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Re: People's International Forum
John BUNZL
Sunday, 20 April 2003
Dear Stan and Friends,
Surely before a world parliament can have any power, that power and
legitimacy must first be given to it by those who presently have a monopoly
on power? That is to say, a world parliament (wp) can only have political
power if it is first given that power by today's nation states.
If the peoples of the world cannot induce their respective national
governments to confer proper power and legitimacy on a wp, that wp can have
no power. Under those circumstances, the best one could expect is something
like today's United Nations which has no power or authority over its member
nations (as enshrined in Article 2:1 of the UN charter and as the recent
deliberations prior to the war on Iraq showed).
Even if today's UN had a * parliament * consisting of representatives
directly elected by people all over the world, even this could have no power
unless nation states agreed to submit themselves to its authority. (The USA,
for a start, would surely refuse to do so since global democracy would of
course mean the end of US global military and economic hegemony.)
So as far as I can see, therefore, the key question remains: How can
individual citizens around the world - particularly those in the USA - work
together to exert appropriate pressure on their politicians and governments
to bring them to agree to the creation of a wp (at the UN or elsewhere) *
and * to agree to submit to its authority?
Best wishes
John Bunzl - Director
International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO)
http://www.simpol.org
WP21 Alliance Forum on a World Parliament for the 21st Century
E-mail : world-parl@forums.alliance21.org
Fax 1 717 264 5036
Information, inscriptions, désinscriptions: germa@alliance21.org
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