John Boyd Orr - Nobel Peace Prize 1949

These days, the Nobel Peace Prize, which is awarded annually - simultaneously on Human Rights Day - appears in the twilight. The bright side shows this year's award ceremony - quite rightly - to the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. One can only hope that he will continue to be able to cope with the destructive forces of his country.

The fact that the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has to face up to the accusation of genocide against the Rohingya casts a very dark shadow on the other hand. As a representative of islamic countries, the West African Gambia has therefore sued Myanmar before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

An unappetizing matter was the current awarding of a prize in another Nobel field, literature, to the controversial Austrian writer Peter Handke. Here the Stockholm Nobel Prize Committee was obviously abandoned by all good spirits. That is the present.

70 years ago, on 10 December 1949, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to John Boyd Orr, the first Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 1945/46. He was a consistent Mondialist. In 1948, the Movement for Federal World Government elected him President at its Congress in Luxembourg (see Lothar Mann - Weltregierung – Für und wider eine Idee, pages 5 and 6). This early organization of World Federalists later merged into the larger Word Federalist Movement.

In June 1950, John Boyd Orr was a guest at the celebrations in Cahors, the first cosmopolitan city in southern France. In 1966 he was one of the signatories of a call to the world population to register as a World Citizen. However, registration in this form no longer makes sense and is only a useless bureaucratic ritual. The present and future challenges demand different actions from engaged Mondialists.

Google honors Bertha von Suttner

Google today honors the peace activist and writer Bertha von Suttner, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 114 years ago, on December 10, 1905, with a Goggle Doodle.

As a pioneer of the Peace Movement, she fought against war preparation and war, for peace and pacifism. She saw herself as a citizen of the world, but mainly in a philosophical sense. Her idea of a "nation of world citizens" and her "vision of a united congress of all states", which was to lead to a new international federation along the lines of the USA (according to a publication by the World Federalists in 1993), remained shadowy.

So even today in the Peace Movement ideas how peace can be effectively organized and permanently secured are hardly to be found. One restricts oneself to protest. The demand for a UN monopoly on the use of force regulated by World Law is largely rejected. The idea of a democratic World Union continues to be regarded as a utopia. It does not reflect what the actual utopia is: International Disarmament and a stable world peace without the political unification of mankind. That can never happen.

Human rights are not laws of nature

On Human Rights Day on 10 December

Especially now, during the debates on climate change, slogans like "Back to nature" or "In harmony with nature" are being heard more and more. Anyone who seriously demands this and doesn't just say it should be aware that nature is inexorable. It knows no justice and certainly no mercy at all.

In the course of evolution, since the human consciousness came into being, man has more and more freed himself from the circle of living beings, which are at the mercy of the processes in nature. He began to explore nature, to understand it, to make it usable and finally to overcome it. Much was done wrong, but also much right, otherwise we would still live in caves today.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Man took out the right to regulate things differently than nature dictated. One of the highlights of this development happened on 10 December 1948 in Paris, where the United Nations General Assembly decided to proclaim the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Since then, 10 December has been an annual international day of remembrance.

Nature is still not completely overcome. The "natural right" of the stronger is still a serious problem. It is no longer the muscles that constitute it, but destructive weapons. Just now mankind is again becoming aware of terrible mistakes that are revealed in the current climate crisis.

History goes on. In order to overcome nature, not to destroy it, but to protect it, to preserve our entire planet, to enforce human rights everywhere and to enable future generations to have a future worth living, we need the political unification of humanity in a democratic World Union. There is no other way.
 

Start the World Union small

If one talks about the political goal of Mondialism, the unity of humanity in a federal World Union, the question usually arises how this should or could be created. The ideal case would be, of course, if the UN were to develop into a democratic World Federation by its own efforts. But there are a number of known obstacles to this.

It is to be expected that the pressure of upcoming world problems will sooner or later force the majority of UN member states to do so. Most likely, democracy will then play a subordinate role. That is why it is very important to try to democratise the UN now. One instrument for this would be an elected parliamentary assembly, a World Parliament.

Another way would be for the World Union to emerge from a regional alliance of states. The possibility of a global expansion of the European Union has already been discussed. The Australian World Citizens' Association supports the idea of a Community of Pacific States along the lines of the EU. So there are many different ideas on how to start a World Federation.

Logo Pacific Islands Forum

It may sound naive, but it is impressively simple: If something is to begin, at least one person has to start with it. It's called an initiative. We would have to find a country that takes the first step and invites other countries to build a World Union. That will certainly not be a large nation state trapped in its system. Smaller states are more likely to be willing to do so.

There are many small states, also known as Microstates, around the globe. If several of them, spread across the regions of the world, were to join together to form a Union, that would in principle already be a World Federation. In the digital age this should not be a technical problem. These are mainly island states with a striking commonality: They are already feeling the effects of climate change to a particularly great extent.

In view of this opportunity to begin the creation of a world union in this way, I propose that all groups and organisations engaged in World Federalism should look into it more closely. A scientific study would certainly be very helpful. This could lead to a joint campaign in the wake of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, if the UN consultations do not produce the hoped-for results. If it seems impossible, we have to start small with the World Union. But it should go quickly.

The UN needs independent sovereignty

My contribution - in brief - to the consultation of the Together First Campaign, which I submitted there:

A stronger UN needs its own sovereignty in the affairs of mankind. This can be created if member states surrender certain parts of their national sovereignty. The sovereignty of the UN must be limited to human affairs. To this end, the affairs of mankind must be clearly defined and incorporated into international law in resolutions of the General Assembly. I have published an introductory website on this subject.

The idea of UN sovereignty must first be proposed to the UN General Assembly. Then a decision is needed to develop this sovereignty. This requires the definition of certain human affairs that should fall under this sovereignty. Next there must be a collection of UN member states that are willing to cede parts of their sovereignty to the UN for human affairs.

Of course, many states will initially reject and try to block a decision in the General Assembly. What matters here is that logical concepts are developed as to how UN sovereignty is to be exercised. It must be explained how UN sovereignty relieves states and what advantages it offers them. We should first concentrate on those states that are willing or do not show much resistance.

Of course, the already formulated UN goals of Agenda 2030 are suitable for formulating human affairs from them. Not necessarily all of them. This is primarily about those which declare the greatest dangers for mankind and which should be made the most urgent matters of mankind. Decision-makers are of course the states which are to surrender parts of their sovereignty, in conjunction with the UN. The newly formed Alliance for Multilateralism could be a springboard for this.

If new technologies pose threats, they should be placed under the sovereignty of the UN as a matter for humanity. This, moreover, applies to the whole field of space travel. It must become a matter for humanity and must not be left to national or commercial interests. It is essential to prevent the emerging militarisation of space travel. We need the Greater Earth for this. It is also a question of protecting it.

Most likely, an optimal coordination of all measures against the great human problems under the direction of a sovereign UN will alleviate poverty and inequality. Much of this is only possible because there is no reasonable international cooperation and no fair compensation. My vision of the future in this respect goes even further.

How this proposal would improve inclusion and accountability in national and global governance is a question of the treaties to be drafted by experts. It would be best if there were a UN legislature, something like a World Parliament, which could set world laws, world laws that are more binding than just international treaties.

If the situation of people also improves as a result of a significant improvement in coping with global problems, conflicts and political violence will more or less automatically decrease. The best way would be to create binding and enforceable World Law under UN sovereignty with the necessary institutions.

Multilateralism is good, but not enough. The emerging global problem will force humanity to unite politically. It is a question of survival. In order to avoid violent unification, for example through conquest and subjugation by the great powers, we must now act democratically. The fact that a majority of UN member states are capable of doing so is demonstrated by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty adopted in 2017.