222

History of World Democracy

This is certainly not the case today. Global governance seems very distant and mysterious even to the educated and politically active. Even in systems with very active direct democratic involvement, citizens have scant power over the WTO or World Bank. The source of this discrepancy can be traced to the nation-state as the ultimate source of power in international affairs and its origins in the European Renaissance. Throughout the centuries of the Middle Ages, almost all of Europe was governed by the strict hierarchy of the feudal system. Starting in the Fifteenth Century the system had been spread to three other continents. It is important to note at this juncture that the Roman Catholic Europe itself was one of cosmopolitan governance that intended to unite all of the Earth under one system. It, however, does not compose a very large part of our study because it was the antithesis of democratic governance. The government in the Vatican was more akin to the imperial Roman one it replaced. The pyramid shaped structure had at its peak the Roman Catholic pope as the infallible word of God. This system was never as thorough as it seemed. The rich merchants of Northern Italy and the Alps and along the Northern seas organized themselves in republican city-states where commercial ties were jealously guarded against the Vatican’s interference. Even in these partially democratic systems, however, the pope was regarded as the ultimate authority in spiritual matters. This ended, of course, with the protestant reformation culminating in the thirty years war. This devastating war was waged between the emerging economic powers of protestant Europe and the Catholic kingdoms of Southern Europe who were organizing themselves into large nation-states. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) that ended the war contained a bizarre philosophical tool. It broke the hierarchy of the Church by concluding that in each political entity, the king spoke for his people. So France, and its millions of protestants were determined to be Catholic because of its Catholic king. Holland had always had a majority of Catholics, but in purposes of foreign affairs, it was determined to be Protestant. This was the birth – or at least the formal recognition – of the modern concept of the nation-state. It was agreed at Westphalia that each king would rule unquestioned within his own domain. This meant that his judgment went unaltered by the pope, but also by any other king. The systematic whole remained: What happen if two kings disagreed in matters external to each of their kingdoms. There was no longer the pope’s unquestioned authority to settle such matters. Westphalia could not answer this question, and it remains unanswered until this day. Basically the princes of Europe were left to resolve their disputes to the best of their abilities, and Europe was

Kenneth Kostyo

223

given a dark future of three hundred years of unending war. Gone forever was the dream of a universal catholic church or the order of Pax Romana. This idea if the supreme king was immediately challenged. The commonwealthmen of England created a republic and their radically democratic ideas finally found a home in their American colonies. Westphalia recognized the independence of the Netherlands and Switzerland and the citizens there established very republican systems. These shockwaves continued until even the Catholic kings were toppled in France and in Spain’s American colonies. This process of democratization of the domestic sphere continues to the present. The kings, however, continued to speak for their people in the matters of world affairs. In cases, where there were no longer kings this power of foreign affairs was seized by the executive branches of modern constitutional systems. Even within the nation-state system, many democratic writers and activists spoke of democracy as a universal right. We think of Jefferson, Cloots, Rousseau, and Harrington as being involved in the American, French, or English revolutions, but that is a reading of where they worked and not what they wrote. The Age of Enlightenment dream was for a universal republic. Many authors use that language specifically (e.g. Cloots and later Hugo) while others imply it with their talk of universal application of the rights of the citizens (Jefferson). The major political achievement of the Age of Enlightenment was to take the democratic-republican city-state model and expand it and apply it to the modern nation-state. Taken to their logical conclusion, this would be a world in which citizens or their elected representatives have direct control over all matters of state both in domestic and foreign. This march to the universal republic was interrupted again. The ambitiously democratic program of the French Revolution was seized by Napoleon who temporarily used the spirit and ideas of the republic as marketing, but ultimately converted his lands into an empire. Napoleon’s intents were quite obviously to establish a new Roman Empire to be run by him from Paris. This project was ended by his military defeat. Responsibility for the design of the post-Napoleon world was placed in the hands of the Vienna Congress. They had an extremely conservative vision that amplified the problems of Westphalia. The French and Dutch Republics were converted to kingdoms. Princes were elevated to kings exported to invented thrones in Norway, Belgium, and elsewhere. The

224

History of World Democracy

great republican city-states such as Ragusa and Venice were to disappear and never been seen again. This was the beginning of the age of secret diplomacy, real politik, and European imperialism. The lack of an effective dispute resolution method inherited from Westphalia was not corrected. The newly emboldened European kings decided to literally split up the entire world among themselves, creating transcontinental empires. This “multi-imperial” system was intended to introduce some order into foreign affairs. The idea was that the vastness of Africa and Asia could be controlled because England would administer one part of it and Germany another, etc.. Once again, the problem of how to peacefully resolve disputes between Germany and England was left unanswered I have already alluded to the lack of a transnational dispute resolution system that existed since 17th century Europe. This introduces us to the fascinating history of the various movements to create such a system. As early as the 13h Century King George of Bohemia called for an international body to resolve European disputes. Dante, Erasmus, William Penn, and early socialist writers all proffered systems that would displace the war system with a recognized legal order at the international level. Some system of dispute resolution did finally come into existence in the form of the League of Nations, but the seeds for the inevitable war between these competing empires had already been sewn. It is important to note that the League of Nations was never intended to be a true democratic body of dispute resolution. It continued the monopoly that executive branches of governments have over foreign affairs Unfortunately these plans were finally realised in the era of empires and the resulting cold and hot wars. Only now as globe-trotting tourists, multinational corporations, global justice activists, as well as cross-border criminal gangs lead us to a world beyond borders can we return to the ancient work of la Republique Universelle.

SECTION II SYNOPSIS OF THESIS AND BOOKS

THE POLITICS OF WORLD FEDERATION JOSEPH PRESTON BARATTA

Theses This book is a history of the practical, political efforts to establish a constitutionally limited, democratically representative, federal world government in order to effectively abolish war. Historically, during the coming, waging, and aftermath of World War II, a number of people in and out of government in America and in the eventually 51 allied countries in the wartime “United Nations” urged that the failed League of Nations not be simply revived, even with U.S. membership, but be transformed into the beginnings of a representative world government. In principle, they argued that the moment had come to guide international organization through a transition like that when the United States under the Articles of Confederation (1781) passed to a more perfect union under the federal Constitution (1787). Europeans, too, looked to federation as an end to endemic wars, and in time the European Union would be the practical realization of such dreams [p. 1]. The closest the United States has ever come to support for a world federation was in the State Department during deliberations about the shape of the U.N. organization in 1942–43, and again, after first use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during negotiations over the Baruch plan for the international control of atomic energy in 1946. There were hearings on world federation in Congress in 1948–50, but amity among the victorious allies of World War II could not be maintained, and the Cold War emerged as the reality of international life for 40 years [1]. The Baruch plan was the nearest approach to a world government proposal offered by the United States; such a proposal could have been more “fair” to the Russians, who in the circumstances of 1946 probably would still have rejected it but would at least not have been alarmed by the deceptiveness of the plan actually offered; and the story of the failure

Joseph Preston Baratta

227

to make the plan a complete world government proposal casts a sidelight on the origins of the Cold War and offers some guidance for a way out of the present arms race [179]. Long study of great power politics may incline us to forget the hope and willingness to create new international institutions that characterized the last year of World War II and at least a year thereafter. The war had been a “people’s war” not only in the Soviet Union but also in the United States, Great Britain, and the other United Nations. About 125 million people had been put into uniform on all sides during the war. Soldiers and people on the home front throughout the world were determined that never again would there be another general war. “Practically every soldier has asked for the elimination of war,” Baruch noted in an early policy draft [179]. Prime Minister Winston Churchill made an actual offer, not often remembered, of British union with France on 16 June 1940; Arnold Toynbee was coauthor of this proposal. The offer was the inspiration for Jean Monnet’s leadership to form the first European Community in 1951 [4]. In a survey of the literature worldwide, Strengthening the United Nations, we have found substantial works from 72 nations and five intergovernmental organizations on systemic U.N. reform and world federalism. Outside of the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, the next most fertile countries for federalist thinking were, in this order: India, Japan, Mexico, and so on down to Paraguay, Tunisia, and Zaire. It has not been an “American” movement [5]. By the end of World War II, a number of people in Europe and America judged that the problem of war and the world–wide spread of industry and democracy made so great an innovation in world affairs as the establishment of world federal government both necessary and possible. It is necessary to protect the people, to make a reality of collective security, and to solve global problems beyond the capacity of sovereign national states. It is possible because of the global expansion of Western industrialization, finance, and economic techniques, the spread of European forms of liberal and socialist democracy, the counter-flow of non-Western cultural ideas from the post-colonial world, the shrinking of distances by modern transportation and communications, and, in short, the interdependence of civilized life today on the planet. The world is already one, federalists say; only law and politics lag behind [9–10].

228

The Politics of World Federation

The limitation of national sovereignty for the purpose of participating in higher unions, to secure the common defense and promote the general welfare, is not unprecedented but rather is quite widely recognized in the fundamental constitutions of numerous states. Shortly after World War II, the constitutions of France, Italy, and West Germany were expressly changed to permit delegations of sovereignty to a European federation (or, by legal implication, to a world federation); the constitution of Japan renounced war. Some 37 states have so amended their constitutions, not counting ten more to enter the widened European Union under its draft constitution [11]. World federalists say that they, who wish to extend the rule of law, are the realists, while those who put their faith in a league of sovereign states or, worse, who suppose that peace can long be maintained by deterrence or competition in arms are the utopians [11]. In our survey, The United Nations System, on the literature since the end of the Cold War on U.N. reform, most writers seem to see three general directions for the future of the United Nations, analogous to the three fundamental bases of international politics—balance of power, collective security, and rule of law: 1. Cautious development of the state system, utilizing the U.N. as at present only when bilateral diplomacy must avail itself of the services of multilateral diplomacy. 2. A non-hierarchical system of perhaps 100 international organizations, including a much more effective United Nations empowered to achieve the purposes in its Charter. 3. A world federal government, preserving the nation–states but providing a higher level of legislative, executive, and judicial authority, probably on the model of the emerging European Union. A non-hierarchical system (alternative 2) is now overwhelmingly preferred, not only because statesmen (and -women) are reluctant to part with national power, but also because the peoples of the states are fearful, after over 40 years of the Cold War, to centralize power in a world state, even if it could be designed as a federal system with such checks and balances as not to become a threat to liberty. But a non-hierarchical world system of organizations that could be effective in keeping the peace and in providing the negotiating forum for cooperating to solve global problems

Joseph Preston Baratta

229

would practically amount to the same thing. If it keeps the peace and respects the independence and diversity of modern states and their restive peoples, what is its difference from a world federation? The present world situation, we find, can be seen as a period of political creativity no less inferior to that at the founding of the United States [17]. The achievement of the rule of world law will largely depend on new, enlightened national leadership and on massive public opinion ready to undertake the responsibilities no less than to enjoy the benefits of world citizenship. Jean Monnet used to say that, for the hard work of uniting sovereignties, people will act only when faced by a crisis. Thomas Jefferson said much the same when he wrote, “All experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than they are to right themselves by changing the forms to which they are accustomed” [26]. After announcement of the Truman Doctrine and establishment of the Cominform in 1947, the Cold War arrived. That is the principal explanation for the decline of the world federalists. In the years particularly from 1947 to 1951, frustrated atomic scientists after defeat of the Baruch plan, baffled intellectuals at the University of Chicago, Europeans split between the ambitions of the Crusade for World Government and the fragile beginnings of European Union, and organized World Federalists mobilizing the public behind state and U.S. congressional resolutions to at least declare world federal government the long-term policy of the United States—all engaged in principled dissent from the reversion to massive rearmament, universal military service, and defensive alliances that policy makers on both sides, schooled in war, treated as alone realistic and prudent. The conventional wisdom in the West drew its lessons from Munich, the suppression of the London Poles, the Chinese Revolution, and the Czech coup—in the East from the slackness of de-Nazification in West Germany, the threat of atomic bombs, and the ringing of the communist world with armed capitalist allies. Lost were the lessons of the alliance systems that led to World War I, the failure of the League of Nations, and the presumption of “great power unanimity” in the new United Nations. Preparedness was the order of the day. Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. [300]. In such a hostile atmosphere, all world federalists could do was to quietly affirm, as did Grenville Clark and United World Federalists, “There is no peace without justice, no justice without law, no law without government” [299].

230

The Politics of World Federation

Nevertheless, there was notable progress of the ideal of world federation, now usually forgotten in national history. Probably the climax of the political efforts was passage of world federalist resolutions in some 22 American states and introduction of 16 resolutions in the U.S. Congress, which led to instructive hearings in the House of Representatives in 1948 and 1949 and in the Senate in 1950. Federalists were still not numerous enough in the public to pass the bills in Congress, but such legislative successes—threatening to elevate world federalism from a principled ideal to a political reality—provoked the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Veterans of Foreign Wars by 1949 to organize in desperate opposition to world federalism. The ideal had emerged onto the plane of politics[300]. World federation, as an idea that might contribute to the security and prosperity of the United States, appealed to Democrat and Republican, North and South and West. It was a movement in the center. It assumed that what divided people were not left and right, communism and capitalism (for all polities are now mixed); the real issue was devotion to national sovereignty versus openness to federal world government to inaugurate the rule of world law [448]. American public opinion was ready enough to support a policy of ultimate world federation, concludes the most acute student of federalist public opinion, Francis S. Bourne. The people followed the president into war after Pearl Harbor, and then again into the United Nations, and again, in a time of seeming desperate peril, into NATO. Bourne cautioned that congressional committees and their staffs gather most of their information and evidence from executive agencies, Library of Congress, lobbyists of interest groups, and experts. Hearings assist in “clarifications of points of view through the interrogation of witnesses,” that is, “more in its public relations aspect than in its fact–finding.” As for the world federalist hearings, argued Bourne, “the most significant evidence from the [Foreign Relations] Committee’s standpoint was that presented by the State Department, which had set a firm course in advance opposing world federation on other grounds than a mere lack of consensus among the American public, although this argument was used to gild the lily.” State contended that the resolutions were “not in the best interest of American foreign policy at those times.” Leadership provides the difference [48283]. The idea of the rule of law throughout the world has not died. Objectives of building the “rule of law” in all nations are commonplace in foreign

Joseph Preston Baratta

231

policy documents. The idea of the rule of world law reaching individuals, as distinguished from international law reaching no further than states, has not died, though it is still a dream. That the rule of world law, commonly enacted by representatives of the people from every nation and civilization, must be based on more than treaties, customs, principles of law, and teachings of the most highly qualified publicists, that is, on international institutions that would resemble a world federal government or a world republic, is also still a dream. What has died is the notion that world federation can be established by a daring manifesto of principles, or by one national leader taking up the cause, or by the stroke of the world constitution drafter’s pen, or by victory in another world war [527]. Atomic fear has proven too shallow a motivation for the great work of establishing world government. Humanity will not be frightened into delegating its sovereign powers to a common or federal government. Something like love of country—love of the earth—is needed. People must want a higher level of government to guarantee their liberties, their property, and their security. A positive vision is needed [528]. The political process of the transition is barely begun by sending a cultivated and articulate lawyer into every state legislature and winning passage of a world federalist resolution in the final rush of legislation shortly before adjournment. The public must learn what is going on, the press must help articulate the question, the legislature must be engaged in open debate, and finally—the real test —politicians must run for office on the issue of world federation. Something like Franklin Roosevelt’s campaigns against the “economic royalists,” against the “forces of selfishness and of lust for power,” will be needed [528]. The time for so fundamental a change in international life is surely not when nations are mobilizing for war and nuclear missiles are either being readied or actually flying. No doubt, as Jean Monnet used to say, a crisis will be necessary for uniting sovereignties, but the opportunity lies in the period when preparations for making the peace are in progress, not long after they have again failed. In this history, the opportunity for the world federalists was in 1942–43, long before they were even appreciably organized. After that, they were too late. Public opinion must be brought to bear before policy is changed, not afterwards. Absolutely the worst time was after the containment policy was announced in the Truman doctrine and demilitarization was reversed[528].

232

The Politics of World Federation

On the matter of timing, surely it was a mistake, though understandable and even creditable, to think, as did Mortimer Adler, that humanity had only five years after Hiroshima to undertake the great experiment in world government. The argument was that as soon as the Russians developed atomic weapons, a third world war would become inevitable. “One World or None!” as a cry of hysterical urgency now rings very flat. There was plenty of time, as even Stringfellow Barr and his associates in the Foundation for World Government sensed. History does not move by logic; it moves by events. Although the choice made by the United States, certainly by 1949, was to attempt to maintain leadership in the arms race within an anarchic world, instead of setting a policy goal of strengthening the United Nations on the model of a world federation open to all, in the 45 years of Cold War national leaders of the nuclear weapons states exercised restraint, preserved the United Nations, negotiated arms control treaties, and generally, as Alfred Mahan used to say about the function of force, gained time for moral ideas to take root. There was a middle way between world war and world government. The gradual approach makes political sense [528-29]. What about Russia? What about the Communist party? There were, it is true, signs of Russian willingness to federate—as among the “rootless cosmopolitans” and in the Gromyko plan for control of atomic energy— but after 1947 the Soviet government was unmistakably opposed, for the very plain reason that, as Gromyko said, a majority–rule world legislature, at that historical epoch, could not be trusted to protect the Soviet peoples. This was the real reason for opposition—not that world federalists were agents of American imperialism, though this too was said to steel the faith [529]. A working union of peoples—as opposed to an association of states— must be based on liberal democracy first, history concludes. Any elements of economic democracy would have to added to that foundation, as in mixed economies everywhere. Anarchy is not the sole cause of war; putting equality before liberty also proved another [529]. The U.S. government, it is also true, was opposed to world federal government, for the plain reasons given repeatedly by the State Department that such changes in international relations were premature and that the public was not prepared to exercise the contemplated new duties of world citizenship [530]. Sovereignty is nowhere absolute. In years to come, some 37 nations

Joseph Preston Baratta

233

modified their constitutions to permit limitations of sovereignty in order to participate in regional unions, as in Europe. Even the U.S ended its no entangling alliances tradition by signing the Atlantic pact in 1949, which diplomatic historians still treat as a “revolution.” The next step of entering a political union would be a far greater revolution [530]. Were the peoples of the world not ready for world federation by the mid– 20th century? There were signs of rather surprising readiness, as in the 73 national and associated organizations from 22 countries in the World Movement, the 22 states in the U.S. that passed federalist legislation, the 16 federalist resolutions introduced in Congress after 1947, the outpouring of editorial opinion and testimony in the House and Senate hearings of 1948–50. The number of federalists throughout the world at the peak in 1950 was on the order of 151,000. But, historically, compared to the public that followed the lead of those who brought about the Cold War, popular federalist preparedness was, just as the politicians said, very thin. There were never the million members in Britain’s Federal Union or in Clarence Streit’s organization of the same name to prevent World War II, nor the 50 million estimated by Raymond Gram Swing in 1947 as necessary to produce a world federation in the atomic age [530]. To admit that is to raise again the question, Could the people have been led? No people spontaneously produce great, concerted changes like the independence of the 13 colonies from the mother country or the eradication of slavery: they bring forth leaders to achieve these popular goals. Judging how rapidly the American people were disabused of their sympathies for their brave Russian comrades in the year 1947, or how swiftly they were brought into an entangling alliance with Europe in 1949, it is enticing to think that wise national leadership in the direction of world federation was possible. But surely that would have required the wartime alliance between the United States, Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the remaining allies in the United Nations to hold. It would have required Stalin to trust the West after the failure to open an effective second front until 1944, or after they failed to unite and stand fast in the League of Nations in the face of early Japanese, Italian, and German aggression in the 1930s. If Roosevelt had lived, would the Cold War not have emerged as it did? Truman was overwhelmed with the problems of making the peace after 1945; he supported the U.S. plan for the international control of atomic energy, but he could not prevent the navy from getting a piece of the action from the army at the Bikini tests, which destroyed Russian trust for the Baruch plan. Henry Wallace, it is true, tried to lead the people away

234

The Politics of World Federation

from Truman and lost utterly. Henry Usborne was the only national politician to campaign openly and persistently in favor of world government, and he won reelection to Parliament one last time in 1950. So as a historical matter in the circumstances of the early Cold War, we are constrained to doubt that national leadership would have made the difference between success and failure for the world federalists. Ask the question today, and the answer would probably be but a few more millions of potential world citizens. Clearly immense works of preparing world public opinion for new political leadership will be needed for anything like world federation to emerge [530]. The great problems for world federalists were membership, representation, powers, and transition. In their deep struggles over principle, a certain resolution of these problems developed by the end of the Cold War. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the first statements by Georgi Shakhnazarov recognizing the necessity for world government, the universalists and those who demanded democracy before union effectively merged. On powers, virtually all workers on international organization now speak not only of security but also of economic development and social justice, so it could be said that the maximalists have prevailed. Those in the mainstream, like Grenville Clark, who dared to ask for but minimal powers for a world federation, thought that all that was possible was to keep the way open for maximal ones later, as by amendment of the U.N. Charter. On representation, weighted voting as in the Bretton Woods institutions seems all that is now practicable in majority–rule international organizations, although one hears little of it. Weighted voting is not in accord with strict democracy, but it is not nearly as offensive to democratic values as the Big Five veto. As for the transition, the peoples’ convention, unguided by national leadership, has been utterly discredited. The gradual, U.N. reform approach is the only one viable by popular pressure and someday by associations of parliamentarians, complemented by enlightened national leaders [531]. Measured by the standards of the Founding Fathers of the U.S. federal Union, as we have often done, the world federalists of the 1940s and thereafter were hardly able to animate all humanity with their new political ideal, nor to exercise the political leadership to establish a world constitution and to set in practical motion the first government of the world. Yet the world federalists of the mid–20th century deserve respect for clearly analyzing the problem of international anarchy, alerting the world to the dangers of atomic weapons, devising model world

Joseph Preston Baratta

235

constitutions to establish the rule of world law, entering the political process at the grassroots, state, and national levels, risking (some of them) to enter presidential politics, meeting hostile nationalist and isolationist opposition, and trying by their lights to expand democracy and exercise the sovereignty of the people. They showed the way into the future [532]. The unity slowly being forged out of diversity in the future will probably be as novel in comparison to the historic national federations as the federations were to the confederations and monarchies that preceded them [2, 17, 536].

THE POLITICS OF WORLD FEDERATION JOSEPH PRESTON BARATTA

Achievements That limited, federal world government remains a distant ideal must be granted. That the United Nations remains perilously weak, while nationalism has brought the world to ever more destructive wars, must also be admitted [p. 508]. Europeans, starting in the World War II Resistance and continuing through Jean Monnet’s leadership in establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, looked to federation as an end to endemic wars, and in time the European Union would be the practical realization of such dreams [1]. The defense of the rule of law is the principal legacy of the world federalists. “Law,” Mark Van Doren once said, “is what allows us to live in peace with our neighbors without having to love them.” Grenville Clark—one of a handful of principal leaders of the world federalists— had deep faith in the power of law to accommodate even Russians and Americans, communists and capitalists, just as capital and labor have been brought under one law in national states. All his writings were conceived to bring what we call East and West, North and South under one law. Clark believed that adherence to law was the true ground of human freedom. By eliminating the regime of fear, world law would create cooperative and competitive conditions for an almost unimaginable material and spiritual prosperity. The doctrine of national sovereignty— the defiance of any higher law—he regarded as shameful for man. It was another name for isolationism. He correctly saw that sovereignty, if it means anything at all, means the right of the people to institute new government to effect their safety and happiness [508-09]. Two important model world constitutions emerged from the political struggles of the 1940s and ’50s: The Preliminary Draft of a World

Joseph Preston Baratta

237

Constitution of Robert M. Hutchins, G. A. Borgese, and their committee at the University of Chicago (1948), and World Peace through World Law of Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn (1958, 1960, 1966). The first is a constitution of “maximal” powers aiming at peace and justice; the second, one of “minimal” or limited powers devoted to maintenance of international peace and security, though with a more liberal amendment procedure to provide for acquisition of greater powers as the revised United Nations proved safe and effective. No other works will so briefly demonstrate what world federalists aimed at. They are the place for students to begin [3-4, 601]. The movement left behind a large literature from many countries, voluminous yet neglected, though sometimes its ideas reappear in the more up–to–date forms of functionalism, transnationalism, world order, and global governance. In Britain, Lord Lothian’s Pacifism Is Not Enough, Nor Patriotism Either (1935) is a typical classic. In Italy, Altiero Spinelli and the European Parliament’s Draft Treaty Establishing the European Union (1984) was certainly the most significant recent draft constitution for the practical federation of modern states. In the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev period, Georgi Shakhnazarov’s article, “The World Community Is Amenable to Government [upravlyayemost mirom],” shows how one great power could completely reverse its former opposition. Readers will find literature written in their own languages from the U.S., Britain, Canada, Europe, Mexico, India, and Japan [597]. World Federalists succeeded in passing resolutions favoring U.S. participation in a world federal government in some 22 American states, and they introduced 16 resolutions in the U.S. Congress, which led to instructive hearings in the House of Representatives in 1948 and 1949 and in the Senate in 1950. One of their state resolutions was the “California plan” providing for a Constitutional amendment to permit delegation of U.S. sovereign powers to a higher legal union, analogous to the 37 national provisions. The plan passed in California, Maine, North Carolina, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Florida [300, 263-64, 454]. World Peace through World Law made a substantial contribution to the movement for general and complete disarmament that flourished from 1958. After an initiative by Nikita Khrushchev, U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter made a counter-proposal in Clark and Sohn’s spirit. Herter emphasized four elements of world order, on each of which agreement was essential for safe disarmament: (1) universal acceptance of defined rules of law; (2) creation of an adequate world court to enforce the

238

The Politics of World Federation

laws; (3) raising an international armed force superior to any national forces; and (4) disarmament of all nations down to levels required for internal policing. He also recommended an educational program to increase the understanding of these principles by people in government as well as by the American people. Negotiators John J. McCloy and Valerian A. Zorin then produced on 20 September 1961 a historic agreement on the principles of “general and complete disarmament.” The text explicitly set out the military forces, bases, stockpiles, weapons, and expenses to be eliminated; the stages of implementation, with compliance and verification procedures at every stage; the establishment of an international disarmament organization with powers of inspection and control, not subject to a veto; and the creation of a U.N. peace force and of reliable procedures for the peaceful settlement of disputes. It was followed by American and Soviet draft treaties on general disarmament in 1962. But the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of Kennedy, the Vietnam War drove the McCloy–Zorin agreement out of mind. In response to the disappointment with disarmament, the Minuteman ICBM was rapidly deployed. Nevertheless, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1961) survives as a relic of that earlier initiative, and at the United Nations, starting with the first general conference on disarmament (1978), the goal of “general and complete disarmament under effective international control” survived for many years. Over the years, United World Federalists (UWF), in Congress and in public, supported many causes associated with the United Nations: Charter amendment, enforceable disarmament, opposition to the Bricker amendment, decolonization, economic development aid to Third World countries, abolition of the Connally amendment to U.S. participation in the International Court of Justice, an international criminal court, a permanent U.N. peacekeeping force, arms control, a comprehensive (then a partial) test ban, economic conversion from a war economy, human rights, opposition to the Vietnam War, opposition to antiballistic missiles (ABMs) and to multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs), a settlement in the Middle East, a world disarmament conference, admission of Communist China to the U.N., world population control, environmental protection, the law of the sea, world order, and strengthening the U.N. These efforts, if they did not reverse a fundamentally national American foreign policy, which remained committed to “peace through strength,” did at least contribute to a climate of opinion in restraint of policy and in some cases to the establishment of new international institutions [510].

Joseph Preston Baratta

239

Federalists also had a tendency to spin–off new organizations, as members of UWF felt the old organization could not respond to new opportunities and directions in the peace movement. Organizations that were founded at least in part by former world federalists include: the Committee on a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) (Norman Cousins, 1957), Members of Congress for Peace through Law (Senator Joseph S. Clark, 1959), Institute for International Order (Harry Hollins, 1960), Coalition on National Priorities and Military Policy (Joseph Clark, 1969), the International Peace Academy (Ruth Young, 1970), the U.N. Special Committee on the Charter and on Strengthening the Role of the Organization (Carlos Romulo, 1974), and Parliamentarians for World Order (Nicholas Dunlop, 1978 [511]. The Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution, though it was, as Time magazine said, only “something to think about,” had one notable achievement. In the early 1950s, Robert M. Hutchins, then an associate director of the Ford Foundation, approved a plan by Grenville Clark to create about a dozen centers for the study of world law around the globe. They estimated the project would cost about $25 million. That seemed about the right order of magnitude for the intellectual preparation of countries within the several civilizations to undertake the rule of world law. But the plan was stalled and finally rejected when a narrow majority of the foundation board held that it was “contrary to the policy of our government.” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who privately expressed belief in the concept of enforceable world law but who publicly was the chief advocate of the containment and even rollback of Communism, apparently sent very mixed signals to the foundation. The upshot was that Clark received only a pittance. But in 1959, Hutchins, with Ford money, founded the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, which did not pose the risks for American foreign policy that a number of centers in many countries would have. The fellows in Santa Barbara did not devote themselves to solution of the ultimate problem of world political unification but to preservation of democratic institutions in the United States. Mortimer Adler, Scott Buchanan, and Rexford Guy Tugwell were familiar participants. (Tugwell drafted a model constitution for the United States.) Elisabeth Mann Borgese also entered the dialogue, and she began there her more transitional work on the law of the sea. The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea was signed in 1982, and the U.S. joined that legal regime in 1993 [498, 604]. The Foundation for World Government, which was originally funded by

240

The Politics of World Federation

Anita McCormick Blaine to support a peoples’ world constitutional convention, had slight but far–seeing achievements. Most of its work took place in brilliant seminars led by Scott Buchanan and Stringfellow Barr. Its funded studies resulted in rather unsuccessful books prepared in the early Cold War in such new fields as functional economic and social cooperation, Gandhian nonviolence, individual educational field work anticipatory of the future Peace Corps, world development corporations like the new World Bank or future U.N. Development Programme, statecraft on the models of the Fabian Society and the World Zionist Organization, world citizenship following French, not American, models, a federation of the federalists leading to establishment of a world federalist political party, and university institutes for world federation to conduct the intellectual research and publication necessary to guide humanity through a very long struggle toward the necessary government of the whole [397]. The world federalist movement enunciated fundamental truths about the human condition since the first use of atomic bombs in war. The Declaration of the Dublin Conference of October 1945—like the Statement of Beliefs and Purposes of United World Federalists in 1947— still functions as a lost vision for the future: Whatever may have been the efficacy of the United Nations Organization for the maintenance of international peace before Aug. 6, 1945, the events of that day tragically revealed the inadequacy of that organization thereafter so to do. The application of atomic energy to warfare and impressive scientific evidence as to the consequences thereof have made the people of the world realize that the institution of war among nations must be abolished if civilization is to continue. The necessity of immediate action is urgent. There is not a moment to lose. The menace of total war is of world–wide proportions, particularly in view of the present and future international tensions. The means of preventing war, of protection against it and of control of the major weapons by which it will be waged must also be of world–wide scope if our God–given human freedom and individual liberties are to be preserved and to be promoted. It is almost axiomatic that there can be no peace without order and no order without law. There can be no world peace until there is world order based upon principles of the limitation and the pooling of national external sovereignty by all nations for the common good of mankind. The only effective means to create such a world order is to establish a world

Joseph Preston Baratta

241

government and to delegate to it limited but definite authority to prevent war and to preserve peace. Such a government should be based upon a constitution under which all peoples and nations will participate upon a basis of balanced representation which will take account of natural and industrial resources and other factors as well as population. It cannot be based upon treaties establishing leagues of sovereign states in which the states retain unlimited sovereignty and act and vote as states—as in the United Nations Organization. Since the moral law applies to nations as well as to men, and justice dictates the necessity of seeking the greatest good for the greatest number, such a world government must be a world federal government providing a minimum of centralized control in the world government and a maximum of self–government in the separate nations. This means unity of action in those things necessary to survival and freedom of action to the separate nations in all other matters” [539, 545].

World federation survives in the minds of peace workers as a “systemic political approach,” as reflected in the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Approaches to Peace: An Intellectual Map (1991). There, some four large approaches are distinguished: traditional diplomacy, international law, conflict resolution, and systemic political approaches, including world federation [22]. World federation, though a revolutionary ideal, is consistent with the heritage of the American Revolution, the Federalist Papers, the Constitution (as in its respect for the “Law of Nations”), and Wilsonianism. “Why has government been instituted at all?” Alexander Hamilton asked. “Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint” (No. 23). In his speeches Woodrow Wilson emphasized the principles of the sovereignty of the people (self–determination), the interdependence of nations (against isolationism), the acceleration of history in the industrial age (“the day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by”). He spoke of not a balance of power but a union of peoples, not equality of nations but equality of rights, and international cooperation as emerging respect for the rule of world law. “Sometimes people call me an idealist,” said Wilson in Sioux Falls on his cross– country trip to bring the issue of the League of Nations to the people (1919). “Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic country in the world.” [29-31, 42, 47]. Toward the end of his life (1967), Grenville Clark was asked why he

242

The Politics of World Federation

continued to work to prevent future wars by the establishment of world federal government, which seemed so distant. “My dominant reason,” he replied, “is the sense of shame at the incapacity of the human race to summon enough intelligence and will to solve this problem, when the knowledge and means to solve it are at hand.”

ASIAN WORKS ON WORLD FEDERALISM JOSEPH P. BARATTA

Strengthening the United Nations A Bibliography on U.N. Reform and World Federalism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987) 26

Taylor, Edmond. Richer by Asia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947. 431 pp. This trenchant but little known book raised the consciousness of the American world government movement to the importance of the undeveloped world. Taylor explained Gandhi’s relevance. “There are a great many more believers in the one-world ideal in the West today than there were Bolsheviks in Russia at the time of the October [1917] revolution, or Christians in the Roman empire at the time of Constantine’s conversion. Something holds them back.… The trouble is that we do not believe in soul-force in the modern West.… We believe that we can order one world by mail and have it come wrapped in cellophane.”

89

Mahabharati, Alokananda. Ending the Communist Menace: Atlantic Union or World Union. Calcutta: Arunachal Mission, World Peace Office, 1962. 60 pp.

290

Barkatt, R. “Revision of U.N. Charter.” (Rangoon), 3 (August, 1954), pp. 16-17.

295

Basu Chaudhuri, Ashok Kumar. “Revision of the U.N. Charter.” Agra University Journal of Research (Agra), 5 (January, 1957), pp. 145-54.

Socialist Asia

244

Asian Works on World Federalism

329

Chatterji, M.N. “Reflections on the Amendment of the U.N. Charter.” Modern Review (Calcutta), 6 (December, 1956), pp. 458-62.

330

Chaudri, M.A. “Flaws in the United Nations Charter.” Pakistan Review (Lahore), 4 (October, 1956), pp. 30-44.

367

Dedijer, V. “Revision of the U.N. Charter.” Socialist Asia (Rangoon), 2 (November, 1953), pp. 6-10.

372

Diwan, P. “Revision of the Charter of the United Nations.” Supreme Court Journal (Madras), 19 (November, 1956), pp. 221-49.

414

Fischer, Georges. “France and the Proposed Revision of the U.N. Charter. ”India Quarterly (New Delhi), 11 (OctoberDecember, 1955), pp. 365-75.

424

Ghoshal, A.K. “Some Reflections on the Mode of Revision of the U.N. Charter.” Indian Journal of Political Science (Aligarh), 15 (October-December, 1954), pp. 289-98.

477

Indian Council of World Affairs. Revision of the United Nations Charter: A Symposium. New Delhi: Indian Council of World Affairs, 1954. 144 pp.

535

Lohia, R. “Revision of the U.N. Charter.” (Rangoon), 2 (March, 1954), pp. 1-2.

540

McInnis, E. “Revision of the Charter.” India Quarterly (New Delhi), 11 (April-June, 1955), pp. 116-24.

560

Mitra, B. “Regionalism and the United Nations Charter.” Economic Weekly (Bombay), 10 (January, 1959), pp. 131-32.

565

Moe, F. “Revision of the U.N. Charter.” (Rangoon), 3 (September, 1954), pp. 29-31.

566

Moore, A. “Revision of the United Nations Charter.” India Quarterly (New Delhi), 4 (April-June, 1948), pp. 133-38.

581

Naidu, M.V. Alliances and Balance of Power: A Search for

Socialist Asia

Socialist Asia

Joseph P. Baratta

245

Conceptual Clarity. New Delhi: Macmillan of India, 1974; New York: St. Martin’s, 1975. 306 pp. 582

—. Collective Security and the United Nations: A Definition of the U.N. Security System. New Delhi: Macmillan of India, 1974; New York: St. Martins, 1975. 164 pp.

589

Pal, K.C. “Revision of the U.N. Charter.” Indian Journal of Political Science (Aligarh), 15 (October-December, 1954), pp. 313-26.

611

Reddy, T. Ramakrishna. India’s Policy in the United Nations. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1968. 164 pp.

623

Roling, B.V.A. “Some Observations on the Review of the Charter.” India Quarterly (New Delhi), 12 (January-March, 1956), pp. 54-65.

636

Schlochauer, H.J. “Problems of Reviewing the United Nations Charter.” India Quarterly (New Delhi), 12 (January-March, 1956), pp. 65-76.

657

Sinha, K.N. “The Revision of the U.N. Charter.” Modern Review (Calcutta), 89 (April, 1956), pp. 286-91.

686

Unden, O. “Revision of the U.N. Charter.” Socialist Asia (Rangoon), 2 (January, 1954), pp. 5-7.

823

Sethna, M.J. International Legal Controls and Sanctions Concerning the Production and Use of Atomic Energy. Bombay: Kothari McDuneil, 1966. 144 pp.

1214

University of Chicago Round Table. The Problem of World Government. Chicago: Round Table, 524 (April 4, 1948). 29 pp. Radio discussion between Jawaharlal Nehru, Wellington Koo, and Robert M. Hutchins on Asian views of world government.

1408

Larson, Arthur, ed. Foreword by U Thant. A Warless World: Problems and Opportunities of a Disarmed World under Law. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963. 209 pp.

246

Asian Works on World Federalism

Essays by Louis B. Sohn, Arnold Toynbee, Walter Millis, Arthur Larson, Kenneth Boulding, Hubert Humphrey, Grenville Clark, Margaret Mead, William E. Hocking, and James Wadsworth. Appendix on Russian ideas. 1705

Freeman, Peter. The Government of the World. Madras, India: Adyar Library, 1952. 60 pp. Reprint from book, Where Theosophy and Science Meet (1952).

2265

Bhalerao, M.R. A Plea, Urgent Entreaty, for World Government. Lashkar, Gwalior, India: 1950. 20 pp.

2271

Chaudhuri, Sanjib. A Constitution for World Government. Calcutta: Bhupal Chandra Dutta Art Press, 1950. 246 pp. Recommended by Prime Minister Nehru’s sister, Madame Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, ambassador of India to the U.N.

2272

—. Steps to World Federal Government through a Constitution for World Government Placed before the United Nations. Calcutta: By the author, 1950. 12 pp.

2273

—. Steps for the Formation of the First Parliament of the World. Calcutta: World Constitution Office, 1952. 4 pp.

2271b

Choue Young-seek. The Creation of a New Civilized World. Seoul: Moonsungdang Publishing Co., 1951.

2271c

—. World Peace through Pax UN. Seoul: Kyung Hee University Press, 1984.

2279

Dev, Shankar. One World, One Government. New Delhi: All India Association of World Federalists, 1974. 96 pp.

2280

Dhungyal, Tulasi Prashad. The Way to World Peace. Babaras: Khadananda Prasad, 1952. 41 pp.

2293

Finkelstein, L.S. “United Nations Charter Review.” Pakistan Horizon, 8 (March, 1955), pp. 269-75.

2295

Frydman, Maurice. The World Federation and the August Resolution of the Indian National Congress. Aundh: Aundh

Joseph P. Baratta

247

Publishing Trust, World Federation Library, 1944. 33 pp. 2298

Ghose, Sri Aurobindo. The Ideal of Human Unity. New York: Dutton, 1950; revised ed., 1953. 400 pp.

2299

—. The Human Cycle: The Ideal of Human Unity, War and Self-determination. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, International Center of Education Collection, vol. 9, 1962. 912 pp.

2300

Goetz, Hermann. Commonwealth of Tomorrow. Foreword by Sir R.P. Masani. Allahabad: Indian Periodicals, 1944. 181 pp.

2305

Hoyland, John S. Gandhi and World Government. London: Crusade for World Government, n.d., c. March, 1948. 23 pp. “We must aim at a family of independent World States, which necessarily rules out all internal armies.… If by India’s efforts such world federation … is brought into being, the hope of the Kingdom of God may legitimately be entertained” (Harijan, July 13, 1947).

2312

K’ang Yu-wei. Ta T’ung Shu. [The Great Unity Book, 18851902.] The One World Philosophy of K’ang Yu-wei. Translated and edited by Laurence G. Thompson. London: Allen & Unwin, 1959. 300 pp. The first draft of this rare mainland Chinese work on world government was completed in 1885 in Kwangtung province; the last draft, in 1902 in Darjeeling, India. K’ang led the Hundred Days Reform in 1898. Thereafter, he was constantly on the move throughout the world. He opposed Sun Yat-sen’s project to establish a republic in China and tried to transform the emperor into a constitutional monarch. After the republic was established in 1911 and after Yuan Shih-k’an ousted Sun in 1913, K’ang continued to propose a more British system. The book, which is highly abstract, like Thomas More’s Utopia, is a vision of a “utopian world attainable through successive stages of human development, a world where the barriers of race, religion, state, class, sex, and family would be removed and where there would be an egalitarian, communal society under a universal government.” He aimed to abolish all traditional Chinese personal relations except that of

248

Asian Works on World Federalism

brotherhood. K’ang’s Constitutional Party was still active before the Communist Party victory in 1949. Vernon Nash compared this book, published in Chinese periodicals after 1884 and in full in 1935, to the Chicago Committee’s Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution and other ideal plans for thoroughgoing revision of international relations. Thompson comments: “Presumably the aspect of Ta T’ung Shu which will appeal to most contemporary readers as practically pertinent to the problems of our time is that which deals with the abolishment of the barrier of national states, and the formation of a united world under an overall government.…” 2313

Kartus, Sidney. Aurobindo: Prophet of Human Unity. San Francisco: Cultural Integration Fellowship, 1961. 37 pp.

2324

Madhavtirtha, Swami. One World Government Based on Field Theory. Ahmedabad: By the author, 1954. 124 pp.

2325

Mahabharati, Alokananda. The Master’s World Union Scheme: Being a Scheme of World Federation on the Basis of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.… Bamai P.O.: Amrit Mandir [Temple of Nectar], Arunachal Mission, India, 1921. 250 pp. Scheme of Thakur Dayananda, a Sannyasin [sadhu, Hindu holy man]; presented by A.M., his disciple.

2339

Mullick, Uditendu Prakash. One World, One State: United Nations and World Government. Calcutta: By the author on behalf of M.S. Banga Saraswati Prakasanalaya, 1978. 102 pp.

2351

Patel, Satyavrata Ramdas. World Constitutional Law and Practice: Major Constitutions and Governments. Delhi: Vikas, 1970. 495 pp.

2355

Pratap, Mahendra. To U.S.S.R.: A Friendly Communication. Brindaban, India: 1947. 13 pp.

2356

—. World Federation with Unity of Religions and the Economic System of One Joint Family. Brindaban: World Federation, 1952. 68 pp.

Joseph P. Baratta

249

2357

Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. Is This Peace? Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1945. 74 pp. Limited world government needed.

2358

Rajagopal, V. League of the Peoples, India and Abroad. Madras: Vavilla, 1952. 31 pp.

2361

Reddy, T. Ramakrishna. India’s Policy in the United Nations. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1968. 164 pp.

2376

Swami, T.V.M. A Thesis on One-World Government Scheme: Mankind Is One Family. Thiruvaiyaru, India: 1953. 11 pp. First published in the Illustrated Weekly of India, January 13, 1952, as “Wanted: A Society of World Citizenship, a Solution for World Peace.”

2395

“World Unity and World Citizenship.” Values (Kaggalipura), 1 (June, 1956), whole issue.

3083

Bhagwati, Jadish N., ed. Economics and World Order: From the 1970s to the 1990s. New York: Free Press, World Law Fund, 1972. 365 pp. Includes capitalist, socialist, and Third World perspectives.

3146

Kothari, Rajni. Footsteps into the Future: Diagnosis of the Present World and a Design for an Alternative. New York: Free Press, 1974. 173 pp. Indian perspective for WOMP.

3147

—. Toward a Just World. New York: Institute for World Order, 1980. 42 pp.

250

Asian Works on World Federalism

3526

Thant, U. “Can Scholars Succeed Where Diplomats Have Failed?” World Magazine, August 1, 1972, pp. 32-34, and August 29, 1972, pp. 38-39. Descriptions of the origins of the U.N. University, its rationale, and projections of future research programmes.

3631

Aizen World. Madras: Association, current?

3634

Alternatives: A Journal of World Policy. New Delhi: Institute for World Order [now World Policy Institute], 1975- . Rajni Kothari and Saul Mendlovitz, eds.

3746

World Federation. Vrindaban, Uttar Pradesh, India: 19291941, 1946-1962. Aryan Peshwa Raja Mahendra Pratap, founder; Shiva Kumar Pratap Singh, ed. (Begun in Berlin, this early Indian journal was published successively in the U.S.A., Japan, and China, and in India since 1946.)

3755

World Union—Goodwill. Aurobindo, 1962-1965?.

Universal Love and Brotherhood

Pondicherry 2, India:

Sri

TOWARDS A WORLD CONSTITUTION CARMO D’SOUZA REVIEWED BY ANTHONY D’SOUZA

(Publisher: Agnelo D’Souza ,Porbavaddo, Calangute, Bardez, Goa, India. 2003) e-mail: [email protected]

Synopsis x x

x

x

1

The book consists of five chapters and two annexures. The first chapter outlines the purpose of the book which is to advocate a movement towards World Constitutionalism, through the process of discussions, debates, seminars, conferences, projects and so on (pg.1). Basing on the definition and concept of Constitutionalism as presented by various authorities cited in the book, the author argues that it is possible to develop the subject of World Constitutionalism (pg. 3). The book cites half a dozen quotes from Durga Das Basu’s Comparative Law1, which contain the seeds so to say of global constitutional movement (pgs. 5-9). Basu’s book also projects how through comparative method one may discover universal principles of Jurisprudence. Chapter II is tiled as ‘Jurisprudence and the World Constitution’. It discusses about concepts and systems in International Law and citing legal authorities, raises issues and suggests a line of thinking which may be helpful in evolving ideas for a new jurisprudence suitable to World Constitution. The material is discussed under the following sub-headings: (a) Constitutional Law, (b) International Law, (c) Rule of Law, (d) Concept of Sovereignty, (e) Social Contract Theory, (f) Concept of War, and (g) United Nations.

Basu Durga Das, Comparative Constitutional Law, Prentice-Hall of India Private Limited, New Delhi, 1984.

252

Towards a World Constitution

x

Chapter III discusses advantages of a World Constitution. The book cautions that the advantages cited are applicable to a full-grown constitution, whereas in actual practice one may have to be satisfied with an imperfect document for a long time to come. However advantages are listed as part of theoretical exercise. The advantages cited are also not mutually exclusive but overlap in certain aspects.

x

Chapter IV titled as ‘Contents of World Constitutionalism’ at the outset outlines half a dozen possibilities on the nature of World Constitution. As a first possibility it refers to a scanty document, binding on all nations and Peoples of the World containing Fundamental Principles of International Law. Next it visualizes the possibility of a more sophisticated document having besides the Judiciary, a system like UN, which develops in course of time into a soft Legislature and soft Executive. Finally it does not rule out the possibility of a more formal document with refined organs of Government. The Contents of World Constitutionalism are discussed under the following subheadings: (a) Analyses of Concepts, (b) Jurisprudence for a World Constitution, (c) History of World Constitutionalism, (d) Analyses of published Drafts of World Constitution, (e) Preamble of World Constitution, (f) Fundamental Principles of World Constitution, (g) Fundamental Rights and Duties of Nations, (h) The World Executive, (i) The World Parliament, (j) Ombudsman, (k) Amendment or Revision, (l) Schedules of Constitution and (m) Problem of Unconstitutionality. Each of the topics is discussed citing some of the options possible in order to motivate research and debate. Chapter V is titled as, ‘World Constitution in the Making’. As a first step it advocates a debate on World Constitutionalism. It also visualizes the various possibilities for processing of a World Constitution. One of the methods discussed is enacting a Private Draft just as the Institute of International Law, New Jersey had prepared a Declaration of Human Rights in 1929. It then refers to another method of having a draft through a private initiative but with Peoples support involving signature campaign and so on. Another possibility discussed is through an International Convention signed by the nations of the world. It also discusses ushering of a document through a metamorphosis of UN. Lastly it refers to the possibility of forming a Constituent Assembly for World Constitution. The book has two annexures.

x

x

x

Carmo D’Souza

x x

253

Annexure I has a brief summary of some provisions of the Constitution for the Federation Earth. Annexure II is titled as UN Reforms. It visualizes the need for a Road Map for UN Reform. The Annexure discusses the adoption of Road Map by the UN General Assembly under Art. 108 (Amendment of Charter) or Art.18 (Decision of General Assembly).

CONCEPTS IN LAW: UNDERSTANDING THE PAST, ANALYSING THE PRESENT AND VISUALISING THE FUTURE DR. CARMO D’SOUZA

(Publisher: Agnelo D’Souza , Porbavaddo, Calangute, Goa, India, 2004)

Synopsis x x

x

x

The book consists of seven Chapters and six Annexures. The six Annexures are written by prominent scholars and members of civil society working on different dimensions of New World Order. The First Introductory Chapter refers to number of concepts, customs and laws of the past which appear ridiculous when viewed from the present day angle. The object of the book is to permit the readers to think critically about those issues in an effort to understand that past. The book by posing issues takes the reader through the darkness of the centuries to arrive at his own conclusions (pg.2). The chapter then discusses how the past can be used negatively to arouse passions, build prejudices and seek revenge as satisfaction. Alternatively, it projects how though an enlightened approach one can understand the past and the present constructively and use it effectively to plan for the future. Chapter I is also devoted to the discussion on concept building in fields like marketing, fashion designing, mass media, advertising and so on. It advocates a similar approach with regard to concept building in the field of law. It also calls for planning and moulding of concepts required for the future society (pg. 5). The Second Chapter (pgs. 10-21) vividly describes trials, ordeals and punishments imposed in the past on humans and animals, which appear ridiculous and insane today. Some of the examples quoted involved jurisprudence issues as advanced by some of the legal luminaries of that period. Many of the ridiculous examples discussed

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

x

x

x

255

may be explained by historical accidents of those days as one tries to grasp the concepts of the past. The exercise indicates to the reader how a society can unconsciously be a prey to unreasonable concepts. Chapter III (pgs. 22-31) discusses concepts in international arena floated by the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century onwards to build up their buoyant Eastern Sea Empire. Some of the concepts discussed concern: (a) the Right of Discovery, (b) Right of Navigation and Trade in favour of Portuguese, (c) Denial of Rights of Navigation to the Arab Traders and Moors who had preceded the Portuguese in that activity, and (d) Concept of Mare Clausum. The chapter concludes that the Portuguese legal provisions applied to the Indian Ocean in the Sixteenth Century clearly indicate the dynamics of concept formulation meant to further particular interests. The Portuguese saga is also a lesson how unipolar systems may not be able to survive in international law, if there is no element of justice and fair play towards all the players in the game. The Fourth Chapter is titled ”Civilisation and Cultural Blinkers”. It discusses some concepts existing in a society and which may be alien or unsuitable for another society. The examples discussed here are from the Indo-Portuguese history mainly the earlier interaction of Portuguese missionary activity with the local non-Christian community. It vividly brings to light how the laws postulated by the ruling class based on their own cultural and religious values may be damaging or enlightening when imposed on a society with a different value system (pg.32). The chapter presents laws on sexual offences, laws on Hindu rites, laws on marriage especially monogamy, widow remarriage, Sati, witchcraft and so on which bring out clearly the conceptual differences existing in those societies. Questions are raised to enable the reader to think critically on all those issues. Chapter V (pgs.47-57) on slavery, bondage and status gives brief historical glimpses on slavery prevailing in Portuguese India. It cites legal provisions which recognized and enforced the property right of slave lord over his slave. It discusses how slaves had to bear the harsh brunt of law when it concerned restrictions on their movements as well as for application of barbaric corporal punishments. The chapter also discusses the law of 1854, which did a balancing act between the human dignity of the slave and the then recognized property right of the slave lord. It was a law that envisaged setting the slaves free by paying compensation to the slave lord. The law of 1854 preceded the law of 1869, which abolished slavery throughout the Portuguese dominions. The chapter also deals with status, then recognized in

256

x

x

x

x

Concepts in Law: Understanding the Past, Analysing the Present and Visualising the Future

administration of justice for privileges, jobs, promotions and application of punishments. Chapter VI discusses media reports about the inhuman concepts present in the twenty-first century. It illustrates practices such as bonded and child labour, female infanticide, dowry, exhibitionist execution of hostages, exploitation of females under devadassi system, and even electioneering crimes. The topics selected are intended to make the reader aware of such concepts unconsciously existing in the modern society, to motivate an analysis of such behaviour. The last Chapter VII is titled as “Concepts for a New World Order”. In a few pages it zooms through issues like: (1) War, (2) Peace, (3) Sovereignty, (4) International Law, (5) United Nations, (6) Constitutionalism and (7) World Constitutionalism. It advocates a Road Map for UN Reform. The General Assembly could pass the Road Map either as amendment of the Charter under Art. 108 or as a decision following procedure in Art. 18. The Road Map could provide that for the alteration of the programme, procedure similar to the passing of the Road Map is to be adopted. To begin with the Road Map could possibly visualize how and by which year, the Charter would become a Constitutional Document, binding on the whole world irrespective of consent. Secondly, the Road Map could also plan for gradual enunciation of New Principles for a World Order. Thirdly the Road Map could set stages in the Reforms for the Security Council. There could be some restrictions on Veto power, by requiring one or more concurring powers to veto (as laid in the Road Map) till veto power is abolished. Also the permanent members could be gradually reduced and substituted by elected members in due course. Lastly some modifications could be prescribed for constituting the Membership of UN. The last chapter deals also with Constitutionalism and World Constitutionalism. It advocates Recognition to World Constitutionalism as an academic subject. It also refers to the need for a Researchers’ Manual on World Constitutionalism. The book has following annexures.

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

257

Annexure I (Synopsis1) “The Menu of the Third Millennium” by Otfried Schrot x The author lists a number of sources of World Constitution, including among others: (a) Immanuel Kant’s « On behalf of Eternal Peace » A philosophical design (1795); (b) By - Laws of the League of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland ( 1919); (c) Clarence Streit ”Union Now”: A Proposal for an Atlantic Federal Union of the Free. New York: Harper & Brothers (1939); (d) Robert Hutchins, C.A. Borghese and others: “A Constitution for the World” University of Chicago (1947); (e) “A Constitution for The World”, Committee to frame a World Constitution Santa Barbara Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions (1948); (f) “Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice” (1949); (g) “World Peace through World Law” by Clark, Grenville and Louis Sohn, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press,1958,1960,1962 (1958); (h) Warren Wagar, “The City of Man”. Boston : Houghton-Mifflin (1963); (i) Thomas Breitner: “World Constitution”, Study on the legal framework of a World Constitution, First appearing in the U.S. “Daily Californian” on May 10th,1966 (1966); (j) “A Tentative Plan for the Establishment of a World Federation by Shigetsugu Nakao, World Federation Research Institute, Garden Grove, California (1975); (k) “Draft of a World Constitution”, published in Mundialist Summa, vol. I “One World of Reason”, Paris, France, “Club Humaniste”,1977 pp. 75-78 (1977) ; (l) Philip Isely: “The Constitution for Federation of Earth” designed and amended at regular intervals by the “World Constitution and Parliament Association” (1977); (m) “The World Federal Constitution” by a research Committee of distinguished Japanese (1980); and (n) Ernst Heinrichsohn: “Design of a Democratic Constitution of the World State” Oldenburg, Germany, 1995 (1995). x The list is supposed to be the menu for the brains of 6 billions of people, the dishes of the menu being the drafts of World Constitutions. x Otfried Schrot assumes that the creation of the political, legal, and economical presuppositions for the enactment of a World Constitution can be accomplished in approximately 20 years, i.e. by 1 January 2025 as an adequate date. x The Annexure carries an appeal to the participants of the World Judges’ Conference in Lucknow (held in December 2004), to take 1

Full text appeared in the book “Concepts in Law”. Present synopsis prepared by the editors.

258

Concepts in Law: Understanding the Past, Analysing the Present and Visualising the Future

action and put up demands specified in the annexure for the future of the world. Annexure II (Synopsis2) Movement for UN Reform 2007 Centenary of the Second Hague Peace Conference. x x x

x x x

x x

2

UNFOR 2007 is a movement for the reform of the United Nations founded in summer 2003 to promote understanding and public awareness for the issues relevant to UN reform. The year 2007 marks the centenary of the Second Hague Peace Conference, which aimed at universal disarmament and binding international jurisdiction (going to court instead of going to war). 24 academics and peace activists in four continents support UNFOR 2007. The campaign represents global concerns, based on individual and group initiative, unaided by corporate, government or denominational sponsorship. The initiator and co-ordinator of the project is a peace historian, an historian of international and constitutional law, diplomacy and Asian history. One of UNFOR 2007 primary concerns is Article 9 of Japanese Constitution, which aims at abolishing the institution of war, and constitutes a case of precedence. Article 9 must be seen as a cornerstone of a UN system of Collective Security to become effective in future. Indispensable pillars of the system envisaged in the U.N. Charter are: [1.] general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, [2.] limitations of national sovereignty, and [3.] compulsory international jurisdiction. A fourth pillar should be [4.] the democratic representation of the Sovereign Peoples of the United Nations. Therefore, UNFOR 2007 believes that UN Reform should start with reforming and strengthening the FOUR BASIC PILLARS. [1.] To achieve general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, UNFOR 2007 suggests that Ministries for Peace and Disarmament replace the present war and defense ministries, or alternatively, be established side by side with existing ministries.

Full text appeared in the book “Concepts in Law”. Present synopsis prepared by the editors.

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

259

x

[2.] The ‘peace provisions’ in national constitutions, like §15 (France, Preamble), Art. 24 (Germany), Art. 11 (Italy) etc. and also Art. 51 of the Indian Constitution, providing for limitations of national sovereignty, must be taken into account. Since they were written to support the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations, they are to be employed as ‘building blocks’ for establishing an effective system of collective security. This issue is closely linked to support for the Japanese Constitution's Article 9 and the reform of the UN Security Council.

x

[3.] The United Nations Organization not only provides for establishing an executive based on the rule of law but also for compulsory international jurisdiction. UN members therefore should submit to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

x

[4.] The democratic representation of the Sovereign Peoples of the United Nations, according to UNFOR 2007, should be achieved by establishing a “Civil Society Council” as a subsidiary organ under Article 22 of the Charter.

x

UNFOR 2007 believes that Security Council reform should be carried out in Two Stages, within a time frame of five years.

x

Effective Security Council reform must result in giving the Council a monopoly of power; and the process should be democratic and have the backing of Peoples of the United Nations, which can only be achieved by stages.

x

In Stage I, besides establishing a Civil Society Council, India should be given a permanent seat on the Security Council, together with the task of initiating “negotiations … on … nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control” (Article 6 of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty).

Contact : Dr. phil. Klaus Schlichtmann, Coodinator MOVEMENT FOR UN REFORM 2007 Nakakayama 452-35, Hidaka city , Saitama-ken, 350-1232 Japan Phone & Fax: 81-42-989-2966, Emails: [email protected]; [email protected] http://www.ne.jp/asahi/peace/unitednationsreform2007

260

Concepts in Law: Understanding the Past, Analysing the Present and Visualising the Future

Annexure III (Synopsis3) Transcend : A Philosophy of Peace and Development. By Johan Galtung Professor of Peace Studies, Director, Transcend: A Peace and Development Network 7 Cret de Neige, Bois Chaton, 01210,Versonnex, France, www.transcend.org x x

x x x x x x x x x x

3

To work for peace is to work against violence, by analyzing its forms and causes, predicting in order to prevent, and then to act preventively and curatively. Of particular concern is ‘ genocide, or massive category killing, across the fault-lines in human society’: nature (between humans and their environment), gender, generation, race, class exclusion, nation, state. Enormous suffering, dukkha is caused as result of direct violence or as indirect slow, grinding violence of social structures that do not deliver sufficient nutrition and health at the bottom of world society. To work for peace is to work for sukha, liberation, well ness in a world at peace with nature, between genders, generations and races … Refers to a world where all pull together for better livelihood to all. The best instrument of globalization would be an improved United Nations, with a UN People's Assembly for global democracy…. Visualizes need of an improved UN that will build civil society actors-NGOs, Local authorities (LAs) and Transnational Corporations (TNCs) as peace actors. Feels that the modern state system …has clearly been overutilized. Refers to the present system which recognizes a right of war (except in Japanese Constitution). Refers to role of improved UN to build nations, groups of people with common language, tradition and territory striving for autonomy ... and not for privileged states. Argues that states were not created to bring peace into the world but to satisfy the national interest defined by elites of elite nations. Does not rule out the possibility that the states might be improved or that states can be excellent peacemakers across the other divides…

Full text appeared in the book “Concepts in Law”. Present synopsis prepared by the editors.

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

x x x x x x x x

261

Refers to rise of non-state actors working for peace from the early last century with forerunners in Middle Ages. Elucidates on definition of peace = ability to handle conflict, with empathy, non-violence and creativity. Finds the definition may be useful as so much violence is caused due to mishandling of conflict. Conflict = Attitudes + Behaviour + Contradiction, an ABC triangle. Elucidates on root of conflict. Contradiction, incompatible goals being at the root to which often later adds hateful/ apathetic attitudes, all the three stimulating each other. Refers to social pathologies bordering on collective psychosis. Refers to Cold War as a case of A-B-C dynamics till forces in civil society had a sobering and depolarizing effect. Argues that A-B-C triangle can be used to identify deep attitudes, deep behavior and deep contradictions. Peace approaches can try to change attitudes, behaviour, contradictions: at the surface level and deeper down.

Annexure IV (Synopsis4) Towards a New World Civilization. By Jan Mortier, The World Political Forum, Civitatis International. x x x x x

4

Argues that current international order has become unhinged and unstable. Refers to new global division and inter civilizational tension – New political East and new political West. Argues that factors causing world disorder are numerous and varying in degrees of severity which need to be addressed resolutely to prevent spiral of world disorder or clash of civilizations. Present world consists of three distinct worlds. The pre-modern, the modern, and the post-modern societies. Elaborates on these three worlds. The postmodern world is networked by globalization and interdependence. It is pluralistic and enjoys closer union as barriers of trade and exchange are lowered. International Sovereignty develops.

Full text appeared in the book “Concepts in Law”. Present synopsis prepared by the editors.

262

x x

x

x x x x x

x x x x x x x x

Concepts in Law: Understanding the Past, Analysing the Present and Visualising the Future

Also in post modern world premium is placed on transparency, information sharing and communication. It promises conflict resolution and diplomacy based on confidence building. Argues that inspite of emergence of post-modern world international society is to be characterized as modern world. It adheres to Westphalian principles of sovereignty and realpolitik. Balance of power and use of force remain important. Pre-modern world is furthest from light of civilization. The sources of political legitimacy are different from the other two worlds. Basic political and human rights are denied to the inhabitants by feudal structures, fundamental currents and warlords. With all its faults, the multilateral world order has kept the world free from major war over the past half century… The democratic basis on which interstate affairs have been run so far contributed to the willing participation of all nations… Challenge today – to maintain order in the modern world while dealing with the challenges of the vestiges of pre-modern world. In this chaos and division it is possible to distinguish a new multilayered international order emerging. UN well placed to tackle future challenges – threats to international security, international conflicts, violation of human and civil rights, oppression of national and social minorities, poverty, demographic challenges, inequality in access to education and information, food, water and community services, environmental degradation and the management of scare resources. Cooperation and unity of all nations will be required for above. Concerted action to manage world disorder need not wait until the UN is reformed. A logical solution will be to relaunch the multilateral system. We need a New World Civilization that encompasses the reform and improvement of the current international order by democratization of varying structures of governance. The involvement of civil society, populations, and industry should be encouraged. A framework for multilateral and multifaceted mechanism between all the centers of power is essential to international affairs. The international community as a whole has to reinvent freedom – Freedom of relations and freedom of fear between states… We need a reference point, a ground zero for a new civilization that can serve as a minimum acceptable ethic of world order.

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

x x x

263

It must be anchored to universally endorsed foundation. It is important to lay the cornerstone to build the New World order. This corner stone is the universal right to human dignity within an international ethic of responsibility toward a New World Civilization.

Annexure V (Synopsis5) Criticism of a World Constitution Contact [email protected] www.kein.org x x x x x x x x x x x

5

Text sent by team of neue methode in German titled ‘Kritik einer Weltverfassung’. The German text is published in the book ‘Concepts in Law’, together with the English translation. The English text is a translation from German by Ingrid von Heiseler and Regine Damen Two questions: 1) Who could introduce such a constitution? 2) Would such a centralist judicial instrument really be desirable? Efforts of ATTAC6- made clear that worldwide introduction of tax on stock speculations (“TOBIN”-TAX”) is illusory. Introduction of such tax in comparison to a World Constitution is a triviality. Refers to intelligent AUTOPOIESIS (self-generation). After non-hierarchic NETWORKS of theorists and activists had been created on international level. Argues that cerebral investigation found out that the human brain does not function in a hierarchic but in a decentralized way and as a network. The fact that the State (in Europe) up to now guaranteed social standards and rights does not mean that this model could be transferred to the world as a whole. The model would not be desirable either because a World State would include a centralist concentration of power- without counter balance or control.

Full text appeared in the book “Concepts in Law”. Present synopsis prepared by the editors. 6 ATTAC - Association pour la Taxation des Transactions pour l'Aide aux Citoyens i.e. Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens.

264

x x x

x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Concepts in Law: Understanding the Past, Analysing the Present and Visualising the Future

Refers to opposite model - a heterogeneous NETWORK... A network that is not above what it seeks to influence – a network that takes account of its own errors. It would result in a decentralized NETWORK that consists of different single initiatives - that under some circumstances could be organized under one roof organization - Result in structures of organization, not based on common ideology, a common social status or a common origin. Model of intervention – A heterogeneous theoretical DISCOURSE and investigation. Feels that implementation of World Constitution cannot be forced. Advocates for a public discourse about a World Constitution in which, as many people as possible are included. Discourse thoughout all groups and classes especially to include minorities - the invisible that does not possess any representation. Not few intellectuals …who define who will get the rights …and when rights will be taken away. Discourse on World Constitution – i.e. how mankind will organize itself to be carried into all areas. Each single paragraph should be generated in an open communicative process into which it is recycled again. So a permanent circulation between the intellectual circles (by net) and the non represented life-world… Effect of such constitution no longer on real juridical implementation but on vivid discourse. Refers to the ‘non represented to come to word’ – Not to write about them…but literally including oral speeches. Advocates methods to get the voice of the unrepresented by means of Audio. Refers for need of operative rules in data collection in order to overcome own functional prejudices. Refers to generating a Poly log – no longer in hierarchic order – Means not recordings from the life-world commented by intellectuals – but in which a structure of mutuality is generated, in which in the opposite way the intellectual discourse is commented and criticized by ‘ the man of the street’.

Dr. Carmo D’Souza

265

Annexure VI (Synopsis7) City Montessori School –The School with a Difference. x x x x x x x x x x x x

7

City Montessori School is situated in Lucknow popularly known as CMS - Address: 12 , Station Road, Lucknow (UP) , India- 226001. School awarded ‘UNESCO Prize for Peace Education’ in 2002. Has a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the single largest city-school with a record number of 29000 students. It had humble beginnings. Established in 1959 by Mr. Jagdish Gandhi and Dr. Bharati Gandhi. Has in mind of producing a new generation of world citizens. Besides focussing on academics, CMS inculcates in the students a spiritual outlook and global vision. The emphasis is on true education. CMS has been actively working to construct the defenses of peace in the minds of the students and the public in general. Peace and harmony forms the essence of all CMS activities. It has a full-fledged World Unity and Peace Education Department. CMS has become a synonym for unity, peace and tolerance. Lists the ten CMS Core Beliefs.

Full text appeared in the book “Concepts in Law”. Present synopsis prepared by the editors.

ONE WORLD DEMOCRACY: A PROGRESSIVE VISION FOR ENFORCEABLE GLOBAL LAW JERRY TETALMAN AND BYRON BELITSOS

oneworld400.jpgoneworld400.jpg Origin Press, ISBN 1-57983-016-1 $16.00

Synopsis Humanity has a long list of achievements in the last century of which to be proud. Mankind has launched deep space probes; doubled the human life span; vastly improved productivity; and built communication systems that link the world at the speed of light. Gleaming cities now dot the landscape throughout the world. Education, literacy, health, and prosperity levels are rising in most countries. We have in fact made progress in virtually every sphere of human life, but with one glaring exception: international politics and the pursuit of world peace. War in all its savagery still blights the earth; its weapons are increasingly deadly. Our manner of settling international disputes through sanctioned killing is nothing less than ritualized insanity - a form of institutionalized madness on a global scale. War, our greatest crime, now poses dangers of unimaginable proportions. Meanwhile, global environmental degradation has reached a critical turning point and its ravages have also become a threat to survival. And why is this? Despite incremental improvements in the function of international law and the United Nations, the world system is fragmented. Disharmony and lawlessness reign. The best interests of humanity are set aside in favor of "sovereign" nations in search of security, by a superpower bent on imperial domination, and by unaccountable global corporations or banking interests seeking profit. We are haunted by

Jerry Tetalman and Byron Belitsos

267

militant ethnic or religious groups unable to find the freedom or justice they seek. And lurking behind it all are global elites, the ultimate insiders who use their privileged access to the levers of power to manipulate any part of the global system for private wealth and power. These subgroups of humankind are focused inwardly on their own needs and largely do as they please—in an anarchic rule of self-righteousness and might makes right. They may achieve some of their short-term goals, but the result for the planet as a whole has been ecological destruction, economic injustice, and war after bloody war—and more recently the menace of a worldwide threat of terrorist attacks. An estimated 150 million people were killed during two world wars and countless other conflicts in the twentieth century and early twenty-first century. Even though the Cold War ended in 1989, more than 4,500 nuclear bombs in the United States and Russia remain on hair-trigger alert, and nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of rogue states or terrorists remain a serious and terrifying threat. Although the planet as a whole spends nearly a trillion dollars on defense every year, no one in the world is truly safe. Instead, we feel increasingly less secure—and more prone to build more weapons—especially in the United States. Worldwide, nations and groups with grievances against one another still settle disputes on the battlefield, or with threats of force, instead of by reasoning with each other in a court of law or through legislative deliberations. War involves humans doing the most horrible things imaginable to each other in the name of country, race, religion, tribe, or "security." To the modern, civilized person, international wars and civil wars should be an absurdity, a barbaric relic of our bloody past. Each new act of egregious pollution and every war or terrorist event is an example of civility and humanity defeated. War remains our greatest challenge. Emotionally speaking, fear, hate, and greed are the motivating forces that drive wars. Greedy ruling elites with hidden agendas use propaganda to manipulate ordinary people into fear and hatred of "enemies." In the absence of law and courts for adjudicating legitimate conflicts, it is a simple matter for those who have something to gain from the war system to keep it in place by fomenting fear and hate.

268

One World Democracy: A Progressive Vision for Enforceable Global Law

Under the guise of "national interest," the search for profit, or racial or ethnic pride, the division between "us" and "them" that is built into international politics has exacted a terrible price, especially in the twentieth century. There is an alternative to this pitiful division of humanity into warring camps. It is presented in Part I of this book, "Concepts and Principles of Global Governance." In these chapters, we illuminate the ideal of the indivisible unity of humankind, the vision of one people - all treated equally and living in peace under the rule of law. Chapter one explains how the reality of our common humanity is the source of the political sovereignty of humankind, which in turn is the basis of the coming global government - one world democracy. Groups and nations go to war because they have nowhere else to go for resolving differences or grievances. Today there is no court with the unquestioned power to settle international disputes through the application of law, and no executive able to enforce the just rulings of such a court. The newly founded International Criminal Court (ICC) does not yet have the power to end war and resolve most disputes but does foreshadow the coming of courts that will. Chapter two develops the case for supranational law at this critical time in our planet's history. Today, we still fight over territories and resources just as we have for centuries, but on a far larger scale. We've progressed from clubs and spears to guns and bombs, and now to nuclear bombs and deadly germs, magnifying our brutality. These new and terrible methods of war do nothing to solve our conflicts. They merely leave us in a state where we have even more to fear from our "enemies," and they from us. The cycle just continues. We cannot avoid a nuclear or biological catastrophe in the near future without some drastic improvement in our peacemaking ability. After two world wars and more than 291 conflicts since World War II, with over 22 million people killed, with 25,000 people dying daily from hunger or poverty-related disease, it is obvious that our system of unlimited state sovereignty is becoming obsolete. National rights must give way to human rights - the rights and duties of sovereign individuals before the bar of humanity. Chapter three of this book explains this new approach: world citizenship as the basis of world democracy. Ideas of global governance are certainly not new. There have been a number of sincere attempts to create a functional governing body in the last century. After World War I, which President Wilson called the "war to end all wars," European nations set up the League of Nations at Wilson's

Jerry Tetalman and Byron Belitsos

269

recommendation with the hope of laying the groundwork of global law. It failed due to a lack of support: The isolationists in the US Senate refused to ratify membership and Germany, Italy, and Japan eventually withdrew from the League. The United Nations was formed just after World War II, this time with US support. President Roosevelt proclaimed "the end of the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power," and promised in their stead "a universal organization in which all peace-loving nations will finally have a chance to join ... a permanent structure of peace." The great hope during the UN's founding in San Francisco was that this historic new institution would put an end to war. But President Truman's visionary proposal in 1946 for UN control of atomic energy and nuclear weapons quickly failed. This early failure marked the beginning of a nuclear arms race that continues to this day, and provided an early indication of the inherent weakness of the United Nations system. The UN was a leap forward, but today it is a great disappointment. The primary reason is the organization's structure. The UN's member countries retain almost all prerogatives of state sovereignty, locking in an arbitrary fragmentation of the human community. The General Assembly cannot pass legislation; its procedures depart very far from a democratic body whose votes represent real constituencies. The current UN Charter gives veto power to the five permanent members of the Security Council that were the victors in World War II: the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France. Year after year and vote after vote, this veto power has prevented effective action by the Security Council in critical moments. In chapter four we look at the only viable alternative to this dangerously dysfunctional system: a genuine global democratic government whose centerpiece is a world legislature - the subject of chapter four - as well as a federation of nations, the topic of chapter five. In recent years, with the world's focus has shifted from the tension between the US and Russia to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The need for a world body to create enforceable law has never been greater. World peace and justice depends on our developing a system of global law that can resolve disputes without violence; just as America's forefathers went from a league of states under the Articles of Confederation to a federal constitutional government, so must the UN Charter be scrapped or

270

One World Democracy: A Progressive Vision for Enforceable Global Law

radically reformed and a global constitution adopted. Ways in which this can be accomplished are the subject of chapter six. It is obvious that many problems that threaten the well being of the entire planet simply cannot be solved at the national level. Part II of this book, "Global Problems that Need Global Solutions," illustrates the benefits of the application of democratic global government to a selection of these challenges. War and nuclear weapons are humanity's most pressing dangers, but a slower and more insidious threat is the destruction of the environment. Species that took millions of years to evolve are being wiped out in a generation. Forests are rapidly disappearing. Coral reefs are dying. Fisheries are being depleted or poisoned. Due to our continued abuse of the atmosphere, even the climate is changing. Meanwhile, the human population has doubled since 1960 and continues to grow. Wilderness is irreversibly disappearing at an accelerating rate. Allowing this to happen is a form of collective insanity. We need a plan to stop this accelerating and suicidal process of the arming of the world and the slower suicidal march to environmental collapse. We present key features of such a plan in chapters seven, eight, and nine. Chapter ten explores the question of the colossal divide between the poverty of the developing world and the affluence of the developed world. This difference between the haves and the have-nots will lead to continued international tension unless global laws are established that fairly regulate economic globalization, deal with global health issues, and protect the environment. In order to find intelligent responses to these challenges, we desperately need reason and cooperation. It is clear that, unless drastic changes in our political systems are made, we will spin out of control and face a cataclysmic future. A high point on the international scene is the unprecedented breaking down of borders and the merging of nations now taking place in Europe as the European Union grows and evolves. The development of supranational law in Europe may well mark the beginning of the revolution for global government. The fate of the world may depend on how this process can be expanded to benefit the whole world by creating a new social contract between nations. In this connection, we take a close look at the issue of international borders in chapter eleven. The global role and mission of the United States (chapter twelve), and the crucial question of the global regulation of multinational corporations (chapter thirteen) are also covered in Part II.

Jerry Tetalman and Byron Belitsos

271

This book raises questions, provides information, and presents ideas and arguments about the most practical way to prevent war, poverty, oppression, and ecocide. It portrays two possible futures: The first is the dark and dangerous world we will likely see if we continue on our present path. The other is one of hope, optimism, creativity, and possibility. Our purpose throughout is to stimulate discussions in thousands of ordinary schools and communities and to bring forward the issue of humanity's common fate in the context of global governance. Part III amplifies on the hopeful option, exploring the change of consciousness that is required if today's visionary activists are going to view the world as a whole instead of a jigsaw-puzzle of nations. Here we suggest that progressive leaders think bigger, more holistically, more proactively--and that they courageously open to radical solutions to intractable global problems. For if we as progressives do not shape our own future and that of the world, someone else surely will, and the result may be far from our liking-in fact, it already is. If we want a peaceful, prosperous, healthy, and just world, then we must deeply feel the interconnections among all living things—people, plants, and animals—and express our love for life at the global level as well as in our neighborhoods, and in addition to the local and national levels of our advocacy for transformation. Expressing this more inclusive love entails standing up for our rights as citizens of the world and for the sovereignty of humankind as a whole. It requires that we joyously take up our obligations to the planet. It is in this spirit that we invite you to take part in the global revolution to unite the world under the rule of law, and to do this by the supremely creative act of founding a democratic, constitutional, global government. It is time for us to end the military madness and ecological destruction that threaten our very existence. To accomplish this will require enforceable global law—the crystallization of brotherly love on a planetary scale. This book explains how, working together, we can get there together.

272

One World Democracy: A Progressive Vision for Enforceable Global Law

Jerry Tetalman registered as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. He is president of the Citizens for Global Solutions of San Diego, and a leading activist in the global government movement. Jerry has an M.A. in psychology, and is a successful businessman dedicated to the pursuit of peace and sustainability. Byron Belitsos is founder and CEO of Origin Media, Inc., and is publisher of Origin Press. Byron is an author, editor, journalist, and poet, and has been a longtime activist for world federalism. He is a board member of Democratic World Federalists, and was an inaugural member of the Integral Institute. Comprehensive biography

ANNEXURE I

Annexure I is added in order to motivate debate on the syllabus for World Constitutionalism – Editors. Professor James T. Ranney Univ. of Montana Law School Law 692, Spring 1986 (& 1987)

Contemporary Legal Problems Seminar “Law and World Peace” I.

Nature of the Problem: A. The Changed World Since 1945—The Nuclear Age: 1. The nature of nuclear war (medical consequences, “nuclear winter” phenomenon, etc.). 2. Immediate negative consequences of the nuclear arms race (e.g., economic and psychological impacts). B. History of the Arms Race and our Current Nuclear Strategic Doctrines. C. Existing International Legal Structures: 1. Brief history of the development of international law. 2. Weaknesses of the UN and other international agencies.

II.

New Approaches to Global Security and World Order: A. Rethinking Strategic Doctrines and Force Postures (e.g., first use, counterforce targeting, “war fighting” doctrines, firststrike-capable weaponry, SDI, ASAT weapons, “emerging technology” weapons) and Improving “Crisis Control” Systems. B. Arms Reductions (e.g., “nuclear freeze,” semi-unilateral approaches, “deep cuts,” “minimal deterrence,” total nuclear disarmament and reductions and restructuring of conventional arms). C. Strengthening International Legal Structures and Other Means of Peaceful Dispute Resolution:

Annexure I

274

1.

Proposals for UN Reform (e.g., rationalizing voting structure; strengthening transnational police force; improving dispute settlement mechanisms). 2. Proposals for world federalism and related global security arrangements (legal world order models as “moral models” of changes in current attitudes and institutions needed to secure world peace; “global constitutionalism”). D. Increasing Understanding Between Peoples (e.g., renewed cultural exchanges; vastly increased professional and citizen exchanges; sister-city programs; “twinned-university” concept; exchanging translations of the most precious children’s stories of each culture; educational programs in schools; replace unilateral interventionism with cooperative efforts in science, trade, the environment, health and third world aid). III.

Assessments of the Future/Possible Agenda for Action.

Basic Approach The above outline and the attached bibliography suggest the broad interdisciplinary approach which will be taken. Although one focus of the seminar will be on the role of law in securing world peace, students will be invited to consider any common-sense proposals which seem likely to secure the peace more effectively than our existing legal, political and military structures. The basis premise of the course is that given: (1) the existence of over 50,000 nuclear warheads in the world, with a million times the capacity of the Hiroshima bomb; (2) the projected proliferation of nuclear weaponry in the next several decades; and (3) the insufficiency of even substantial arms reductions to alleviate the danger of nuclear annihilation, it is worthwhile to at least study alternative forms of what might be called “world peace through law” (somehow substituting the rule of law for the use of force in international relations) and other means of securing a less precarious peace. The focus is on seeking a long-range vision of where we might safely head. But the emphasis is not on some distant future. Rather, the course is also premised on the view that there are hopeful alternatives to the war machine for maintaining world peace, but only if “we the people” exercise our right to educate ourselves and others to a “new way of thinking.” It is

World Constitutionalism

275

no longer sufficient to leave the peace issue to the politicians, the generals, and the scientists. For just as war is an all-too-human political problem, so too its resolution requires an act of political will. And knowledge is a necessary prelude to informed political action. Hence, this course.

Selected Bibliography ABA Standing Committee on World Order Under Law, “Draft General Treaty on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes: A Proposal and Report,” 20 International Lawyer 261 (1986). Abrams, “Human Instability and Nuclear Weapons,” 43 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 34 (Jan./Feb. 1987). M. Adler, How to Think About War and Peace (1944). A. Aizenstat, Survival For All: The Alternative to Nuclear War With a Practical Plan for Total Denuclearization (1985). G. Allison, A. Carnesale, & J. Nye, eds., Hawks, Doves and Owls: An Agenda for Avoiding Nuclear War (1985)(only the “best and brightest” of the Harvard-MIT-CIA-Rand Defense Department would lay claim to incorporating “the best of both liberal and conservative thinking”; the book does provide much insight into current mainstream thinking, as well as a few worthwhile short-term recommendations for avoiding nuclear war, but those looking for long-term solutions should look elsewhere). Arkin, “No Use for No First Use,” 42 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 4 (Nov. 1986)(argues that “no first use” is not that important). E. Babst & R. Aldridge, The Nuclear Time Bomb: Assessing Accidental Nuclear War Dangers Through Use of Analytical Models (1986). Barnet, “Why Trust the Soviets?” 1 World Policy Journal 461 (Spr. 1984). L. Beres, Mimicking Sisyphus: America’s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy (1983). Berman, “Law as an Instrument of Peace in U.S.-Soviet Relations,” 22 Stan. L. Rev. 943 (1970). Bethe, Gofffried & McNamara, “The Nuclear Threat: A Proposal,” The New York Review of Books, v. 38 n. 12, p. 48 (June 27, 1991). B. Blair, Strategic Command and Control: Redefining the Nuclear Threat (1985). Bloomfield, “Nuclear Crisis and Human Frailty,” 41 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 26 (Oct. 1985). L. Bloomfield, ed., The Power to Keep Peace—Today and in a World Without War (1971 rev.).

276

Annexure I

R. Bowman, Star Wars: A Defense Insider’s Case Against the Strategic Defense Initiative (1986)(excellent). F. Boyle, World Politics and International Law (1985)(devastating critique of “realpolitik” view of role of international law). P. Bracken, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (1983). British Broadcasting Corporation, Film: “A Guide to Armageddon” (1982)(25 mins.; very good). Bundy, Halperin, Kaufmann, Kennan, McNamara, O’Donnell, Sigal, Smith, Ullman & Warnke, “Back from the Brink,” Atlantic Monthly, pp. 35-41 (Aug. 1986)(latest wrinkles on “no-first-use” thinking). D. Carlson & C. Comstock, eds., Citizen Summitry (1986)(very positive work). D. Carlson & C. Comstock, eds., Securing Our Planet (1986)(same). A. Carter & D. Schwartz, eds., Ballistic Missile Defense (1984)(Brookings Institution study of Star Wars, very critical of it). Center for Defense Information, “The Weapons Bazaar” (1984)(29-min. slideshow; excellent documentary on problems of military spending). D. Clark & L. Sohn, World Peace Through World Law: Two Alternative Plans (3d ed. 1966)(excellent). Clergy and Laity Concerned, “The Last Slide Show” (1983)(25-min. introductory overview; affirmative and upbeat, despite title). H. Cleveland & L. Bloomfield, eds., Prospects for Peacemaking: A Citizens’ Guide to Safer Nuclear Strategy (1988). Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, “First Strike Nuclear Warfare” (1983)(excellent 35-min. slideshow). N. Cousins, The Pathology of Power (1987)(devastating attack on military-industrial complex). Daalder, “Nuclear Weapons in Europe: Why Zero is Better,” Arms Control Today, v.23 n.1, p. 15 (Jan/Feb 1993). R. Daniels, Russia: The Roots of Confrontation (1985)(superb; maybe the best). G. Dyer, War (1985)(superb military history, lessons for today). F. Dyson, Weapons and Hope (1984)(thought-provoking book; may place too much reliance on a technical solution to the problem). Educational Film and Video Project, “The Edge of History” (E. Thierman, producer, 1984)(excellent 20-min. film). J. Else, “The Day After Trinity” (1980)(1.5 hours; the best documentary on the creation of the atomic bomb). R. Falk, Reviving the World Court (1984). M. Feinrider & A. Miller, Nuclear Weapons and Law (1984).

World Constitutionalism

277

Feiveson, Ullman & Von Hippel, “Reducing U.S. and Soviet Arsenals,” 41 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 144 (Aug. 1985)(detailed working out of “minimal deterrence” concepts; part of future Princeton Project on Finite Deterrence). B. Ferencz, A Common Sense Guide to World Peace (1985)(nice work). B. Ferencz & K. Keyes, Planethood (1991)(excellent). Ferraro & Fitzgerald, “The End of a Strategic Era: A Proposal for Minimal Deterrence,” 1 World Policy Journal 339 (Wtr. 1984). D. Fischer, Preventing War in the Nuclear Age (1984)(very good). R. Fisher, Improving Compliance With International Law (1981). E. Foell & R.Neneman, eds., How Peace Came to the World (1986)(fascinating scenarios by winners of Christian Science Monitor contest). D. Ford, The Button: The Pentagon’s Command and Control System (1985). Forsberg, “Parallel Cuts in Nuclear and Conventional Forces,” 41 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 152 (Aug. 1985). L. Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (2d ed. 1989). Garthoff, “American-Soviet Relations in Perspective,” 100 Pol. Sc. Q. 541 (Wtr. 1985-86). Garwin, “A Blueprint for Radical Weapons Cuts,” 44 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 9 (Mar. 1988). Glaser, “Do We Want the Missile Defense We Can Build?” 10 International Security 25 (Summer 1985)(excellent critique of SDI). Gottfried & Dean, “Nuclear Security in a Transformed World,” 21 Arms Control Today no. 9 p. 13 (Nov. 1991). Ground Zero, Hope: Facing the Music on Nuclear War (1983)(superb short work). Ground Zero, Nuclear War: What’s In It For You? (1982)(excellent primer). Ground Zero, What About the Russians—and Nuclear War? (1983). M. Habicht, The Abolition of War: Autobiographical Notes of a World Federalist and Collected Papers on Peace and World Federation (1987)(very comprehensive history of movement, with thoroughgoing analysis of why mere disarmament is insufficient). Hafemeister, Romm & Tsipis, “The Verification of Compliance with Arms-Control Agreements,” 252 Scientific American 39 ((1985). J. Harris & E. Markusen, Nuclear Weapons and the Threat of Nuclear War (1986)(good college text). Harvard Nuclear Study Group, Living With Nuclear Weapons (1983)(very informative, analytical and useful survey of mainstream thinking;

278

Annexure I

slides over some uncomfortable facts, e.g., data re false alerts and nuclear winter). Harvey, “Defense Without Aggression,” 44 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 12 (Sept. 1988)(first of several articles in symposium on “nonoffensive defense” or “mutual defensive superiority”). S. Hitchner, Defense Dollars and Sense: A Common Cause Guide to the Defense Budget Process (1983). E. Hollins, ed., Peace is Possible (1966)(excellent reader, focusing especially on proposals for world government). H. Hollis, A. Powers & M. Sommer, The Conquest of War: Alternative Strategies for Global Security (1989)(excellent; features positive longrange vision for a “common security” regime, discussing such topics as minimal deterrence, nonoffensive defense postures, international peacekeeping forces, verification issues, economic conversion, SDI, and global political/legal mechanisms for conflict resolution). Hopmann, “The Path to No-First-Use: Conventional Arms Control,” 1 World Policy Journal 319 (Wtr. 1984). Inglis, “Minimum Deterrence, Maximum Stability,” 41 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42 (Mar. 1985). W. Isaacson & E. Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made: Acheson, Bohlen, Harriman, Kennan, Lovett, McCloy (1986)(very informative, especially re origins of Cold War). R. Jervis, The Illogic of Nuclear Strategy (1984). Johansen, “The Future of Arms Control,” 2 World Policy Journal 193 (Spr. 1985). Johansen, “The Reagan Administration and the UN: The Costs of Unilateralism,” 3 World Policy Journal 601 (Fall 1986)(arguing persuasively for standing volunteer peacekeeping forces). R. Johansen, Toward a Dependable Peace: A Proposal for an Appropriate Security System (1978)(unclear what his posture is re world federalism, although he clearly opposes too intrusive centralized world state; but he favors general and complete disarmament enforced by “world security organization”). R. Johansen, Toward an Alternative Security System (1983). Johansen & Mendlovitz, “The Role of Enforcement of Law in the Establishment of a New International Order: A Proposal for a Transnational Police Force,” 6 Alternatives 307 (1980). P. Joseph & S. Rosenblum, eds., Search for Sanity: The Politics of Nuclear Weapons and Disarmament (1984). F. Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (1983)(fascinating history).

World Constitutionalism

279

G. Kennan, The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Atomic Age (1982)(invaluable insights). Kennedy, “A Critique of United States Nuclear Deterrence Theory,” 9 Brooklyn J. Int’l Law 35 (1983). A. Kenny, The Logic of Deterrence (1985). A. Krass, The Verification Revolution (1989). Krepon, “Less Offense, More Defense,” 48 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 121 (Apr. 1992). Lifton, “Toward a Nuclear Age Ethos,” 41 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 168 (Aug. 1985). Lusky, “Four Problems in Lawmaking for Peace,” 80 Pol. Sc. Q. 341 (1965). Mack, “Psychological Effects of the Nuclear Arms Race,” 37 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 18 (1981). M. Mandelbaum, The Nuclear Future (1983)(disturbing, but occasionally thoughtful, views of a nuclear “realist”). R. Massie, Peter the Great (1981)(insightful book on Russia, especially as to reasons for its social and political backwardness). MccGwire, “The Insidious Dogma of Deterrence,” 42 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 24 ((Dec. 1986)(argues that overemphasis on worstcase analyses and solely military solutions has led to huge arsenals which actually increase the likelihood of war through accident, miscalculation, and the increased tensions/worsened relations engendered by the arms race). McGinley, “Ordering a Savage Society: A Study of International Disputes and a Proposal for Achieving Their Peaceful Resolution,” 25 Harv. Int’l L.J. 43 (1984)(proposal for International Mediation Agency). A.McKnight & K. Suter, The Forgotten Treaties: A Practical Plan for World Disarmament (Australian Law Council, 1983)(excellent). R. McNamara, Blundering Into Disaster: Surviving the First Century of the Nuclear Age (1986)(the man who was Manager of Our Missiles for as long as anyone becomes less enamored of them with each passing year, having become a convert to “minimal deterrence” concepts). R. McNamara, Out of the Cold: New Thinking for American Foreign and Defense Policy in the Twenty-First Century (1989). S. Melman, The Demilitarized Society: Disarmament and Conversion (1988). L. Miller, Global Order: Values and Power in International Politics (1985)(excellent primer). G. Mische & P. Mische, Toward a Human World Order (1977)(superb holistic approach).

280

Annexure I

R. Molander and R. Nichols, Who Will Stop the Bomb? A Primer on Nuclear Proliferation (1985). P. Moulton, Ammunition for Peace-Makers (1986)(many helpful insights not found elsewhere; good discussion of “nonviolent” methods of defense). R. Muller, Most of All, They Taught Me Happiness (1978)(for those rendered gloomy by the Helen Caldicott/PSR “bombing runs,” this is a wonderful antidote). A. Myrdal, The Game of Disarmament (1982 rev.). O. Nathan & H. Norden, eds., Einstein on Peace ((1960). National Film Board of Canada, “If You Love This Planet” (1982)(35 mins; one of the best). National Film Board of Canada, “War: A Commentary by Gwynne Dyer” (1983)(8-part TV series). J. Nye, G.Allison, & A. Carnesale, eds., Fateful Visions: Avoiding Nuclear Catastrophe (1988). Petersmann, “Constitutionalism and International Adjudication: How to Constitutionalize the U.N. Dispute Settlement System?, 31 NYU J. of Int’l Law & Politics 753 (1999). Physicians for Social Responsibility, “The Last Epidemic” (1980)(35-min. “bombing run”). Plous, “Ban Missile Flight Testing,” 244 The Nation 219 (1987). T. Powers, Thinking About the Next War (1982). Powers, “Choosing a Strategy for World War III,” Atlantic Monthly, pp. 82-110 (Nov. 1982)(excellent short history of evolution of our strategic thinking). G. Prins, ed., The Nuclear Crisis Reader (1984). Ranney, “Beyond ‘Minimal Deterrence’—An Approach to Nuclear Disarmament,” 4 Journal of World Peace 18 (Spr. 1987)(newly revised edition available). R. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986)(great book). C. Rhyne, International Law: The Substance, Processes, Procedures and Institutions for World Peace With Justice (1971)(nice approach, albeit dated). L. Robinson, An American in Leningrad (1982)(fascinating insights into Soviet life). Rochester, “The Rise and Fall of International Organization as a Field of Study,” 40 International Organization 777 (1986)(symbolic of our times). H. Roderick & U. Magnusson, eds., Avoiding Inadvertent War: Crisis Management (1983).

World Constitutionalism

281

R. Rotblat, J.Steinberger & B. Udgasnkar, eds., A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: Desirable? Feasible? (1993). B. Russell, Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare (1959)(uncannily timely). Sagan, “Nuclear War and Climatic Catastrophe: Some Policy Implications,” 62 Foreign Affairs 257 (Wtr. 1983). J. Schell, The Abolition (1984). J. Schell, The Fate of the Earth (1982)(still the best statement of the nature of the problem). W. Sheehan, Stop Global Drift (1978). Shore, “Citizens Back Détente From Below,” Nuclear Times, pp. 11-13 (June 1984). Shuman, “International Institution Building: The Missing Link for Peace,” The CID [Center for Innovative Diplomacy] Report, p. 1 (Sept. 1984)(excellent). M. Shuman & H. Harvey, Security Without War: A Post-Cold War Foreign Policy (1993)(excellent). R. Smoke & W.Harman, Paths to Peace: Exploring the Feasibility of Sustainable Peace (1987)(excellent). Snyder, “Limiting Offensive Conventional Forces: Soviet Proposals and Western Options,” 12 International Security 48 (Spr. 1988). Sohn, “Legal Problems in Disarmament,” in World Peace Through Law: The Athens World Conference, pp. 436-57 (1964). Sojourners, “For Life: Christian Peacemaking in a Nuclear Age” (1984)(29-min. slideshow appropriate for churches). S. Sommer, Beyond the Bomb: Living Without Nuclear Weapons (1986). H. Steiner & D. Vagts, Transnational Legal Problems, ch. 11 ((1986)(history of the weaknesses of the UN in controlling armed conflict). K. Suter, Alternative to War: Conflict Resolution and the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes (Australia, 2d ed. 1986). S. Talbot, Deadly Gambits: The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Nuclear Arms Control (1985). S. Talbot, Endgame: The Inside Story of SALT II (1979). J. Tetalman and B. Belitsos, One World Democracy: A Progressive Vision for Enforceable Global Law (2005)(arguments for world federalism). K. Tsipsis, Arsenal: Understanding Weapons in the Nuclear Age (1984). Union of Concerned Scientists, Empty Promise: The Growing Case Against Star Wars (1986).

282

Annexure I

W.Ury, Beyond the Hotline: How We Can Prevent the Crisis that Might Bring on a Nuclear War (1985). Von Hippel et al, “How to Avoid Accidental Nuclear War,” 46 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 35 (June 1990). R. Walsh, Staying Alive: The Psychology of Human Survival (1984)(very helpful and insightful). G. Warner & M. Shuman, Citizen Diplomats (1987). B. Weston, ed., Alternative Security: Living Without Nuclear Deterrence (1990)(excellent collection). Weston, “Lawyers and the Search for Alternatives to Nuclear Deterrence,” 54 Cinn. L. Rev. 451 (1985). B. Weston, ed., Toward Nuclear Disarmament and Global Security: A Search for Alternatives (1984)(excellent reader). White, “Empathizing with the Rulers of the USSR,” 4 Political Psychology 121 (1983).

ANNEXURE II WORLD FEDERALISM: A SYNOPSIS JAMES T. RANNEY ([email protected])

A few introductory quotes “Peace requires Justice; Justice requires Law; Law requires Government, not only within Nations but equally between Nations.” William Penn (1693). “[T]he future peace, security and ordered progress of the world demand a world federation of free nations, and on no other basis can the problems of the world be solved.” Mahatma Gandhi (1942). “Unless we establish some form of world government, it will not be possible for us to avert a World War III in the future.” Winston Churchill (1945). “It will be just as easy for nations to get along in a republic of the world as it is for you to get along in a republic of the United States.” Harry S. Truman (1945). “International control of the bomb is the only way in which this country can have security comparable to that which it had in the years before the war. It is the only way in which we will be able to live with bad governments, with new discoveries, with irresponsible governments such as are likely to arise in the next hundred years, without living in fairly constant fear of the surprise use of these weapons.” J. Robert Oppenheimer (1946). “In the long run, an all-destroying conflict can be avoided only by the setting up of a world federation of nations.” Albert Einstein (1951).

284

Annexure II “The world no longer has a choice between force and law. If civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law.” Dwight D. Eisenhower (1965). “The only security for Americans today, or for any people, is in the creation of a system of world order that enables nations to retain sovereignty over their cultures and institutions but that creates a workable authority for regulating the behavior of the nations with one another.” Norman Cousins (1989).

What is world federalism? Although definitions may vary, the basic concept is simple: as indicated by the quotations above, a world federation would NOT replace national or state or local governments, but would substitute the rule of law (world law, enforceable upon individuals) for war as a means of resolving international conflict.

Is world federalism necessary? In a way, this is the hardest question to answer with certainty. Some peace activists argue that abolition of nuclear weapons or even general and complete disarmament would suffice, combined with the de facto observance of international rules and norms. But arguably: 1) nations will not relinquish their arms without an adequate alternative security system in place; (2) even if they did, such a system would be dangerously unstable (with a distinct danger of “breakout” and resultant recourse to war); and (3) in order to obtain an adequate alternative security system, you will need at least some minimalist “world federalist”-type structure, if only to resolve the key question of when international security forces would be committed. See M. Habicht, The Abolition of War, at 255-60 (1987).

What are the advantages? In addition to the abolition of war (a rather significant advantage, since nuclear war, with its attendant nuclear winter, threatens the extinction of at least our entire species), world federalism would free nations of the ONE TRILLION DOLLARS spent each year on the military. Such money could be used for basic social and earth restoration goals. See generally C. Hamer, A Global Parliament: Principles of World Federation (1998); D. Christensen, Healing the World (2005); T. Hudgens, Let’s Abolish War

James T. Ranney

285

(1986); B. Ferencz & K. Keyes, Planethood (1991). In addition, multinational corporations which currently go under-regulated and undertaxed (due to the “race to the bottom” phenomenon) might be subject to appropriate global controls.

Are there any dangers? As with any human institution, there are undoubtedly risks. Those most often noted: possibility of civil war; danger of tyranny or at least an overly centralized remote bureaucracy; threat of excessive income redistribution, and risk of loss of personal freedoms. These are serious risks. But world federalists believe that these risks have been vastly overstated and are capable of being adequately addressed. See Hamer, ch. 6 and R. Glossop, World Federation? A Critical Analysis of Federal World Government (1993).

What type of world federalism do we want? We need to carefully research whether it is not possible to devise a world federalist structure that is not overly intrusive (into national affairs or private lives), that assures local autonomy (perhaps even increases it, since there would no longer be a need for a bloated military security state), that sustains individual freedom, and allows grassroots participatory democracy to flourish. Additionally, there have long been debates as to whether world federalism should entail only a “minimalist” approach (“merely” abolishing war) or a maximalist approach (addressing social and economic and environmental justice concerns) or something in between. This topic needs to be addressed by further research and discussion.

How might this happen? It could come in more ways than we currently envision (such as UN charter revision or citizen conventions). Most people agree that it will not happen overnight. More likely, even if planned out in advance, it will happen over several stages over a period of years. Cf. Ranney, “Beyond ‘Minimal Deterrence’—An Approach to Nuclear Disarmament, 4 J. World Peace 18 (1987).

286

Annexure II

How can I help? All social and political change requires attitudinal change. And attitudinal change requires education. So, if you are interested in helping out on the most critical issue facing humanity, you can do two things: (1) educate yourself (cf. attached list of best books and best groups to join); and (2) then educate others. It is that simple (and also that difficult). Cf. M. Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

CONTRIBUTORS

Dr. Anthony D’Souza M.A. , LL.M., Ph.D. ( Laws). He is an employee of Nationalised Bank and Hon. Director of Ismilda Research Consultancy. He edited the book Towards a World Constitution by Carmo D’Souza (2003) Carl Coon The author, Carleton S. Coon, Jr., is a retired US diplomat. He was the US Ambassador to Nepal from 1981 to 1984. He is presently the Vice President of the American Humanist Association. He lives in Washigton, DC., telephone (202) 342-7503, email [email protected], website at

Dr. Carmo D’Souza M.Sc., B.Ed, LL.M., Ph.D.(Laws), Reader in Law at V.M. Salgaocar College of Law, Goa. Published books in Law and Fiction. Among his books on law include Legal System in Goa ( Vol. & II) (1994-95) , The Indian and Portuguese Constitutions: A Comparative Study (Vol. I) (2001), Towards a World Constitution (2003) and Concepts in Law (2004) . He is Hon. Director of Ismilda Research Constultancy. Dr. Doug. N. Everingham MB, BS Doug Everingham has practised in Australia and England as a hospital and family doctor and registrar in psychiatry. He was Australian Minister for Health 1972-75, Parliamentary Adviser to the Australian UN Delegation where he spoke on apartheid in 1982, and a member of the National Consultative Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament for the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade 1999-2000. Address: 5 Eriboll Close, Middle Park QLD 4074, Australia. Tel. +61 7 3376 7763. Fax +61 7 3376 0763. E-mail: [email protected]

288

Contributors

Dr. Fatima Mascarenhas e Noronha Fatima Mascarenhas e Noronha graduated in literature and philosophy. Her MA thesis concerned Creatio ex nihilo and the Principal Upanishads (1980, University of Bombay), while her doctoral thesis was Towards a Personalistic Concept of Person (1986, University of Bombay). A committed proponent of gender equity, her articles have appeared in various regional and national publications in India, while her short stories have travelled to many corners of the English-speaking world. Fernando A. Iglesias Fernando A. Iglesias (48) is a Writer and Journalist specialized in the political aspects of Globalization . He holds Argentine, Spanish and Italian citizenship, a Human Rights activist against Argentine dictatorship. He is a member of the core team of the Coalition for a World Parliament and Global Democracy. He is a Graduate of the ARD program at the Universidad de Lomas de Zamora (Social Sciences University) and Graduate in Journalism (TEA). He speaks Spanish, Italian, English, French, and Portuguese. Currently he is Free-lance correspondent in Buenos Aires for Sky-TV and RAI3 (Italy). Professor at the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Lomas de Zamora. Columnist for “Clarín (Ñ)”, “La Nación (Enfoques)”, “Diario Ciudadano”, “23”, “23 Internacional” and “Noticias”. He has published articles in several reputed Magazines in Italy, France, Argentina, Germany , Switzerland, etc. He attended conferences and workshops on Global Democracy in several parts of the world. He has published books among them: 1. “República de la Tierra-Globalización: el fin de las Modernidades Nacionales”, (Republic of Earth- Globalization: The end of National Modernities) Spanish, essay, 438 pages, 2000, published by Editorial Colihue, Buenos Aires; 2. “Twin Towers: el colapso de los estados nacionales”, (Twin Towers- The collapse of National States) Spanish, essay, 200 pages, 2002, published by Edicions Bellaterra, Barcelona; 3. “Twin Towers: Collapse”, in “9/11 Anthlogy-Unveiling the real terrorist mind” anthology in English published by Xlibris, United States, with Noam Chomsky, Mumia Abu Jamal, Howard Zinn and Michael Parenti; 4. “¿Què significa hoy ser de Izquierda? – Reflexiones sobre la Democracia en los tiempos de la Globalización” (What does it mean being Leftist today? – Some reflexions on Democracy in the times of Globalization) Spanish, collection of essays, 250 pages, 2004, published by Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires. He has unpublished works including “On Democracy in the Country of World”, English, collection of essays, 180 pages, 2004 and “Ten Global

World Constitutionalism

289

Laws on Globalization- a Copernican revolution in human affairs”, English, essay, 522 pages, unfinished. Defensa 1354 2º 9 (1143),Buenos Aires +54911-5509-4637 E-mail: [email protected]

Argentina, +5411-4361-7429,

Hank Stone Hank Stone is a retired technical specialist from Xerox Corporation. He lives with his wife in Ionia, outside Rochester, NY. He is president of the Coalition for Democratic World Government (CDWG)(www.cdwg.org), and a member of several peace and environmental organizations. You are invited to visit his website at www.c-u-e.org. Ian Anderson Ian Anderson retired as a Director of the of the Australian National University Centre for UNESCO from 31 December 2005 and presently continues as a Centre Visitor. He has been at the Centre since September 2000 and took over as Director since 30 October, 2001. Before joining the Centre, Mr Anderson worked in the Secretariat of the Australian National Commission for UNESCO between 1983 and 2000. He spent periods in the Secretariat as an education and then a science program officer and was for a time program coordinator, before being appointed Secretary-General of the National Commission in 1997. He retired as Secretary-General in 2000. He has qualifications in education and agricultural science. Mr Ian Anderson, T: 6125 2890, E: [email protected] James T. Ranney, Semi-retired private attorney. Previously (1) solo practitioner in Missoula, Montana, specializing in employment law and class actions (1988-2002); (2) University Legal Counsel (1987-88); (3) Research Professor of Law (1977-87); and (4) Assistant District Attorney, Philadelphia (1970-1976). JD, Harvard (1969); U.Wis. B.S. (1966). Peacework Bio: (1) Taught “Law and World Peace” seminar (1984-86). Has read over 4,000 books on the peace issue. (2) Founded Jeannette Rankin Peace Center (1985); Montana Lawyers for Peace (1986); and Global Constitution Forum, Inc. (2005). (3) Contributed to wide variety of peace groups (90!)(1984-88). (4) On boards or chaired: JRPC; MLfP; Institute for Peace Studies (Rocky Mountain College, Billings, Mont.); Congregational Church Peace

290

Contributors

Committee; Citizens for Global Solutions-Philadelphia; and Global Constitution Forum, Inc. Publications: PENNSYLVANIA CRIMINAL LAW AND PRACTICE (3 vols., Matthew Bender, 1990). The Constitutionality of Drug Testing of College Athletes: A Brandeis Brief for a Narrowly Intrusive Approach, 16 J. of Coll. & Univ. Law 397 (1990). Background Paper on AIDS: Scientific and Legal Issues, 18 Coll. Law Digest 211 (1988). “Heritage of Our Freedoms—Milestones in Legal History” (1987)(twohour slideshow on evolution of Western legal tradition). Beyond “Minimal Deterrence”—an Approach Toward Nuclear Disarmament, 4 J. of World Peace 18 (1987). The Exclusionary Rule—the Illusion vs. the Reality, 46 Mont. L. Rev. 289 (1985). HISTORICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN LAW (1982)(co-authored with Professors Huff and Fried). Presumptions in Criminal Cases: a New Look at an Old Problem, 43 Mont. L. Rev. 21 (1980). The Entrapment Defense: What Hath the Model Penal Code Wrought?, 16 Duq. L. Rev. 157 (1978). Remedies for Prejudicial Publicity: A Brief Review, 21 Vill. L. Rev. 819 (1976). Grand Juries in Pennsylvania, 37 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 1 (1975). Criminal Discovery in Pennsylvania, 79 Dick. L. Rev. 1 (1974). Professional And Public-Service Associations: President, Global Constitution Forum, Inc. Chair, Philadelphia Chapter of Citizens for Global Solutions Legal Consultant, United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1995-1998). Creator and Moderator, “Dial-a-Lawyer” TV talk-show (panels of 3 volunteer attorneys responding to questions from general public)(19931998). Founder, Solo Practitioners Lunch Group (1992). Member, Montana Criminal Procedure Commission (1987-1990)(revised criminal procedure code). Board Member, Institute for Peace Studies, Rocky Mountain College, Billings, MT (1990-2001).

World Constitutionalism

291

Board Member, Jeannette Rankin Peace Center (co-founder and board member, 1985-88, 1999-2001). Chair, Missoula Design Review Board (appointed by City Council and selected as chair by members)(1979-1984). Visitor, Pennsylvania Prison Society (1974-76). 1018 W. Cliveden St., Philadelphia, PA 19119 215-849-9165 [email protected]; www.globalconstitutionforum.org. John R. Ewbank John R. Ewbank is an 89 year old Intellectual Property attorney who continues to prosecute patent applications. At 21 he was in the upper 1% among those taking the Indiana Bar Examination in the summer of 1937. His disdain for the "tax guidance" industry, and his recognition that tax reform was futile, prompted his interest in world federalism as a ratifiable drastic transformation simplifying taxation. He and his wife were officers of the Peace Now Movement which campaigned to end WWII through a reconciling federation. He was an officer in the Fellowship for Intentional Communities, and for 54 years active in the voluntarist community having a website at www.bryn gweled.org.. More than six decades of activity in various Supra-National Federation advocacy groups. He and his wife have been the unpaid officers and staff of Home Rule Globally having a website at www.comcast.net\~decentralist including an essay on SCUTTLE THE POLITICIANS. /s John R. Ewbank, Esq. ,Home Rule Globally, 1150 Woods Road, Southampton PA 18966-4545, TEL: 215-357-3977 , FAX: 215-3222673. E-Mail:[email protected] Web: http://home.comcast.net/~home.rule.globally/. Dr. Joseph Preston Baratta Joseph P. Baratta, Ph. D. is an Associate Professor, History and Political Science Department of Worcester State College. Associate Professor History and Political Science Department Worcester State College 486 Chandler Street Worcester, MA 01602-2597 508-929-8632 Office 508-929-8155 Fax

292

Contributors

Kenneth Kostyo Is an international corporate lawyer. He has a LL.M. degree in trade and WTO law from the University of Amsterdam. He is currently working with an international group of activists and academics to create a transnational NGO for the promotion of global democracy. Dr. Klaus Schlichtmann Dr. Klaus Schlichtmann Nihon University, College of Law home: Nakakayama 452-35, Hidaka-city Saitama-ken, 350-1232 JAPAN phone&fax: +81-429-892966 e-mail: [email protected] Dr. Maria-Suzette Fernandes-Dias Dr Maria Suzette Fernandes-Dias is a linguist and postcolonial theorist based at The Australian National University. She coordinates research and scholarly activities of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, pursues her own research and convenes conferences relating to her areas of research. In 2005, she convened the conference, "Legacies of Slavery: Comparative Perspectives" at the CCR and co-convened another interdisciplinary international conference "Negotiating the Sacred II: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts" with Dr. Elizabeth Coleman (La Trobe University). She is currently working with Dr. Coleman and Dr White on the organisation of "Religion, Medicine and the Body", a conference to be held in November 2006. In 2003-2004, Maria-Suzette worked with Mandy Thomas and later with Christine Inglis, on the Australia Research Council Special Research Initiative application to establish a Research Network for Migration Research. She also assisted renowned cultural anthropologist Prof. Howard Morphy, to prepare material for the anthropologist's report for the Blue Mud Bay Native Claim. Prior to her relocation to Canberra in Dec. 2002, she completed a doctorate in French (Post-colonial consciousness: a comparative study of the works of Salman Rushdie and Tahar Ben Jelloun) from the University of Goa, India (awarded in 2003). She also holds a Masters degree in French and Francophone literature besides a Masters in tertiary education

World Constitutionalism

293

and specialisation in the teaching of French from the Alliance Française, Paris and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris. From 1998 to 2002, she worked as the educational and cultural coordinator of Alliance française de Goa and from 1998 2000, taught comparative literature, linguistics and francophone literature to post-graduate students, at the Faculty of Arts, School of Languages, University of Goa. During her appointment at the Alliance Française de Goa, she managed the AF Art Gallery. An experienced bilingual translator and interpreter, she also founded a Translation Cell providing legal, scientific and literary translation services and served as an interpreter during legal proceedings and port-call visits of the French Navy. Over the years, Maria-Suzette has written and published articles for diverse readership and has won a few literary awards like the Victor-Hugo Bicentenary Award (2002), Ford Foundation Campus Diversity Award (1996), OHeraldo Award for Children's literature (1989), Vidya Award (1995 & 1996). She also founded and edited a French magazine “Goa à Gogo”, until December 2002. In 2003, Maria-Suzette anchored the French weekly programme for the Australian Capital Territory's Multicultural radio FM and provided input for the Indo-Asian news-service as an overseas correspondent. Centre for Cross-Cultural Research The Australian National University ACTON ACT - 0200 Tel: + 61 2 6125 9879 Fax: + 61 2 62480054 Otfried Schrot Lieutenant Colonel (retired), German Air Force. 1965 - 1968 Staff Officer in Headquarters Allied Forces Central Europe in Fontainebleau / France and Brunssum / The Netherlands 1968 - 1969 Aide-de-Camp of the Chief of Staff, German Air Force , Lieutenant General Johannes Steinhoff in the West German Ministry of Defence, Bonn 1969 - 1971 Studies of management at the German Air Force Technical Academy in Munich/ West Germany 1972 - 1983 Liaison Officer of the German Army to the Commander in Chief, United States Army Europe in Heidelberg / West Germany . Retired in 1995.

294

Contributors

Temporary member of the German Liberal Party (Freie Demokratische Partei) Temporary member of the World Federalist Movement, and the World Constitution and Parliament Association, corresponding member of the Coalition for Democratic World Government. Ranjana Ferrăo B.Sc, LL.M . Lecturer at V.M. Salgaocar College of Law , Goa. Dr. Sairam Bhat B.Com, LL.M. Ph. D.(Law) is presently Assistant Professor of Law, National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India. Earlier he was Coordinator and Lecturer-in-Law at the G R Kare College of Law, Margao, Goa. Prior to joining the Kare Law College, he was Assistant Professor at the Hidyatullah National Law University and National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Specialized in Environmental Law, he has worked extensively in that subject. He was awarded the Ford Foundation Environmental Law Fellowship at Stanford University, USA for the Fall 2003. He did his Ph D with the University of Mysore. E: Mail: [email protected]. Dr. T.R. Subramanya Dr. Subramanya obtained his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts (History) degrees from the University of Mysore. At the B. A. level (1971) he won the Diamond Jubilee Award of the University of Mysore for securing the highest marks in History Major. He is First Class in M.A. (1973, Mysore) First Class in LL.B. ( Karnataka University 1976) , and First Class in LL.M. (1978 , Mysore). He is the recipient of the Parameshchandra Guru Memorial Award of the University of Mysore and the State Award of the Government of Karnataka (1979) for his excellent performance at the LL.M. examination. He obtained his M. Phil (‘A’ Grade) from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal University, New Delhi, (1990) with a dissertation on “Legal Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes: The Emerging Trends”. His Ph.D. which was also from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (1994) was in the area of International Environmental Law was on the topic “ Legal control of Hazardous substances in foods, pesticides, pharmaceutical and wastes”. Dr. Subramanya has participated in several regional as well as national seminars. Besides, to his credit, there are articles published in journals in the field of International Law. He is the author of a book entitled Rights and Status of Individual in International

World Constitutionalism

295

Law (New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications, 1984). He has edited a work entitled Human Rights in International Law ( New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications,1986) He has also held several positions in his career as teacher. From 1979 to 1985 he served as a Lecturer in the Department of Post-Graduate studies in Law, Karnataka University, Dharwad, and from 1985 to 1994 as Reader in the same Department . Later from 1994-2001 he served as Legal Advisor to the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain in their Ministry of Cabinet Affairs. From 2001 to July 2004 he served as a faculty member in V.M. Salgaocar College of Law and the Department of Law in the University of Goa. He also served as a visiting Professor (in the said period) in the Center for Latin American Studies of the University of Goa. Currently, since July 2004 he is serving as a Professor of Law in the University College of Law and the Department of Post Graduate Studies in Law of Bangalore University, Bangalore. Troy Davis Troy Davis, democracy engineer, [email protected] President, World Citizen Foundation/Fondation des Citoyens du Monde (www.worldcitizen.org) Président, Association de soutien à l’Ecole de la Démocratie (www.ecoledelademocratie.org) Vishwanath.M Lecturer, University College of Law, Karnataka University, Dharwad.

Contributors

296

Address : H. N. 4/231, Porbavaddo, Calangute , Goa, India. Phone No : 009832-2279456 E-mail : [email protected] Web: www.ismilda.org x

Research on World Constitutionalism