2022 CGS Annual Conference

Event Description

Nuclear threats, a war in Ukraine, a warming climate and a pandemic have each outrun the institutions meant to contain them. The 2022 Citizens for Global Solutions Annual Conference, held on Zoom on the evenings of Thursday 10 and Friday 11 November and the afternoon of Saturday 12 November 2022, in the organization’s 75th anniversary year, asked what a better arrangement could look like.

Four models of world federation were presented over the three days, and each speaker was asked to cover the same points on membership, representation, powers and structure so the models could be compared. Around them came the annual report, a talk on the European Union, a panel of young activists and the year’s awards. The featured recording above is Sovaida Ma’ani Ewing on a principle-driven world federation of states; every recorded session is listed below.

See the upcoming CGS events and what CGS runs for young people.

Thursday 10 November

• Welcome and Opening Donna Park, Board Chair

  Donna Park opened the conference with the CGS vision and mission, set against the war in Ukraine, climate change, 89.3 million displaced people and a pandemic that had killed more than a million people in the United States.

• Overview of World Federation Models Bob Flax, Executive Director

  Flax noted that more than 200 world constitutions have been proposed, and offered two checklists, one from Joseph Preston Baratta and one from James Yunker, for comparing the models on membership, representation, powers, structure and enforcement.

• Annual Report Bob Flax

  Flax reviewed the year’s outreach, youth programs, the World Citizen Virtual Book Club and two new campaigns on U.S. support for the International Criminal Court, and said staff illness and turnover had slowed some launches.

• Creating a World Constitution Glen T. Martin

  Martin described the Constitution for the Federation of Earth, written by hundreds of world citizens between 1968 and 1991, with its three-house World Parliament, world courts, civilian enforcement and ombudsman, and answered questions on gender equality, climate and how nations such as China and Russia could take part.

Friday 11 November

• Union Through Democracy Tiziana Stella

  Stella presented Clarence Streit’s proposal to start with a federal union of democracies, arguing that beginning soon matters because delay closes off options, and answered questions on whether it would provoke autocracies or look much like today’s blocs.

• The United Nations Based on a Revised, Amended and Expanded Charter Joseph Preston Baratta

  Baratta explained the 1958 Clark-Sohn plan, which would have made the General Assembly representative of the world’s peoples and turned the Security Council into an executive council, and argued that only strong public pressure could ever bring about such a Charter revision.

Saturday 12 November

• A Principle-Driven World Federation of States Sovaida Ma’ani Ewing

  Ewing argued that the law of oneness should guide new institutions and proposed starting with a supranational global authority, modeled on the European Coal and Steel Community, to manage energy resources and tackle climate change and nuclear proliferation before moving toward a democratic world federation.

• The European Union and Omnilateralism Wolfgang Pape

  Pape traced the European Union from the Coal and Steel Community to the Copenhagen criteria for membership, said he would not call it a model for anyone, and made the case for omnilateralism, which brings civil society and other stakeholders into decisions alongside states.

• International Panel of Young Activists Amy Oloo, Eston McKeague, Alec Neilly, Andrea Bergman

  Oloo described a project to reduce youth involvement in election violence in Ghana, Uganda and Kenya, McKeague and Neilly described the Young World Federalists and the Week for World Parliament event in New York, and Andrea Bergman outlined CGS plans for World Citizen Clubs and a reform Model UN.

• Global Citizen Award David Orton, for Pope Francis

  David Orton presented the award for Pope Francis, to be accepted on his behalf by Bishop John Stowe of the CGS National Advisory Council, and cited the encyclical Fratelli Tutti and its call for a love that crosses borders.

• Distinguished Service Award Bryan MacPherson

  Donna Park presented the Distinguished Service Award to Bryan MacPherson, CGS’s longtime pro bono general counsel, who has been involved since 1990, wrote a 1991 report urging the State Department to back an International Criminal Court, and in reply urged younger people to keep the dream alive.

• CGS at 75: Anniversary Film

  Board members and former staff, among them Larry David, Matt McDonough and Don Kraus, recalled what drew them to the movement, and Kraus summed up campaigns to get the United States to pay its UN dues and to support peacekeeping and the International Criminal Court.

See also: the 2020 discussion of Fratelli Tutti with Bishop John Stowe.

Other CGS conferences with recordings: 2010 · 2011 · 2012 · 2019 · 2020 · 2021 · 2022.