Glen T. Martin

Grand Global Peace Meet, Hyderabad, India, 9 January 2015

In Lucknow, the City Montessori School has a saying “Jai Jagat,” which means “Hail the World.” This appears to me as very appropriate because we need to realize that we are one humanity, one world, and one species living on a fragile and endangered planet. We need to be in the habit of hailing our one world, and focusing on it, and not allowing ourselves to be distracted by everyday practical affairs and petty demands on our time.

Our planet is now writhing in pain.  It is writhing in the pain of weapons, hatred, fear, greed, violence, and confusion. How are we going to transform all this to peace and sustainability?  One fundamental answer is “World Parliament.” A World Parliament will function as the supreme law-making body for the world. It will be able to enact environmental laws that control the behavior of multinational corporations and sovereign nation-states who now put political and economic considerations above peace or protecting the ecological health of our planet. It will be able to enact laws requiring disarmament of the nations. If we have the rule of enforceable law on the Earth, in which disputes can be handled by mediation or effectively through the courts, then we will have no need of armies. Civilian World Police can enforce planetary laws without the need of weapons of war.

 Consider the nature of law itself: In contrast to what people often believe, law is not just a negative force prohibiting us from doing this or that.  Much the opposite. The law is what makes peace and social coordination possible for all complex societies.  The law establishes our human equality before the law. Itprotectsus in innumerable ways. It also enables human flourishing.

 The law enables us to get an education, to marry, to establish a business or a charity, to secure accomplishments like educational degrees, to travel with safety, to have electricity, clean water, pure food, and other necessities of life.  The law protects our rights and provides due process even against false accusations by government or authorities.  The law protects and provides for the future. Legislatures attempt to pass laws with the probable consequences for the future that are thoroughly debated and thought out. Ultimately, only the law can protect and promote peace, justice, and sustainability for the Earth and make possible a flourishing life for all the world’s citizens.

Three are three main forces destroying these positive functions of law for the world:

• The system of sovereign nation-states. The nations must give up the lawless “absolute sovereignty” and accept limitations on sovereignty under the rule of a democratic World Parliament. Swami Chaturvedi came up with the brilliant term “Associate Sovereignty.” We must promote a system of nations in which they agree on “associate sovereignty” rather than absolute sovereignty, in which they join together under the common authority of a World Parliament. Only such a Parliament would be able to bring peace among the nations and systematically begin the process of disarmament and conversion to the rule of enforceable law for the adjudication of disputes.

• Multinational corporations.  These often have resources greater than small nations.  They buy up the resources of poor nations, colonize the governments, bribe and corrupt officials, and exploit the land and cheap labor in the service of private wealthy investors in the rich nations. Only the rule of law under a constitutionally protected World Parliament can bring these rogue elements under control for the common good of the future and the people of Earth. Under enforceable world law, corporate infrastructure and expertise could be used to promote the common good of people everywhere. No force other than an effective World Parliament can make this happen.

• International criminal organizations.  In a world of fragmented sovereign nation-states and rogue multinational corporations, criminal activity can flourish with impunity. There is little enforceable law that can be applied effectively, for the world system is hopelessly fragmented, creating ungovernable spaces where criminals can flourish. There are vast organizations engaged in human trafficking, human slavery, international terrorism, international weapons sales, etc.  These can only be stopped through the rule of enforceable world law under a World Parliament representing the common good of everyone on the Earth.

These three aspects of the lawlessness of our current world system are all overcome through the creation of a World Parliament. Nation-states will no longer be able to violate world law with impunity, for their leaders will be subject to arrest and prosecution like anybody else. Corporations will no longer ravage the world in search of profit maximization for the same reason: violators of world laws will be arrested and prosecuted. International criminal organizations will find no more international “no-man’s land” within which to operate. Their organizations will be disbanded and the perpetrators brought to justice.

The World Parliament articulated within the Earth Constitution has three houses: the House of Peoples, the House of Nations, and the House of Counsellors. Under the authority of the Parliament operates the World Court System, the World Administration, the World Police, and the World Ombudsmus, which is mandated to protect human rights everywhere on Earth.

• The House of Peoples will have one representative elected from 1000 electoral districts worldwide, roughly equivalent by population.  That means here in Hyderabad you would have one representative for this city alone in the House of Peoples.

• The House of Nations has 1, 2, or 3 representatives from each nation depending on population.  So a big country like India would have 3 representatives in the House of Nations as this is defined by the Earth Constitution.

• The House of Counsellors has 200 representatives, 10 each elected from 20 magna-regions around the world. Candidates for this house are nominated by faculty and students in institutions of higher learning around the world and elected by a combined session of the other two houses. The purpose of the House of Counsellors is to have experts and thinkers in the Parliament who represent the whole of humanity and the Earth and who are knowledgeable in areas like the environment, disarmament, human rights, etc.

The World Parliament under the Constitution for the Federation of Earth provides social, political, and economic solutions to our planetary problems.

• Socially it unites humanity and provides coordination and a cohesive vision of the future.  Everyone becomes a legal world citizen and participates before the law in the global vision of a peaceful, just, and sustainable future for humanity. In the World Parliament, every nation is represented by one or more delegates according to population, the peoples of Earth are represented directly from electoral districts around the planet, and the common good of the whole is represented by the House of Counsellors.

• Politically, the World Parliament for the first time in human history makes possible a dialogue directed toward mutual understanding among the members of the Parliament.  No longer fragmentation and selfish interests but the real impetus to solve our planetary problems through understanding both the problems and the many impediments that we face in solving them. In effect the World Parliament provides the Earth with a brain for the first time: a legitimately chosen group of people responsible to establish peace, justice, and sustainability for our planet. This group has the political power (the legitimate authority) to establish enforceable laws for our planet that protect human rights, disarm the nations, and create sustainability as the basis for all human activities.

• Economically the World Parliament will be enacting legislation in accordance with the Earth Constitution’s mandate of a Global Public Banking system in Article 8 that serves sustainable development everywhere on Earth and serves the people of Earth to end scarcity, poverty, and destructive practices.  Under global public banking the 1% who now control 50% of the world’s wealth will be quickly displaced and money creation and banking will be in the service of peace, justice, and sustainability.  The World Parliament will be enacting specific laws to enable and empower the global public banking system in service to humanity and the future.

It should be clear why a World Parliament under the Earth Constitution is the need of the hour. It will have immense and transformative consequences for the social, political, and economic future of the Earth as outlined here. It will be able to apply social, political, and economic solutions to our immense planetary problems that the present world system, including the U.N., is utterly incapable of doing. A World Parliament, however, to be effective in this way, must be part of a larger system that includes world courts, world police, a world administration, etc. That is why the World Parliament must be established through the ratification of the Earth Constitution. The Constitution will provide the framework for the Parliament to effectively transform the world system into a peace, justice, and sustainability system.