It's Time to End the Suffering!

 

Our world is being crushed under the torrent of cascading crises. In the past two years alone, we have been buffeted by the twin crises of a global pandemic and a global economic recession which continue to plague us on top of the increasing ravages of climate change. Just as we thought things couldn’t get worse, we find ourselves in the grip of a war in Ukraine that has spawned a massive refugee crisis, severely disrupted energy markets, spawned a global food crisis, contributed to a looming global economic recession, and is likely to trigger a Third World War that could involve nuclear weapons.

 

It beggars belief that our 21^st century world allows one leader to hold the entire world hostage given that humanity’s unprecedented interconnectedness and interdependence has made it a single body with its multiple nations serving as its limbs and organs. Just as it makes no sense for us to stand back and allow malignancy in one part of the body to magically heal itself, so too, it makes no sense for the community of nations to abdicate responsibility by standing by as one nation is ravaged by war; for, in the end, the well-being of the world is dependent on the well-being of its constituent nations and vice versa. The Ukraine war provides us with ample evidence of this principle: it has already spurred a massive refugee crisis, triggered a global shortage of energy resulting in a spike in the price of oil and gas, inflation is running rampant, decimating economies in its wake and poised to tip the world into an economic recession, and the UN estimates that 828 million people go to bed hungry while 50 million are on the brink of starvation as we stand in the grips of a global food crisis caused by shortages of wheat, barley, corn and fertilizer. Last, but not least, it is increasingly evident that the risks of miscalculation in this war could lead to a global war that could well include the use of nuclear weapons. 

 

Any use of nuclear weapons will be catastrophic. Experts tell us that even a limited nuclear war (confined by geography and duration) is likely to result in 10 years of no summer, destroying crops and resulting in 1 billion of the world’s population starving. The stakes are unacceptably high. The time for apathy is over. The international community can no longer abdicate its responsibility. We, the world’s citizens, must do our part and urge our leaders to act with ceaseless energy to build a system of global governance fit to serve humanity’s needs at this stage in its collective growth that is founded on two insights: firstly, the fundamental interests of all nations are fused, it is therefore futile to continue attempting to maintain an equilibrium of competing interests; secondly the moral obligation enshrined in globally-accepted principles like the Responsibility to Protect are meaningless if there is no institution to embody and apply them.

 

Our first step should be to press our leaders to enter into a global agreement creating a viable system of collective security. This agreement would limit the amount of arms each nation can possess to what is necessary to maintain order within its borders. All other weapons must be destroyed under a system of international supervision to be devised. Similarly, all nuclear weapons must be eliminated in phases over a set period of time. Nations must agree to forego war as a tool of international relations. Most importantly, they must agree that if any one nation breaches any of the provisions of this agreement thereby threatening the world’s peace, all would arise against it and bring it to heel. Ultimately, this is the only untried yet effective way to stand up to a bully on the international playground. 

 

It should immediately be apparent that such a rule-based system of collective security is useless unless backed by a robust system of enforcement which is why the second action step has to be the establishment of an international standing force made up of troops and equipment contributed by all the nations of the world. This force would function at the behest of a global legislature directly elected by the peoples of the world and in accordance with predetermined rules laying out the conditions for its use. Its primary aim should be to maintain or restore peace for example in cases of proven genocide, or unlawful territorial aggression, or illicit nuclear weapons programs. It could also be used to assist populations in times of natural disaster like earthquakes, tsunamis, or pandemics.  

 

By taking the steps proposed here we will ensure that the suffering of the people of Ukraine and many others like them whether in Yemen, Tigray, Sudan, Syria, or Myanmar, to name a few will not have been for naught. We will have responded to the observation and call of President Zelensky in his address to Congress: “We need to create new tools to respond quickly and stop the war . Today, the world does not have such tools.” He went on to say the institutions we created in the past don’t work and “So we need new ones, new institutions…” Let us heed his words and build a viable system of collective security and a standing international force to ensure that the world will never again experience such horror.

New Book: Bridge to Global Governance

New Publication!

My purpose in writing this book is several-fold. My primary aim is to propose a workable first step in the creation of global decision-making institutions that can effectively and efficiently attend to the urgent and immediate needs of the 21st Century. I hope to demonstrate that it is possible to build a global system of governance that serves all the peoples of the world and that is founded upon the principles of federalism. I believe that the best approach is to start in a narrow sphere of international endeavor and then to build outward, gradually and methodically expanding into broader spheres as success inspires confidence. As a starting point, I propose breaking the logjam caused in our global life by the complex of three seemingly intractable problems: global warming, inequitable distribution of energy, and nuclear proliferation. Success in this urgent but narrow sphere of international endeavor would bring immediate benefits to all and thereby engender hope, free us from the grip of paralyzed will, and inspire confidence to expand the spheres in which we apply this methodology, covering ever-widening areas of collective need.

Another purpose of this book is to demonstrate the power of even a handful of individuals, particularly those in positions of leadership motivated by only the best interests of humanity rather than self-interest and exhibiting certain sterling qualities like freedom from prejudice, to bring about organic and far-reaching changes in the structure of our global governance institutions that in turn foster peace, prosperity and stability in our global society. In a world where the rule of strongmen seems to be once again on the rise, where leaders unabashedly stir up the ugliest and most divisive of human emotions like xenophobia, racism, and sexism to gain and maintain their grip on power, and where the forces of nationalism appear to be gaining ascendancy resulting in the increasing fragmentation of human society, I believe it is essential that we remind ourselves of a better world which could be ours if we only bring ourselves to demand leaders with qualities that inspire trust and engender unity.

Lastly, but by no means of least importance, I aim to illustrate the power of consciously and deliberately weaving a set of universally agreed, global ethics into the very structures of our global governance institutions. It is not sufficient for our leaders to possess ennobling qualities. In addition, the very composition, voting structures, and processes that govern our institutions must also embody principles of oneness, equity, and uncompromising focus on the collective good to inspire trust and confidence in the governed and guard against the corrosive forces of self-interest and corruption.

The model I propose is based on the remarkably successful European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) adopted after the Second World War to enable the recently warring countries to rebuild their devastated economies and national polities despite critical shortages of coal and steel without falling into the same traps that doomed the same countries after World War One. As I will explore in depth, we can derive much inspiration and many lessons from the ECSC about how to solve the complex, entrenched problems facing us today, in particular the three-fold complex of global warming, inequitable distribution of energy, and nuclear proliferation. The ECSC had many strengths from which we can learn, ranging from the way it came into being, to its composition, funding, powers, and guiding principles, and most importantly to its role in bringing a lasting peace to Europe. The  successes of the ECSC inspired confidence among its member nations to deepen and expand their cooperation to encompass additional domains of economic, security, and legal policy in what we know today as the European Union. Although the ECSC also suffered from certain weaknesses, these are no less instructive as we strive to shape global governance institutions that are fit for purpose for the 21st Century and beyond.

In this book I hope to offer a useful model for action. Although the argument rests on textual resources and analyses, footnotes would obstruct what I hope is a natural flow of ideas. Those who wish to dive deeper, however, will find these sources in a bibliography at the end of the book, broken down by chapter.

World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it.

---Robert Schuman, May 9, 1950

Get your copy today at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, or www.kobo.com.

A World Parliament: Precisely the Collective Decision-Making Our World Needs

Although obvious, it bears repeating and reflecting on the fact that we live in a world that is deeply interconnected and interdependent.  The strides we humans have made in communications, transportation, trade and finance, have brought to the point in which our destinies are intimately linked together.  Our interconnectedness has, indeed, made of us a single organism.  While there are many benefits to be derived from such an interlinking of destinies, there are also inevitable downsides.  The greatest downside is that we are increasingly susceptible to systemic, collective risks.  We do not have to look far to identify some of these systemic risks.  Chief amongst them are climate change and nuclear proliferation, with all the dangers they pose to our very survival. These risks also include terrorism, migration, global financial crises, genocide and other egregious human rights abuses, to name a few more.

The collective and systemic nature of these grave risks and dangers demands a collectively agreed-upon response.  To arrive at such a collective response, we must consult, cooperate and act together. And yet, we find ourselves in this bizarre position of lacking the very collective decision-making and enforcement institutions that our world so clearly and desperately needs.  Our systems of global governance are extremely primitive. Designed as they were to address the needs of a bygone time, they are astoundingly unfit to address the problems of the 21st century and beyond.  One of the great thinkers of our time, Kishore Mahbubani, has summed up our current state of affairs perfectly.  He likens humanity to a ship carrying 7 billion people.  The ship is divided into 193 cabins. While each cabin has its own captain and crew, the ship as a whole lacks both a captain and crew.  It is consequently adrift on the seas, without anyone to guide it therefore finds itself at the mercy of gales and storms.

So, what can we do?  Before we begin, we need to get clear about one thing:  human institutions, policies and laws are there to serve our well-being and happiness.  It makes no sense for us to sacrifice ourselves to uphold any of these that no longer serves our purpose.  So, if what we really need is a collective decision-making institution to determine determine things like the the kinds of energy we can use going forward to ameliorate global warming; or the means of ensuring that all nations have equitable access to clean energy to meet their needs and to clean water and sufficient food; or effective ways to regulate arms production and put an end to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and if our current institutions do not have the capacity to do what is needed, then isn't it time to think about creating a World Parliament that can do these things?

The two most important elements we need to think about and watch for in crafting an effective World Parliament are:

1.  Ensuring that the World Parliament has the requisite power and authority to pass binding laws in certain narrow spheres in which all nations and peoples have a collective interest.  These spheres, as mentioned above, include but are not limited to, climate change, the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, and egregious human rights abuses including genocide.  In other words, we want to give this Parliament the kinds of powers that the current General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) lacks.  While UNGA provides a wonderful forum for appointed representatives of governments to come together for periodic consultation and discussion, it simply lacks the authority to pass laws that are binding on the nations of the world, because the UN Charter never gave it such authority.

2. Ensuring that the World Parliament we establish with the requisite authority to pass laws that bind us all in certain narrow areas of collective interest, properly and adequately represents all the peoples of the world and that there is no democratic deficit.  To achieve this end, the members of this Parliament should be directly elected:  The citizens of each nation should be able to elect their representatives to such a Parliament in proportion to the size of their population.  This election can, and ideally ought to be, confirmed by each government.  After all, many of us elect representatives to our local councils, state legislatures and national legislatures.  Given that we have now evolved into a global community, why can we not also elect our members to an international legislature?

Over the years, there have been some proposals regarding interim steps we can take towards the establishment of such a Parliament.  One such proposal made in 2015 is that we begin by creating a UN Parliamentary Network to serve as an advisory body to UNGA.  The idea is that this Network would bring together parliamentarians from national governments to New York at least once a year, in September, to share with UNGA grassroots concerns (including those of the private sector and civil society) about matters that affect global security and justice worldwide, and to inject fresh ideas into the debates at UNGA.  The problem with this suggestion is that it does not address the fundamental deficit of binding decision-making ability at the UN.  In other words, adding a Network that is to function essentially as an advisory body to an existing body (UNGA) that is already toothless in terms of its ability to pass binding legislation for the collective good, does not move the ball forward. On the contrary, it could be viewed as merely adding another cumbersome layer to an already-bloated UN bureaucracy.

The Network if composed of parliamentarians that have been elected in their nation-states, as currently proposed, does, however, go some way towards addressing the problem of democratic deficiency.  Although it would be even better if its members were directly elected by their citizens.  As this proposal evolves, it is important to ensure that the members of the Network are truly in touch with the various grassroots communities in their countries and are able to convey their true concerns and sentiments and are not relying solely or mainly on civil society and the private sector for their information.  Although civil society has an important role to play in international life, the truth is that NGOs are unelected and self-appointed and tend to function more like lobbying organizations.  They generally do not represent the majority or even any minority of people. Yet, by effectively networking and mobilizing their members they can wield a disproportionate influence on decision-making and shaping of global politics.  Moreover, NGOs have their own agenda and sources of funding and their nature, impact and interests have become almost impossible to measure according to scholars.  This should lead us to ask the important question: why should they have the ear of international decision-makers when the citizenry do not?

A different proposal for an interim step to be taken towards establishing a World Parliament,  one that has garnered some support, is that we establish a World Parliamentary Assembly.  Like the Parliamentary Network, the idea again is that this Assembly serve as a consultative body to the UNGA.  The proposed logic is that while the UNGA represents governments (its members being the appointees of member governments), this Assembly would form a second chamber that represents the voice of the people.  The argument is that such an Assembly would be similar to the Common Assembly that served the European Communities (the European Economic Community, and its two sister communities, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community). However, we should stop and remember that the situation in Europe was very different to the state of play of international institutions today.  The three European communities already had a very strong legislative and executive arm (the Council of Ministers and Commission respectively) with the authority to propose, pass and enforce laws that bound their member states.  Under those circumstances it made sense to inject the voice of the citizens of the members states into the decision-making process by creating a Parliamentary Assembly representing the people, and giving it a consultative role that would evolve over time to encompass co-decision-making powers.  By contrast, as of today, we have no institutions at the international level that resemble either the European Council of Ministers and the European Commission in their authority to propose and pass binding laws, therefore begging the question of the value to be gained by adding yet another purely consultative body to the mix of of institutions that lack decision-making powers.

Although the proposal for a Parliamentary Assembly does not address the binding decision-making deficit, it does seem to adequately address the democratic deficit.  The idea being put forward is that the Assembly initially be made up of national parliamentarians or representatives that are directly elected by the citizens of member countries. While this proposal addresses the problem of the democratic deficit at UNGA by providing for direct election, we are still left with the question of how adding a consultative body to UNGA -- a body that lack authority to pass binding international legislation -- will help us arrive at the collective solutions we need, in the form of binding laws, to address our gravest global challenges.

This brings us back full circle to the proposal for a World Parliament made at the beginning of this article, a proposal that addresses both the binding decision-making deficit as well as the democratic deficit.  Is it not worth focussing our energies on a global plan of education to raise awareness amongst the citizens of all nations of the need for and feasibility of creating such a World Parliament whose members are directly elected by the citizens of all 193 nations, with authority to pass binding international legislation in at least one or two narrow spheres of collective interest? It is worth the experiment:  As time goes on and this body develops capacity, confidence and wins the trust of the international community, we can consider adding to its powers in further areas of collective interest that require swift and effective collective decision-making.

Creating a Rapid Reaction Force for Eastern Europe: Necessary But Not Sufficient

The events that we have witnessed in the Ukraine over the past several months cry out for the global community of nations to rise to a new level of collective maturity and to agree upon a unified and robust response.  World events keep providing us with opportunities to learn how to come together as a community of nations and agree upon some foundational principles that will guide us in our international relations and which we will refuse to compromise regardless of our perceived short-term interests, especially our economic interests.

To allow any nation to provoke instability in another without consequence, especially if it leads to the death of innocent people as occurred when 298 passengers on board a Malaysian civilian airplane were killed when their plane was shot down over rebel-held territory of Ukraine, or to the illegal annexation of foreign territory as occurred when Russia annexed Crimea in the spring of this year, is to sow the seeds of international anarchy and lawlessness that bodes ill for the welfare of the global community.

The fact that NATO has chosen to respond to these events and others that are tearing at the fabric of Ukrainian society -- such as the continued unrest in Ukraine caused by separatists apparently backed by Russia that are claiming independence for the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk -- while certainly a positive movement, is alas not sufficient.  NATO's decision taken at its recent summit in Wales to create a Rapid Reaction Force consisting of 4.000 troops to safeguard the integrity of the Eastern European nations that border Russia, while a step in the right direction does not go far enough for a number of reasons.

First, we must be wary about unwittingly slipping back into old patterns of international behavior that have not served us well in the past, namely a Cold War mentality in which the "West" is pitted against  Russia.  It is time to leave these old patterns of international relations behind and to work on a collective global solution to problems of this kind.  Second, such half-measures are merely palliative and do not solve the underlying problems.  Third, because the solution is not one based on the international community speaking with one voice, it does not have the desired effect of forcing the bully on the international playground to back down and to think twice about his behavior.

The real question that we need to ask and answer as a global community is what should we do when any nation or terrorist network threatens the peace and stability of the international order?  Such a threat can be brought about by a range of behaviors that include for instance territorial aggression, unlawful nuclear proliferation (such as have occurred in North Korea and Iran), genocide (e.g. in Rwanda and Kosovo), other forms of gross human rights abuses against a population (e.g. Syria) or terrorist activities. The answer must surely incorporate the following elements:  it must be based on universal agreement of all nations; all nations must take ownership of the solution by contributing both financially and in the form of troops and equipment; it cannot take into account perceived short-term national interests such as the need for natural gas, or the desire to maintain a nation's status as a seller of international arms, both of which factors are apparently in play in the Ukrainian situation.

The decision by NATO to create a Rapid Reaction Force for Eastern Europe is to be lauded for the fact that it demonstrates the will of the member states of NATO to look past the dictates of expediency.  It further demonstrates that nations can be persuaded to do the right thing and look beyond their national self-interest to uphold higher international standards and that the nations are gradually demonstrating that there is a limit to the kinds of behavior they are willing to tolerate.  However, it is time for the international community to take the next step and come to collective agreement upon the establishment of a Rapid Reaction Force that is international in nature rather than purely regional, one that is there to serve the needs of the international community as a whole and to preserve the peace regardless of where it is threatened or breached.  Such a force would likely have regional components such as the one currently proposed by NATO for Eastern Europe but all of these regional components should be coordinated by and serve under the auspices of an international structure overseen by a central international institution (perhaps a much-improved and reformed Security Council) tasked with preserving the peace.

Although there is much work to be done to identify and agree upon the principles and policies that can serve the collective security needs of today as well as to carefully build a new institutional framework capable of embodying these collectively agreed-upon principles, there is no time to begin like the present!

What Should We Do When A Nation Threatens The Peace?

This evening, the world's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), released a press statement saying that its mission to Iran had failed (yet again). Once again it appears that Iran is obstructing the international community's efforts to get to the bottom of Iran's nuclear activities and determine once and for all whether Iran is working towards building nuclear weapons or whether its nuclear program is, as it has repeatedly claimed, solely intended to meet the peaceful energy needs of its population. One would think that if the purpose was peaceful, Iran would be eager to have inspectors examine all its nuclear sites and produce satisfactory responses to the questions posed by the IAEA inspectors.

Iran's reasons for obfuscation and obstruction could be many and without solid facts, it is futile to speculate. What is abundantly evident and must be the center of our focus is the catastrophic course on which we are all embarked: If the international community continues down the path of making shrill demands unsupported by unified, decisive action, (other than incrementally broader sanctions) and if Iran continues to behave provocatively and meets the demands of the international community by turning a deaf ear, the risks of an all-out conflagration in the Middle East which no body wants, will continue to escalate until we reach the point of no return. A Middle East war has the potential to drag the entire international community into its orbit with all the devastation that such a world war would entail. Is this really the result we want? If not, then we must get off this path immediately and seek a safer and more sensible alternative.

We need to be very clear about the costs of inaction: What happens when we, the international community and the community of nations, abdicate our collective responsibility to act in unity to devise a collective system of security that ensures the safety of one and all? At this stage in our collective evolution, nothing short of a global collective security pact in which all nations (yes, all without exception) agree to eliminate nuclear weapons, to keep their conventional weapons to a the minimum required to preserve the peace within their borders and to rise against a nation that brazenly threatens the peace of the world will suffice to keep global peace. Such a pact must be backed by an international standing force that we have put off establishing for too long and must be based on a set of internationally agreed rules clearly delineating the circumstances in which it can be used.

What makes this alternative path, our only hope for salvation is the parity of treatment that is accorded all nations, as determined by international rules arrived at by consensus of the international community. We must let go of all our double standards and systems of "haves" and have nots". If one nation has nuclear weapons, others will want them and eventually someone will use them either deliberately or accidentally. Therefore no one can be allowed to have them. The other element that makes this alternative path viable and effective is the unity of action it requires. There is tremendous power in speaking with one voice and acting as one, especially in the face of would-be bullies on the playground of international affairs.

If we had not wasted past opportunities to put such a system in place, chances are Iran would not be making so bold as to play cat and mouse games with the IAEA and to make aggressive statements that merely serve to raise the levels of suspicion and mistrust. Then again, were such a system in place, the response of the global community in the face of such statements would be a unified and decisive one based on the rule of law. As it is now, individual nations who feel threatened by Iran's nuclear program may feel the need to respond aggressively based on the momentary requirements of expediency to defend themselves. Alas, any unilateral or coalition action is fraught with dangers for one and all and is likely to so the seeds of new problems as we have already seen in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So let us take up the challenge of our times and begin the painstaking but immeasurably rewarding work of building a collective system of security that will ensure the safety of our children and the generations to come.