Building the New World under the Earth Constitution

By Glen T. Martin

My heart is overflowing from the Building the New World Conference that just concluded here at Radford University in southwest Virginia. Shift Network leaders, leaders in spirituality, and visionary futurists came together with people from the international movement for a world parliament under our common passionate concern for the future of our beautiful Earth, its living creatures, and all humanity. Barbara Marx Hubbard was our keynote honored guest who spoke with us concerning the miraculous story of a universe that brings forth life, consciousness and love through some 14 billion years of evolutionary adventure.

Reverend Laura George and I were honored to be the organizers and hosts for this wonderful four-day forum. We had friends from Damanhur in Italy and a number of other alternative communities who spoke to us about their work in relation to building a new world. We kept returning to the big picture. How can those of us who understand and experience the emergent possibilities of a holistically transformed humanity work together to help forge a world of justice, peace, freedom, sustainability, and prosperity?

My own passionate concern for the future of humanity goes back to my college years when I became a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and to all war. Throughout my undergraduate and graduate work in philosophy, I focused on the burning issues of peace and war, spiritual transformation, and how we can establish a decent future for the world and its creatures. If I understood nothing else, it was that the system of globalized corporate capitalism interfaced with the system of autonomous militarized nation-states was a disaster for our planet. I studied Buddhism, the Kabbalah, Christian, Sufi, and Hindu mysticism, the literature of peace studies, and practiced meditation. But still I found no concrete, satisfactory answers concerning how we might save the Earth for future generations.

Then in 1995 I discovered the Constitution for the Federation of Earth. What it represented hit me like a thunderbolt. The Earth did not need to be controlled by the 10% who have colonized governments to ensure their domination and exploitation of the people and resources. The Earth need not be controlled by imperial governments brandishing weapons of mass destruction and capable of inflicting “shock and awe” on smaller and weaker nations in the service of corporate and elite interests. I found that thousands of world citizens had worked together from 1958 to 1991 to produce this brilliant Earth Constitution that was premised on the principle of the unity in diversity of all humanity.

The Constitution sets up a global participatory democracy, protecting the rights and dignity of every person on the planet, in which world peace, equitable prosperity, and ecological sustainability are foundational principles. Without this world peace with justice system, the future of our planet remains in the hands of historically anachronistic fragments—about 500 giant corporations concerned mainly with private profit and some 193 nation-states pouring our precious resources not into human welfare, but into militarism and war.  

The Earth Constitution establishes a World Parliament of three houses—the House of Peoples, the House of Nations, and the House of Counselors. The House of Peoples represents 1000 electoral districts worldwide. The House of Nations has representatives from each nation, depending on population, and the House of Counselors has 200 representatives from around the world who are academics, ecologists, peace-makers, or other wisdom leaders. The people of Earth can then effectively govern themselves. The Constitution abolishes all militaries and allows only civilian police who are accountable to due process of law.

The Constitution federates the nations under a world system that can deal with our global problems that are beyond the scope of any nation. Article 1 of the Constitution specifies these “broad functions” of the Earth Federation government: (1) to end war and disarm the nations, (2) to protect universal human rights, including social and economic rights and the right to a healthy planetary environment, (3) to eliminate unfair social differences and establish reasonable prosperity for all people, (4) to regulate world interactions protecting the environment and equitable use of the Earth’s resources, (5) to protect our planetary ecology and create a sustainable global economy, and (6) to address all problems that are beyond the scope of nations.

Since 1995 I have been travelling the world promoting this Constitution. It represents the ascent of humankind to planetary maturity. We can govern ourselves on this Earth. By moving effective democratic government to the global level, we establish for all humanity and future generations a world peace system, a world justice system, and a world sustainability system. At last, as Barbara Marx Hubbard expresses this, we begin to engage in “conscious evolution” for all of humanity. Let us study and promote this wonderful Constitution for the Federation of Earth.
 

Glen T. Martin is President of the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) as well as Chair of the Peace Studies Program and Professor of Philosophy at Radford University. He is author of some ten books on planetary maturity and human transformation. In recognition of his worldwide work, in 2013 he was awarded the GUSI International Prize for Peace.