3

From
World Citizenship
to World Democracy
I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the world.
—Socrates

By virtue of physically inhabiting the same planet,

human beings everywhere suffer in common from such mal-
adies as nuclear proliferation, global warming, and the war sys-
tem that forces every country to waste vast resources on arms.
We live in a world in which oppressed groups lack legal
recourse for their grievances in global courts; as a result, people
everywhere are faced with the possibility of being caught up in
a terrorist event or a war perpetrated by such oppressed groups.
The horrors of 9/11 were not just limited to the US; images
of these attacks sent emotional shockwaves to people in all
countries, and terrorists soon thereafter mounted devastating
attacks from Bali to Spain. In the wake of these tragedies,
governments everywhere have had to institute unprecedented
repressive measures in order to engage in the so-called “war on
terrorism.” In addition, virtually everyone now shares in the
vicissitudes of the global economy. International financial
speculation has, for example, often caused grievous effects in
unpredictable places—such as the collapse of the Mexican peso
in 1995 and the so-called Asia meltdown in 1997. We have just
begun to see how vulnerable all of us are in the face of our
40 One World Democracy

economic interdependence.
This is the short list of shared global problems in which
everyone has a stake; nearly every literate adult in the world
holds opinions on such matters that, by all rights, should be
accounted for in a democratic global forum.
Obviously, there is no such forum. Whether you are
Mexican or Mongolian or American, you really have no direct
say, as an individual, in such global matters. Your voice is
mute. And your vote is not wanted.
The sad fact is, in today’s global anarchy, each and every
individual suffers from systematic legal and political disen-
franchisement at the global level. Our individual vote is never
acknowledged as a factor in determining how humankind is to
cope with its common problems. Powerful nations like
America may have more global access to political power than
other nations, but certainly not Americans as individuals.
What can be done about this?

We need political enfranchisement

at the global level
We saw in the last chapter that in the absence of global
law, our right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has
no legal status at the global level. Our national governments
may and do speak for us on global matters, but this represen-
tation usually occurs in forums such as the United Nations,
which only recognize national sovereignty, or in institutions
such as the WTO and IMF that have no democratic account-
ability.
Let’s try a thought experiment to illustrate our current
disenfranchisement dilemma. Imagine the effects in your
personal life if the federal government, the US Constitution,
and the Bill of Rights were somehow eliminated in a civil war
 From World Citizenship to World Democracy 41

and the United States was turned into a miniaturized version

of today’s United Nations—a “United Nations” of fifty con-
federated states. Let’s say that, like the real UN, the American
confederation had organized itself around a General Assembly
and a Security Council that consisted of the five biggest states:
Texas, New York, California, Florida, and Pennsylvania, and
that the seat of the confederation were Dallas, Texas.
Now, just like the UN system, there would be no right to
vote for representatives to this confederation government;
these would be appointed by the state governments as ambas-
sadors to the General Assembly.
Within any one of the fifty nations, there may or may
not be a bill of rights. In some earlier civil disturbances, many
nations, such as Texas, had been taken over by dictators. A few
of the nations, such as Vermont, were controlled by parties
from the far left.
Let’s run an example of “international terrorism” through
this model. Imagine that your house in Michigan, near the
Ohio border, was destroyed in a sudden attack by a group of
Ohioans. The terrorists from Ohio then rushed back across the
border before the Michigan military was able to apprehend
them. To get any redress in the matter, you would have to
appeal to the seat of government in Michigan, in hopes that
they would have a treaty with Ohio that would allow
Michigan authorities to deal with the violence across its bor-
ders. Even if there were such a treaty, you would have to get
Michigan’s ambassador to Ohio to convince the government
of Ohio to act in the matter, according to its own domestic
laws that may apply to treaty enforcement. Ohio would have
the sole discretion as to whether or not it should act on treaty
enforcement against its renegade terrorists. If that effort were
unsuccessful, Michigan could not act directly against these
42 One World Democracy

aggressors. It would have to seek a resolution from the Security

Council in Dallas, Texas, calling for sanctions against the entire
state of Ohio—or even to go to war against Ohio!
You have now learned some hard lessons: 1) within the
territory of the confederation, you have no individual legal
rights; 2) the Ohio terrorists have no legal accountability
outside of Ohio; 3) there is no court in which you can take
legal action as an individual; and 4) you have no vote in the
matter, because there are no elections of direct representatives
to the confederation government.
If you were very wealthy, you might act through the
ambassador from Michigan seeking to get the Dallas govern-
ment to somehow influence the Security Council to act on
this matter—only to have it vetoed by the ambassador from
Ohio!
This absurd example illustrates how on the world stage—
given the United Nations system as it is today—each human
subsists without legal and political rights. We say this notwith-
standing the existence of human rights covenants such as the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the ICC
(International Criminal Court) treaty.

Individual accountability
at the global level is an imperative
We manifestly lack global protection of our legal and
political rights. But neither do we as individuals have binding
obligations or responsibilities to the world community.
International law, such as it is, lays down norms for
behavior based on international treaties. But in these docu-
ments, individuals are classified as citizens of nation-states, and
not as global citizens who are accountable to a global govern-
ment. Actual enforcement of these treaties against individuals
 From World Citizenship to World Democracy 43

only occurs within the country of citizenship, if at all. That

country must have passed specific legislation requiring
enforcement of a given treaty on its citizens. And it must also
be willing to actually use these domestic laws to enforce the
treaty provisions against them, applying penalties measured
out according to domestic law, not international law.
Another of the many flaws of this system is that a given
treaty may or may not have been agreed upon by the nation in
which a violator has citizenship. For example, as of 2004,
major polluters in the US were technically not subject to obli-
gations under international law concerning the environment.
This is because the US government withdrew from the Kyoto
Accords on Climate Control and is also not party to the
Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of
Prisoners of War has long been universally agreed upon by
treaty, but events in Iraq have demonstrated that even this
prestigious covenant has little binding power if a nation-state
has another agenda. There has been no legal recourse for the
individual Iraqis who were tortured or killed when the US
military perpetrated egregious violations of the provisions of
the Geneva Conventions at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in
2003 and 2004. Mild disciplinary actions were brought by
Pentagon authorities against the immediate perpetrators, but
the international outcry for greater accountability for these
crimes stopped there. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
opposed strict observance of the Geneva Conventions in Iraq,
and he literally waived the application of the Geneva
Conventions to the war in Afghanistan and for the “prisoner
of war” camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Responsibility for
this policy was traced all the way up to President Bush, but
there has been no individual accountability for these acts
44 One World Democracy

before the world or the Iraqi people through the agencies of

international law.

As we noted in the last chapter, we are now witnessing an

encouraging breakthrough (outside of the US) with respect to
individual accountability for the most egregious criminal acts.
Criminal statutes at the global level that will actually apply to
individuals are now evolving through the launch of the first
prosecutions by the International Criminal Court.

Ad hoc tribunals and the ICC

mark a beginning
It all began with the Tokyo Trials and especially the
Nuremberg Trials at the end of WWII, which later resulted in
the adoption of the Nuremberg Principles in 1950 by the UN.
In general, the Nuremberg Principles extend the jurisdiction
of international law to criminal acts, clearly stating that indi-
viduals—including heads of state—are to be held responsible
for criminal behavior in international settings even if their
own domestic law does not hold them accountable, and are
entitled to a fair trial in an international court. The Principles
listed three types of crimes under international law: crimes
against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Perhaps the best-known of the seven Nuremberg
Principles is Principle IV, which resulted from the trial defense
strategy used by Nazi underlings in which they claimed that
they were “only following orders.” The principle states that
following orders “does not relieve [a defendant] from respon-
sibility under international law, provided a moral choice was
in fact possible to him.”
Though obviously unenforceable, these Principles have
been used as an important reference for governments and
 From World Citizenship to World Democracy 45

military organizations ever since they were promulgated. More

important, the UN Security Council has used Nuremberg
as a precedent for prosecuting egregious war crimes through
ad hoc tribunals that the UN has created by fiat. Though
expensive and cumbersome, and usually too late to stop the
perpetration itself, these tribunals have been a step in the right
direction toward holding the worst international criminals
accountable.
The most important of these has been the International
Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. This ad hoc tri-
bunal was established by a UN Security Council resolution in
the face of the serious violations of international humanitari-
an law by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and other col-
laborators. In May 1999, when Milosevic was indicted by this
tribunal, he became the first head of state ever to be indicted
by an international court. It is precedents like these that the
new world government will build upon as it puts in place clear
principles for individual accountability under global law.
However, more often in the decades since WWII, the
UN has not met the challenge of creating such tribunals. It has
instead followed the procedure of applying sanctions that, in
effect, hold entire populations of countries accountable for the
perpetration of international crimes by their leaders. Perhaps
the worst case of this fundamentally immoral procedure of
collective punishment under international law is that of Iraq.
The whole world knows that the Iraqis have paid immeasur-
ably for the behavior of one man, Saddam Hussein, through
two wars and the UN’s devastating economic sanctions during
the intervening period between these costly wars.
The movement for the ICC—which now establishes a
permanent tribunal—arose in part because of the moral
outrage over the failure of sanctions against Iraq, and the
46 One World Democracy

widely noted “collateral damage” these had caused to the

people of Iraq. Another motivating factor was the genocide
in Rwanda—perhaps the greatest single example of the UN’s
inability to stop war crimes. The UN has also created an
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, many years after
the atrocities were committed.
The ICC’s charter builds directly upon the Nuremberg
Principles and other established norms of international law.
The visionary jurists behind the Nuremberg Principles long
ago called for a permanent criminal court; the ICC is much of
their dream become reality.
As of its formal establishment in March 2003, the ICC is
now an independent criminal court and is not considered part
of the United Nations system. It is a standing, permanent
body, located in The Hague (Netherlands) just adjacent to the
World Court, formally known as the International Court of
Justice. The World Court is a civil court concerned solely
with legal disputes between nations. The ICC’s sole purpose is
to investigate and bring to justice individuals who commit
genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes—but only
when a nation in which a perpetrator resides is unwilling or
unable to do so. Importantly, because most wars in the last
fifty years have been civil wars, the ICC has jurisdiction over
crimes committed during both international and internal
conflicts.
The signatories to the ICC are known as State Parties. A
crime prosecuted by the ICC must meet one of four criteria:
It must have been committed in the territory of a State Party;
by a citizen of a State Party; when a non-member accepts the
Court’s jurisdiction; or when the UN Security Council refers
a case to the ICC, regardless of whether the countries involved
are State Parties.
 From World Citizenship to World Democracy 47

The ICC arose out of the so-called Rome Statute, and

the organizing movement that led to the adoption of the
Rome Statute in 1998 was carried out by a large number of
NGOs (non-governmental organizations) led by the World
Federalist Movement, and in particular by its executive direc-
tor Bill Pace. The ICC Treaty that resulted from the Rome
Statute has now been ratified by ninety-four nations.
Terrorism, crimes of aggression, and drug trafficking are
presently excluded from the statute, at least until the ICC’s
seven-year review conference in 2009.
The Rome Statute includes extensive due process
provisions. These include all the rights of the accused that are
guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights. These include the presumption of innocence,
the right to counsel, the right to confront one’s accusers, the
right to a speedy trial, protection against double jeopardy, and
prohibition of trial in absentia. In fact, defendants at the ICC
are guaranteed all of the same due process provisions as are
present in US courts, with the single exception of trial by jury.
The ICC cannot impose a death penalty; those found
guilty will be held in a prison in The Hague. The court can
also order convicted criminals to pay reparations to the people
and communities they harmed. Victims can participate in
sentencing and sentence reduction hearings.
In the recent past, the inevitable delay in the creation
of ad hoc tribunals sometimes resulted in the destruction of
evidence while perpetrators remained at large. The ICC, how-
ever, will be able to respond to crimes as they occur, and it is
believed that its permanence will deter future criminals. It is
also hoped that the ICC’s influence will prompt national
courts to hold their own citizens accountable.
48 One World Democracy

The ICC is a real advance for humanity, for the universal

recognition of human rights, and for the principle of individ-
ual accountability. However, its problems are obvious and its
loopholes are many. First of all, the ICC does not have an
independent police force. It must rely on countries to extradite
suspects to The Hague. More important is the fact that the
ICC is “extra-constitutional.” Its powers are not limited by a
world constitution that is based on the democratic sovereign-
ty of the world’s people. A world constitution would naturally
put in place a global bill of rights, and defend these rights with
the force of law applied to individuals. It would also guarantee
protection against abuse through a constitutional separation of
powers.

World citizenship is
no longer a mere sentiment
The ICC has opened the door to individual accountabil-
ity before world law for the worst international criminals, but
our real goal is a movement for a democratic world federation
that would bring about the legal and political enfranchisement
and accountability of each of the six billion individuals on
earth.
It is only through a global bill of rights, along with world
courts and police to enforce and interpret these rights, and
through the right to elect delegates to a world legislature, that
we truly become citizens of the world. Our world citizenship is
then no longer a mere sentiment, no longer a hollow pro-
nouncement of idealistic philosophers; its rights and obliga-
tions are consecrated in a world constitution that applies to all
humans equally, and for all time.
The Nuremberg Principles were the beginning of the end
of a world beset by fear and alienation, and they accomplished
 From World Citizenship to World Democracy 49

this by establishing the principle of individual conscience as a

category of international law. The grand transition to world
government will mark the end of our political alienation from
one another as fellow humans. It is one crucial step in the
materialization of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all
human beings that many world religions have proclaimed.
When this transition finally occurs, it will be based on the
intrinsic, inalienable political and spiritual free will of individ-
uals, and all the rights and obligations that flow from that.

Global activism for

world citizenship is needed now
As a philosopher might put it, each person is inherently
self-sovereign. But our inherent rights as sovereign individuals
are trampled upon by the current system of sovereign nation-
states. How can we go about securing our rights and obliga-
tions under world law?
It requires nothing less than global activism, a subject we
will glance at here but return to in Part III of this book.
In the first chapter we examined the dramatic scene in
1948 when WWII veteran Garry Davis—the first great activist
for world citizenship—interrupted a session of the United
Nations General Assembly to speak rhetorically on behalf of
the world’s people. World citizenship as a concept has been
discussed and theorized from the days of Socrates, but it
required an event like WWII to bring about the public launch
of the movement for world citizenship. These were the words
Davis delivered in November 1948 to the General Assembly as
it convened at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris:
Mister Chairman and delegates!
I interrupt you in the name of the people of the world
not represented here. Though my words may be unheeded,
50 One World Democracy

our common need for world law and order can no longer be
disregarded.
We, the people, want the peace which only a world
government can give. The sovereign states you represent
divide us and lead us to the abyss of Total War. I call upon
you to no longer deceive us by this illusion of political author-
ity. I call upon you to convene forthwith a World Constituent
Assembly to raise the standard round which all men can
gather, the standard of true peace, of One Government for
One World.
And if you fail us in this . . . stand aside. For a People’s
World Assembly will arise from our own ranks to create such
a government. We can be served by nothing less.1

Worldwide support for this speech, which came to be

called the Oran Declaration, included prominent thinkers such
as Albert Einstein, Albert Camus, Albert Schweitzer, and
Richard Wright.
Davis’s next step was to found the International Registry
of World Citizens. Within a few years, over 750,000 individu-
als in 150 countries registered.
Davis did not stop there. On September 4, 1953, from
the Town Hall of Ellsworth, Maine, he declared the founding
of what he called the World Government of World Citizens
based on the simple assertion of our inherent legal rights as
human beings.2
Davis’s work is a precedent for the global activists of the
future who will enshrine world citizenship as a cornerstone of
a democratic global government.
We live in an increasingly interconnected, interdepen-
dent, and globalized world. Just about everything we encounter
in everyday life has become subject to globalization, including
business, agriculture, commerce, entertainment, media,
science, medicine, and the environment—that is, everything
 From World Citizenship to World Democracy 51

except democracy and social justice. The world has globalized,

but our global political institutions are relics of the past.
Democracy is perhaps the only instrument of civilization
that continues to be confined within local and national
boundaries. For the same reason, enforceable law that protects
the rights of individuals remains confined within the arbitrary
limits of the place of nationality. We are born as individual
humans on this unique and wonderful planet, but we are
branded by birth certificates as Russian, American, or Chinese.
It is time to claim our true identities as world citizens in order
to gain the rights and privileges that global government can
offer.
The way out of this predicament is for the people of the
world to rise up and assume control of their destiny through a
forum that directly reflects their collective sovereignty. This
forum will be the coming world legislature. The constitution,
bill of rights, and laws that are acted upon by this legislature
will protect the sacredness of our individual rights.

We must establish a world government, federal in

structure, including all the peoples of the earth.
—Mortimer Adler
Former Chair of Board of Editors
for Encyclopedia Britannica