The International Seabed Authority
by Winston Langley
When one today thinks of the oceans, one most often does so in terms of pollution, pirates, oil tankers, vacation tours, and national security. There are other reasons for thinking about the oceans, however.
They constitute over 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and their conservation and protection have profound meaning for all land-based life communities. They, the oceans, are the source of human livelihood, in the form of protein, on which many people depend; they form a “water bridge” that facilitates world-wide transportation; they furnish undersea beddings for cables,thus ensuring taken-for-granted communication; they absorb immense amounts of waste from land; they interact with tectonic plates at whose consent human societies survive; and they are the repositories of mineral deposits which make land-based quantities seem rather limited. For example, in the case of copper, for instance, there is an estimated 7.9 billion tons in the seabed (the equivalent to reserves for 5,000 years as compared with an estimated 40 years reserve on land. Because of all the above features of the oceans, as well as their bearing on the security of countries (with security understood broadly, including health) countries have sought to shape rules to advance their respective interests, often with little or no regard for the interests of others. The global interest is rarely thought of at all. As technology allowed humansto have more and more access to the resources of the seabed, states began to claim, unilaterally, more and more of the oceans; and with these claims threatening international anarchy, the international community, through the United Nations, sponsored two Law of the Sea conferences, with a view to developing some common rules to govern the oceans. The first of these conferences (1956) resulted in four treaties, of limited utility, although important; the second (in 1960) was unproductive. In 1973, the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea was convened, with more than 160 states participating. The conference lasted for nearly a decade (until 1982) and resulted in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The convention comprehensively defines the responsibilities and rights of states, in relationship to the oceans; designates a variety of zones of jurisdictions; provides guidelines for businesses; offers general protection for the environment; and creates a governance structure (the International Seabed Authority, ISA) to manage the marine and other natural resources, as well as the conduct of states in relationship to those resources and to each other. In 1994, the convention entered into force (meaning, it became binding international law), and today over 150 countries have adopted the treaty, which is really a constitution for the oceans.
We bring this article to your attention, at this time, because of a number of things, not the least of which is to invite you to write your Congressperson to give support to the United States ratification of the convention (the United States has not ratified the treaty, but Senator John Kerry and others are leading an effort to ensure its ratification). Other reasons for the article are: the treaty or convention creates a global governance structure (with an Assembly, a Council, a Secretariat, an International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea; and the Enterprise, among others, which is to co-ordinate and supervise the mining of minerals beyond national jurisdiction; it recognizes that the seabed, outside the national jurisdiction, as part of the common heritage of all human beings—the area to be mined by the Enterprise; it protects the interest of countries that are land-locked (which do not abut oceans); and from our standpoint, it offers a model (although imperfect) for democratic governance on a global scale.
Three examples will illustrate the latter point. In the case of the Assembly, which is mentioned above, all countries are equally represented. In the case of the Council, it has a membership of 36, with representation from all regions of the world, and no country is allowed a veto. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is the judicial organ of the International Seabed Authority and it will deal with all legal matters pertaining to the seabed.
Perhaps the most significant issue, from our standpoint, is the fact that nation-states from throughout the world could meet, discuss for nearly a decade some of the most vexing international issues and resolve them peacefully: minerals, who should have access to them, especially in face of declining supplies of land-based supply, rights of littoral and land-locked countries, responsibilities to the marine environment, the claims of powerful industrial or maritime states and less developed countries, which often sought to challenge them, the interests of private, multinational corporations, which wanted little or no government control of the resources of the seabed and those who sought government intervention to ensure equitable access to and distribution of return from the seabed resources, the preference of some countries for veto-like control of decision-making and the insistence of others on a more democratic regime. As well, they dealt zones of overlapping control—international waters of countries, exclusive economic zones (EEZ), where countries have rights to mine and otherwise exploit resources, and the area beyond the EEZ, which belongs to all human beings, including succeeding generations.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
What Do You Reply When They Say That: National sovereignty can never be sacrificed.
By Joseph Baratta
( an article from summer issue of the World Citizens Party newsletter)
“Sovereignty” means the supreme power of a state, national independence, the authority to make laws binding on the citizens of a state. Think of the conduct of the sovereigns of old—the kings, and you will understand sovereignty. National sovereignty, or the rejection of higher laws binding upon the independent states, emerged with the collapse of the pretensions of the pope to supreme secular and spiritual authority during the Protestant Reformation. In democratic polities since the French revolution, sovereignty is thought to reside in the people, as is demonstrated in elections of their representatives for the making and execution of the laws.
Indeed, there can be no “sacrifice” of sovereignty—to whom would it be sacrificed? But it can be voluntarily limited or its powers delegated by the sovereign people. Every treaty is a partial limitation of sovereign powers. Every union, as in the United States or the European Union, is a delegation of enumerated powers to the higher organ of government. Historically, some 30 national federations have been created, starting with the U.S.A. under the federal Constitution in 1789. Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Russia, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Australia are typical federations. In recent years some unitary states have undertaken “devolutions” of power, notably Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and France. There have also been some spectacular failures, as in the U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.
After World War II, the constitutions of at least 37 national states were amended to permit formation of regional unions. Every country that has joined the European Union, for instance, expressly provides for delegation of sovereign powers to the E.U. Italy’s Article 11 of its constitution of 1948 reads:
Italy renounces war as an instrument of offense to the liberty of other peoples or as a means of settlement of international disputes, and, on conditions of equality with other states, agrees to the limitations of her sovereignty necessary to an organization which will ensure peace and justice among nations, and promotes and encourages international organizations constituted for this purpose.
The proposal of the World Citizens Party, Massachusetts Branch, to exercise Art. 109 to amend the U.N. Charter is perfectly consistent with the history of establishment of federations. The objective is not to sacrifice the sovereignty of the United States but to pool sovereign powers of all the United Nations to make that organization capable of solving world problems beyond the powers of individual states alone. Global warming is one such problem; so is nuclear proliferation or human rights. As Thomas Jefferson said, “It is the right of the people … to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
( an article from summer issue of the World Citizens Party newsletter)
“Sovereignty” means the supreme power of a state, national independence, the authority to make laws binding on the citizens of a state. Think of the conduct of the sovereigns of old—the kings, and you will understand sovereignty. National sovereignty, or the rejection of higher laws binding upon the independent states, emerged with the collapse of the pretensions of the pope to supreme secular and spiritual authority during the Protestant Reformation. In democratic polities since the French revolution, sovereignty is thought to reside in the people, as is demonstrated in elections of their representatives for the making and execution of the laws.
Indeed, there can be no “sacrifice” of sovereignty—to whom would it be sacrificed? But it can be voluntarily limited or its powers delegated by the sovereign people. Every treaty is a partial limitation of sovereign powers. Every union, as in the United States or the European Union, is a delegation of enumerated powers to the higher organ of government. Historically, some 30 national federations have been created, starting with the U.S.A. under the federal Constitution in 1789. Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Russia, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Australia are typical federations. In recent years some unitary states have undertaken “devolutions” of power, notably Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and France. There have also been some spectacular failures, as in the U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.
After World War II, the constitutions of at least 37 national states were amended to permit formation of regional unions. Every country that has joined the European Union, for instance, expressly provides for delegation of sovereign powers to the E.U. Italy’s Article 11 of its constitution of 1948 reads:
Italy renounces war as an instrument of offense to the liberty of other peoples or as a means of settlement of international disputes, and, on conditions of equality with other states, agrees to the limitations of her sovereignty necessary to an organization which will ensure peace and justice among nations, and promotes and encourages international organizations constituted for this purpose.
The proposal of the World Citizens Party, Massachusetts Branch, to exercise Art. 109 to amend the U.N. Charter is perfectly consistent with the history of establishment of federations. The objective is not to sacrifice the sovereignty of the United States but to pool sovereign powers of all the United Nations to make that organization capable of solving world problems beyond the powers of individual states alone. Global warming is one such problem; so is nuclear proliferation or human rights. As Thomas Jefferson said, “It is the right of the people … to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Ideas for the future by Joseph Preston Baratta, Ph.D.
Why a party? Real peace is not the interval between wars but the presence of justice. Efforts to establish lasting peace are still failing. The end of the Cold War provided an historic opportunity to return to the great work of building international organizations to keep the peace, but the opportunity seems to be slipping away. The idea of United Nations reform is in the air, but it means much more than streamlining the U.N. bureaucracy and managing a budget less than that of the New York fire department.
The historic method by which world federalists tried to strengthen the U.N. was lobbying the state and federal legislatures to pass a non-binding concurrent resolution urging the president to call a general conference in accordance with Article 109 of the U.N. Charter. When that failed, the resolution was watered down to declare only that the sense of Congress was that the
“fundamental objective” of U.S. foreign policy should be to seek the development of the U.N. into a “world federation, open to all nations, with defined and limited powers adequate to preserve peace and prevent aggression through the enactment, interpretation, and enforcement of world law.” This resolution was supported by 111 cosponsors in the House and 21 in the Senate by 1949, but the Korean War next year marked the indisputable coming of the Cold War and the eclipse of the world federalist movement.
The movement basically failed because its roots were shallow in the mass of the people. The idea of remedying the international anarchy by taking the next step after a league of sovereign states to a government of states and peoples was not mistaken, if it was untimely by 1950, but a lobbying organization proved to be inadequate. Most of the movement retreated into a tax–exempt 501(c)3 educational association.
But how could any movement work effectively to establish a world federation competent to enact world law reaching to individuals without becoming political? There were calls in the old days, as by young Harris Wofford, to try the alternative of a trans-national world federalist political party, and the attempt was actually made in working with Henry Wallace’s Progressive party in the elections of 1948, but charges of Communist sympathies were enough to squelch such dissent. There was one lone British Parliamentarian, Henry Usborne, who led a popular movement to convene a “peoples’ convention” to draft a world constitution, but his effort fizzled in late 1950. Later in Europe, Jean Monnet formed and led the Action Committee for a United States of Europe, composed of national labor union leaders and politicians temporarily out of office like Helmut Schmidt, and that group had enough political prestige to contribute substantially to the Rome treaty establishing the European Communities in 1957. But world federation languished to the end of the Cold War in 1990 and after.
Conditions now have changed. The great struggle between the Western democracies, which championed civil and political rights, and the Communist party states, which upheld economic, social, and cultural rights, has been decided in favor of the former. The peoples of Communist bloc countries refused to sacrifice political liberty for economic equality. Multi–party democracy and liberal capitalism have overcome the socialist challenge from the self–styled revolutionary vanguard. Nuclear weapons are still a threat, but most internationalists, who have quietly been working for the last fifty years wherever there was scope for some progress, have become in principle maximalists, in the sense that they believe that world peace cannot be achieved without attention to international security and economic development, social justice, environmental preservation, human rights, and democratic participation. We live, after the Cold War, in an age of globalization; technologies of communications and transportation, in addition to machine industry and democracy under the rule of law, are knitting our world together. World community is near ready for world government.
The World Citizens Party, Massachusetts Branch, envisions itself as a transnational political party. It aims to inform and mobilize popular will as the proper basis of new departures in government. Call it consent of the governed. The party does not merely aim to convince the élite. The party aims to think through a program, find and support candidates for elective and appointive office, and in short acquire the power to guide the United States of America toward systemic U.N. reform, which eventually should be some form of world federal government. One possible next step would be to support the movement to create a popularly representative house in the United Nations, as in the plan relaunched most recently by Andrew Strauss and Richard Falk to create a “second chamber” in the U.N. This could be done by exercise of the U.N. Charter’s Article 22 to form a “subsidiary organ” to the General Assembly or by amendment under Article 108 or 109, assuming U.S. leadership.
Beyond such a reform, the World Citizens Party proposes to leave the rest open. It will not engage in contentious debate about the structure and powers—membership, representation, powers, and transition—of the envisioned world federal government. In the past, all such differences were basically matters of timing. Those who favored a union of democracies first admitted that the ultimate goal was a universal union; those who favored a grant of minimal powers first included a liberal amendment procedure to acquire in time maximal powers.
(...)
The strategy, then, is to appeal to the sovereignty of the people by speeches, writing, referenda, legislative resolutions, campaigning for office, and eventual service in Congress and in executive office. The goal is to place professed World Citizens into official negotiations for novel interpretations of or amendments to the U.N. Charter. We cannot do this without the approbation of the people. Before elections, the best way to reach the people is by entering into public controversy in the press and now on TV. Another is by house–to–house canvassing of the voters and entering into conversation with them to win their votes, as was attempted in Massachusetts in 1946.
My view is that until there is a crisis the opportunity for world federalist action will be stillborn. As Jean Monnet used to say, 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.” The world now is faced by a massive crisis, symbolized by the threat of nuclear war, economic depression, ecological collapse, new pandemics, terrorism from the global South, and all the problems of the global problématique. At the moment it is only a crisis of the mind. But even during an Obama administration, there may be such a crisis—perhaps war spreading from Afghanistan into Pakistan, or deepening global depression, or another Arab–Israeli war—demonstrating that the U.S. cannot continue to go it alone. If we are poised with alternative ideas, the World Citizens Party might grow by leaps and bounds. Sometimes history moves with astonishing swiftness when accumulated forces break through the dam long restraining them (like the end of the Cold War). At that moment the World Citizens Party could emerge as a serious third party in American history.
But even if our proposed action is again set back, it seems to me that, like the Progressive movement in the early 20th century, World Citizens could leave behind fertile ideas for the future. The Progressives brought us the regulation of business and protections for the working class; World Citizens could leave behind such notions as the necessity for a government of the world and its practicality. The essential notion is the replacement of international anarchy with the rule of world law reaching to individuals. “Law,” Mark Van Doren once explained, “is merely what enables us to live together in peace without having to love one another.”
The historic method by which world federalists tried to strengthen the U.N. was lobbying the state and federal legislatures to pass a non-binding concurrent resolution urging the president to call a general conference in accordance with Article 109 of the U.N. Charter. When that failed, the resolution was watered down to declare only that the sense of Congress was that the
“fundamental objective” of U.S. foreign policy should be to seek the development of the U.N. into a “world federation, open to all nations, with defined and limited powers adequate to preserve peace and prevent aggression through the enactment, interpretation, and enforcement of world law.” This resolution was supported by 111 cosponsors in the House and 21 in the Senate by 1949, but the Korean War next year marked the indisputable coming of the Cold War and the eclipse of the world federalist movement.
The movement basically failed because its roots were shallow in the mass of the people. The idea of remedying the international anarchy by taking the next step after a league of sovereign states to a government of states and peoples was not mistaken, if it was untimely by 1950, but a lobbying organization proved to be inadequate. Most of the movement retreated into a tax–exempt 501(c)3 educational association.
But how could any movement work effectively to establish a world federation competent to enact world law reaching to individuals without becoming political? There were calls in the old days, as by young Harris Wofford, to try the alternative of a trans-national world federalist political party, and the attempt was actually made in working with Henry Wallace’s Progressive party in the elections of 1948, but charges of Communist sympathies were enough to squelch such dissent. There was one lone British Parliamentarian, Henry Usborne, who led a popular movement to convene a “peoples’ convention” to draft a world constitution, but his effort fizzled in late 1950. Later in Europe, Jean Monnet formed and led the Action Committee for a United States of Europe, composed of national labor union leaders and politicians temporarily out of office like Helmut Schmidt, and that group had enough political prestige to contribute substantially to the Rome treaty establishing the European Communities in 1957. But world federation languished to the end of the Cold War in 1990 and after.
Conditions now have changed. The great struggle between the Western democracies, which championed civil and political rights, and the Communist party states, which upheld economic, social, and cultural rights, has been decided in favor of the former. The peoples of Communist bloc countries refused to sacrifice political liberty for economic equality. Multi–party democracy and liberal capitalism have overcome the socialist challenge from the self–styled revolutionary vanguard. Nuclear weapons are still a threat, but most internationalists, who have quietly been working for the last fifty years wherever there was scope for some progress, have become in principle maximalists, in the sense that they believe that world peace cannot be achieved without attention to international security and economic development, social justice, environmental preservation, human rights, and democratic participation. We live, after the Cold War, in an age of globalization; technologies of communications and transportation, in addition to machine industry and democracy under the rule of law, are knitting our world together. World community is near ready for world government.
The World Citizens Party, Massachusetts Branch, envisions itself as a transnational political party. It aims to inform and mobilize popular will as the proper basis of new departures in government. Call it consent of the governed. The party does not merely aim to convince the élite. The party aims to think through a program, find and support candidates for elective and appointive office, and in short acquire the power to guide the United States of America toward systemic U.N. reform, which eventually should be some form of world federal government. One possible next step would be to support the movement to create a popularly representative house in the United Nations, as in the plan relaunched most recently by Andrew Strauss and Richard Falk to create a “second chamber” in the U.N. This could be done by exercise of the U.N. Charter’s Article 22 to form a “subsidiary organ” to the General Assembly or by amendment under Article 108 or 109, assuming U.S. leadership.
Beyond such a reform, the World Citizens Party proposes to leave the rest open. It will not engage in contentious debate about the structure and powers—membership, representation, powers, and transition—of the envisioned world federal government. In the past, all such differences were basically matters of timing. Those who favored a union of democracies first admitted that the ultimate goal was a universal union; those who favored a grant of minimal powers first included a liberal amendment procedure to acquire in time maximal powers.
(...)
The strategy, then, is to appeal to the sovereignty of the people by speeches, writing, referenda, legislative resolutions, campaigning for office, and eventual service in Congress and in executive office. The goal is to place professed World Citizens into official negotiations for novel interpretations of or amendments to the U.N. Charter. We cannot do this without the approbation of the people. Before elections, the best way to reach the people is by entering into public controversy in the press and now on TV. Another is by house–to–house canvassing of the voters and entering into conversation with them to win their votes, as was attempted in Massachusetts in 1946.
My view is that until there is a crisis the opportunity for world federalist action will be stillborn. As Jean Monnet used to say, 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.” The world now is faced by a massive crisis, symbolized by the threat of nuclear war, economic depression, ecological collapse, new pandemics, terrorism from the global South, and all the problems of the global problématique. At the moment it is only a crisis of the mind. But even during an Obama administration, there may be such a crisis—perhaps war spreading from Afghanistan into Pakistan, or deepening global depression, or another Arab–Israeli war—demonstrating that the U.S. cannot continue to go it alone. If we are poised with alternative ideas, the World Citizens Party might grow by leaps and bounds. Sometimes history moves with astonishing swiftness when accumulated forces break through the dam long restraining them (like the end of the Cold War). At that moment the World Citizens Party could emerge as a serious third party in American history.
But even if our proposed action is again set back, it seems to me that, like the Progressive movement in the early 20th century, World Citizens could leave behind fertile ideas for the future. The Progressives brought us the regulation of business and protections for the working class; World Citizens could leave behind such notions as the necessity for a government of the world and its practicality. The essential notion is the replacement of international anarchy with the rule of world law reaching to individuals. “Law,” Mark Van Doren once explained, “is merely what enables us to live together in peace without having to love one another.”
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Concurrent Resolution
The Steering Committee of the World Citizens Party has revised the previous "Joint Congressional Resolution".
The World Citizens Party welcomes all friends to support this resolution by printing it, endorsing and sending back to our office at: World Citizens Party, 2161 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02140.
GLOBAL RESOLUTION
The World Citizens Party seeks to organize worldwide support for a conference to revise the United Nations Charter to create a democratic federal world government.
In the U.S.A., the World Citizens Party supports the following Congressional Resolution.
Concurrent Resolution (U.S.A.)
A CALL FOR A GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED NATIONS
TO REVISE THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER TO FORM
A DEMOCRATIC FEDERAL WORLD GOVERNMENT
Whereas, numerous wars, international and civil, have been waged since the United Nations was founded in 1945,
and whereas warfare continues, and no evidence exists that war will cease to occur in the future unless new measures are taken, and
Whereas, the United Nations, notwithstanding its invaluable humanitarian, scientific, social and cultural achievements, has failed in its basic purpose to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, and
Whereas, the United Nations requires the structural capability to address matters that by their nature or by neglect cannot be or are not being addressed adequately by nation states including, but not limited to, war, nuclear weapons proliferation, international terrorism, environmental catastrophe and economic disparity, and
Whereas, the United Nations requires the structural capability to enforce democratically enacted world law,
Therefore, be it resolved that it is the sense of the United States Congress that the President of the United States call for a general conference of the members of the United Nations, as provided by Article 109 of the Charter, to revise the United Nations to form a democratic federal world government conforming to the following specifications:
A representative and democratic World Legislature with world constitutional authority to enact world law;
A World Executive, directly elected by the people of the world or selected by and responsible to the elected
World Legislature, whose powers are specifically enumerated by the World Constitution, to administer and enforce world law;
A World Judiciary System to interpret world law, a system with compulsory jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes between nation states, non national entities and individual world citizens;
A World Bill of Rights to protect the basic human rights of all world citizens.
The World Citizens Party welcomes all friends to support this resolution by printing it, endorsing and sending back to our office at: World Citizens Party, 2161 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02140.
GLOBAL RESOLUTION
The World Citizens Party seeks to organize worldwide support for a conference to revise the United Nations Charter to create a democratic federal world government.
In the U.S.A., the World Citizens Party supports the following Congressional Resolution.
Concurrent Resolution (U.S.A.)
A CALL FOR A GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED NATIONS
TO REVISE THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER TO FORM
A DEMOCRATIC FEDERAL WORLD GOVERNMENT
Whereas, numerous wars, international and civil, have been waged since the United Nations was founded in 1945,
and whereas warfare continues, and no evidence exists that war will cease to occur in the future unless new measures are taken, and
Whereas, the United Nations, notwithstanding its invaluable humanitarian, scientific, social and cultural achievements, has failed in its basic purpose to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, and
Whereas, the United Nations requires the structural capability to address matters that by their nature or by neglect cannot be or are not being addressed adequately by nation states including, but not limited to, war, nuclear weapons proliferation, international terrorism, environmental catastrophe and economic disparity, and
Whereas, the United Nations requires the structural capability to enforce democratically enacted world law,
Therefore, be it resolved that it is the sense of the United States Congress that the President of the United States call for a general conference of the members of the United Nations, as provided by Article 109 of the Charter, to revise the United Nations to form a democratic federal world government conforming to the following specifications:
A representative and democratic World Legislature with world constitutional authority to enact world law;
A World Executive, directly elected by the people of the world or selected by and responsible to the elected
World Legislature, whose powers are specifically enumerated by the World Constitution, to administer and enforce world law;
A World Judiciary System to interpret world law, a system with compulsory jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes between nation states, non national entities and individual world citizens;
A World Bill of Rights to protect the basic human rights of all world citizens.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Baha'is perspective on the Role of World Government in Establishing of Peace, Justice and Unity on a Global Scale
On March 14, 2009, The World Citizens Party Steering Committee meeting Brian Aull- member of Baha'i Community made a presentation of Baha'is thoughts on the role of the world government in establishment of peace, justice and unity on a global scale. Below is a text of his talk.
The Bahá’í Faith is a world religion whose purpose is to unite all the races and peoples of the world in one universal Cause, one common Faith. Bahá’ís are followers of Bahá’u’lláh, who they believe is the Promised One of past religions traditions Whose teachings, work and influence would enable humanity to build a new world based on peace, justice, and unity. So to give you some context here, I’d like to first tell you a bit about Bahá’u’lláh and how He came to address the issue of world government and how this relates to the other teachings of the Faith.
He was born in Teheran in 1817 and His father was a high official in the court of the Shah. From a very young age, became renowned for nobility of character and profound knowledge and wisdom. When His father died He turned down the opportunity to succeed him, and instead devoted Himself to philanthropic activities, assisting the poor and working for justice. By 1850 He had become the prime mover of the events leading to the establishment and spread of the Bahá’í Faith. Because of His claim to bear a new revelation from God that superceded the Quran, He was the target of persecution by the Islamic clergy and the governments of both Iran and of the Ottoman Empire. They exiled Him several times to more and more remote places, hoping to stamp out the new religion. It had just the opposite effect, because people that came into contact with Him, including jailors, were transformed by the experience and became Bahá’ís.
Bahá’u’lláh’s writings span over 100 volumes and cover topics ranging from the journey of the soul and the influence of prayer to world government and spiritual principles bearing on the solution of economic problems. The pivot of His teachings is the oneness of humanity; He says, “The world is but one country and mankind its citizens.” "Regard ye not one another as strangers; ye are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch.” So a lot of the personal virtues stressed in the Bahá’í teachings, such as overcoming prejudice, are those that facilitate the achievement of unity. And unity does not mean uniformity; it means being different but working together.
Unity is also not a long-term goal that might be achieved one we can solve other problems such as war and poverty. The achievement of unity comes first. Once we start to live and function as if we’re all in this together, then we can solve problems such as war and poverty.
Bahá’u’lláh tells us that religion is progressive. It’s not just about individual redemption, but also about advancing human civilization. In terms of the way society functions, the human family has gone through stages of maturation analogous to infancy, childhood, and adolescence in the life of an individual. Today, humanity is in the transition from a turbulent adolescence into adulthood. As the 1985 peace statement, The Promise of World Peace, puts it: “The Bahá’í Faith regards the current world confusion and calamitous condition in human affairs as a natural phase in an organic process leading ultimately and irresistibly to the unification of the human race in a single social order whose boundaries are those of the planet.”
So what does the Bahá’í community do to help us get there? A distinctive aspect of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings is the idea that the functioning of social and political institutions must be based on spiritual values. The Bahá’í community does not have clergy; it elects governing councils at the local, national and international levels. These are not merely “administrative” bodies. Their purpose is to incubate a new political culture based on unity. Their deliberations are non-adversarial and motivated by a spirit of service and cooperative search for the truth in thinking about every issue. They are meant to be a model of human governance that can eventually be offered to society at large. The important point here is that it’s not just about the structure piece, but also about the culture and values piece. If people are divided by selfish motives and myopic vision, Robert’s Rule of Order will not rescue them. In terms of the larger world, the Bahá’í writings make some specific statements about how world government will come about and what it will look like. As a prisoner of the Turkish Sultan, Bahá’u’lláh wrote a remarkable series of letters to the rulers of that time, and exhorted them to establish a global collective security system.
The Promise of World Peace is a good resource if you want to learn more about the Bahá’í teachings on peace and global governance. Here are a few quotes from it.
“The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world’s Great Peace amongst men.” [a quote from Bahá’u’lláh]
In the Bahá’í view, recognition of the oneness of mankind “calls for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole civilized world—a world organically unified in all the essential aspects of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of the national characteristics of its federated units.”
“What else could these weighty words signify,” [Shoghi Effendi] wrote, “if they did not point to the inevitable curtailment of unfettered national sovereignty as an indispensable preliminary to the formation of the future Commonwealth of all the nations of the world? Some form of a world super-state must needs be evolved,in whose favour all the nations of the world will have willingly ceded every claim to make war, certain rights to impose taxation and all rights to maintain armaments, except for purposes of maintaining internal order within their respective dominions. Such a state will have to include within its orbit an International Executive adequate to enforce supreme and unchallengeable authority on every recalcitrant member of the commonwealth; a World Parliament whose members shall be elected by the people in their respective countries and whose election shall be confirmed by their respective governments; and a Supreme Tribunal whose judgment will have a binding effect even in such cases where the parties concerned did not voluntarily agree to submit their case to its consideration.
A world community in which all economic barriers will have been permanently demolished and the interdependence of capital and labour definitely recognized; in which the clamour of religious fanaticism and strife will have been forever stilled; in which the flame of racial animosity will have been finally extinguished; in which a single code of international law—the product of the considered judgment of the world’s federated representatives—shall have as its sanction the instant and coercive intervention of the combined forces of the federated units;
and finally a world community in which the fury of a capricious and militant nationalism will have been transmuted into an abiding consciousness of world citizenship—such indeed, appears, in its broadest outline, the Order anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh, an Order that shall come to be regarded as the fairest fruit of a slowly maturing age.”
Of course, the process of getting there will be a difficult and rocky journey. Institutions that function according to archaic assumptions will crumble and collapse under the weight of their own inadequacy. But this is not a reason to despair, because it paves the way for constructive processes, for the building of new institutions. The work you are doing is a example of the many constructive processes going on. These processes don’t make the headlines, but that does not diminish their importance.
The Bahá’í Faith is a world religion whose purpose is to unite all the races and peoples of the world in one universal Cause, one common Faith. Bahá’ís are followers of Bahá’u’lláh, who they believe is the Promised One of past religions traditions Whose teachings, work and influence would enable humanity to build a new world based on peace, justice, and unity. So to give you some context here, I’d like to first tell you a bit about Bahá’u’lláh and how He came to address the issue of world government and how this relates to the other teachings of the Faith.
He was born in Teheran in 1817 and His father was a high official in the court of the Shah. From a very young age, became renowned for nobility of character and profound knowledge and wisdom. When His father died He turned down the opportunity to succeed him, and instead devoted Himself to philanthropic activities, assisting the poor and working for justice. By 1850 He had become the prime mover of the events leading to the establishment and spread of the Bahá’í Faith. Because of His claim to bear a new revelation from God that superceded the Quran, He was the target of persecution by the Islamic clergy and the governments of both Iran and of the Ottoman Empire. They exiled Him several times to more and more remote places, hoping to stamp out the new religion. It had just the opposite effect, because people that came into contact with Him, including jailors, were transformed by the experience and became Bahá’ís.
Bahá’u’lláh’s writings span over 100 volumes and cover topics ranging from the journey of the soul and the influence of prayer to world government and spiritual principles bearing on the solution of economic problems. The pivot of His teachings is the oneness of humanity; He says, “The world is but one country and mankind its citizens.” "Regard ye not one another as strangers; ye are the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch.” So a lot of the personal virtues stressed in the Bahá’í teachings, such as overcoming prejudice, are those that facilitate the achievement of unity. And unity does not mean uniformity; it means being different but working together.
Unity is also not a long-term goal that might be achieved one we can solve other problems such as war and poverty. The achievement of unity comes first. Once we start to live and function as if we’re all in this together, then we can solve problems such as war and poverty.
Bahá’u’lláh tells us that religion is progressive. It’s not just about individual redemption, but also about advancing human civilization. In terms of the way society functions, the human family has gone through stages of maturation analogous to infancy, childhood, and adolescence in the life of an individual. Today, humanity is in the transition from a turbulent adolescence into adulthood. As the 1985 peace statement, The Promise of World Peace, puts it: “The Bahá’í Faith regards the current world confusion and calamitous condition in human affairs as a natural phase in an organic process leading ultimately and irresistibly to the unification of the human race in a single social order whose boundaries are those of the planet.”
So what does the Bahá’í community do to help us get there? A distinctive aspect of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings is the idea that the functioning of social and political institutions must be based on spiritual values. The Bahá’í community does not have clergy; it elects governing councils at the local, national and international levels. These are not merely “administrative” bodies. Their purpose is to incubate a new political culture based on unity. Their deliberations are non-adversarial and motivated by a spirit of service and cooperative search for the truth in thinking about every issue. They are meant to be a model of human governance that can eventually be offered to society at large. The important point here is that it’s not just about the structure piece, but also about the culture and values piece. If people are divided by selfish motives and myopic vision, Robert’s Rule of Order will not rescue them. In terms of the larger world, the Bahá’í writings make some specific statements about how world government will come about and what it will look like. As a prisoner of the Turkish Sultan, Bahá’u’lláh wrote a remarkable series of letters to the rulers of that time, and exhorted them to establish a global collective security system.
The Promise of World Peace is a good resource if you want to learn more about the Bahá’í teachings on peace and global governance. Here are a few quotes from it.
“The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world’s Great Peace amongst men.” [a quote from Bahá’u’lláh]
In the Bahá’í view, recognition of the oneness of mankind “calls for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole civilized world—a world organically unified in all the essential aspects of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of the national characteristics of its federated units.”
“What else could these weighty words signify,” [Shoghi Effendi] wrote, “if they did not point to the inevitable curtailment of unfettered national sovereignty as an indispensable preliminary to the formation of the future Commonwealth of all the nations of the world? Some form of a world super-state must needs be evolved,in whose favour all the nations of the world will have willingly ceded every claim to make war, certain rights to impose taxation and all rights to maintain armaments, except for purposes of maintaining internal order within their respective dominions. Such a state will have to include within its orbit an International Executive adequate to enforce supreme and unchallengeable authority on every recalcitrant member of the commonwealth; a World Parliament whose members shall be elected by the people in their respective countries and whose election shall be confirmed by their respective governments; and a Supreme Tribunal whose judgment will have a binding effect even in such cases where the parties concerned did not voluntarily agree to submit their case to its consideration.
A world community in which all economic barriers will have been permanently demolished and the interdependence of capital and labour definitely recognized; in which the clamour of religious fanaticism and strife will have been forever stilled; in which the flame of racial animosity will have been finally extinguished; in which a single code of international law—the product of the considered judgment of the world’s federated representatives—shall have as its sanction the instant and coercive intervention of the combined forces of the federated units;
and finally a world community in which the fury of a capricious and militant nationalism will have been transmuted into an abiding consciousness of world citizenship—such indeed, appears, in its broadest outline, the Order anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh, an Order that shall come to be regarded as the fairest fruit of a slowly maturing age.”
Of course, the process of getting there will be a difficult and rocky journey. Institutions that function according to archaic assumptions will crumble and collapse under the weight of their own inadequacy. But this is not a reason to despair, because it paves the way for constructive processes, for the building of new institutions. The work you are doing is a example of the many constructive processes going on. These processes don’t make the headlines, but that does not diminish their importance.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Working on the resolution...
The World Citizens Party Steering Committee is currently working on new resolution which calls for a general conference of the United Nation to form a democratic federal world government.
Below are examples of previous resolutions calling for the formation of a world federal government. Those resolutions were approved by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives. The language used in one of them is quite similar to the World Citizens Party's current proposition.
The following resolution was passed by House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on November 18, 1993.
Below are examples of previous resolutions calling for the formation of a world federal government. Those resolutions were approved by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives. The language used in one of them is quite similar to the World Citizens Party's current proposition.
The following resolution was passed by House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on November 18, 1993.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
In the year one thousand nine hundred and ninety-three
Resolutions
Urging the President and Congress of the United States to call for a conference to review the Charter of the United Nation, and to propose or support amendments which will insure its development into a representative global federation, with powers which, while defined and limited to international affairs, shall be adequate to insure global tranquility and universally safeguard the environment and human rights.
Whereas, the United Nation has failed to save the people of the earth from scourge of war because of its structural inability to make and enforce international law; and
Whereas, an effective and revised Charter should include these essentials of democratic federal government;
A representative and democratic global legislature with authority to enact international law;
An executive, responsible to the legislature, with authority to enforce international law;
A court system to interpret international law, a system with compulsory jurisdiction to adjudicate disputes between nation-states and individual world citizens; and
A world Bill of Rights adequate to protect the basic human rights of all human beings; therefore be it
Resolved, that the Massachusetts House of Representatives calls upon the president and Congress of the United States to call for a conference to review the Charter of the United Nation, and to propose or support amendments which will insure its development into a representative global federation, with powers which, while defined and limited to international affairs, shall be adequate to insure global tranquility and universally safeguard the environment and human rights; and be it further
Resolved; that copies of these resolutions be forwarded by he clerk of the House of Representatives to the President of the United States, to the presiding officer of each branch of Congress, and to the members thereof from this Commonwealth.
This one was passed by the Senate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in May 1992.
Senate, May 13,1992 – Offered by Senator Frederick E.Berry
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
In the year of thousand nine hundred and ninety-two
RESOLUTION
Memorializing the Congress of the United States to initiate the constitutional procedures to enable the United States to participate in a representative world federal government.
Whereas, global tranquility requires an international body elected on a representative basic from among world governments; and
Whereas, the establishment of such a body may require amendments to the Constitution of the United States and the Charter of the United Nation; and
Whereas, Article V of the Constitution of the United States empowers the Congress of the United States to propose amendments to the Constitution; now therefore be it
Resolved, that the Massachusetts Senate calls upon the Congress of the United States to propose amendments to the Constitution of the Unites States which will enable participation in a representative world federal government; and be it further
Resolved, that a copy of these resolution be transmitted forthwith by the clerk of the senate to the President of the United States, the presiding officer of each branch of Congress and the members thereof from Commonwealth.
And this resolution requesting the U.S. Congress to invite all nation to unite in the formation of the world state was adopted by Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in February 1915!
…
Whereas, The incalculable cost and calamity of the European war have caused a strong public sentiment for the end of all war, therefore be it
Resolved, That the general court of Massachusetts hereby respectfully requests the Congress of the United States to make a declaration in substance as follows:
The United States of America affirms the political unity of all mankind.
It affirms the supremacy of world sovereignty over national sovereignty.
It promises loyal obedience to that sovereignty.
It believes that the time has come for the organization of the world government, with legislature, judicial and executive departments.
It invites all nations to join with it in the formal establishment of the government.
Resolved, That this resolution be transmitted by the secretary of the commonwealth to the senior Senator and the Representative in the Congress from Massachusetts for presentation in their respective branches.
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