ONE WORLD, ONE SOVEREIGN
Two referenda were held in New Brunswick on whether or not
it should become part of Canada. The people voted not to join.
A third referendum was held in which a slim majority finally voted
to join. After the third referendum, a newly elected New Brunswick
legislature passed a law withdrawing from Canada. The law is still
on the books. Is New Brunswick part of Canada? If so, according
to whom? If a separatist movement sweeps New Brunswick, what then?
Quebec has held two referenda on separating from Canada. The last
was only narrowly defeated. The other provinces maintain that
the Canadian Constitution of 1982, which Quebec never ratified,
prohibits such separation unless the other provinces agree to
it. If the separatists win the next referendum, what power will
decide the issue?
In the United States Civil War, the southern states wanted to
withdraw from the Union. They maintained that inasmuch as they
had freely joined the nation as sovereign states, they retained
the right to freely leave it. The northern states disagreed. In
joining the Union, though they did not know it at the time, all
the states surrendered their sovereignty to the nation. The outcome
of the war put an end to the theoretical questions.
Once upon a time, the people were sovereign. Unknowingly, they
surrendered their sovereignty to the states through a fictitious
social contract. The states, or provinces, were later likewise
deceived, and lost their sovereignty in joining the nation. The
different nations of the world will also find out, after the fact,
that in joining an international organization of nations, or even
in not joining, they too have lost their sovereignty.
This progressive, hierarchical loss cannot be reconciled with
any theoretical conception of sovereignty. Big fish eat little
fish. That is a law of nature.
Hobbes believed that peace exists only when men have "a common
Power to keep them all in awe." If that is so, then world
peace requires a world power which all men fear.
No nation is free of the influence of others. If there is a Sovereign
in the world, there can only be one, one whose will is almighty,
incontrovertible law. We have already seen that no man nor assembly
of men qualifies, but those who have grasped political power have
legislated a fiction. They have commanded all men to believe that
there can be human sovereignty. The purpose of the theory is to
justify the practice.
How do we get from many nations to one world government? It is
not so hard.
The modern state is secular and the source of its own laws. When
the state becomes the lawgiver, those who control it can set it
free from all legal restraint. If it is the sovereign, then by
definition there can be no legal restraint. Whatever the Sovereign
wills is just, for it is his will that defines justice.
Secularism, sometimes called humanism, is the religion of the
modern state, having its own definition of good and evil, its
own tenets of faith, its own priesthood, and its own vision of
the world to come. "This secularism chalks out an area in
public life where [another] religion is not admitted. One can
have [another] religion in one's private life; one can be a good
Hindu or a good Muslim within one's home or at one's place of
worship. But when one enters public life, one is expected to leave
one's faith behind....Implicit in the ideology is the belief that
managing the public realm is a science which is essentially universal
and that religion, to the extent it is opposed to the Baconian
world-image of science, is an open or potential threat to any
modern polity." 106 (The word in brackets is added to this
observation of Ashis Nandy.)
Nandy further points out that "while the modern state builds
up pressures on citizens to give up their faith in public, it
guarantees no protection to them against the sufferings inflicted
by the state itself in the name of its ideology....The role of
secularism in many societies today is no different from the crusading
and inquisitorial role of religious ideologies. In such societies,
the citizens have less protection against the ideology of the
state than against religious ideologies or theocratic forces."
107
In a world experiencing powerful revivals in all major religions,
the power elite continues to seek to disenfranchise all who take
their non-secular beliefs seriously. Why? Those beliefs prevent
people from recognizing the secular state as the supreme authority
in their lives.
This reluctance is woven into the fabric of all cultures. It is
in fact difficult to even imagine the existence of a culture without
an integral, non-secular faith system. On the other hand, we have
very few secular societies, bereft of culture, to examine - primarily
the French and Communist Reigns of Terror.
"Secularism has little to say about cultures - it is definitionally
ethnophobic and frequently ethnocidal, unless of course cultures
and those living by cultures are willing to show total subservience
to the modern nation-state and become ornaments or adjuncts to
modern living - and the orthodox secularists have no clue to the
way a religion can link up different faiths or ways of life according
to its own configurative principles." 108
The orthodox secularists are not looking for clues. Secularism
is a blind faith, mistaking power for life. "As the modern
nation-state system and the modern thought machine enter the interstices
of even the most traditional societies, those in power or those
who hope to be in power in these societies begin to view statecraft
in full secular, scientific, amoral and dispassionate terms....These
elites then begin to see all religions and all forms of ethnicity
as a hurdle to nation-building and state-formation and as a danger
to the technology of statecraft and political management."
109
What does it mean to say that statecraft is "secular, scientific,
amoral and dispassionate"? Secular? Its foundation is Nietzsche's
belief that God is dead, and so are His values. Scientific? The
latest material explanation is all there is.
Amoral? The moral values of all other religions are taboo. They
are prohibited in the areas where the state determines the major
boundaries of people's lives, the very areas in which most people
find such values most appropriate and most needed. Dispassionate?
Arrogant and deaf.
Uber Alles
Everyone who believes in some kind of Natural Law, with or
without a lawgiver, believes that there is a set of laws applicable
to all people. Everyone who believes in human rights or international
law does also.
Belief in an essential world unity above and beyond cultural,
religious, and national differences is a form of monism, the belief
that reality is a unified whole. If the rights and higher laws
for all people are or should be the same, then there is or should
be one power over all. For secularists, that can only be a human
ruler.
It took centuries for the advocates of the nation-state to entrench
it as the residence of that supreme power, i.e. the sovereign.
That battle, as the current fragmentation of numerous former nation-states
attests, has not been settled once and for all. Laski reminds
us that, "We must ceaselessly remember that the monistic
theory of the state was born in an age of crisis and that each
period of its revivification has synchronized with some momentous
event which has signalized a change in the distribution of political
power." 110
Competing claims of sovereignty abound. The clamor to rule over
people, wealth, and territory has not diminished in scope or intensity.
It has not retreated from any of the areas of life, and there
is still no shortage of those who want to rule over others. The
power is simply being redistributed, both to smaller and larger
loci or foci.
For centuries, the international system of nation-states has served
in different ways to strengthen the sovereignty claims of individual
states. "First, it is clear that states have always colluded,
coordinated, or cooperated in controlling individuals. They have
a common interest in suppressing nonstate threats to the authority
of the state. Second, these efforts can be quite opaque. The state's
implementation of new authority claims over the people within
its territorial jurisdiction is often legitimated in terms of
interstate relations....The international system poses not simply
a set of constraints and opportunities but a source of state power."
111
Wars, disasters, alliances, and collusion have all served as opportunities
to consolidate state power. Crises create uncertainty and fear,
both of which make people more willing to have a strong someone
else make decisions for them. The state is a developed means through
which wealth, property, and people are controlled.
The state is neither a living thing nor an end in itself. It is
merely the means to an end. It is not really the master of all,
but rather the servant of those who want to master all.
Even as the international system is a source of state power, so
states are a source of power for the international system. The
current international system is built upon the presupposition
of the state. The system facilitates the interaction of states,
not of people. State rulers legitimize one another.
There are many different international organizations and alliances,
but there is one more equal than all the others. "There is
nowadays one obvious existential community of sovereign states.
The year 1945 marks not only the end of a devastating world war
but also the founding of a new universal collectivity of states
defined by an explicit set of rules. That collectivity is, of
course, the United Nations, and the rules are stated in its Charter,
particularly and centrally in Article 2, which specifies the fundamental
conduct requirements of the organization: equal sovereignty of
all member states, forbearance from initiating the use of armed
force to settle disputes among members, and nonintervention in
the domestic jurisdiction of members. Article 2 also contains
several related principles and requirements, including good faith,
peaceful settlement of disputes, willingness of members to assist
the United Nations in its actions, and compliance of nonmembers
with its principles." 112
The UN is a club for state rulers, but it is making greater and
greater claims of authority over those states and the people in
them. Inis Claude has pointed out that, "the restriction
on the United Nations (under Article 2[:7]) not to intervene in
matters that are essentially under the domestic jurisdiction of
member states means 'almost nothing' because ratification of the
Charter by a state puts 'practically every conceivable subject...into
the international domain, so that there is precious little domestic
jurisdiction left to infringe upon.' ...Claude emphasized, correctly,
that the central question concerned the relationship between international
society and its member states, and that over the years, the nature
of that relationship had been determined politically." 113
In other words, the charter neither hinders the powerful nor protects
the weak. It is a tool to use or ignore. "At the global level,
the only formal decision process that is exempted from the rule
of noninterference is the authority of the Security Council under
the enforcement provisions of Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Yet
it is here that the five permanent members retain the right of
veto, which they are unlikely to use against their own interests."
114
The great powers do what they want to do, though it sometimes
creates some interesting posturing. "On the second day of
celebrations for the United Nations 50th birthday, French President
Jacques Chirac led criticism of Washington for pushing the world
body to the verge of bankruptcy by withholding $1.25 billion in
contributions. 'It is not acceptable that many countries, and
notably the first among them, by allowing arrears to accumulate,
are driving to bankruptcy an organization that the heads of state
and government of the entire world have come here to reaffirm
is irreplaceable,' he told the General Assembly." 115
The U.S. was withholding the money from the UN because Congress,
saying it was in the best interests of the American people, had
voted to do so. Chirac's attack on the U.S. government was widely
seen as an attempt to deflect criticism of the French nuclear
weapons testing which had just taken place. The French government
conducted nuclear weapons testing because they thought it was
in their best interest to do so.
Chirac's characterization of the UN is instructive. He calls the
UN an organization that is irreplaceable for the heads of state
and government of the entire world. The heads of state need it.
Other people do not find it quite so indispensable, but the organization
is well on its way to becoming the one world sovereign which will
affect everyone's life.
In a July 26, 1995 New York Times News Service article, Marlisle
Simons reported that, "The International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia indicted the Bosnian Serb leader, Rodovan
Karadzic...for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes,
a ruling that could complicate efforts to bring peace to the war-torn
region....The indictments by the U.N. court place the organization
in the position of both prosecuting the Bosnian Serbs and negotiating
with them.
"...The indictments also raise the unexplored issue of whether
U.N. troops may arrest anyone indicted by a U.N. court. Officials
close to the tribunal said the legal implications had not yet
been clarified." The UN is to be the arresting officer, the
prosecutor, and the judge. What possible legal implications could
need to be clarified? The implications are clear enough. [On January
29, 1997, President Clinton expressed his view that it would be
a good idea to make the International Criminal Tribunal permanent
and not limited to Bosnia.]
The same article continued: "Western governments have long
said that the majority of the Serbian atrocities were committed
as part of an orchestrated campaign to drive away Muslims at a
time when they were largely defenseless." 116 The Muslims
were largely defenseless at that time because Western governments,
led by the Clinton administration, had demanded an international
arms embargo. The same administration, at the same time that it
was publicly insisting on that arms embargo, was secretly breaking
that embargo. What if a lesser nation had done the same?
During the early months of campaigning for the Russian presidency,
Boris Yeltsin was very far behind in all the polls of Russian
voters. I asked a Russian friend who used to move in influential
circles there, "Whom do you think will be elected president?"
Without any hesitation or doubt, he replied, "Yeltsin will
be elected president. Americans don't understand, he owns the
country." Events proved him to be correct.
Yet granting his analysis of the way Russia operates, my unexpressed
response was, "Yes, he controls enough of the country to
ensure his own election, but he doesn't own it. Time, and death,
will demonstrate that." Despite all the maps, deeds, fences,
and guns, human ownership is a very tenuous, temporary, and limited
enterprise.
Still, in lesser countries, the UN monitors elections and declares
them acceptable or unacceptable. In the eyes of the UN, a government
which wins an unacceptable election is illegitimate. Yeltsin's
election was acceptable.
When it comes to China, where there are no elections in either
Tianenmen Square, Tibet, or anywhere else, there is no need for
monitors. Northern Ireland is currently off-limits to the UN,
because it is part of Britain. What if Ireland claimed that North
Ireland was part of Ireland? [Or what if Argentina claimed that
the Malvina Islands were part of Argentina?] We would again see
that the five permanent members of the Security Council, for the
moment at least, are considered sovereign, while other nations
are not.
Other governments which don't measure up to UN standards, whatever
they might be, may also find themselves declared illegitimate.
Robert Jackson reminds us of the case of South Africa: "I
believe that this case sets a precedent for the imposition of
isolation and sanctions on grounds of illegitimacy rather than
illegality..." 117 Which governments will be deemed legitimate,
and which illegitimate? and on what grounds?
What are the standards of the UN? Does it have a moral base and
standard for determining what is legitimate and what is illegitmate,
what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil?
Or does it not need one?
The UN has rejected every traditional standard. More than that,
as Richard Falk points out, "the most prevalent patterns
of 'suprastatism' often jeopardize some of the most desirable
features of national identity that are preserved when states operate
on a secure basis of legitimacy (that is, when they provide their
people with human rights, political democracy, and overall security)."
118
States, of course, do not need to provide anything for their people.
UN member states are often no more than facades for gangs of murderers
and thieves who rule by terror over populations and territories.
This is not a new development. It has been that way since the
founding of the United Nations.
It is necessary to question the foundational morality of an organization
in which Stalin was a founding member in good standing. Not only
was he in good standing, he was given a permanent Security Council
veto. Laski's remark is to the point: "The social interests
which are translated into legal rights are almost always the rights
of a limited group of men." 119 That limited group of men
consists of those who have grasped power.
The purposes of the UN are expressed in Article 1 of its charter.
"The first purpose is to maintain international peace and
security. Though other provisions of the Charter empower the Security
Council to intervene, massively and forcibly if necessary, against
members and nonmembers alike, to achieve this end, for decades
the Security Council was unable to agree on such measures."
120 In this decade, the Security Council has been able to agree.
Global peace and security sound wonderful, but they need to be
defined. Hobbes would have called the Soviet Union under Stalin
and Germany under Hitler, excepting the world war which they started,
nations at peace. Within each there was a power that the people
all feared. The peace this gave brought more horror and death
than any war ever has. Control may bring peace for the rulers,
while bringing destruction for the ruled.
Article 2 of the UN Charter stipulates the fundamental conduct
requirements of "equal sovereignty of all member states,
forbearance from initiating the use of armed force to settle disputes
among members, and nonintervention in the domestic jurisdiction
of members." Equal sovereignty has never been recognized
in practice or in structure. The initiated use of armed force
by member states has occurred hundreds of times. And ever since
the announcement of the new world order, the UN has been almost
eager to engage in intervention.
We are brought back to the question of human rights. Where do
they come from? If the Creator endows all men with these inalienable
rights, then government cannot take them away, though it can certainly
violate them. If a human sovereign is the source of human rights,
then the one who gives the rights can also take them away.
Which violations of what rights will call for UN intervention?
Every nation can be challenged in terms of treatment of minorities,
form of government, or territory. Will there be intervention for
the Uighurs in China? the Ossetians in Russia? the Basques in
Spain and France? or the native Americans/First Nations in Canada
and the U.S.? Will UN military forces be sent to Teheran or Cairo,
San Salvador or Lima, Moscow or Beijing, or Jerusalem?
The end of the Cold War has catalysed innumerable crises over
sovereignty. Crisis presents the opportunity for the consolidation
of power. "All crises are unfavorable to liberty; and it
was only through the medium of external attack that the state
could shake itself free from the fetters that remained."
121
The police power of the state convinces individuals to obey the
decrees of the state. The police power of the international community
will persuade state rulers to obey its decrees. Those who don't
obey will be forced to obey.
My reading of human nature, history, and contemporary chaos does
not convince me that human rights are secure when in the hands
of the powerful. Those who want power want power. "[I]t is
not without importance that the experience of mankind has, at
every period of public excitement, denied the equation of law
with morals." 122 The law always embodies the will, i.e.
morality, of the sovereign. That will is often immoral by any
other standard.
If it is one world, then ultimately there can be only one sovereign.
"The maxime unum, so Dante thought, is the maxime
bonum; and it was in shrinking from the infamous notion of
a dual universe that Boniface VIII could issue his Unam Sanctam.
One law and one government were the necessary corollary of its
single, dominating purpose. That is why the medieval state is
a church..." 123
That is why the developing world government is also a church,
the unchallengeable repository of Truth and Good. The world sovereign
is the standard by which all must be judged. That precludes any
outside determination of whether or not the sovereign itself is
true or good, or legitimate.
Lester Ruiz maintains that, "Legitimacy rests ultimately
on the existence of a political community with commonly held values.
The question of political authority cannot be abstracted from
the reality and concept of a tradition...the sources for norms
and values within the political community....Here, jurisprudence,
religion, culture - the cumulative historical experience of peoples
- become the critical sources of authority." 124
It is precisely these critical sources of authority that are taboo
to the secular creators of the world government. If Ruiz is correct,
then there is no legitimacy for rulers who do not share the commonly
held values of those they rule.
Nevertheless, they will make decisions according to realpolitik
morality. The basis for the decisions will have nothing to do
with traditional or impartial concepts of justice and human rights.
It will have everything to do with the lust for power and control
which Hobbes saw as characteristic of all people.
Socrates was right when he said that the people who want to rule
are the least qualified to rule. Beyond the best of motives, there
is something wrong with wanting to control other people. About
dark and hidden motives, what needs to be said?
Jesus corrrectly characterized the human dilemma as: "Light
has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than
the light because their deeds were evil." Sometimes it is
necessary to question the most accepted assumptions. Of course,
Socrates and Jesus were both killed by those who wanted to rule.
For the great power brokers of today, sovereignty is not under
attack. The concept of the supreme authority of political government
is still intact. The locus of sovereignty is shifting. It is being
realigned. It is triumphantly following its historical logic to
the inexorable conclusion. One world, one sovereign. A Mortall
God.
The modern secular state was formed as "small groups of power-hungry
men fought off numerous rivals and great popular resistance in
the pursuit of their own ends..." The appetite of the power-hungry
does not diminish. Control of the world has long been the supreme
goal. Why else did Alexander, Napoleon, and Hitler die where they
did?
Having rejected absolute moral laws and values, they are their
own standard, eager to establish for the world a government in
their own image, for their own profit. Their authority comes from
themselves, as Nietzsche's madman said it must.
As Austin said, "every supreme government is largely despotic.
In the words of the Massachusetts Proclamation of January 1, 1776
there must be "an absolute and uncontrollable power."
There was once a political axiom which said, "Power corrupts.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely." It seems that we are
witnessing the formation of Hobbes' Leviathan, a tyrant without
restraint, accountable to no one.
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(go back)
What is National Sovereignty?
Where Does Sovereignty Come From?
Hobbes Reconsidered
Realpolitik Morality
Anti-State
Revolt
Intervention
One World, One Sovereign
Notes & Bibliography