Leading the way towards a World Government

Outline plan

Outline Plan.

1. Long Term Aim.

The aim is to have a world government with full executive, judicial and legislative powers democratically elected not by the nations but by the peoples of the nations. It will be a parliament of parties with differing agendas. Only parties based on racial or nationalist agendas will be barred from participation.

Like the directors of a company whose first responsibility is to the welfare of the company rather than to its individual shareholders, the members of the world’s parliament give their allegiance to, and work for, the benefit of humankind. The citizens of a small province can vote for the members of the local town or district council and also vote quite separately to elect representatives to a parliament that will govern the whole nation. Loyalty can be given to the nation without betraying the best interest of the province. So too can a nation’s citizens vote for a democratic world government without betraying the best interests of their nation.

2. Execution –General Outline.

Much of the theoretical work on the feasibility and the actual mechanics of democratic world government (DWG) has already been done by other organizations and individuals who, for many years, have been working towards this same objective. (See "Links.") As a result, Sapiens needs not concern itself with the technical constitutional arrangements of DWG – at least until such time as the demand for such a DWG is universally audible.

The work of these many and diverse mundialist organizations inevitably increases global awareness of the need for DWG as a prerequisite to a solution of the many problems of the environment, war, poverty, health and human rights that currently occupy the attention of thousands of NGOs around the world. Sapiens will contribute to this growing awareness both by its own activities and by cooperating wherever it can with other mundialist organizations who have the same goal in mind but who might be seeking it along different routes.

Sapiens has chosen to follow a dual strategy of its own.

Sapiens’ first approach is to use what Professors Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss calls the “Interstate Treaty Process” (ITP) (See “Articles.”) This will involve persuading, through internal political pressure, a group of between 20-30, not necessarily contiguous, national governments to set the ball rolling by voluntarily surrendering certain aspects of national sovereignty to a federal, supranational body. Key such aspects would be the right to adversely affect areas of the environment held in common and the right to deploy armed forces beyond national frontiers. The intention being that, if the initial federation is successful, it will become increasingly easy to persuade other nations to join.

Sapiens’ second approach is to form an alliance with a Canadian based mundialist organization, Vote World Government, (VWG) which is dedicated to using referenda to demonstrate a massive global grassroots demand for DWG. If the VWG strategy is successful, the external pressure generated by popular global demand will provide additional leverage for Sapiens’ internal lobbyists. The success or otherwise of either Sapiens or VWG is not dependent on that of the other – but each would greatly benefit from the other’s success.

3. The Interstate Treaty Process.

The most obvious starting point would appear to be in democratic countries with an MMP or similar electoral system. Here small parties are more open to new ideas than in First-Past-the-Post systems and have the potential to lever greater influence. The smaller the country concerned, the more rapidly the goal is likely to be achieved. Aotearoa/New Zealand (A/NZ) is an obvious choice of starting point. Sapiens NZ will work to have its programme included in a minor party’s platform contesting the elections scheduled for 2008. Even if the whole idea of ITP is not specifically put forward at this stage, an attempt will be made to prepare the ground for modifications to the nation’s defence and environmental policies that will make the later adoption of ITP appear that much less radical.

At the same time, Sapiens will be looking to recruit activist opinion leaders in other countries (democratic, relatively small and with a significant section of the population not committed to alignment with any super-power) deemed most susceptible to initial membership of an ITP.

The goal, in a democracy such as A/NZ’s, can only be achieved through both carefully targeted lobbying and through a massive mobilisation of grassroots support for an ITP and ultimately a DWG. It can be anticipated that the political leadership of any country will be reluctant to sacrifice any of their freedom of action to an ITP even in the face of massive electorate demand.

In the early stages of the campaign success will be dependent on successful advocacy to opinion leaders: members of the media, politicians, academics, scientists, NGO activists, business leaders and professionals. This core of support will be approached and will in its turn assist in furthering the movement’s aims, through the standard mechanisms of influencing opinion – writing articles, making presentations, press releases etc. The ITP concept has to be accepted by the mainstream of A/NZ society and as such, at this stage, Sapiens will avoid involvement in demonstrations and other such traditional “activist” activity that could lead to Sapiens being viewed as a fringe movement in the eyes of the majority.

Many of those most inclined to participate actively in alleviating global problems are already involved in NGOs dedicated to alleviating various symptoms of the current anarchic globalisation. To access this important group of potential allies, Sapiens plans to establish sub-sites on the Web offering a service to NGOs dealing with specific areas. The first such site is www.sapienspromise.org that deals with the peaceful resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian problem.

4. Alliances.

Sapiens, with a view to access to information, contacts and general harmonisation of effort, will align itself and cooperate with as many mundialist organizations and coalitions as will accept it.

In particular, it will work closely with other organizations which have the same goal and which are actively following separate but complimentary routes to its achievement. The first of these will be a Canadian organization called Vote World Government. (See “Links.”) VWG is working on a worldwide referendum for DWG that is designed by 2015 to have collected such a vast number of signatures that national governments will have difficulty ignoring it. At the some time it is working to provide legal opinions that can argue the binding nature of such a popular vote. Campaigning on behalf of VWG’s petition, will greatly assist Sapiens in bringing its DWG message to public notice in the countries in which it is active.

VWG and Sapiens, in the course of their campaigning, will recruit many members to the mundialist cause for whom there will be little active work available to retain their continued interest and commitment. It is under current discussion to form an umbrella group, the “Campaign for DWG,” that will embrace a group of compatible and active mundialist organizations. One such member organization would be a specialist organization looking after the growing membership and able to mobilise it for particular actions when required by other groups.

5. Key Success Factors.

Sapiens’ success or failure in its pursuit of DWG will be mainly dependant on the following factors some of which are outside Sapiens’ control:-

The onset of increasingly frequent crises alarming the population and the governments of smaller nations and sensitising them to the DWG message.
The parallel success or failure and the support of other DWG dedicated organizations, particularly that of VWG.
An ability to recruit the right calibre of membership and officers with a view to generating a powerful lobby.
The ability to raise substantial funds.
The extent and the effectiveness of the dedicated opposition that the DWG movement will face. There are exceptionally powerful groups, including the governing elites of the superpowers and their clients, who benefit from the current international anarchy and who will actively oppose the DWG movement should it be seen to be gaining traction. Additional opposition can be anticipated from some of the more fundamental religious factions.
It will ultimately become a struggle between the privileged and the underprivileged. With world population set to increase from 6 to 9 billion in the next 50 years, and with the probable onset of increasing crises as a result of the current mismanagement, the ratio of under-privileged to privileged is likely to increase – both among the developed and the developing nations.

6. Time scale: vision statement

a.) Phase I: three years from Oct 2005.

By the end of 2008:-

The Sapiens objectives will have been extensively aired within New Zealand and possibly included on the platform of at least one of the contending political parties, in the NZ general election scheduled for that year. At least 20% of the NZ population will be vaguely familiar with the DWG proposal.
The New Zealand membership will be at least 1000 strong with at least 5% of that number being from the media, at least 10% being academics and school teachers and at least 20% drawn from the professions and business. It will be seen as mainstream rather than a fringe advocacy group.
Overseas membership will be at least half the NZ level. At least 40% of that membership will be drawn from political activists and social entrepreneurs.
Overseas members will have established active Sapiens branches in at least 10 of the initial 30 countries that by then will have been selected as targets for possible inclusion in the initial, ITP group of pioneer federalist countries.
At least three subsidiary Websites on the http://www.sapienspromise.org/ model will be actively contributing to the work of NGOs active in other fields - and in doing so, attracting their members’ attention to the main Sapiens mission.
Sapiens will have an active and efficient board structure and the ability to call on substantial voluntary intelligent support from its highly motivated membership. Committees will be dealing effectively with legal, promotional, fund-raising and planning targets.
Cooperation with VWG in its project for a global referendum on DWG will be well in hand. Such a referendum will have started in NZ with a view to completion by 2010 and have started, but be less advanced, in at least 10 other of the countries selected for inclusion in the initial group of federation members.
Cooperation with VWG will have been formalised in an umbrella group. This will already be attracting the membership of those other mundialist groups that have decided to take practical steps to raising global awareness of, and interest in the project for DWG.
Funding derived from membership fees and, supporting institutions and several high net worth individual enthusiasts will be available as and when required for a steady, low-key expansion of the movement.
At least three other Sapiens branches will be actively working towards their nations’ joining A/NZ in the initial ITP.

b.) Phase II. Twelve years from Oct 2005.

By the end of 2017:-

The first 20-member ITP will have been established with new members joining at rapidly decreasing intervals. The time frame for the transformation form ITP to full global DWG could well be as much as 20 years after the initial ITP has started to make a significant impact on the thinking of the world population. It could be less if the approaching crises are such as to make the need for a unified collaborative reaction more rapidly apparent. On the other hand, it could never happen if those crises overwhelm our species before we are organised to cope with them.

7. Financial Requirements.

Funds are available for the expenditure envisaged up to the end of 2006. At this level of funding Sapiens is capable of a slow expansion of its membership. By the end of 2006, Sapiens should have grown to about 100 members and be ready to commence full-scale operations. At this point it will have in place the infrastructure to be able to build its activities according to the amount of funding available, thus, by 2007, the movement must be in a position to attract additional funding from individual and institutional donors. By this stage a small core of paid staff will be required and there will be significant administrative and marketing expenditures. The more Sapiens succeeds in establishing its agenda in the public eye, the greater the funding that should become available.