Working toward a democratic world government under world law to:
- Prevent international aggression
- Protect the earth's environment
- Ban weapons of mass destruction
- Uphold human rights
- Help eliminate global poverty
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Working toward a democratic world government under world law to:
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"A world government with powers adequate to guarantee security is not a remote ideal for the distant future. It is an urgent necessity if our civilization is to survive." -- Albert Einstein
The concept of a democratic world government has been around since the ancient Greeks. Now, with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, global warming and other increasingly common threats, the need for democratic world government has never been stronger.
The human race now has the means to destroy the world as we know it, and seems on the verge of doing so. Many people suffer from feelings of utter hopelessness when confronted with such threats.
Yet there is hope that nations are moving toward democratic world unification. For example, the Community of Democracies, a coalition of some 121 nations, is promoting democracy at the global level as well as at national and regional levels. The European Union is an evolving regional democracy. And Europe's lead is being followed by the African Union, and by the Union of South American Nations.
A World Government will have powers to prevent wars. In today’s world, although most nations may genuinely want peace, they also want to retain sovereignty. Ironically sovereignty includes the power to start wars. We believe that any idea for world peace that allows nations to retain war-making powers is unworkable and extremely dangerous.
The U.N. lacks a basic power of government - the power to enact laws and enforce them on individual violators. But the U.N. sometimes punishes an entire nation for the crimes of its leaders with military action or economic sanctions.
Perhaps violence is inherent in human nature. But human nature doesn't cause war between cities or between two states within the U.S. If the world becomes unified the way our fifty states are unified, it will be as unlikely for one nation to attack another as it is today for Montana to attack Wyoming.
Nations won't ratify the world constitution if it doesn't provide acceptable safeguards against world dictatorship. One safeguard would be the accountability of world government officials who could be impeached for violations of world law. Also important is that the world public would be educated in advance about their rights and responsibilities under world law.
It will be a slow and difficult process to build agreement. There is considerable agreement already about human rights and other basic principles. For example, most people would agree that killing innocent people across national boundaries should be made illegal. Perhaps we can agree that global law enforcement is important to protect the Earth's environment for the future of humanity. We need to expand our areas of agreement to protect our home planet.
Our ultimate vision is of a world without war; a world with democracy in all nations and united by a democratic world government under world law.
The world government would be founded on a federal world constitution with a bill of human rights.
World law enforcement would include the arrest and prosecution of individual persons but not military action against entire nations.
Everyone would be accountable under world law including all national and world government officials.
We are working to build public awareness and understanding of a vision of a democratic world government and to provide information about the growing trend toward democratic world unification.
We invite you to join us, to contribute your ideas and to help bring the vision closer to reality.
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World Democracy Project
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"No difficulty in the way of world government can match the danger of a world without it." -- Carl Van Doren