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A World Federation

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A World Federation A WORLD FEDERATION John Scales Avery November 19, 2018 2 Contents 1 THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 1 1.1 What is law? . .1 1.2 Magna Carta, 1215 . .2 1.3 The English Bill of Rights, 1689 . .4 1.4 The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, 1789 . .4 1.5 Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928 . .7 1.6 United Nations Charter, 1945 . .8 1.7 International Court of Justice, 1946 . 10 1.8 Nuremberg Principles, 1947 . 11 1.9 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 . 12 1.10 Geneva Conventions, 1949 . 15 1.11 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 1968 . 16 1.12 Biological Weapons Convention, 1972 . 17 1.13 Chemical Weapons Convention, 1997 . 18 1.14 Mine Ban Treaty, 1999 . 18 1.15 International Criminal Court, 2002 . 19 1.16 Arms Trade Treaty, 2013 . 19 1.17 Racism, Colonialism and Exceptionalism . 20 1.18 The Oslo Principles on Climate Change Obligation, 2015 . 20 1.19 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, 2017 . 22 1.20 Hope for the future, and responsibility for the future . 22 2 THE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER 25 2.1 The San Francisco Conference . 25 2.2 Article 1 . 27 2.3 Article 2 . 27 2.4 Against the institution of war . 28 2.5 Reforming the UN Charter . 36 3 THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS 51 3.1 Adoption by the UN General Assembly . 51 3.2 Human rights versus national sovereignty . 59 3.3 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child . 59 3 4 CONTENTS 3.4 The struggle for women's rights . 62 3.5 Water as a human right . 73 3.6 The Rights of Indigenous Peoples . 78 3.7 The Rights of Mother Earth . 82 4 INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY: THE NUREMBERG PRINCIPLES 97 4.1 The training of soldiers . 97 4.2 The principles codified and adopted by the UN . 99 4.3 The International Criminal Court . 103 4.4 The illegality of NATO . 103 5 NUCLEAR WEAPONS AS COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT 107 5.1 The erosion of ethical principles during World War II . 108 5.2 The nuclear arms race . 109 5.3 Targeting civilians: The Geneva Conventions . 112 5.4 Targeting civilians . 117 5.5 The Nuclear Weapons Convention . 149 5.6 ICAN receives the Nobel Peace Prize . 150 5.7 The ICAN Nobel Lecture by Beatrice Fihn . 152 5.8 The Nobel Lecture continued by Setsuko Thurlow . 155 6 COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST 163 6.1 Sanctions as collective punishment . 163 6.2 Israel, Iran and the NPT . 165 6.3 Recent sanctions against Iran . 166 6.4 Attacks on Iran, past and present . 167 6.5 An attack on Iran could escalate . 170 6.6 The agony of Iraq . 172 6.7 Some contributions of Islamic culture . 177 6.8 Syria and Lebanon . 181 6.9 Saudia Arabia and Yemen . 185 6.10 Politeness in multi-ethnic societies . 186 6.11 Oil and conflicts in the Middle East . 186 6.12 OPEC oil and climate change . 190 6.13 September 11, 2001 . 193 6.14 Collective punishment and the blockade of Gaza . 197 7 INEQUALITY, OLIGARCHY, AND CLIMATE CHANGE 203 7.1 Intolerable economic inequality . 204 7.2 Climate change denial . 220 7.3 The fossil fuel industry's denial campaign . 222 7.4 The refugee crisis . 225 CONTENTS 5 7.5 The role of the media . 231 7.6 Ethics for the future . 242 8 FEDERALISM AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE 269 8.1 A personal note . 269 8.2 Strengthening the United Nations . 273 8.3 The Success of Federations . 278 8.4 Obstacles to a World Federation . 282 8.5 Governments of large nations . 283 A THE 2018 NEW SHAPE AWARDS 287 A.1 Global Governance and Global Institutions . 288 A.2 A Truly Global Partnership . 310 A.3 AI-supported global governance . 326 B THE EARTH CONSTITUTION ORGANIZATION'S PROPOSAL 349 B.1 Preamble . 349 B.2 Article 1 - Broad functions of the World Government . 350 B.3 Article 2 - Basic Structure of World Federation and World Government . 350 B.4 Article 3 - Organs of the World Government . 351 B.5 Article 4 - Grant of Specific Powers to the World Government . 352 B.6 Article 5 - The World Parliament . 354 C THE WORLD AS IT IS, AND THE WORLD AS IT COULD BE 361 Introduction The present United Nations Charter After the unspeakable horrors of World War II, delegates from 50 Allied nations met in San Francisco California. The purpose of the conference, which took place between 25 April and 26 June, 1945, was to set up an international organization that would be able to abolish the institution of war. However, the Charter which the delegates produced was too weak to achieve this goal. In many respects the United Nations has been highly successful. During the 73 years that have passed since its establishment, a world war has been avoided. The agencies of the United Nations, such as the World Health Orga- nization, the Food and Agricultural Organization, UNESCO and the IPCC, have provided urgently-needed services to the international community. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Millennium Development Goals have set up norms towards which we can and should aim. Further- more, the UN has provided a place where representatives from many nations can meet for informal diplomacy, through which many dangerous conflicts have been avoided. Nevertheless, the United Nations, with its present Charter, has proved to be too weak to achieve the purpose for which it was established - the complete abolition of the institution of war. If civil wars are included, there are, on any given day, an average of 12 wars somewhere in the world. The task of abolishing war has become extremely urgent since the advent of ther- monuclear weapons. The danger that these weapons will be used, through accident, technical or human error, or through uncontrollable escalation of a war with conventional weapons, poses an existential threat to human civi- lization and the biosphere. The Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955 described our present situation in the following words: “Here then is the problem that we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war?... There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.” 1 Why call war an “institution”? Because the world spends almost twp thousand billion dollars each year on armaments, it follows that very many people make their living from war. This is the reason why it is correct to speak of war as a social institution, and also the reason why war persists, although everyone realizes that it is the cause of much of the suffering that inflicts humanity. We know that war is madness, but it persists. We know that it threatens the future survival of our species, but it persists, entrenched in the attitudes of historians, news- paper editors and television producers, entrenched in the methods by which politicians finance their campaigns, and entrenched in the financial power of arms manufacturers, entrenched also in the ponderous and costly hardware of war, the fleets of warships, bombers, tanks, nuclear missiles and so on. Military-industrial complexes, throughout the world, drive and perpetu- ate the institution of war. Each military-industrial complex involves a circu- lar flow of money. The money flows like the electrical current in a dynamo, driving a diabolical machine. Money from immensely rich corporate oli- garchs buys the votes of politicians and the propaganda of the mainstream media. Numbed by the propaganda, citizens allow the politicians to vote for obscenely bloated military budgets, which further enrich the corporate oligarchs, and the circular flow continues. A World Federation In order to save the world from destruction in a thermonuclear World War III, the United Nations Charter must be reformed and strengthened. At present, the UN is a confederation of absolutely sovereign nation-states. But in a world of all-destroying modern weapons, instantaneous global communi- cation, and economic interdependence, the absolutely sovereign nation-state has become a dangerous anachronism. Furthermore, history has shown confederations to be fatally weak. For example, the original United States Constitution was a confederation; but it soon became apparent that this form of governance was too weak. Instead, a federation was needed. In his Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote: “To coerce the states is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised... Can any reasonable man be well disposed towards a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself, a government that can exist only by the sword? Every such war must involve the innocent with the 2 guilty. The single consideration should be enough to dispose every peaceable citizen against such gov- ernment... What is the cure for this great evil? Nothing, but to enable the... laws to operate on individuals, in the same manner as those of states do.” George Mason, one of the drafters of the Federal Constitution, believed that “such a government was necessary as could directly operate on individ- uals, and would punish those only whose guilt required it”, while another drafter, James Madison, wrote that the more he reflected on the use of force, the more he doubted “the practicality, the justice and the efficacy of it when applied to people collectively, and not individually.” At present, the United Nations attempts to coerce states through sanc- tions; but sanctions are a form of collective punishment, and collective pun- ishment is expressly forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.
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