RESOLUTION BY UNITED WORLD FEDERALISTS FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY, ST. LOUIS, Mo., NOVEMBER 1-2, 1947 Resolved, That a world federal government must initially be based upon the following principles and include the following powers: PRINCIPLES (1) Membership: Participation in the world federal government should be open at all times to all nations without the right of secession. (2) Reservation of powers: All powers not delegated to the world federal government should be reserved to the nations and their peoples in order to guarantee to each nation its right to maintain its own domestic, political, economic, social, and religious institutions. (3) Enforcement of world law: World law should be enforceable directly upon individuals. (4) Balanced representation: Representation in the legislative body should be determined upon a just formula recognizing population, economic development, educational level and other relevant factors; each representative to vote as an individual. (5) Bill of rights: The world constitution should include a bill of rights assuring equal and adequate protection to persons affected by the constitution and laws of the world federal government. (6) Revenue: The world federal government should have authority to raise dependable revenue under a carefully defined and limited but direct taxing power independent of national taxation. (7) Amendments: Reasonable provisions should be made for amendment of the constitution. POWERS Such legislative, executive, and judicial powers as may be found necessary to the preservation of peace should be delegated to the world federal government. These should certainly include at least the following provisions which should be incorportated in the world constitution itself: (1) Provisions prohibiting the possession by any nation of armaments and forces beyond an approved level required for internal policing. (2) Provisions requiring control by the world federal government of the dangerous aspects of atomic energy development and of other scientific developments easily diverted to mass destruction. (3) Provisions requiring such world inspection, police and armed forces as may be necessary to enforce world law and provide world security. (4) Other powers: We recognize that although some world federalists believe that such limited powers would be sufficient as a beginning, others are convinced that any world organization to be effective, even at the start, must have broader powers to bring about peaceful change in the direction of a free and prosperous world community. Such differences as exist among world federalists on this point are mainly questions of timing. There is full agreement that we should move as rapidly as possible to a world federal government with authority and power to legislate on other basic causes of international conflict. COMMITTEE TO FRAME A WORLD CONSTITUTION: PRELIMINARY DRAFT OF A WORLD CONSTITUTION, PUBLISHED MARCH 1948 PREAMBLE The people of the earth having agreed that the advancement of man in spiritual excellence and physical welfare that universal peace is the prerequisite for the pursuit of that goal; that justice in turn is the prerequisite of peace, and peace and justice stand or fall together; that iniquity and war inseparably spring from the competitive anarchy of the national states; and the era of humanity begin; the governments of the nations have decided in one government of justice, to which they surrender their arms; and to establish, as they do establish, as the covenant and fundamental law DECLARATION OF DUTIES AND RIGHTS The universal government of justice as covenanted and pledged in this Constitution is founded on the Rights of Man. The principles underlying the Rights of Man are and shall be permanently stated in the Duty of everyone everywhere, whether a citizen sharing in the responsibilities and privileges of World Government or a ward and pupil of the World Commonwealth: to serve with word and deed, and with productive labor according to his ability, the spiritual and physical advancement of the living and of those to come, as the common cause of all generations of men; to do unto others as he would like others to do unto him; to abstain from violence, except for the repulse of violence as commanded or granted under law. B In the context therefore of social duty and service, and in conformity with the unwritten law which philosophies and religions alike called the Law of Nature and which the Republic of the World shall strive to see universally written and enforced by positive law: it shall be the right of everyone everywhere to claim and maintain for himself and his fellowmen: release from the bondage of poverty and from the servitude and exploitation of labor, with rewards and security according to merit and needs; freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, in any creed or party or craft, within the pluralistic unity and purpose of the World Republic; protection of individuals and groups against subjugation and tyrannical rule, racial or national, doctrinal or cultural, with safeguards for the selfdetermination of minorities and dissenters; and any such other freedoms and franchises as are inherent in man's inalienable claims to life, liberty, and the dignity of the human person, and as the legislators and judges of the World Republic shall express and specify. C The four elements of life-earth, water, air, energy-are the common property of the human race. The management and use of such portions thereof as are vested in or assigned to particular ownership, private or corporate or national or regional, of definite or indefinite tenure, of individualist or collectivist economy, shall be subordinated in each and all cases to the interest of the common good. GRANT OF POWERS The jurisdiction of the World Government as embodied in its organs of power shall extend to: (a) The control of the observance of the Constitution in all the component communities and territories of the Federal World Republic, which shall be indivisible and one; (b) The furtherance and progressive fulfillment of the Duties and Rights of Man in the spirit of the foregoing Declaration, with their specific enactment in such fields of federal and local relations as are described hereinafter [Art. 27 through 33]; (c) The maintenance of peace; and to that end the enactment and promulgation of laws which shall be binding upon communities and upon individuals as well, (d) the judgment and settlement of any conflicts among component units, with prohibition of recourse to interstate violence, (e) the superivision of and final decision on any alterations of boundaries between states or unions thereof, (f) the supervision of and final decision on the forming of new states or unions thereof, (g) the administration of such territories as may still be immature for selfgovernment, and the declaration in due time of their eligibility therefor, (h) the intervention in intrastate violence and violations of law which affect world peace and justice, (i) the organization and disposal of the federal armed forces, (j) the limitation and control of weapons and of the domestic militias in the several component units of the World Republic; (k) The establishment, in addition to the Special Bodies listed hereinafter [Art. 8 and 9], of such other agencies as may be conducive to the development of the earth's resources and to the advancement of physical and intellectual standards, with such advisory or initiating or arbitrating powers as shall be determined by law; (1) The laying and collecting of federal taxes, and the establishment of a plan and a budget for federal expenditures, (m) the administration of the World Bank and the establishment of suitable world fiscal agencies for the issue of money and the creation and control of credit, (n) the regulation of commerce affected with federal interest, (0) the establishment, regulation, and where necessary or desirable, the operation of means of transportation and communication which are of federal interest; (p) The supervision and approval of laws concerning emigration and immigration and the movements of peoples, (q) the granting of federal passports; (r) The appropriation, under the right of eminent domain, of such private or public property as may be necessary for federal use, reasonable compensation being made therefor; (s) The legislation over and administration of the territory which shall be chosen as Federal District and of such other territories as may be entrusted directly to the Federal Government. 2 The powers not delegated to the World Government by this Constitution, and not prohibited by it to the several members of the Federal World Republic, shall be reserved to the several states or nations or unions thereof. THE FEDERAL CONVENTION, THE PRESIDENT, THE LEGISLATURE The sovereignty of the Federal Republic of the World resides in the people of the world. The primary powers of the World Government shall be vested in: (a) the Federal Convention, (b) the President, (c) the Council and the Special Bodies, (d) the Grand Tribunal, the Supreme Court, and the Tribune of the People, (e) the Chamber of Guardians. 4 The Federal Convention shall consist of delegates elected directly by the people of all states and nations, one delegate for each million of population or fraction thereof above one-half million, with the proviso that the people of any extant state, recognized as sovereign in 1945, and ranging between 100,000 and 1,000,000, shall be entitled to elect one delegate, but any such state with a population below 100,000 shall be aggregated for federal electoral purposes to the electoral unit closest to its borders. The delegates to the Federal Convention shall vote as individuals, not as members of national or otherwise collective representations; [except as specified hereinafter, Art. 46, paragraph 2, and Art. 47]. The Convention shall meet in May of every third year, for a session of thirty days. 5 The Federal Convention shall subdivide into nine Electoral Colleges according to the nine Societies of kindred nations and cultures, or Regions, wherefrom its members derive their powers, such Regions being: (1) the continent of Europe and its islands outside the Russian area, together with the United Kingdom if the latter so decides, and with such Overseas English- or French- or Cape Dutch-speaking communities of the British Commonwealth of Nations or the French Union as decide to associate (this whole area here tentatively denominated Europa); (2) the United States of America, with the United Kingdom if the latter so decides, and such kindred communities of British, or Franco-British, or Dutch-British, or Irish civilization and lineage as decide to associate (Atlantis); (3) Russia, European and Asiatic, with such East-Baltic or Slavic or SouthDanubian nations as associate with Russia (Eurasia); (4) the Near and Middle East, with the states of North Africa, and Pakistan if the latter so decides (Afrasia); (5) Africa, south of the Sahara, with or without the South African Union as the latter may decide; (6) India, with Pakistan if the latter so decides; (7) China, Korea, Japan, with the associate archipelagoes of the Northand Mid-Pacific (Asia Major); (8) Indochina and Indonesia, with Pakistan if the latter so decides, and with such other Mid- and South-Pacific lands and islands as decide to associate (Austrasia); (9) the Western Hemisphere south of the United States (Columbia). Each Electoral College shall nominate by secret ballot not more than three candidates, regardless of origin, for the office of President of the World Republic. The Federal Convention in plenary meeting, having selected by secret ballot a panel of three candidates from the lists submitted, shall elect by secret ballot one of the three as President, on a majority of two-thirds. If three consecutive ballots have been indecisive, the candidate with the smallest vote shall be eliminated and between the two remaining candidates a simple majority vote shall be decisive. 6 Each Electoral College shall then nominate by secret and proportional ballot twenty-seven candidates, originating from the respective Electoral Area or Region, for the World Council; with the proviso that one-third and not more than one-third of the nominees shall not be members of the Federal Convention; and the nine lists having been presented to the Federal Convention, the Federal Convention in plenary meeting shall select by secret and proportional ballot nine Councilmen from each list, with the same proviso as above. The Federal Convention shall also elect by secret and proportional ballot, on nominations, prior to the opening of the Convention, by such organizations, of world-wide importance and lawfully active in more than three Regions, as shall be designated [for the first election by the United Nations Assembly and subsequently] by the Council, eighteen additional members, regardless of origin; and the total membership of the World Council shall be thus ninety-nine. 7 The primary power to initiate and enact legislation for the Federal Republic of the World shall be vested in the Council. The tenure of the Council shall be three years. The Council shall elect its Chairman, for its whole tenure of three years. 8 Within the first three years of World Government the Council and the President shall establish three Special Bodies, namely: (a) a House of Nationalities and States, with representatives from each, for the safeguarding of local institutions and autonomies and the protection of minorities; (b) a Syndical or functional Senate, for the representation of syndicates and unions or occupational associations and any other corporate interests of transnational significance, as well as for mediation or arbitration in non-justiciable issues among such syndicates or unions or other corporate interests; (c) an Institute of Science, Education and Culture; each of the three bodies with such membership and tenures and consultative or preparatory powers as shall be established by law and with no prejudice to the establishment of other advisory or technical agencies in accordance with the purposes stated herein before [Art. 1, k]. 9 Within its first year the World Government shall establish a Special Body, to be named Planning Agency, of twenty-one members appointed by the President, subject to vetoes by two thirds of the Council, for tenures of twelve years, [except that the terms for the initial membership shall be staggered by lot, with one-third of it, seven members, ceasing from office and being replaced every fourth year]. It shall be the function of the Planning Agency to envisage the income of the Federal Government and to prepare programs and budgets for expenditures, both for current needs and for long-range improvements. These programs and budgets shall be submitted by the President, with his recommendations, to the Council, as provided hereinafter [Art. 13]. Plans for improvement of the world's physical facilities, either public or private, and for the productive exploitation of resources and inventions shall be submitted to the Agency or to such Development Authorities or regional subagencies as it may establish. The Agency shall pass judgment on the social usefulness of such plans. Members of the Planning Agency shall not be re-eligible nor shall they, during their tenure in the Agency, have membership in any other federal body. 10 The executive power, together with initiating power in federal legislation, shall be vested in the President. His tenure shall be six years. The President shall not have membership in the Council. The President shall not be reeligible. He shall not be eligible to the Tribunate of the People until nine years have elapsed since the expiration of his term. No two successive Presidents shall originate from the same Region. 11 The President shall appoint a Chancellor. The Chancellor, with the approval of the President, shall appoint the Cabinet. The Chancellor shall act as the President's representative before the Council in the exercise of legislative initiative. The Chancellor and the Cabinet members shall have at any time the privilege of the floor before the Council. But no Chancellor or Cabinet member shall have a vote or shall hold membership in the Council, nor, if he was a member of the Council at the moment of his executive appointment, shall he be entitled to resume his seat therein when leaving the executive post unless he be reelected at a subsequent Convention. No one shall serve as Chancellor for more than six years, nor as Cabinet member for more than twelve, consecutive or not. No three Cabinet members at any one time and no two successive Chancellors shall originate from the same Region. The Council shall have power to interrogate the Chancellor and the Cabinet and to adopt resolutions on their policies. The Chancellor and the Cabinet shall resign when the President so decides or when a vote of no confidence by the absolute majority of fifty or more of the |