The World Community: a Planetary Social Process*
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The World Community: A Planetary Social Process* Myres S. McDougal** W. Michael Reisman*** Andrew R. Willard**** Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 808 I. PARTICIPATION................................. 816 A. Individual Human Beings. ................. .. 818 B. Territorial Communities: Nation States. ...... .. 819 C. Intergovernmental & Transnational Organiza- tions. ................................... .. 822 D. Transnational Political Parties & Orders 823 E. Transnational Pressure Groups & Gangs 824 F. Transnational Private (or Official) Associations Oriented Toward Values Other than Power ... .. 824 G. Civilizations and Folk Cultures. ............ .. 828 H. Trends in Participation. ................... .. 831 II. PERSPECTIVES.................................. 833 A. Demands. ............................... .. 833 B. Expectations. ............................ .. 839 C. Identities......... ....................... .. 842 • Copyright reserved by authors. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Torrey H. Webb Charitable Trust (Carl M. Franklin), and Nicholas deB. Katzenbach in the preparation of this Article. Mr. McDougal is a Jennings Randolph Distinguished Fellow of the United States Institute of Peace. This Article is part of a work-in-progress entitled The World Constitutive Process of Authoritative Decision; International Law in Comprehensive Community Context. It has grown from work commenced with our late colleague, Harold D. Lasswell, who will be listed as co-author of the more comprehensive study. •• Sterling Professor of Law, Emeritus, Yale Law School. ••• Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence, Yale Law School. •••• Research Associate, Yale Law School. 807 HeinOnline -- 21 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 807 1987-1988 808 University of California, Davis [Vol. 21:807 D. Aggregated Perspectives .................... .. 846 III. SITUATIONS.................................... 849 A. Spatial-Temporal Dimensions " 850 B. Institutionalization. ....................... .. 853 C. Level of Crisis. ........................... .. 863 IV. BASE VALUES. ................................ .. 868 A. Resources.. .............................. .. 869 B. People.. ................................ .. 873 C. Values and Institutions .................... .. 875 V. STRATEGIES.................................... 888 VI. OUTCOMES..................................... 895 A. Power... ................................ .. 900 B. Well-Being. .............................. .. 909 C. Enlightenment......... ................... .. 916 D. Wealth............... ................... .. 925 E. Respect.. ................................ .. 931 F. Affection. ................................ .. 936 G. Skill........ ............................ .. 940 H. Rectitude.................................. 950 VII. FUTURE PERSPECTIVES. ........................ .. 958 A. Power.................. ................. .. 958 B. Wealth. ................................. .. 960 C. Enlightenment..... ....................... .. 962 D. Skill............... ..................... .. 963 E. Well-Being... ............................ .. 964 F. Affection.. ............................... .. 965 G. Respect........... ....................... .. 966 H. Rectitude.................................. 967 CONCLUSION. ................................. .. 968 INTRODUCTION The specialized process of interaction commonly designated interna tional law is part of a larger world social process that comprehends all the interpenetrating and interstimulating communities on the planet. In the aggregate, these lesser communities comprise a planetary commu nity.1 We use the expression "world community" here not in a meta- I Biologists and ecologists have long understood the interactive character of all com munities, including the planetary community. A biological, or natural, community consists of all of the organisms that live together in a given environment and, in various ways, affect one an other. Thus, a forest, with its trees providing food, shelter, and shade for animals, its undergrowth plants, its many animals feeding on the different HeinOnline -- 21 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 808 1987-1988 1988] The World Community 809 phoric or wistfully aspirational sense but as a descriptive term.2 "Com munity" designates interactions in which interdetermination or interdependence in the shaping and sharing of all values attain an in tensity at which participants in pursuit of their own objectives must regularly take account of the activities and demands of others.3 It is this plant species and on one another, and its soil bacteria and fungi, consti tutes a biological community.... Several kinds of subdivisions can be recognized within a natural com munity. Distinctive groups of organisms, such as those in a rotting log or in a water-filled hole at the base of a tree, are microcommunities, occupy ing microhabitats. ... Communities can also be grouped into larger systems. In a given land area there may be a pattern of different kinds of forests, ranging from valleys to dry slopes of hills. This pattern of communities and their habi tats (of which man and his effects may be part) is a landscape. In a pond or lake the plankton community, plus the shore community and the bot tom organisms, together are all parts of the pond or lake ecosystem. On a still higher level, all the organisms of the Earth's surface form a world community, or biosphere. The biosphere, together with its water, soil, and air environment, is a world ecosystem, or ecosphere, though many authors also use the term biosphere in this larger sense, meaning a world ecosystem. THE NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, Community, Biological, in 4 MACROPAEDIA 1027 (15th ed. 1974). 2 Comparable usage is found in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences: A community, in the sense in which the term will be used here, is a territorially bounded social system or set of interlocking or integrated functional subsystems (economic, political, religious, ethical, educational, legal, socializing, reproductive, etc.) serving a resident population, plus the material culture or physical plant through which the subsystems operate. The community concept does not include such characteristics as harmony, love, "we-feeling," or intimacy, which are sometimes nostalgically imputed to idealized preindustrial communities ..., but it does include a mini mum of consensus. Bernard, Community Disorganization, in 3 INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 163 (D. Sills ed. 1968) [hereafter INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA). For a concise survey, see Friedrich, The Concept ofCommunity in the History ofPoliti cal and Legal Philosophy, in NOMOS II, COMMUNITY (C. Friedrich ed. 1959). 3 That the issue is fundamentally interdetermination among participating individuals and associations is stated concisely in the following passage: The problem of setting boundaries on the community is, perhaps, ulti mately insoluble except by arbitrary means, because it is freely conceded that externally made decisions may have a significant impact on the allo cation of values and on important private and public decisions within the HeinOnline -- 21 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 809 1987-1988 810 University of California, Davis [Vol. 21 :807 "taking into account" which generates claims perforce resolved by deci SIOn processes. A community does not presuppose that its members operate with re ciprocally amiable perspectives. Certainly large numbers of the world's population view their counterparts with fear and, in many instances, with hatred. Nor does community assume that all participants operate with overt recognition of community. Indeed many members of the world community, as of less inclusive communities, betray little under standing of the impact their behavior has on others and that of others' has on them. There is, thus, no necessary correlation between the facts of interdetermination and the perception of that interdetermination, in cluding a recognition of the necessity for the clarification of common interest. When community as a fact is more clearly perceived, the ob server is more likely to find that participants actively seek to clarify common interests with other community members and make more ex plicit demands for the establishment or improvement of authoritative decision processes. It is the perception of interdependence in community process that leads participants to appreciate the relevance of pursuing common interests and motivates them to clarify it. 4 community, however defined. And it is the description of the shaping and sharing of these values and decisions that is the central concern .... Polsby, The Study ofCommunity Power, in 3 INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA, supra note 2. • The perception and fact of interdependences on a planetary scale is distinctive of the contemporary situation. The scope and domain of interdependence is the novel de velopment, not the fact of interdependence. Realizations of interdependences have al ways lead, and continue to animate, people to clarify common interests and to develop institutions for their achievement. For example, the United States Constitution and the first ten amendments (the "Bill of Rights") are expressions of a clarified common inter est. The establishment of the United Nations and the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are more recent expressions. Commentators have pro jected their conceptions as well. For efforts aspiring toward comprehensiveness, see R.