“There is only one path of peace and security: the path of a supranational organization. One sided armament on national basis only heightens the general uncertainty and confusion without being an effective protection.—Albert Einstein
“The representatives to a supranational organization—assembly and council—must be elected by the people in each member country through a secret ballot. These representatives must represent the people rather than the government –which would enhance the pacifist nature of the organization.”—Albert Einstein
In recent times the role of the UNO for prevention of war or ensuring early end has been increasingly marginalized. It has not even been able to prevent those wars—such as the Iraq invasion of 2003 – about which it was clearly known that these were based on entirely false justification. Similarly the role of the UNO in preventing the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction, the drift towards space warfare or the surge of AI weapons has been extremely limited and inconsequential in terms of achieving any effective results.
At the same time the urgent need of checking weapons of mass destruction, the accumulation of nuclear weapons and increasing risks of their actual use, the use of AI in weapons and the drift towards space warfare has certainly increased keeping in view the increasing existential threats posed by all this and their combination. In these conditions the need for moving beyond the UNO to create democratic institutional structures at world level which can give better hope of resolving these very serious problems and dangers is being felt more and more. In fact such democratic institutional structures can take care of some other problems and dangers as well if these are found to be of almost equal urgency from the point of view of the safety of people all over the world.
While for most issues of daily life decentralized governance is of course best, we need a lot of thoughtful consultation regarding what issues belong to the realm of democratic world-level decision making. One view can be that to eliminate weapons of mass destruction and to prevent wars world-level democratic governance is needed. Another view can be that some other issues involving existential threat can also be included. However this will still leave open the possibility of very large-scale destruction in civil wars and civil strife and another view can be to include the prevention of this also, or intervention at an early stage to prevent much violence. If there is no civil war but a regime functions much like an apartheid regime, or other very serious violation of human rights is involved, then can the world-level democratic structure intervene in such a situation? How can it be ensured that the intervention will be entirely fair and unbiased, based only on justice? Will there be a system of internal checks and balances within the world governance institutions? Can certain norms of human rights, equality and dignity of all people be created at world level and all governments are expected to act in accordance with these, but when there is serious violation of these then the world-level democratic structure can question and intervene? How will the democratic structure and functioning of world-level institutions be ensured?
Clearly there are many important questions like this, and in such a situation we should not consider just a single democratic world set-up but instead a number of such possibilities. To give an example, in one scenario the national governments continue to be the most important institutions but only in respect of some key issues like weapons of mass destruction the responsibility and decision making is taken over by the world level democratic organization. Then in a different possibility the maintenance of secure borders is taken up by the world organization while the national government concentrates on peaceful governance of all other aspects. In the most extreme form, in place of national governments we just have decentralized units on the one hand for most issues and on the other hand we have elected world-level democratic institutions for existential issues and for those matters involving world-level justice-based cooperation.
Keeping in view many serious problems confronting our world, very noble precepts such as the entire earth being one family are sometimes mentioned as the basis for more enduring solutions. However only noble precepts will not take us very far, these must be moved further into more specific plans of action. This also should not be delayed for too long, keeping in view the enormity of the problems.
The most overwhelming as well as disturbing aspect of present-day world is that the difference between what is most urgently needed and what is actually happening was never as big as now. To give just one glaring example, the need for elimination of weapons of mass destruction was never as urgent as today but what we actually see is that the race for such weapons is accentuating and even the risk of actual use of these weapons is increasing, being probably at the highest point now.
The world is now in the middle of a survival crisis, caused by these weapons and about a dozen serious environmental problems including climate change. Most of these environmental problems have tipping points which must not be crossed, yet in some important contexts we are moving away from and not closer to protecting the most essential, basic life-nurturing conditions of our planet.
At a time when for its own sake as well for resolving other life-threatening problems, the need for a no-war future is greater than ever before, big powers have this madness of inviting the most destructive wars and proxy wars which are actually entirely avoidable. At a time when the greatest international cooperation is needed for resolving life-threatening problems, we have a situation of the quest for world dominance leading to the world getting increasingly divided and drifting towards a high possibility of the most destructive wars.
Hence now more than ever before, the urgency of re-shaping and re-creating the world on the basis of peace, justice, equality and environment protection is greater than ever before, this being planned in ways that can resolve the survival crisis before it is too late. In fact the need for justice, equality, peace and protection of environment, briefly JEPP, has always been there in all human history. The same compelling need exists today also, with the important difference that this has to be taken forward in such ways that the destruction of life-nurturing conditions is prevented. Another way of stating this would be that the survival objective is achieved, or that the survival or S agenda is added to the JEPP agenda, making it JEPPS (for easier communication and understanding).
For this suitable values and value-systems should be created extensively all over the world, value systems based on justice, equality, non-discrimination, peace and harmony, non-violence and protection of environment and also on honesty, sincerity, truth and loving, creative, fulfilling social relations. This can be achieved at the level of education above all but also at the level of families and communities. If such efforts are made extensively and sincerely for about a decade or so, this can lead to very important and desirable changes.
In addition, structural and governance changes at world-level are needed. Socrates said, “I am not a citizen of Athens, not a citizen of Greece, I am a citizen of world.” A time may have come today to give much more attention to this most basic identity of human beings which unfortunately is also the most neglected. Most members of humanity have been identifying themselves more in terms of national, regional and religious (unfortunately even narrower racial and caste-based) identities than the most essential one of being citizens of world. The survival crisis too is related to this to an important extent.
Finding solutions to survival problems involve much higher cooperation of humanity living in all parts of world and saying a firm ‘no’ to all future wars and to the race for highly destructive weapons related to wars. Only then—and in accompanying conditions of peace and non-violence in everyday life– can humanity be free to use its enormous creativity for resolving the most serious environmental problems.
This is close to the beautiful concepts of ‘earth without borders’ and ‘universe as family’ which are generally not criticized but dismissed as being unrealistic and too idealist and far-fetched. However our deeply troubled world is likely to need more idealism, and if the problems of survival crisis are unprecedented then we may need solutions which were considered far-fetched earlier.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Man over Machine.
