sovereigntyunbegq

8/7/2019 sovereigntyunbegq

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Peter Singer ends his book One World with the following paragraph:

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are celebrated for the voyages of discovery that proved that theworld is round. The eighteenth century saw the first proclamations of universal human rights. Thetwentieth centurys conquest of space made it possible for a human being to look at our planet from apoint not on it, an so to see it, literally, as one world. Now the twenty-first century faces the task of

developing a suitable form of government for that single world. It is a daunting moral and intellectualchallenge, but one we cannot refuse to take up. The future of the world depends on how well we meetit.

And so I would like to help set about meeting this challenge. The only suitable formof government it seems prima facie would have to be one that is self-determined.The people in it need to represent the interests of those that have voted them intothe position of power.

The concept of sovereignty established at the Peace of Westphalia and widelyfollowed in Western civilization has been replaced. We could call it globalsovereignty, for it is really what we mean. We mean that for the state, thesovereignty is recognized by other states (preferably with constraints issued on whoexactly would qualify for the condition of being a sovereign). This has meant inpractical terms however a great reduction in the rights of sovereigns over the lastfive hundred years.

We also mean by global sovereignty the sovereignty of some future group of peoples or constitutions that will be the next transition from the Hobbesian state of nature that the global situation has been in since the peace of Westphalia. It isunclear at present who this new sovereign will be, or what it will be like, or even if itwill be. I do not think the third question is actually a serious question because I see

no practical alternative plan to a global sovereign with the ability to enforce certainlaws (perhaps laws against genocide, laws against terrorism). It is assumed thatthe Hobbesian global individuals (as groups of people as represented in some polisthat is sufficiently self-determined) on the global state of nature would find itrational to seek peace but be prepared for war and to see that his fellow globalindividuals are similar in nature to him, seeking their interest first. For manyhundreds of years, perhaps thousands of years, this is what the legitimatesovereign did, he traded security for obedience. It made sense for those in thecontinuous state of war to hand over their right to do whatever they pleased so longas they got some protection. This was motivated in part by even the largest amongthem understanding that the weakest can still kill him, he has to rest at some point.We have reached this stage globally, between global individuals. We nowunderstand that even the strongest among our global individuals can be severelydamaged by the weakest among us.

No, I think it all but clear there will be a global sovereign in place with the moral,legal and practical authority to act under certain circumstances, i.e. greathumanitarian disasters, genocide, sexual slavery, terrorism. But what should thisglobal sovereign be? What should its goals be? World peace? At what cost? Justice?


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By whose standards? Singer argues persuasively that for world justice to evenapproach the realm of the possible, world poverty must be eradicated. If the richest900 million people in the worlds richest nations each gave one percent of theirincome to legitimate aid agencies, then world hunger would disappear in fifteenyears. So do the developed nations owe the lesser fortunate nations anything,

especially if the luckier of the nations is simply that, lucky. They happen to live in ageographic region that supports life easily, like the American breadbasket acrossthe United States.

The new sovereignty is really the age old sovereign desire to rule over oneself. Thisdesire to rule over oneself is discussed by Socrates in his exhortation to KnowThyself and by By creating a world of self-determined individuals we can achieveworld peace. How to get self-determined? Use time zones. We could call it theUnited Time Zones of the Earth or UTZE. The idea is that each time zone is full of different peoples from different hemispheres and certainly different countries andcommunities within the Time Zone. The UTZE should look like the US Congress: aHouse for the proportionate representation for a given Time Zones population and aSenate where perhaps six or so members from each Time Zone are elected. Thatthis plan would of course cause radical change is significant to the idea. It wouldcause a radical redirection for the human species to start thinking of themselves asindividuals of the planet, not as citizens of any particular state, but as humans onthe planet voting for a direct representative voice at the UTZE. I do not proposethis organization handle all or even most disputes between states or groups of people however they may be formed. This organizations main goal should be thesecurity of the members of each of the Time Zones. And it would be thisorganizations job to raise a military that could intervene in any of the groups of

people on the planet if deemed necessary by a two thirds majority of the UTZE.These would be acts so grievous that they shock the moral conscience of mankind.Most political problems can and should be handled locally, or as the lowest level of government necessary to solve the problem. Traffic violations dont need thePresidents attention. But certain things, have and do.

The United Nations has proved that part of this model can work. The basic problemof the United Nations is that it is conceptually flawed. The world is not made up of nations and certainly not nation-states. This is clearly a Western political termfoisted onto other groups of people around the world through colonialization and itsafter effects. This is how of course we end up with a situation like Iraq. It is three

separate ethnic groups that want to be together and should be allowed to do so.They are not being allowed self-determination. At some point they will have to be,and the UTZE is a good way to propose an alternate start to global sovereignty.

I do not shy away from the term global sovereign. I do not envisage a monster assome would have us believe. We can design a constitution that secures our rightsas individuals of the global community which is the situation we now find ourselvesin, not in relation to other individuals, but in relation to states.


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As we increasingly see ourselves as citizens of the world, which international traveland the internet are going to provide the human race with another Tower of Babel,then we need a manner to express that as individuals, not with our states acting asour proxies.

No State Proxies: The UTZE and the humans last chance for freedomThe classical Westphalian concept of sovereignty only helps wealthy individuals andpowerful individuals who have over taken the state in their service. The individualwho sees himself as a citizen of the world must cease to see himself obviously of this or that nation, but of this or that district. And the district must deal with itsproblems, from North to South. State boundaries would mean little, as statesovereignty will have needed to erode so badly by then that persons wont mindfunds going from their part of the hemisphere to another part of the hemispherethat needs it more. This would of course be a giant redistribution of wealth scheme.But it doesnt have to be. It could also eventually lead to a conflict between Time

Zones and within districts. It seems though the rivalries may be different, theproblems may remain the same.

But heres the thing. Self-determination. I cant seem to get away from it. Manyglobal problem I see, from environmental to terrorist, to the distribution of goods,comes down to self-determination . But it has to be a specific type of self-determination. It has to be a self-determination of the individual to live where he isliving, working the job that he wants to work (for economic necessity or for otherreasons), raise his family where he wants to raise them and pray (or not) the wayhe wants to pray. This self-determination of the individual though cannot directlyharm other individuals, for example a parent could not use female genital mutilationon an adolescent daughter. But it is this self-determination that every humanseeks. If he cannot get it at work, he will look for it at home. If not there, then inreligion perhaps. But it is the individuals right, as the privilege of being an adulthuman being, to live ones life as one sees fit.

Obviously this would mean a major shift in global politics. The only way to makethe global shift from the emphasis on the state to the emphasis on the individualwould be to somehow make the individuals of the globe members of somerepresentative organization not based on anything racial, or class or resources, justproximity. This could force that major shift of the states away from themselves andof the individual back to himself. Man Is a self seeking, self serving dominator andexploiter of his environment. But it Is clear to all but the simple minded that in trulyseeking to serve himself, man wants to act in his enlightened self-interest, not hisimmediate gratification. And it is clearly in mans enlightened self-interest that hebe self-determined.

Russias stranglehold over Checnya that the United States tolerates in exchange forRussias tolerance of Iraq is another all too common example of the failure of self-


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determination. The Chechnyans have been separate from Russia before, havewanted to be for a long time and have tried to be repeatedly. They share littlenational characteristics. The Chechnyans have a separate religion, language andethnic heritage than the Russians but unfortunately possess one thing the Russiansreally do want, a port on the Black Sea. So after the fall of the Soviet Union when

many former satellite states were being allowed to go their own way, Chechnyatried, but failed, it was held in a death grip by the dying Soviet Union and the UnitedStates let them go, because we had our own strangleholds for our own politicalpurposes going on. But self-determination has been denied the Chechnyans. TheKurds in Turkey, the Basques in Spain, groups all over the believe they want to beindependent of whoever their ruler happens to be. It has been denied in Africawhere global corporations take the resources of the continent while leaving most of its people in poverty. It has been denied in Central and South America for much of the same reasons. The states need to protect itself.

Well, states, especially legitimate states, may have a right to protect themselvesfrom those that would overthrow them. They may even have a right to protectthemselves from those that would threaten them by their lawlessness. But underthe new definition of sovereignty, one that dictates the state care for the welfare of its people, should (and how could) the coming modern state protect itself from theanarchists, for there will be resistors, as there are now. But the anarchists wont bethe only threats. We would eventually have to deal with corruption at the highestlevels.

The state system will fail. The UTZE is a good system to replace it. If begun now, itcould be operational at a humanitarian and crisis level soon and by the time thecoming battle between the states, as the Time Zones are jostling amongstthemselves, there would then be plainly seen the need for a global sovereign,someone to settle disputes, enforce laws. And then the people of the world will havegiven their self-determination over to a rational system that should ensure theirsafety and minimal security. Until then, the people of the world have littleconfidence in the present system. It is old. It is European. It is time for a differentmanner of approaching global organization. Perhaps the UTZE is not the perfectanswer to this problem, but I do believe fulfillment of self-determination is theproblem and most individuals need to experience it. And that it is clearly lacking inour current relationship to the United Nations. My guess would be that most peoplereading this paper would no more think they have a voice at the United Nations

then that they have a voice at the World Trade Organization. Of course somepeople have a voice at the UN. Actually, many thousands of people have voices atthe UN. But that is not the point. The point is the average citizen of the world doesnot feel connected to the UN the way they might feel about being connected totheir community rulers. They may not feel connected to them either, but there isan avenue to get their attention through legitimate channels if one needs theattention of ones senator for example. The average citizen of the world cannot ask


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to speak to someone at the UN. Who represents him? If he goes to his delegation,unless he is a wealthy or powerful man they do not want to hear what his thoughtsare. Thus the disconnect. This is what makes most of us uncomfortable about theidea of a global government how will they answer to me? And who will they answerto ? And the bogeyman in the closet, what if it turns out to be a tyranny? What if

they get too much control? A serious question indeed. It is probably this fear thatkeep more political theorists from working on it. How do we build it so that it is not atyranny, and cannot turn into one? Or is there some other safeguard we couldmake.

As stated above, the UTZE would start off as a sovereign emergency aid responseunit. Over time, it could be made into more. Emergency could be reinterpreted tomean something that we would view as a trivial threat. This slippery slope needs tobe acknowledged, but does it have no stopping point? Is there no where we canpoint to that would say the line of argument needs to stop here. Perhaps bydefining emergency carefully. Immediate physical threats and such. But even then,provisions could and more than likely would get added over the years. How wouldwe make so that no tyranny could take place. By keeping it self-determined.Tyranny is not in anyones enlightened self-interest. But how do we insure personsact out of enlightened self-interest? This may be the most difficult part of thestruggle. It may in fact not even be possible.

But if it is not possible, then what does this say about our global sovereignty? Is thecertain belief that some humans at some point in the future will not use theirenlightened self-interest and will do things that will harm groups of people, or do weforget all about the possibility because there would be a legitimate chance at atyranny coming about at some point. Or at least a tyrannical individuals or groupsof individuals. But these groups are relatively small to the world as a whole, and if that difference in population can keep those with tyrannical tendencies in check,there might still be something that could be worked out here. Perhaps the globe, asin vibrant open societies now, could withstand some fringe elements. As for thepoint that if the checks dont work at this level, its too high of a risk, well, I wouldhave to agree with that. But I think the checks would work. And I certainly thinktheyd work better at solving problems for individuals than organizations like theUnited Nations whose primary concern is the protection of the de facto state. Theglobe is made up of individuals and groups of peoples. Most of which dont properlyfall under the term state, unless we simply mean someone with the authority to use

force to get them to obey. And then yes, most of the globe is living under this sortof political arrangement.

The global sovereign seems an historical near certainty. We need to usher it in withintelligence and frame it so that it carefully protects human rights as it evolves.The task at hand is one like the Continental Conventions in early American historywhere the framers had to get together through the hot Philadelphia summers in


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order to get something together that would be acceptable to most and that wouldwork. These should be our criteria as well.

This is about the change in sovereignty since Westphalia and the decline of the nation statethus rendering the United Nations, and other global organizations obsolete. To express self determination in the future we will need a different organization than one that representsstates. I suggest a globally elected representative body much like Congress, based on timezones (because they are random vis a vis human prejudice). The United Time Zones of theEarth then (Or UTZE) should be formed so that there is a global body that has a claim tosovereignty because it is self-determined and thus has a claim to override the current statesystem. It is a conceptual framework for us to use as we work our way out of the statesystem into a global system. And I love all the problems associated with it (the fighting thatwould be caused by corporations and governments scrambling).

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