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Global Problems, Human Needs, and
the Constitution for the Federation of Earth
Glen T. Martin
Secretary-general, World Constitution and
Parliament Association
www.wcpa.biz
www.worldproblems.net
www.earthfederation.info
Professor of Philosophy, Radford University,
Radford, VA 24141
Keynote
Address in the “Challenges to Global Peace”
program, Jaya College of Arts and Sciences,
Chennai, India, June 21, 2011
The past several decades have been characterized
by a planetary awakening, the emergence of a
planetary consciousness, and the sense of living
within a holistic planetary ecosystem and
planetary human civilization. A significant
factor in the emergence of this universal
consciousness has been the increasing awareness
that human beings face global problems on the
Earth, problems that exist beyond the scope of
national boundaries.
At the same time, awareness is growing
worldwide of our common human needs.
Increasingly, people around the world, even in
the remotest regions, are aware of the planetary
problem of war and militarism, the problem of
growing fresh water shortages, the problem of
the disappearance of agricultural lands for
growing food, the problem of global pollution,
the planetary problem of ever-growing poverty
and misery for the majority, and the terrible
problems of global warming, climate disruption,
and pending climate collapse.
To date the feeble attempts to address these
problems through divisive UN conferences and the
development of unenforceable UN treaties have
resulted in complete failure. The excellent
aspirations called “Agenda 21” that came out of
the 1992 Rio conference on climate change were
recognized as unfulfilled ten years later at the
2002 climate conference in Johannesburg, South
Africa. The 2009 climate conference in
Copenhagen was similarly a failure.
War and
militarism continue to plague the people of
Earth, fresh water and agricultural lands
continue to disappear, pollution overwhelms
ecosystems, forests, and oceans, poverty and
misery continue to mount, and the consequences
of climate disruption become ever more
devastating.
The Earth Federation Movement (EFM) has
understood the dynamics of these global problems
for more than fifty years.
It alone, among all the citizen movements
that have developed in response to our
multifaceted global crises, has focused on the
central holistic solution that must be
actualized if we are to survive and flourish on
our precious planet Earth.
The World Constitution and Parliament
Association (WCPA) was founded in 1958 with the
understanding that global problems cannot be
addressed by fragmented political and economic
institutions more than three centuries old,
institutions created when the conditions on the
Earth were entirely different than they are
today, when people living on the Earth never
even dreamed that there could be such a thing as
planetary crises. global problems, or a
population of seven billion people.
The Earth Federation Movement was born out of
the World Constitution and Parliament
Association and today has spread worldwide.
Since 1958, our movement has drawn on the
brightest and best international lawyers and
thinkers from around the world to create the
magnificently designed
Constitution for the Federation of Earth.
The
Constitution was completed in 1991 and today
the Earth Federation Movement works night and
day to promote the ratification of the
Earth
Constitution by the people and nations of
the world.
Today, I want to suggest four fundamental
principles that should be the basis of all our
thought and action if we want to create a decent
future for the Earth and humanity.
I will list the four principles first and
then discuss each of them briefly.
The
first principle is that we must recognize
and keep in mind that all our global problems
are interdependent and interconnected.
Second,
we must recognize that the only possible
solutions to these problems must also be
holistic, integrated, and interconnected.
Third, we must keep our focus on our basic
human needs that all people everywhere have in
common and ask how these needs can best be
addressed.
Finally, we must recognize that the
Constitution for the Federation of Earth
holistically addresses both our global crises
and our human needs.
First,
therefore, we must understand deeply that our
global problems are interconnected and
interdependent. The problem of war and
militarism is universal because it arises from a
system of so-called sovereign nation-states more
than three centuries old and from a global
economic system that benefits from war and
military competition among nations. Today, more
than one trillion US dollars per year are poured
down the toilet of militarism by the nations of
Earth, while poverty and environmental collapse
increase daily.
The system itself (our planetary economic and
political system) fosters war and militarism,
and this is the
same
system that fosters poverty and misery and
environmental destruction worldwide. The system
of militarized sovereign nation-states is
integrated with global corporate capitalism
fostering economic and military rivalry and
competition among peoples and nations. Big
nations colonize trade privileges and
concessions, backed up by neo-colonial influence
and the threat of force just as they once
colonized the world by direct military conquest.
Without the rule of non-military,
democratically legislated, enforceable law for
the Earth, neither peace, nor elimination of
poverty, nor protection of the environment are
ultimately possible.
Study after study have shown that poverty
negatively impacts the environment as poor
people search for wood for cooking fuel and cut
down trees to grow food for survival. A major
source of deforestation and environmental damage
is poverty, planetary poverty caused by the same
political and economic system that diverts
resources toward war and militarism in order to
protect the wealth and power of the few. Peace
cannot be achieved through ever- more violence,
and a war system that creates conflicts around
the world, a world that needs more than anything
else cooperation and dedication to protecting
the environment, insuring adequate resources,
and eliminating poverty.
Corporate
profits from the business of war amount to
hundreds of billions of dollars annually, while
there are few corporate economic incentives to
eliminate poverty or protect the environment.
War and militarism itself are among the most
environmentally destructive of human activities,
generating every year millions of tons of toxic
wastes and millions of tons of destructive
explosive chemicals and such poisons such as
depleted uranium weapons. Poverty within nations
of the global south supplies corporations with
cheap labor and cheap resources in order to
maximize their profits, profits at the same time
protected by the global system of militarism and
war.
We live within centuries old nation-state
systems and a global economic system predicated
on scarcity, a scarcity that causes greed and
competition to dominate and control scarce
resources.
Nation-state militarism (such as that to
which the big imperial nations are dedicated) is
directed toward controlling the world system and
weaker nations in favor of their own interests
for oil, water, cheap labor, and other natural
resources.
The reason why our planetary problems are
all interrelated and interdependent is because
our global economic and political systems are at
the root of them all. It is not bad leaders or a
corrupt human nature that is the problem.
Human corruption is primarily a symptom
of the deeper structural political and economic
roots of our global system.
My second point today is that the interrelation
of these global problems requires a solution
that understands their interdependence and
addresses the entire range of global crises
together. These problems are caused by economic
and political systems developed centuries ago
that were never designed for a world of modern
weapons with a global population of seven
billion people. Similarly, you cannot solve the
problem of militarism and war without also
addressing the root causes of poverty and
misery.
You cannot protect our planetary
environment and our precious natural resources
using economic and political structures directed
toward control and exploitation of these
resources within a system of competition leading
to absolute winners and losers.
Since our crises are global, clearly any
solution must be global. It is not enough for
citizens to conserve water resources locally if
these resources are not also conserved by
communities around the planet.
It is not enough for citizens to reduce
CO2 emissions that cause global warming if CO2
emissions are not also controlled on a planetary
scale. Not only must the solution be global, it
must also be systemic, that is, if the global
economic and political system lies at the root
of our interconnected crises, so that system
must be altered in a holistic way to address
simultaneously the systemic roots of these
global problems. Preventing war and
demilitarizing the planet must result from the
same systemic changes that protect the
environment and eliminate poverty.
Science has discovered the holism of our
planetary ecosystem and human life on Earth. Our
global problems are rooted in political and
economic systems that are
fragmented and foster fragmentation. The
only possible solution will be conversion to
economic and political systems premised on the
holism of nature and human life.
Interdependent global crises can only be
addressed through a holistic economic and
political system that simultaneously eliminates
war and militarism, protects the environment,
preserves resources for the benefit of all, and
eliminates poverty and misery from the Earth.
Similar conclusions follow if we examine basic
human needs, which is the third point that I
wish to make in this talk. Every person on Earth
clearly has the following needs:
1.
Nourishing
food of a sufficient quantity for health.
2.
A
reasonable quantity of fresh water for washing,
cooking, and drinking.
3.
Decent
housing with basic sanitation facilities.
4.
An
adequate infrastructure supplying sufficient
energy, transportation, roads, hospitals,
schools and other vital physical resources.
5.
Opportunities
for education and personal development.
6.
Opportunities
for family, friendship, and community.
7.
Security
of person within a framework supporting the
liberty of political and economic
participation for all adults.
8.
All of the above
within a social and legal framework protecting
the natural environment and establishing world
peace.
The last item on this list makes it clear that
our basic human needs cannot be satisfied
without a conversion of our world system to one
which prevents war and protects the natural
environment, since both peace and a protected
environment constitute the
framework
and the condition for all the rest.
Article 28 of the UN Universal
Declaration of Human Rights declares that the
people of Earth have a right to an international
order that protects and promotes the entire set
of rights given in that declaration. It should
be clear that the UN Charter does not and cannot
give us such an international order. The UN
Charter is premised on these same fragmented,
centuries old, economic and political systems.
It should also be clear that none of these eight
basic human needs can be satisfied under the
present system of 192 militarized sovereign
nation-states operating within the globalized
economic framework of neo-liberal corporate
capitalism. Today, the resources of the planet
in the third world are largely becoming the
private property of corporations centered in the
first world. The natural wealth, as well as the
created wealth produced by cheap labor in the
third world, is syphoned from the poorer regions
of the world to serve the exorbitant consumer
desires (not the needs) of the 10% of the global
population who benefit from this unworkable and
immoral economic and political world system.
This entire system is protected and promoted by
the military might of first world nations under
the deceptive code-word of “promoting investment
stability” around the globe on behalf of
multinational corporations, the IMF, and the
World Bank. The United States trains military
personnel is some 80 countries worldwide in
“counter-insurgency warfare,” that is, in the
methods and techniques of repressing their own
populations that are being hurt by this global
system of exploitation.
The global economic system working in tandem
with the system of sovereign, militarized
nation-states has little interest in creating a
holistic world system that establishes peace,
protects the planetary environment, and
satisfies the basic human needs of all persons.
Indeed, NATO, under the leadership of the US,
has become the new neo-colonial dominator,
sending troops to destroy the lives and
infrastructures of people in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, and elsewhere in the service of the
global empire.
The 2% of the world’s population who own
50% of its wealth must be protected from the
vast majority of the world’s citizens who live
in insecurity, poverty, and ever-increasing
misery. The title of a recent book calls the
Earth: “planet of slums.”
In sum, we have a series of interrelated global
crises that the present global economic and
political system cannot deal with, for you
cannot create holistic solutions from fragmented
and fractured economic and political systems.
Next, we have a list of eight very basic
and fundamental human needs that cannot be
addressed by the present global economic and
political systems. Scholars have estimated that
clean water and sanitation could be supplied to
every person on Earth for merely US 400 billion
per year, less than half of what the world
spends annually on militarism.
The present fractured world disorder
cannot effectively deal with either our problems
or our needs.
Planet Earth is an ecological whole, and the
human species is a biological and civilizational
whole, merging ever-more closely as travel and
communications unite the world.
Our global crises, and our inability to
deal with the satisfaction of basic human needs
are a direct result of fragmented economic and
political institutions never designed to address
our situation in its wholeness. The
Constitution for the Federation of Earth is
a holistic document designed to address both
these fundamental aspects of our human situation
– our global problems and our basic human needs.
My fourth and final point in this presentation,
therefore, is that we need to ratify this
Constitution, which is designed as a holistic
peace system, a prosperity system, a justice
system, a freedom system, and a sustainability
system for the Earth.
Addressing our basic human needs requires
the same holistically designed system as
required to address our global crises.
The rule of democratically legislated law
is the foundation of any possible peace system,
just as within nations where there is democratic
law a peace system has been established in which
conflicts are resolved nonviolently through
dialogue, mediation, courts, and due process of
law. Under the present international war system,
there is no rule of enforceable law over the
nations or the leaders of nations as
individuals, and hence no possibility of
establishing peace for humankind.
Protection of the environment, careful
assessment of technology and human productive
activities, research designed to foster
efficiency, development of renewable energy and
resources, and the holistic rule of law
governing the Earth in the service of
sustainability and the ecological health of the
planet are built into the
Earth
Constitution in a multiplicity of ways.
Article one of the Earth Constitution lists the
purposes of the Earth Federation as follows:
(1)
prevent war and secure disarmament, (2) protect
human rights worldwide, (3) create the
conditions for universal prosperity, (4)
regulate and protect world resources, (5)
protect the environment and the ecological
fabric of life, and (6) devise solutions for all
problems beyond the scope of national
governments and plan for the future.
The same
is true with regard to basic human needs. The
Constitution identifies the range of basic
needs in a variety of its articles and
institutionalizes their satisfaction within
Articles 12 and 13 as fundamental human rights.
It creates a democratic world system designed to
holistically address these needs while the same
system establishes peace and sustainability.
It
recognizes that world peace and environmental
sustainability provide the necessary framework
for satisfying all other human needs. All these
factors go together as products of a holistic
political and economic system for the Earth:
peace, sustainability, and the satisfaction of
basic human needs.
Similarly, the opposite of these three factors
is the manifest result of the current fragmented
economic and political institutions of the
planet: war, unsustainability, and the inability
to meet basic human needs.
Modification or evolution of the present
fragmented system, for example, through attempts
to reform the United Nations, cannot address our
human situation adequately.
It cannot produce a peace system, a
sustainability system, or a prosperity system
directed toward satisfying our basic human needs
and can only lead to continuing disaster. Under
the Earth
Constitution the viable agencies of the
United Nations are integrated into the
ministries of the Federation of Earth, so what
is valuable about the UN is not lost but
empowered to really address our human situation.
In conclusion, then, the
Constitution for the Federation of Earth
offers our best hope for creating a holistic
system for the Earth before it is too late.
Attempting to draft a new constitution or
proposing some alternative would amount to
trying to reinvent the wheel, since so much work
has already been accomplished and disseminated
throughout the world regarding the
Earth
Constitution. The
Constitution can be ratified in three
measured stages according to Article 17, and
provisional world government can be initiated
here and now at the same time that the process
of ratification is moving forward. Ratification
is doable, practical, and it is the compelling
need of the hour.
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