Following the horrors of World War II an important issue was how to prevent World War III, a war that would probably result in nuclear annihilation. Some of those discussions gave birth to the United Nations, but there was another proposal on the world stage advanced by world leaders such as Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, and Bertrand Russell. These thinkers felt that while the UN may do much good, its basic structure would not lead to the elimination of “the scourge of war.” Since the signing of the UN Charter more than 70 years ago, we have witnessed over 250 wars and continuing arms races. It seems that the visionaries were correct.
Rather than the current UN with its system of unenforceable treaties, Security Council vetoes, and voluntary participation in judicial procedures, their idea was to create a global federal government with a constitution and bill of rights, a democratically elected parliament and judicial system, and the other tools necessary to replace “the law of force with the force of law.” In recent decades, new global challenges have emerged, such as terrorism, mass migration, climate change, pandemics, growing poverty and income inequality. We believe that these issues can also be best resolved by a world federation.