2004 New Year's Message

From World Citizen Garry Davis

2004 ? Humanity's Legitimate Power

By sheer reasoning and biological fact, the only "superpower" on planet earth is humanity.

Each and every human, despite relative differences, is already bonded at birth to humanity's existence, well-being and survival.

Today, with the threat of Armageddon facing humanity itself by virtue of nuclear weaponry being used as a threat by the dysfunctional, belligerent nation-state system, its fundamental legitimacy is by definition self-evident and irrefutable. The human family cannot war against itself.

Each and every individual in today's 21st century world is thus in a dynamic, civic contract with humanity to insure its very survival.

The individual political acknowledgement of that unconditional and sovereign contract is world citizenship.

Millions of ordinary citizens, therefore, having recognized their sovereign right of political choice, and claimed world citizenship, in so doing have not only legitimized themselves on the planetary level but have protected in principle all lower levels of civic accord.

In short, the individual's claim and assertion of world citizenship viewed communally is the public confirmation of humanity's inalienable legitimacy.

As the corollary of citizenship is government, the socio/political manifestation of world citizenship is world government so declared into existence on September 4, 1953.1

Moreover, the two and a half billion children of the world, innocent of adult folly, likewise have the inalienable right and will to grow up in a world of peace, justice and freedom from the threat of nuclear holocaust as well as war itself. They too are legitimate members of the human family in one human world.

Already, following the end of World War II, numerous popular initiatives throughout the world community have attempted to evolve political instruments in the name of sovereign humanity.

In the coming year, certain of these will act as democratically-elected world parliaments reflecting the public will for peace, well-being and freedom. "World laws" will be enacted by these global parliamentarians outlawing war itself, protecting the world's environnent and recognizing politically the perennial geo-dialectical principle of one for all and all for one on the planetary level.

In short, humanity's inherent power and legitimacy will finally begin to manifest itself fully on planet Earth.

The ancient prophecy of the Millenium will thus come to pass.

References:

• "When in the course of human events?.." begins the Declaration of Independence of 1776.
• "Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world?" begins the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Pope John Paul II in his homily of January 2, called for a "new world order?based on the dignity of human beings" and "an integrated development of society?"
• Jesus Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount, prayed that "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?"
• Baha'u'llah: "The earth is but one country and all mankind its citizens."
• Jurists the world over have already endorsed the concept of world law and its institutional framework.. Former vice-president of the International Court of Justice from 1997 to 2000, C. G. Weeramantry, for instance, acknowledges that. "Every person today is not only a citizen of his or her own country but a citizen of the world. And it is in that context that a modicum of information about world governmnet needs to be communicated."
• Unlawful by Definition
• "No legal system can confer on any of its members the right to annhiliate the community which engenders it and whose activities it seeks to regulate; in other words, there cannot be a legal rule, which permits the threat or use of nuclear weapons. In sum, nuclear weapons are an unprecedented event which calls for rethinking the self-understanding of traditional international law. Such rethinking would reveal that the question is not whether one interpretation of existing laws of war prohibits the threat or use of of nuclear weapons and another permits. Rather, the issue is whether the debate can take place at all in the world of law. The question is in fact one which cannot be legitimately addressed by law at all since it cannot tolerate an interpretation which negates its very essence. The end of law is a rational order of things, with survival as its core, whereas nuclear weapons eliminate all hopes of realising it. In this sense, nuclear weapons are unlawful by definition."
• Judge Weeramantry, quoting B.S.Chimni, "Nuclear Weapons and International Law: Some Reflections."

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