by Citizens for Global Solutions | Nov 3, 2022 | Organizational Statement
What We all Deserve: Let’s Protect Human Rights with a Global Government and Judicial System
Washington, DC– On October 25th, in Moscow court, WNBA basketball star and Olympic medalist Brittney Griner was denied an appeal to shorten her nine-year sentence in a Russian penal colony for drug-smuggling. Griner was detained at a Moscow airport in February for carrying less than one gram of cannabis in her luggage. The arrest is even more troubling in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Specific details as to Griner’s arrest and conviction corroborate National Security Analyst Steve Hall’s assertions regarding the illegitimacy of the court proceedings. Russian authorities did not provide Griner with a lawyer after her arrest and coerced her into signing documents written in Russian. Furthermore, she was not informed of her constitutional rights within three hours of her arrest, in violation of Russian law. And, most shockingly, the average sentence for comparable drug offenses is only 5 years, with roughly a third of defendants receiving parole.
Washington Post columnist Jason Rezaian, who was unjustly detained in Iran for 544 days, asserts that the Russian government is holding Griner as a political prisoner to gain leverage to counter the inevitable political and economic backlash against its invasion of Ukraine. Griner is one of 442 other political prisoners unjustly imprisoned by the Russian government (as of April 5, 2022), according to Memorial Human Rights Centre, a well-known Russian human rights organization which was recently shut down by the government.
In response to the developments regarding Brittney Griner’s case, Donna Park, Board Chair of Citizens for Global Solutions, issued the following statement:
“What we need to protect Brittney Griner and secure the liberation of countless other political prisoners is a democratic world federation, promoted by world federalist organizations like Citizens for Global Solutions and Young World Federalists. We want to establish an ‘international judicial system’ that would address international issues like foreign political prisoners. Most importantly, it would require universal conformity to political/human rights laws established by a world legislature including a World Parliament to which the people of the world elect their representatives. Countries would no longer be permitted to violate peoples’ civil rights with impunity. In short, a democratic world government would, while respecting national sovereignty, bring to fruition a world all human beings yearn for, characterized by a respect for human rights, a commitment to justice, and a just peace that we all need.”
About Citizens for Global Solutions & Young World Federalists
Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS) is a non-governmental, non-profit, non-partisan membership-based organization that for more than 75 years has brought together a diverse collective of individuals and organizations with a common goal of a unified world predicated upon peace, human rights, and the rule of law. From championing ratification of the UN Charter upon our establishment in 1947 to supporting creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) 25 years ago to advocating for global instruments to confront today’s enduring challenges of war and climate degradation, CGS recognizes that true progress is a generational enterprise. We invite like-minded individuals and organizations to join us in this mission.
The Young World Federalists are a global movement fighting to give humanity a voice. We envision a sustainable, just, and peaceful world through a democratic world federation. A world run by humanity, for humanity, providing equal opportunity to all on a thriving planet.
Contact:
Donna Park dpark@globalsolutions.org
by Lawrence Wittner | Oct 23, 2022 | Disarmament
It’s been a long time since the atomic bombings of August 1945, when people around the planet first realized that world civilization stood on the brink of doom. This apocalyptic ending to the Second World War revealed to all that, with the advent of nuclear weapons, violent conflict among nations had finally reached the stage where it could terminate life on earth. Addressing a CBS radio audience in early 1946, Robert Hutchins, chancellor of the University of Chicago, summed up the new situation with a blunt warning: “War means atomic bombs. And atomic bombs mean suicide.”
The Public Uprising Against Nuclear War
With millions of people jolted awake by the atomic bombings and anxious to stave off worldwide catastrophe, calls for banning nuclear weapons and for building a federation of nations strong enough to keep the peace were widespread. Organizations among antinuclear scientists, world government advocates, and peace proponents emerged and flourished in the United States, as well as in much of the world. Often working together in the same peace and disarmament campaigns, activists in these organizations frequently adopted a common rallying cry: “One World or None!”
For a time, these activists had public opinion on their side. In August 1946, a Gallup poll found 54 percent of American respondents favored (and only 24 percent opposed) turning the United Nations into “a world government with power to control the armed forces of all nations.” Similar polls in other nations during the late 1940s reported comparable results.
In practice, the efforts of activists went toward transforming the new United Nations into an institution that had the power to rid the world of nuclear weapons and to end the ancient practice of war. Thus, in the United States, where, by 1949, United World Federalists had some 47,000 members, it managed to get 111 members of the House of Representatives and 21 Senators to co-sponsor a resolution to turn the United Nations into “a world federation” with enough power “to preserve peace and prevent aggression.”
The Response of the “Great Powers”
Even so, while giving lip service to nuclear disarmament and peace, the world’s governments―and particularly those of the “great powers”―weren’t ready for this dramatic a departure from their traditional practices. After all, for thousands of years, competing territories, and later, nations, had been accustomed to waging wars and using the most powerful weapons available to them in these conflicts.
Yes, at times, the governments of the great powers were forced by popular pressure to curb their nuclear ambitions. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, public protest campaigns against nuclear weapons testing led to the world’s first nuclear arms control agreement (the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963), to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970, and to the beginning of Soviet-American détente. Similarly, public protest campaigns in the early 1980s against the revived nuclear arms race led to major nuclear disarmament agreements (the INF Treaty and the Start I and II treaties) and to the end of the Cold War.
But, despite these concessions, the governments of the major powers weren’t ready to dispense with nuclear weapons or, for that matter, with war. Consequently, as popular protest ebbed, they gradually returned to their customary behavior. Starting about a decade ago, they ceased signing nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements. Instead, they began scrapping them, including the INF Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, and the Iran nuclear agreement. Meanwhile, they commenced a race to “modernize” their nuclear arsenals with the production of new nuclear weapons possessing greater speed, maneuverability, and accuracy. Also, to intimidate other nations, their leaders—most notably Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, who commanded the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals―openly threatened to attack these nations with nuclear weapons.
Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the editors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the hands of their famed “Doomsday Clock” at 100 seconds to midnight, the most dangerous setting since the clock’s appearance in 1947.
The Alternative to Nuclear Destruction
Of course, the world could yet be saved by what Albert Einstein termed “a new type of thinking” and, decades later, by what Mikhail Gorbachev called “the new thinking.” Based on the threat nuclear weapons pose to human survival, this approach entails abolishing nuclear weapons and enhancing global governance to end their motor force, war. The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, snubbed by the nine nuclear powers but now signed by 91 nations and ratified by 68 of them, would, if enforced, finally lift the nightmare of nuclear destruction from the people of the world. And a strengthening of the United Nations as the guarantor of international security would help to end the long-term practice of powerful nations waging war whenever their governments felt like it.
As things now stand, however, we’re once more enmeshed in the dire situation so starkly revealed in August 1945: While nuclear weapons exist, any war can turn into a nuclear holocaust. Unless the people of all nations, recognizing the peril of universal death, demand the establishment of an international organization capable of enforcing policies of disarmament and peace, then, sooner or later, the time will come to say “bye-bye world.”
by Citizens for Global Solutions | Oct 22, 2022 | Past Event
Dr. Allen Pietrobon and special guest, Candis Cousins, to reflect on Norman Cousins’ life devoted to #peace activism and world federation perspectives. How can we as Americans and world citizens follow in his footsteps and carry on his life’s work to make the world a more peaceful place Norman Cousins was the editor of the Saturday Review for more than thirty years and had a powerful platform from which to help shape American public debate during the height of the Cold War. Under Cousins’ leadership, the magazine was considered one of the most influential in the literary world.
Cousins’ progressive, nonpartisan editorials in the Review earned him the respect of the public and US government officials. But his deep impact on postwar international humanitarian aid, anti-nuclear advocacy, and Cold War diplomacy has been largely unexplored. Starting in 1945, Cousins mobilized powerful efforts to support victims of the atomic bombing of Japan and of Nazi `medical experiments,’ to foster world federation, to halt nuclear weapons testing and abolish nuclear weapons, to build a mass peace movement in the United States (as founder and co-chair of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy), and to end the Vietnam War. At the height of the Cold War, he played a central role in securing the world’s first nuclear arms control agreement (the test ban treaty of 1963) and in securing U.S.-Soviet detente.
Dr. Allen Pietrobon, author of Norman Cousins: Peacemaker in the Atomic Age is an Assistant Professor of Global Affairs at Trinity Washington University and Chair of the Global Affairs Department. Special guest, Candis Cousins, daughter of Norman Cousins, will spotlight how Norman got involved in the peace movement and how Americans can carry his work forward.
Dr. Candis Cousins was involved in the civil rights movement in the South during her years at Oberlin College. After attending Bank Street School, she taught first grade in an all-Black school in Georgia before returning North to begin her training in psychotherapy and learning disabilities. After receiving her Ph.D in clinical psychology, she had a private practice for 33 years. Now retired, she teaches studio art and a course in perception and creativity. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, son and daughter-in-law.
by Lawrence Wittner | Oct 13, 2022 | Peace, UN Reform
The war in Ukraine provides us with yet another opportunity to consider what might be done about the wars that continue to ravage the world.
The current Russian war of aggression is particularly horrific, featuring a massive military invasion of a smaller, weaker nation, threats of nuclear war, widespread war crimes, and imperial annexation. But, alas, this terrible war is but one small part of a history of violent conflict that has characterized thousands of years of human existence.
Is there really no alternative to this primitive and immensely destructive behavior?
Failed Alternatives
One alternative, which has long been embraced by governments, is to build up a nation’s military might to such an extent that it secures what its proponents call “Peace through Strength.” But this policy has severe limitations. A military buildup by one nation is perceived by other nations as a danger to their security. As a result, they usually respond to the perceived threat by strengthening their own armed forces and forming military alliances. In this situation, an escalating atmosphere of fear develops that often leads to war.
Actually, governments are not entirely wrong about their perception of danger, for nations with great military power really do bully and invade weaker countries. Furthermore, they wage wars against one another. These sad facts are not only demonstrated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but by the past behavior of other “great powers,” including Spain, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, China, and the United States.
If military strength brought peace, war would not have raged over the centuries or, for that matter, be raging today.
Another war-avoidance policy that governments have turned to on occasion is isolation, or, as its proponents sometimes say, “minding one’s own business.” Sometimes, of course, isolationism does keep an individual nation free from the horrors of a war engaged in by other nations. But, of course, it does nothing to stop the war—a war that, ironically, might end up engulfing that nation anyway. Also, of course, if the war is won by an aggressive, expansionist power or one grown arrogant thanks to its military victory, the isolated nation might be next on the victor’s agenda. In this fashion, short-term safety is purchased at the price of longer-term insecurity and conquest.
The More Promising Alternative
Fortunately, there is a third alternative―one that major thinkers and even, at times, national governments have promoted. And that is strengthened global governance. The great advantage of global governance is its replacement of international anarchy with international law. What this means is that, instead of a world in which each nation looks exclusively after its own interests―and thus, inevitably, ends up in competition and, eventually, conflict with other nations―there would be a world structured around international cooperation, presided over by a government chosen by the people of all nations. If this sounds a bit like the United Nations, that is because, in 1945, toward the end of the most destructive war in human history, the world organization was created with something like that in mind.
Unlike “peace through strength” and isolationism, the jury is still out when it comes to the usefulness of the United Nations along these lines. Yes, it has managed to pull the nations of the world together to discuss global issues and to create global treaties and rules, as well to avert or end many international conflicts and to use UN peacekeeping forces to separate groups engaged in violent conflict. It has also sparked global action for social justice, environmental sustainability, world health, and economic advance. On the other hand, the United Nations has not been as effective as it should be, especially when it comes to fostering disarmament and ending war. All too often the international organization remains no more than a lonely voice for global sanity in a world dominated by powerful, war-making nations.
The logical conclusion is that, if we want the development of a more peaceful world, the United Nations should be strengthened.
How the United Nations Could Be Strengthened
One of the most useful measures that could be taken would be to reform the UN Security Council. As things now stand, any one of its five permanent members (the United States, China, Russia, Britain, and France) can veto UN action for peace. And this is often what they do, enabling Russia, for example, to block Security Council action to end to its invasion of Ukraine. Wouldn’t it make sense to scrap the veto, or change the permanent members, or develop a rotating membership, or simply abolish the Security Council and turn over action for peace to the UN General Assembly―an entity that, unlike the Security Council, represents virtually all nations of the world?
Other measures to strengthen the United Nations are not hard to imagine. The world organization could be provided with taxing power, thus freeing it from the necessity for begging nations to cover its expenses. It could be democratized with a world parliament representing people rather than their governments. It could be bolstered with the tools to go beyond creating international law to actually enforcing it. Overall, the United Nations could be transformed from the weak confederation of nations that currently exists into a more cohesive federation of nations―a federation that would deal with international issues while individual nations would deal with their own domestic issues.
Against a backdrop of thousands of years of bloody wars and the ever-present danger of a nuclear holocaust, hasn’t the time arrived to dispense with international anarchy and create a governed world?
by Donna Park | Oct 9, 2022 | World Federation
I am a grandmother, and I have a dream that grandparents will work with their grandchildren to unite the world and build a better future.
But first we need to have a vision of how the world could be improved.
Many global problems face the world today
There are many problems facing the world today, including war and the threat of nuclear destruction, climate change, human rights abuses, hunger, extreme poverty, growing income inequality, and global pandemics. One central source of our global problems is that we have put nations above people. I think we should put people first. National sovereignty and security should not be more important that the sovereignty and security of individuals. Governments should be protecting the rights and freedoms of their people, not sacrificing them.
War is one way in which nations sacrifice their people rather than protect them. War kills and injures people. War destroys the environment. War robs us of our financial and natural resources War does not bring peace, although it does make a lot of money for some.
Think creatively to eliminate war
Surely it is time to think creatively about eliminating war. Here in the United States, we can look to our own history for a way to accomplish that. When Americans decided to transform the confederation of 13 colonies into a federation of states, they agreed to resolve their differences in a court of law rather than on the battlefield. The original 13 states were able to eliminate or transform their militias. With no need any longer to fight one another, they could rely on the rule of law to settle disputes. Although the rule of law is not perfect, it is the best method we have found. And it is preferable to war.
We need a similar transformation at the global level. Why not transform the confederation of nations known as the United Nations into a United Federation of Nations? Under this strengthened UN system, all nations could agree to resolve their differences using the rule of law rather than weapons of destruction. Nations could be required to disarm and to transform their armed forces into peacekeeping forces that would respond to natural disasters and other domestic crises.
Unite the World
To implement this program, we could start by creating a World Parliament at the United Nations to give a voice to the people of the world, rather than just their governments. We also need a world constitution to define a democratic federation of nations with a universal declaration of human rights and the ability to create and enforce world law that outlaws war and nuclear weapons. Furthermore, we will need international courts (such as the International Criminal Court) and international police to arrest those who break the law. Fortunately, much work has been done defining these components over the past 75 years.
All these components will cost much less than the vast amounts spent on the current war systems. Furthermore, a United Federation of Nations could be employed to deal effectively with other global problems, such as climate change.
This vision is shared by the Young World Federalists. Their tag line is “Unite the World.” As their website explains, they are “a global movement to unite humanity through the creation of a democratic world federation.” They believe that the current system of competitive sovereign countries fails to tackle the global challenges that impact us all. Accordingly, they advocate a new form of global governance, one in which people cooperate to secure their common interest through a democratic world federation. They envision a sustainable, just, and peaceful world through a democratic world federation. It would be a world run by humanity, for humanity, providing equal opportunity to all on a thriving planet.
Work across the generations
The Young World Federalists (YWF) are building on the work of well-established organizations such as Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS). CGS was founded 75 years ago, and many of its supporters, like me, are grandparents of the Young World Federalists’ generation. We are delighted to be working with these young people and, in fact, have a lot to learn from them in this modern era of social media and technology. We also have a lot to share with them, including our knowledge, experience, and funding. One of their programs that we are co-sponsoring is the Week for World Parliament, which includes an event in New York City on October 22-23.
Working together, young and old, we are committed to building a united world and a better future for all.
by Citizens for Global Solutions | Oct 8, 2022 | Past Event
Special guest, Dr. Tiziana Stella, Executive Director of the Streit Council leads us through Chapters 5-6. In his book, Streit urges the world’s #democracies to create an initial world federation that would be so powerful that other countries would follow.
by Roger Peace | Oct 4, 2022 | Uncategorized
There is no doubt that the Russian invasion of Ukraine constitutes a criminal act of aggression. What lay behind this, however, is a complicated set of competing geopolitical ambitions and threat perceptions, and beyond these, a fundamental weakness in the United Nations mediation and collective security systems.
Russian leaders from Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin have viewed NATO’s gradual expansion to the east as a grave national security threat. In 2008, President George W. Bush opened the door to Ukraine and Georgia for future NATO membership, thus bringing this Western military alliance to the doorstep of Russia. While there has been much debate over whether NATO expansion constitutes a broken promise to the Soviet Union (and Russia), there is no doubt that Russian leaders have regarded it as an existential threat to their nation.
The Russian response has been to support separatist movements in Georgia and Ukraine, annex the Crimea Peninsula, and, most recently, invade Ukraine. U.S. leaders have deemed these actions gross overreactions, or perhaps indications of a desire on Putin’s part to remake Russia into an empire along the lines of the old Soviet Union. Whatever the case, the invasion of Ukraine has been counterproductive for Russia, as NATO has been strengthened and expanded further.
U.S. leaders have taken the position that NATO is of no threat to any nation, and thus they have been unwilling to compromise on Ukraine’s eventual membership. Then, too, U.S. leaders generally regard U.S. global power as protective and benevolent, notwithstanding a long record of military interventions and covert operations in other nations. No doubt, they would respond with alarm if Russia or China invited Mexico to join in a military alliance.
Might the war in Ukraine have been avoided if the U.S. had relied on the UN rather than NATO to ensure security in the region?
The UN Charter requires that parties in any dispute “shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice” (Article 33). Should the latter fail, the charter provides for collective security measures in which member nations can collectively deter or repel would-be aggressors through joint diplomatic, economic, and military actions “for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security” (Article 43).
The UN has often failed to live up to its mandate to “end the scourge of war,” which has led many to dismiss the institution as irrelevant. Yet, like all great changes and paradigm shifts, progress in establishing a global security system is incremental and may be centuries in the making. Think of the establishment of democratic governments, human rights policies, and religious tolerance.
In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to revive this inclusive concept of security set forth in the UN Charter. Speaking before the UN General Assembly on December 8, 1988, he declared, “The world community must learn to shape and direct the process in such a way as to preserve civilization, to make it safe for all and more pleasant for normal life. It is a question of cooperation that could be more accurately called ‘co-creation’ and ‘co-development.’ The formula of development “at another’s expense” is becoming outdated.”
Turning to the U.S., Gorbachev proposed that the U.S. and Soviet Union begin a “joint effort to put an end to an era of wars, confrontation and regional conflicts, to aggression against nature, to the terror of hunger and poverty as well as to political terrorism. This is our common goal and we can only reach it together.” Giving substance to these aspirations, he announced Soviet decisions to withdraw significant numbers of troops and tanks from Eastern European countries and to seek a UN-brokered ceasefire in Afghanistan.
It was a remarkable speech, especially as Americans had been conditioned to view the Soviet Union as the graveyard of idealism. The editors of the New York Times had difficulty describing it: “Breathtaking. Risky. Bold. Naive. Diversionary. Heroic. All fit. So sweeping is his agenda that it will require weeks to sort out. But whatever Mr. Gorbachev’s motives, his ideas merit – indeed, compel – the most serious response from President-elect Bush and other leaders.”
The incoming George H. W. Bush administration was hesitant to endorse Gorbachev’s idealistic reforms. Indeed, the U.S. foreign policy establishment viewed Moscow’s retreat from great power domination as an opportunity to advance U.S. interests and establish the U.S. as the sole superpower in the world.
Gorbachev remained undaunted. Having taken up the challenge to reinvent the Soviet socialist system, he was equally determined to instigate humanistic reforms in the international arena. To diffuse the Cold War in Europe, he proposed an end to both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Speaking in France in July 1989, he called for a cooperative “commonwealth of sovereign democratic states with a high level of equitable interdependence and easily accessible borders open to the exchange of products, technologies and ideas, and wide-ranging contacts among people.”
Eastern European nations, in other words, would join Western European nations in creating a common European identity and culture, buttressed by open trade and travel. Western European nations had already modeled this in forming the European Economic Community (1957) followed by the European Union (1993), enabling age-old national animosities to dissolve.
In essence, Gorbachev was proposing a way out of great power competition, in line with the UN Charter, presuming that a friendly international neighborhood is the best security. This is the vision that is needed today – a reimagining of the world order. Beyond immediate crises, we need to work toward an inclusive and sustainable global security system.
Moreover, continuation of the current system of big power competition and rival blocs bodes ill for the future. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set its “doomsday clock” at 100 seconds to midnight, closer than it has ever been, based on nuclear and global warming threats, an indication of how close humanity is to “destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.” Moving toward mutual security and cooperation will set the clock back and allow humanity to move forward.
“Breaking the Cycle of Insecurity” was originally published in History News Network, September 18, 2022
Photo: Reagan White House Photographs, 1/20/1981 – 1/20/1989
by Citizens for Global Solutions | Sep 10, 2022 | Past Event
Special guest, Dr. Tiziana Stella, Executive Director of the Streit Council, leads us through Chapters 1-4 of Union Now by Clarence Streit (1939). In his book, Streit urges the world’s democracies to create an initial world federation that would be so powerful that other countries would follow.
by Citizens for Global Solutions | Jun 4, 2022 | Mondial Journal
by Citizens for Global Solutions | Mar 2, 2022 | Organizational Statement
Citizens for Global Solutions stands in solidarity with all peoples and with any nation whose rights have been violated in international disputes of any kind. But at this chilling moment, we especially stand with the people of Ukraine against Russia’s illegal act of aggression. We call for adherence to international law as underscored in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter which states that, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” It is obvious that President Putin has violated the spirit, if not the letter, of this most primary of all international agreements.
In 1947, Citizens for Global Solutions was founded as the United World Federalists to promote the concept that peace with justice can only be possible through the creation of a democratic federation of nations. All these years later, it couldn’t be more obvious that although the United Nations has done much good in the world, as it is currently structured it is largely unable to stop military aggression across national borders. We must transform the United Nations from a confederation of nations to a United Federation of Nations with the ability, through the vehicle of a world constitution and a global legislature, to create and enforce international law in order to eliminate war and nuclear weapons, protect universal human rights, save our fragile global environment, and cooperatively manage global pandemics. It is time for all of us to demand this better method to govern our world.
Taking this broader view, we recognize that our current flawed system of global governance lacks mechanisms of law enforcement and fair adjudication—exemplified by the fact that Russia was in a position to veto the Security Council’s condemnation of their own immoral act of aggression. Instead, our current world system depends upon the good will of leaders of all nations upholding their treaty agreements and resolving disputes through diplomacy, in accord with the narrow “self-interest” of their nations. What is playing out before our eyes in Ukraine, as well as in numerous other instances since WWII, demonstrates the inadequacy of a system that depends on good will and self-interest—and ultimately on the global rule of the nation (or alliance) with the strongest military and a willingness to use it—rather than the rule of impartial justice. Situations such as the Ukraine war will only cease when we have enforceable global law and the use of world courts to settle disputes. Without these mechanisms of genuine civilization, all sides are victims of a system that cannot guarantee peace and security.
Given the absence of the just rule of enforceable world law, we call on the Security Council to enforce member agreements, which we view as the best existing means to ensure the safety and protection of innocent civilians. We also commend the International Criminal Court for its decision to open an investigation on the situation in Ukraine. Those who commit genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression must be brought to justice.
