Towards a Global / Human Union

This is a low level revision of an  automatic translation of the original page in Catalan. I apologize for any errors it may contain.

Readers of this blog know that I am a fervent pro-European and that I consider myself a world citizen in most the political sense of the term. There can be no surprise, then, in my believing that the world should go into a kind of Global Union, modeled perhaps less on the current process of European construction (especially at the moment) but on the one dreamed by its founders. 

I just read the proposal to John McClintock (1) that describes the various global problems that humanity faces and proposes that: "the only way out of this is for countries to work together very closely. They need to reach agreements on solutions and stick to there agreements. They need to pursue, not only their own national interest, but also the interest of humanity as a whole."It seems incredible that there is still need to defend this  very simple idea, but it seems that what now prevails is in fact the notion that each country must defend its interests even against the interests of other countries without considering the whole of humanity .

McClintock concludes that we need to build a system of global governance that works, but he does not believe that the Security Council of the United Nations can be reformed, neither believes that the EU can expand to become a World Union open to all countries. His proposal is that states share their sovereignty in a limited number of areas in a global community. In terms of its formal structure it would be a global community of regional communities, rather than a community of individual countries. 

In what areas could states share sovereignty? McClintock suggests a modest beginning: a community of a food security community. This could provide its member states with an increased level of food security. It could hold and manage reserve stocks of food, releasing them onto the market when there was a shortage. The price of food could be kept at a level that everybody could afford. When the community felt more confident, it could move towards a community for climate, energy and prosperity. Recall that the EU started as a European Coal and Steel Community, which seems even a more modest proposal that the food community.

This proposal reminds me of the proposal for a Human Union by Lyndon Storey (2). Storey proposes to start a steadily growing group of states which observe agreed upon common values, such as democracy, human rights and environmental protection, and which develop democratic methods for common decision making and governance. The simplest model is the European Union (EU) which grew from a small number of states.  But the proposed Human Union would  learn from the mistakes of the EU and be driven by direct democratic agreement, not bureaucratic fiat.

I think it's worth supporting any way to start a Global Union / Human Union. It seems unlikely that humanity can progress or even survive in a state that fits most of its members without such a union. One way to do this is by signing the appeal for a Human Union.
Referències


1. John McClintock, The Uniting of Nations: An Essay on Global Governance. Brussels, Belgium: Peter Lang, 2010.
2. Lyndon Storey. Humanity or Sovereignty: A political roadmap for the 21st century. Peter Lang Publishing, 2006.