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 (CGS) Annual Conference asked what a better arrangement could look like. It was held on Zoom on the evenings of Thursday 10 and Friday 11 November and the afternoon of Saturday 12 November 2022. It fell in the organization’s 75th anniversary year.

Four models of world federation were presented over the three days. 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. She set them against the war in Ukraine, climate change and 89.3 million displaced people. She also named 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. He offered two checklists for comparing the models, one from Joseph Preston Baratta and one from James Yunker. They compare membership, representation, powers, structure and enforcement.

• Annual Report · Bob Flax

  Flax reviewed the year’s outreach, youth programs and the World Citizen Virtual Book Club. He described two new campaigns on U.S. support for the International Criminal Court. He 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. It has a three-house World Parliament, world courts, civilian enforcement and an ombudsman. He 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, Executive Director of the Streit Council

  Stella presented Clarence Streit’s proposal to start with a federal union of democracies. She argued that beginning soon matters, because delay closes off options. She answered questions on whether the union 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. It would have made the General Assembly representative of the world’s peoples and turned the Security Council into an executive council. He 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, founding director of the Center for Peace and Global Governance and a CGS board member

  Ewing argued that the law of oneness should guide new institutions. She proposed starting with a supranational global authority modeled on the European Coal and Steel Community. It would manage energy resources and tackle climate change and nuclear proliferation. Only then would the world move 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, the conditions new members must meet. He said he would not call the EU a model for anyone. He 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, a global youth movement for democratic world federation. They also described the Week for World Parliament, an event in New York with about ten speakers that young activists organized. Andrea Bergman outlined CGS plans for World Citizen Clubs and a reform Model UN.

• CGS Global Citizen Award · Pope Francis (presented by David Orton)

  David Orton presented the award. Bishop John Stowe of the CGS National Advisory Council was to accept it on the Pope’s behalf. Orton cited the encyclical Fratelli Tutti, a teaching letter from the Pope, 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. He had been involved since 1990, and in 1991 he wrote a report urging the State Department to back an International Criminal Court. In reply, he urged younger people not to give up on the goal.

• CGS at 75: Anniversary Film

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

Titles are as of the event date.

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