A World Security Community of Democratic Nations

Project Summary Humanity faces some catastrophic risks to the future well-being of our children. Foremost among them are the ongoing threat of nuclear annihilation, and the new dangers posed by unchecked global warming. It is clear that all of us as world citizens must work together to counter and remove these risks, and for this purpose we need stronger institutions of global governance. Ideally we need some form of global parliament, where our representatives can decide what needs to be done collectively to solve these problems, and have the power to implement these decisions by means of binding laws and regulations. Democracy must be a fundamental principle of any such system, in order to uphold basic human rights and to guard against any danger of tyranny or autocracy at the global level. Up till now, however, all attempts to reform the United Nations in this direction have failed. Democracy itself is under challenge at the moment from a rising tide of autocracy in some quarters of the globe. We propose as a first step towards a safer world that democratic nations around the globe should join together to form a World Security Community, embracing various existing alliances such as NATO and ANZUS. Acting strictly in conjunction with the UN Security Council, this Community would form a very powerful new force for peace and security in the world. It would be able to guarantee the security of all its members, and also provide strong new facilities for peacebuilding in the wider world in collaboration with the UN. Such a community would form a natural starting point for the evolution over time of a genuine global parliament, copying the strategy of stage-by-stage international integration which has led to the present European Union. Working alongside the OECD, which should also deepen collaboration among democracies on collective economic, social and environmental policies, the new Community will lay the foundations for our ultimate vision of a democratic world federation able to deal effectively with all our global problems and catastrophic risks. DOWNLOAD FULL PROJECT [PDF]