by Lawrence Wittner | Jan 12, 2025 | Global Justice
In today’s world of widespread poverty and unprecedented wealth, how about raising the wages of the most poorly-paid workers?
This October, the World Bank reported that “8.5 percent of the global population―almost 700 million people―live today on less than $2.15 per day,” while “44 percent of the global population―around 3.5 billion people―live today on less than $6.85 per day.” Meanwhile, “global poverty reduction has slowed to a near standstill.”
In early 2024, the charity group Oxfam International noted that, since 2020, “148 top corporations made $1.8 trillion in profit, 52 percent up on 3-year average, and dished out huge payouts to rich shareholders.” During this same period, the world’s five wealthiest men “more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion,” an increase of $14 million per hour. As corporate elites gathered in Davos for a chat about the world economy, ten corporations alone were worth $10.2 trillion, more than the GDPs of all the countries in Africa and Latin America combined.
The world’s vast economic inequality “is no accident,” concluded a top Oxfam official. “The billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else.”
Although inequalities in income and wealth have existed throughout much of human history, they have been softened somewhat by a variety of factors, including labor unions and―in modern times―minimum wage laws. Designed to provide workers with a basic standard of living, these laws create a floor below which wages are not allowed to sink. In 1894, New Zealand became the first nation to enact a minimum wage law, and―pressured by the labor movement and public opinion―other countries (including the United States in 1938) followed its lead. Today, more than 90 percent of the world’s nations have some kind of minimum wage law in effect.
These minimum wage laws have had very positive effects upon the lives of workers. Most notably, they lifted large numbers of wage earners out of poverty. In addition, they undermined the business practice of slashing wages (and thus reducing production costs) to increase profit margins or to cut prices and grab a larger share of the market.
Even so, the growth of multinational corporations provided businesses with opportunities to slip past these national laws and dramatically reduce their labor costs by moving production of goods and services to low-wage nations. This corporate offshoring of jobs and infrastructure gathered steam in the mid-20th century. Initially, multinational corporations focused on outsourcing low-skilled or unskilled manufacturing jobs, which had a negative impact on employment and wages in advanced industrial nations. In the 21st century, however, the outsourcing of skilled jobs, particularly in financial management and IT operations, rose dramatically. After all, from the standpoint of enhancing corporate profits, it made good sense to replace an American IT worker with an Indian IT worker at 13 percent the cost. The result was an accelerating race to the bottom.
In the United States, this export of formerly good-paying jobs to low-wage, impoverished countries―combined with “free trade” agreements, a corporate and government assault on unions, and conservative obstruction of any raise in the pathetically low federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour)―produced a disaster. The share of private sector goods-producing jobs at high wages shrank, since the 1960s, from 42 to 17 percent. Increasingly, U.S. jobs were located in the low-paid service sector. Not surprisingly, by 2023 an estimated 43 million Americans lived in poverty, while another 49 million lived just above the official poverty line. Little wonder that, in this nation and many others caught up in corporate globalization, there was an alarming rise of rightwing demagogues playing on economic grievances, popular hatreds, and fears.
If, therefore, wages in underdeveloped nations and in advanced industrial nations are not keeping pace with the vast accumulation of capital by the world’s wealthiest people and their corporations, one way to counter this situation is to move beyond the disintegrating patchwork of wage floor efforts by individual nations and develop a global minimum wage.
Such a wage could take a variety of forms. The most egalitarian involves a minimum wage level that would be the same in all nations. Unfortunately, though, given the vast variation among countries in wealth and current wages, this does not seem practical. In Luxembourg, for example, the average yearly per capita purchasing power is 316 times that of South Sudan. But other options are more viable, including basing the minimum wage on a percentage of the national median wage or on a more complex measurement accounting for the cost of living and national living standards.
Over the past decade and more, prominent economists and other specialists have made the case for a global minimum wage, as have a variety of organizations. For an appropriate entity to establish it, they have usually pointed to the International Labour Organization, a UN agency that has long worked to set international labor standards.
The advantages of a global minimum wage are clear.
It would lift billions of people out of poverty, thus enabling them to lead far better lives.
It would reduce the corporate incentive for offshoring by limiting the ability of multinational corporations to obtain cheap labor abroad.
By keeping jobs in the home country, it would aid unions in wealthy nations to retain their memberships and provide protection against “corporate blackmail”―the management demand that unions either accept contract concessions or get ready for the shift of corporate jobs and production overseas.
By raising wages in impoverished countries, it would reduce the poverty-driven mass migration from these nations and, thereby, deprive rightwing demagogues in wealthier countries of one of their most potent issues.
Of course, higher labor costs at home and abroad would reduce corporate profits and limit the growth of billionaires’ wealth and power. But wouldn’t these also be positive developments?
by Sovaida Maani Ewing | Dec 12, 2024 | Climate Justice
The ability to see and accept things as they are is difficult for us humans. We tend to repeat behaviors that fail to yield the results we want, lulling ourselves into the belief that this time the outcome will somehow be different. We mask our repeated endeavors as exercises in optimism even when we’re deeply mired in denial. Yet, accepting reality as it is, including acknowledging moments of failure, is a prerequisite for making meaningful change. One of the stark realities we must face as a global community is that the system we established in 1992 in the international treaty known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) which resulted in regular meetings of the state parties known as COPs (conference of the parties) is simply inadequate to the task. This inadequacy applies in spades to the 21st COP which resulted in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement that aimed to keep climate change from wreaking calamitous effects on our way of life and the environment. The system as crafted simply cannot deliver on its promises. More specifically, the goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is already beyond our grasp and the goal of keeping such a rise to well below 2 degrees is a chimera. For those who may have had doubts about the severity of the threat of climate change, the bitter reality of the historically unprecedented rise in global temperatures in the form of unprecedented droughts, floods, sea-level rise, destructive storms, wildfires, and catastrophic loss of biodiversity, is already with us.
The current system is replete with fatal flaws that include the following: First, a reliance on voluntary pledges (or “nationally determined contributions” as they are termed in the Paris Agreement) representing efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change, simply does not work. Even if all the countries that signed on to the Paris Agreement were to fulfill the pledges they have given, current reports estimate that temperatures likely will still rise beyond the 2 degree Celsius outer limit we have set ourselves. As it stands, however, many countries are nowhere near fulfilling their pledges, putting us on the pathway to a rise in temperatures above pre-industrial levels ranging between 2.5 – 2.9 degrees Celsius by 2100. More importantly, there is no mechanism for holding nations to their promises. The system is therefore unfit for purpose and must be discarded in favor of an effective one.
Second, collective funding for activities like mitigation and adaptation and even research and development into alternative clean energy sources has proven challenging and generally unsuccessful, with poorer developing countries generally finding themselves supplicating, cap in hand, while richer countries respond by ducking and doing whatever it takes to limit their exposure.
Third, the rules governing the COPs require that all decisions be taken by consensus, effectively granting each member country the right to veto any agreement. The result is paralysis or at best agreement based on the lowest common denominator.
Given the degree to which the current COP system is flawed, it is time for us to find an alternative system to combat climate change that includes at its heart an effective pathway to reducing emissions. What humanity desperately needs at this stage in its collective development is a collective decision-making institution in the form of a World Legislature or World Parliament that is democratically elected by the people of the world and equipped with the authority to pass binding international laws in areas where global challenges like climate change demand global solutions. Such a global body should be able, for instance, to pass binding legislation requiring a scheduled universal phase-down of the quantities of fossil fuel that nations can burn. It should also be empowered to levy limited taxes on each member of the global community. Just as we pay state and national taxes, so too, we could be required to pay a modicum of international taxes to defray the costs of meeting our global needs and solving our global challenges. Moreover, decisions of the World Legislature should be based on a two-thirds or other majority vote, rather than requiring unanimity. Last, but by no means least, it should have an enforcement mechanism to ensure that nations comply with the laws it passes.
In sum, it is time to courageously and humbly acknowledge that our COP system does not work and to boldly reimagine a new system for stemming global warming. In this endeavor we would do well to heed the following words of Robert Schuman uttered in 1950: “World peace cannot be safeguarded without creative efforts commensurate with the dangers that threaten it.”
by Lawrence Wittner | Dec 9, 2024 | Global Justice, Human Rights
The International Criminal Court’s recent issuance of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza has stirred up a considerable backlash. Dismissing the charges as “absurd and false,” Netanyahu announced that Israel would “not recognize the validity” of the ICC’s action. U.S. President Joe Biden denounced the arrest warrants as “outrageous,” while the French government reversed its stance after agreeing to support them.
Thanks to a vigorous campaign by human rights organizations, the International Criminal Court (ICC) became operational in 2002, with the mandate to prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and, after 2018, the crime of aggression. Nations ratifying the Rome Statute, the ICC’s authorizing document, assumed responsibility for arresting these individuals and submitting them to the Court for trial. The ICC prosecutes cases only when countries are unwilling or unable to do so, for it was designed to complement, rather than replace, national criminal justice systems.
Operating with clearly delimited powers and limited funding, the ICC, headquartered at the Hague, has thus far usually taken modest but effective action to investigate, prosecute, and convict perpetrators of heinous atrocity crimes.
Although 124 nations have ratified the Rome Statute, Russia, China, the United States, India, Israel, and North Korea are not among them. Indeed, the world’s major military powers, accustomed to the privileged role in world affairs that their armed might usually afford them, have often been at odds with the ICC, for it has the potential to investigate, prosecute, and convict their government officials.
The desire of the “great powers” to safeguard themselves from the enforcement of international law is exemplified by the record of the U.S. government. Although President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in December 2000, he warned about “significant flaws in the treaty,” among them the inability to “protect US officials.” Refusing to support U.S. Senate ratification, he recommended that his successor continue this policy “until our fundamental concerns are satisfied.”
U.S. President George W. Bush “unsigned” the treaty in 2002, pressured other nations into bilateral agreements requiring them to refuse to surrender U.S. nationals to the Court, and signed the American Servicemembers Protection Act, authorizing the use of military force to liberate any Americans held for crimes by the ICC.
Although, subsequently, the Bush and Obama administrations warmed somewhat toward the Court, then engaged in prosecuting African warlords and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, President Donald Trump reverted to staunch opposition in 2018, informing the UN General Assembly that the U.S. government would not support the ICC, which he claimed had “no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority.” In 2020, the Trump administration imposed economic sanctions and visa restrictions on top ICC officials for any effort to investigate the actions of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.
Like the United States, Russia initially signed the Rome treaty. It withdrew its signature, however, after Ukraine appealed to the ICC in 2014 and 2015 to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity that Russia committed in Ukraine. The ICC did launch a preliminary investigation that, after the full-scale Russian military invasion of February 2022 and the Russian murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war in Bucha, expanded into a formal investigation. Taking bold action in March 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children.
Having previously denied wrongdoing in Bucha, the Russian government reacted furiously to the kidnapping charge. “The very question itself is outrageous,” declared Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and the ICC’s decisions “are insignificant for the Russian Federation.” Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the Russian Security Council and a former Russian president, publicly threatened a Russian hypersonic missile attack upon the ICC headquarters, remarking: “Judges of the court, look carefully at the sky.” Subsequently, Moscow issued arrest warrants for top ICC officials.
Meanwhile, the United States has continued its ambivalence toward the ICC. President Joe Biden scrapped the Trump sanctions against the Court and authorized the sharing of information and funding for it in its investigations of Russian atrocities in Ukraine. But he reaffirmed “our government’s longstanding objection to the Court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction” over U.S. and Israeli officials.
The incoming Trump administration seems likely to take a much harsher line. The Republican-led House of Representatives recently passed legislation to sanction the ICC, while Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, calling the Court a “dangerous joke,” urged Congress to sanction its prosecutor, and warned U.S. allies that, “if you try to help the ICC, we’re going to sanction you.”
Given the policies of the “great powers,” are the Court’s efforts to enforce international law futile?
Leading advocates of human rights don’t think so. “This is a big day for the many victims of crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine,” declared Amnesty International upon learning of the Court’s arrest warrants for top Russian officials. “The ICC has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war.” Similarly, Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, stated that the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants for top Israeli officials represented “an important step toward justice for the Palestinian people. . . . Israeli generals must now think twice about proceeding with the bombing and starving of Palestinian children.”
And, indeed, the ICC’s actions have started to bear fruit. Invited to South Africa to participate in a BRICS conference, Putin canceled his visit after his hosts explained that, in light of the arrest warrant, he was no longer welcome. Also, later that year, Russian officials returned hundreds of Ukrainian children to their parents. Although the results of the ICC’s action against Israeli officials are only starting to unfold, numerous countries have promised to honor the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
Even so, the ICC’s enforcement of international criminal justice would be considerably more effective if the major powers stopped obstructing its efforts.
by Lawrence Wittner | Nov 22, 2024 | Global Cooperation
The latest rollout of the hyper-nationalist “America First” policy underscores the world’s long-term slide toward catastrophe.
Within nations, when conflicts inevitably erupt, there are laws, as well as police, courts, and governments that enforce the laws.
On the global level, however, governance is quite limited. The UN Security Council, responsible under the UN Charter for maintaining international peace and security, is frequently hamstrung by the veto, which the five great powers of 1945 insisted upon according to themselves. By this April, it had been employed 321 times. Although the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court deliver legally binding judgments, based on international law, such judgments are not always obeyed. The UN General Assembly votes on key international issues as well, but such votes are merely advisory. Consequently, these international organizations issue laudable statements, while the most powerful nations all too frequently defy them and go on their merry, marauding way.
The Russian government is currently continuing its massive military invasion of Ukraine and annexing its territory while ignoring the demands of the UN General Assembly and the International Court of Justice to end Russia’s aggression and withdraw from Ukraine. Similarly, the Israeli government ignores the demands of these world organizations to end its brutal war upon and occupation of Palestine.
From the overwhelming votes in the UN General Assembly to condemn the Russian and Israeli invasions, we can see what most of the world’s nations want done to address these terrible situations. But there is no implementation of their demand to respect international law―law that lacks effective international enforcement.
Over the course of human history, this international lawlessness has contributed to a might-makes-right approach to world affairs, in which militarily powerful nations play the dominant role. Naturally, then, nations have gravitated toward military buildups, making some very powerful, indeed.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the top military spenders in 2023 (the latest year for which figures are available) are the United States ($916 billion), China ($296 billion), Russia ($109 billion), and India ($84 billion). But others―Israel ($28 billion) and North Korea (amount unknown)―also rank among the big-time military spenders. All told, the nations of the world devoted at least $2,443 billion to war and preparations for war, an increase over the previous year of nearly 7 percent.
Military spending is not the only way to measure militarism. The Global Peace Index 2024, compiled by the Institute for Economics and Peace, used the level of societal safety and security, the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict, and the degree of militarization to examine 163 independent nations and territories. Not surprisingly, the major military powers ranked low on the scale of peacefulness, including China (88th), India (116th), the United States (132nd), North Korea (152nd), Israel (155th), and Russia (157th).
By contrast to these military behemoths―possessing the mightiest military forces in world history, including arsenals of nuclear weapons―the United Nations has remained a relatively anemic organization, speaking truth but lacking power.
Sometimes, the major military powers cope with the explosive global situation by making deals with one another―although such deals rarely create the basis for a peaceful world. For example, the August 23, 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (better known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact) provided for détente between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, two highly-militarized nations that had previously been at odds. In this secret protocol, Hitler and Stalin agreed to share Poland and give Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and other East European territories to the Soviet Union. On September 1, Germany invaded western Poland, thereby beginning World War II. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union took action to seize its share of the spoils. As early as July 1940, however, the German High Command began planning its invasion of the Soviet Union, which occurred the following June, ending this cozy arrangement.
On other occasions, major military powers have formed alliances. Wary of a military attack by their rivals or eager to bolster their strength for a military attack upon them, these “great powers” have enhanced their military might by creating military alliances with weaker nations. The weaker nations, for their part, sometimes seek alliances with the militarily powerful to guarantee their own security.
But alliances, too, have provided a shaky basis for maintaining international peace. During the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (dominated by the United States) and the Warsaw Pact (dominated by the Soviet Union) engaged in remarkably dangerous nuclear confrontations. Furthermore, both alliances experienced serious internal convulsions. In 1956, Hungary withdrew from the Warsaw Pact, leading to a Soviet invasion that slaughtered 2,500 Hungarians and sent 200,000 fleeing abroad.
Today, the traditional system of every-nation-for-itself is leading to disaster. There are currently 56 active military conflicts in the world, the largest number since the end of World War II. These conflicts are also becoming more internationalized, with 92 nations engaged in a conflict beyond their borders. According to the Global Peace Index, “there has been a significant rise in both conflicts and battle deaths in the past two decades, with battle deaths reaching a thirty-year high.”
Overarching this grim toll lies a revived nuclear arms race, increasingly likely to erupt into a nuclear war that will annihilate most life on Earth.
In this situation, there is a desperate need for effective global governance. Or, to put things differently, the world needs a stronger United Nations―strong enough to resolve conflicts among nations and, thereby, maintain international peace and security.
The task of strengthening global governance is difficult, but not impossible. There are ways to limit the use of the veto in the UN Security Council (as championed by many nations), transfer security issues to the UN General Assembly (where there is majority rule and no veto), and increase the jurisdiction of international judicial bodies. It’s also necessary and possible to provide the UN with an independent source of income to fund an expanded range of activities.
The time has come to transform the United Nations into a federation of nations that can effectively uphold international law―a government for the world. With such a government, we would have a much better chance of restraining outlaw nations and averting the nuclear catastrophe that looms before us.
by Matt McDonough | Oct 17, 2024 | Peace
This summer, Citizens for Global Solutions lost a valuable member of our National Advisory Council, Randy Kehler, who, at age 80, passed in July.
Randy was a peace activist, dedicated to the eradication of war and to the expansion of justice at both the local and global level. In 1969 Randy refused to go to war. He returned his draft card, thereby committing a felony and blocked entrance to an induction center. For these actions Randy served nearly two years in federal prison.
I first met Randy when my ex-wife became his administrative assistant. Over the ensuing years I got to see his passion and commitment up close. I don’t know if I have ever met a harder worker.
Randy was known as the father of the Freeze Campaign, a national effort to get the two superpowers to agree to freeze their nuclear arsenals at the then current levels. Observers claim that these efforts influenced the Reagan administration to push for arms reduction talks with the Soviet Union.
Randy is perhaps best known as the person who influenced Daniel Ellsberg to release the Pentagon Papers. The release of that document led directly to a substantial increase in resistance to the Vietnam war. On a number of occasions Mr. Ellsberg said, “No Randy Kehler, no Pentagon Papers.”
Randy was a lifelong tax resistor. He felt that he could not support the U.S. military. He calculated the tax that he owed and contributed that amount to charity. In 1989, this resulted in the Internal Revenue Service seizing his house in Colrain, MA. When he refused a judge’s order to vacate, he once again found himself in jail. He eventually lost his home and he and his wife, Betsy Corner, moved into a house owned by her parents.
Over a cup of coffee, I once mentioned how unjust I thought it was that he was jailed for resisting the draft. He immediately corrected me. His conscience told him that he had to resist the draft, but he broke the law, and the government did what it had to do. He felt no resentment. This was a typical example of Randy’s integrity.
Randy will be greatly missed.
Image Source: Daniel Ellsberg and Randy Kehler seated at a bench, ca. 1971. Daniel Ellsberg Papers (MS 1093). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
by Lawrence Wittner | Sep 18, 2024 | Global Justice
Are the nations of the world doomed to go on fighting the brutal, horrifying wars that have long characterized human history?
We might well wonder about that as we watch, aghast, while Israeli armed forces slaughter thousands of Palestinian civilians, Russian military might relentlessly pounds Ukrainian towns and cities into rubble, and new, bloody wars erupt in numerous other lands.
Why does such widespread destruction and human suffering persist in the modern, ostensibly “civilized,” world?
A variety of explanations have been advanced. Some observers point to capitalism, others blame dictatorial rule, while still others place the onus on xenophobia, religious differences, racism, and toxic masculinity.
Each of these factors has some weight. Certainly greed, authoritarian arrogance, inflamed nationalism, religious and racial animosities, and male violence have played some role in dividing people and, thereby, fostering wars among them over the course of history.
But are these factors sufficient to explain the stubborn persistence of war? After all, wars existed long before the advent of capitalism and, furthermore, since then, non-capitalist (for example, Communist) nations have repeatedly waged wars, even against one another. Similarly, democratic nations have plunged regularly into numerous wars, some against their fellow democracies. Moreover, even countries whose populations have friendly ties, have the same racial composition and religion, and have taken major strides toward gender equality (including admission of women to the armed forces and top posts in government) seem quite willing to prepare for and engage in war with each other.
Something is clearly missing from these explanations of widespread international violence―something fundamental. Could it be the structure of international relations?
International relations specialists have long argued that the driving force behind international war is global anarchy. Humanity, like war, has existed for thousands of years. But, although humans have gradually created governments to establish effective laws regulating behavior within their territories―regions, cities, states, and, ultimately, nations―they have failed to do so for the world. Thus, on the global level, nations have been left largely to their own devices. The resulting situation resembles the American Wild West, characterized by the absence of law enforcement and the prevalence of heavily armed gangs.
For centuries, scholars have pointed to the need for creating transnational structures to end this global nightmare. The theologian and diplomat Hugo Grotius helped develop the concept of international law, while writers such as Dante Alighieri, Immanuel Kant, and H.G. Wells promoted the idea of global governance.
After the atomic bombing of Japan and the ensuing scramble for nuclear weapons starkly revealed the peril of nuclear annihilation, the call for a full-scale transformation of international relations became even sharper. Albert Einstein, the chair of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, stated bluntly: “Mankind’s desire for peace can be realized only by the creation of a world government.”
Norman Cousins, editor of one of America’s major magazines of the era (the Saturday Review), played a key role in channeling Einstein’s call into a postwar campaign for a global federation of nations. “The only security for Americans today, or for any people,” Cousins contended, is “a system of world order that enables nations to retain sovereignty over their own cultures and institutions but that creates a workable authority for regulating the behavior of nations in their relationships with one another.” Cousins served as president of United World Federalists (which morphed into the World Federalist Association and, eventually, Citizens for Global Solutions), the U.S. member organization of the World Federalist Movement.
Benjamin Ferencz, the U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of the late 1940s, became an important popularizer of this world federalist approach. In his widely-read book, PlanetHood, Ferencz told Americans that, in the United States, “we have four layers of government: city, county, state, and national,” created “to avoid anarchy within our nation.” Thus, adding “one more layer of government will enable us to have an abundant future on this planet.” Indeed, “international governance―something like a United Nations of the World―will rescue us from our deadly predicament.”
Critics, of course, might argue that a United Nations already exists, and has often proved unable to prevent the recurrence of war. But Ferencz’s answer―and, usually, the answer of the world federalist movement―was that, although the United Nations had significant accomplishments to its credit, the UN Charter “was deliberately made weak” by the major powers. As a result, it “did not give the United Nations the binding strength needed to get rid of international lawlessness.” Ultimately, “the only way to permanently solve the problem of war is to replace the Law of Force with the Force of Law.” This perspective led, in recent years, to the establishment of the LAW not War campaign, designed to promote the universality of the International Court of Justice.
World federalists can also point to a dramatic decline in war when independent nations accepted limitations on their sovereignty. In the late eighteenth century, as 13 British North American colonies gained their independence, they could have followed the usual global pattern of war with one another. But, instead, they gradually created a federal union (the United States) and fought only one war within their ranks during the following 235 years. Similarly, although European nations had undergone centuries of war with each other before they went at it again in World War II, members of the European Union, formed in the aftermath of that devastating war (and now encompassing 27 nations), succeeded in ending war among them.
The issue of transcending the ages-old practice of international war certainly remains relevant today. Indeed, the United Nations is moving forward with plans for a Summit of the Future in late September. Designed to address “global governance,” among other issues, the Summit provides yet another opportunity for nations to empower the world organization to maintain international peace through the enforcement of world law.
Is that goal realistic? Perhaps so, perhaps not. But how realistic is it to continue the anarchy of nations, which today threatens universal death and destruction?
Image source: https://www.asymmetricalhaircuts.com/episodes/in-memoriam-benjamin-b-ferencz/
