World Citizen Update

Copyright (c) 2006 by Garry Davis

In politics, the nation-state insidiously controls not only the dialogue but also the electoral process.

Note for instance the platforms of the recent United States candidates for president. Neither advocated a world constitution to outlaw war. Quite the contrary, both John Kerry and George W. Bush were for an increased military budget and the updated version of Reagan's "Star Wars," while the Pentagon continually strives to "master" space above all our heads.

Neither candidate endorsed a government beyond the nation to deal with environmental devastation despite the overwhelming dangers the human race itself faces due to global warming, ocean pollution, ozone layer depletion, rain forests burning and species, both plant and animal extermination. It is as if both they and the U.S. voters lived on another planet. But worse, the general public's loyalty to this national political illusion blinds it to the solution of humanity's ills taken together, i.e. world law based on human rights. Small wonder that less than 50% of the U.S. public votes in presidential elections.

The primal question national voters should ask: Can Bush, Blair, Chirac, Barmak, Putin, Khatami, Mubarak, Kirchner, de Silva, Lagos, Chen Shui-bian, Schuessel, Verhofstadt, Paccheco, Klaus, Rasmussen, Gonzales, Koehler, Papoulias, Kalam, Katzav, Talabani, Yudhoyono, Ciampl, McAleese, Koizumi, Abdallah II, Sirajuddin, Al-Qadhafi, Fox, Clark, Balkenende, Obasanjo, Stoltenberg, Musharraf, Macapagal-Arroyo, Kaczynski, Sampaio, Abdallah Al Saud, Mbeki, Juan Carlos, Gustaf, Leuenberger, Bashar al-Asad, Sezer, Khalifa, Chavez, Mauh, Wanawasa, et al, address much less resolve world problems-- your problems --as heads of state? In short, are we humans politically represented on the level where our own and humanity's problems reside?

The question answers itself.

Moreover all national leaders, while sanctimoniously maintaining their own mandate as executors of exclusive law, confess their impotence on the global level. The contradiction is blatant and transparent.

As Heads of State they are only constitutionally sanctioned to preserve the existence of their particular fictional states and not the state of the world in which they and their co-citizens live in reality.

Then why do we, the innocent victims of state domination, continually look to them in their never-ending meetings for solution? Are we not sheep being led to the slaughter all the while wondering who to elect as the next "butcher?"

What is lacking here?

In every other field but politics, individuals operate globally: the post-office, telephone and television being prime examples. Today, the Internet is coming along as a fast fourth.

The world's so-called peace movement lacks global political representation!

Why are "peace" groups all talking only to themselves? What are the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates doing about eliminating war-making...about creating the legal conditions of peace? And the former nuclear scientists? And the former generals and admirals and Peace Corps workers? And the philosophers, poets, gurus, and sages?

How is it that the arms race continues unabated while people starve? How is it that we can communicate with one another instantaneously worldwide and cannot travel without the absurdity of national passports and visas? How is it that all national leaders talk, talk, talk about human rights and yet they are violated by EVERY nation EVERY second?

In short, why are most world citizens not playing hardball politics?

Let's face it, no national parliamentarian, congressperson or state head can represent us, the people of the world.

Why not?

Because millions of us already identify ourselves as World Citizens as an inalienable right.

Well-intentioned peaceniks write and talk of "nations" being unwilling to "relinquish" their national sovereignty. But nations do not have sovereignty. Ultimately, it is you and I -- now reborn into world citizenship -- who have civil sovereignty. This is the axiom of civil democracy. Nations cannot "relinquish sovereignty" because it is not theirs to begin with: sovereignty belongs to the people. Indeed, with amazing insouciance, most national constitutions already declare this obvious truth as its very sanction.

With this axiom in mind, it is necessary also to look at this word "relinquish." If sovereignty already resides in the people, there can be no such thing as "relinquishing" it. It is inherent in us by the very fact of being human. The whole connotation of the words "relinquish" or "cede" is negative and totally unsuited for expressing the immensely creative and historic steps which the people of the earth must now take -- and you have already started to take -- in the direction of evolving a planetary government.

Those steps are 1) declaring your world citizenship publicly; 2) identifying that declaration with documentation; and 3) exercising the franchise of representation on the global level.

For years, the ogre of all the world government "movements" has been the "red herring" of "relinquishing" our rights, "ceding our claims," "renouncing our sovereignty," all of which makes the would-be follower immediately fearful that he or she will be losing something of valuable self-interest. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The people of the earth would lose nothing of real self-interest by a civil world government. Quite the contrary, they would gain enormous freedom from needless suffering and taxation. Indeed, the nation-state has already renounced the citizen when the head of state wears his/her constitutionally-mandated Commander-in-Chief hat in time of war (which has today become quasi-permanent).

The only persons who would lose their usurped rights would be precisely those national leaders whom we are asked to believe in as the initiating-source of world government. Their right to destroy the earth over petty conflicts, for instance, would definitely be taken away from them. And along with that, the need for spies, diplomats, consular personnel, frontier guards not to mention the soldiers, sailors, and marines dedicated to killing each other as well as innocent civilians, and indeed, the army of money changers and profiteers therefrom.

Naive? Yes indeed. But what a boon for humanity!

The phrase we should use instead is "delegate sovereignty." People, as declared World Citizens, can then delegate their decision-making functions, their functional sovereignty, to others -- declared world legislative candidates -- to perform and exercise the immense benefits and services of a democratic world government.

Up to this point in history -- starting in recent centuries -- people have seen fit to delegate their sovereignty only to the level of national governments. But now, it is necessary that the people not "relinquish" their sovereignty, but reassert and extend it to the level of functional human unity as a legal and political institution.

Happily, the communicative tools now exist to perform this vital function.

World government, then, need not occur only when nations begin to "relinquish" their "national sovereignty." It begins when citizens wake up to the fact that they are by every right world citizens, that they have not only the right but the imperative to set up their own political machinery on the world level, and when they then take that step can actually begin to prosper and benefit from a world government into action.

We must be clear therefore that the formation of world government need not in any way depend on the actions or "recognition" of national governments. (See Memorandum on World Government by Nataraja Guru in "Document" section).

In essence, we must stop being a slave to the mentality of nationalism and the word "nation." We must stop falling into the mind-set that affirms old world order relationships even as it seeks to transcend them. Who then represents us, the sovereign world citizens?

The question is as self-evident as the answer. We, the human beings concerned, are not represented in our entirety, as members of the human race, because we have not yet democratically chosen our own world citizen representatives! And why is that?

BECAUSE NO WORLD CITIZEN CANDIDATES HAVE YET DECLARED THEMSELVES PUBLICLY AVAILABLE!

Governments start by individuals claiming de facto citizenship. Ref., the United States of America. That is precisely what my candidacy for World President, declared in 1983, is all about. The office of World President of our government would be largely ceremonial and symbolic. (George Washington was an "amateur" president being the first!) Once established, with follow-up subsidiary instruments: a world parliament, world judiciary, world executive, etc., it follows that positive law has been finally allied with the perennial truths of unity and universality taught by humanity's sages from time immemorial. In other words, a vote for World President is not only a vote for a person, not even a vote only for a political office, but a vote for a set of truths or conceptual values such as justice, freedom, benevolence, cooperation, and the gamut of social and economic rights as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (See http://www.garrydavis.org for a World Ballot).

The specific mandate for global government as well as global elections is already provided for by Article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"The will of the people shall be the base of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures."

This is a global sanction and mandate for declared and registered World Citizens to elect declared and registered fellow World Citizens.

It may come as very exciting -- or perhaps quixotic --news to the world public that such a government, though embryonic, will be 53 years old as of September 4, 2006. (See The Ellsworth Declaration in the "Document" section).

A number of world identity documents, including so far a World Citizen Card, a World Birth Certificate, and a World Passport (upgraded in January to ICAO* standards) issued by the government via its executive agency, the World Service Authority, are already recognized by many nations.**

Taking its initial lead from such documents as the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Optional Protocol to the latter Covenant, and other basic doctrines of international law, and having adopted the neutral international language Esperanto as its future official language, this legitimate government bids well to represent the most significant civil world democratic initiative of this new century.

The missing link to complete the instrumentation of world representation will soon become available: an Internet site, sponsored by the World Service Authority.

Declared candidates for world public office will be able to signify their availability to the world citizen constituency: http://www.worldcandidates.org (under construction) mandated by the aforementioned human rights article.

The site will not only provide a place for candidates to expose their program, experience, educational qualifications, etc., but also the actual ballots for both World President and World Parliamentarian can be downloaded. A link to the World Government site will access on-line individual registration, the fee paid by a recognized credit card.

The Internet is already being utilized for local and national electoral processes, three U.S. states permitting registration of citizens directly on their state websites. Every nation and every candidate for national political office must have a website in these days of electronic politicking. Indeed, this World Government site included from the outset (1995) the World Referendum, its five questions dealing with global subjects never asked by national pollsters.

Numerous world constitutions written since 1945 will be reproduced on the above-mentioned site along with references to fundamental human rights in both national constitutions and international covenants. A section on historical references to world citizenship and a world state will lend substance and credibility to the concept throughout humankind's evolution to a peaceful world. A library of excerpts from rare books dealing with the subject of world law will be accessible. An index of individual advocates throughout history to the present will complete the site.

If this millennium has any historical mission, it is evidently both to protect the planetary environment and to eliminate the scourge of war from the human community. Otherwise, as Einstein and James Lovelock have warned us, war or Mother Earth or both will eliminate us humans in toto.

*International Civil Aviation Organization standards for Machine-Readable Travel Documents
**https://worldservice.org/visas.html