Immediate Action
The main lines of this blueprint for governmental or unofficial action to
organize the world were drawn in 1924.
We revised our work and published the
present pamphlet in 1937. This is the fourth edition. Believing government
initiation of world union to be at present not only hopeless but even
undesirable, we wish to emphasize the part of our plan designed for
unofficial action. Immediate action along unofficial lines is imperative.
We have seen our globe in no time turned into one armed camp. We can
transform it as quickly into a fit home for the human family. Self-made
governments in exile have for military purposes been grouped with the
greater powers into
the “United Nations”.
As the first step in peaceful
achievement of world union, we urge the immediate creation of the self-made
Provisional World Government to take all the unofficial action recommended
in our original plan. Its world-wide announcement must include an appeal to
all people to lay down their arms and prepare to participate in creating the
new world order.
The only chance of creating the long-overdue federalized world government,
all inclusive, non-military and democratic in its structure, is to stop this
war before either belligerent is exhausted. Men and women of supreme
integrity and imaginative daring must rise and lead mankind into their new
safe road.
Good plans have long been ready.
Internationally controlled demarcation lines must be established between the
hostile forces, immobilizing them. They can cooperate in local
reconstruction work until world organization has reached the stage where its
own federal commissions can supervise their systematic demobilization and
immediate absorption into planned creative work on a global scale.
The Provisional World Government in continuous session with full publicity
shall draw up the World Constitution.
Simultaneously it shall be prepared to
assume the impartial administration of scientifically planned emergency
relief of starving populations. It shall also receive complaints,
accusations and claims against individuals, groups and nations for proper
preparations and submission to courts to be established under the World
Constitution.
If we fail, the war leaders will carry on to the exhaustion of one or both
sides. After exhaustion will follow chaos, revolution, dictatorship and
recurring global war until the human family destroys itself.
The prerequisite of Provisional World Government is headquarters and a fund
of millions to begin unofficially on world organization, the only hopeful
basis for immediate cessation of hostilities and a warless future.
There must exist men and women able to provide the means who sincerely and
passionately desire world peace.
The life of mankind is at stake.
Lola Maverick Lloyd
and Rosika Schwimmer
November 11, 1942
The Plan
The following outline for international action is addressed to all those who
agree that we must stop theorizing about peace and put the best existing
theories into practice.
It offers an answer to the question,
“How can we
start practical action to establish world peace now?”
It presents the
preliminary steps necessary for a representative World Convention to draft
the best possible constitution for an all-inclusive, non-military,
democratic Federation of Nations.
Plan for Governmental Action
The President of the United States or in other countries the comparable
governmental authority shall invite a small group of experts in voting
methods to formulate the best practical method for the democratic election
in all countries alike of delegates to a World Constitutional Convention.
The Committee of Experts shall meet not later than four weeks after
appointment and at the earliest possible moment make their recommendations
simultaneously to the governments and the public, using the most effective
channels of communication to reach all the people.
Congress or the parliaments at the same time that they adopt the report of
the Committee of Experts shall legislate to start the recommended machinery
for the organization of the World Constitutional Convention.
Not later than
three months after the law is passed delegates to the Constitutional
Convention shall be nationally elected.
No member or departmental head of the military or naval forces or of the
national governments of any nation shall be eligible in any capacity
whatsoever for participation in the preparation or the proceedings of the
World Constitutional Convention.
As soon as at least six nations have elected and officially appointed their
delegates to the World Constitutional Convention, the delegates shall
assemble and open their sessions without delay; the delegates from the other
countries to join them as soon as elected.
The convention shall meet in the country which first invites it.
If Governments Do Not Act
If neither the President of the United States nor any other government acts,
organizations or individuals shall raise the necessary funds and invite a
small group of experts in voting methods to formulate the best practical
method for the democratic election in all countries alike of delegates to a
World Constitutional Convention.
The unofficial Committee of Experts shall
be regulated as to time of meeting and other duties by the rules given above
for the official Committee of Experts except that they shall prepare two
plans for the World Constitutional Convention, one for governmental action,
if at that stage governments are ready to act, and the other to be used if
government are not ready to act.
In case world organization must continue unofficially, international-minded
individuals shall be chosen as delegates by the method recommended by the
unofficial Committee of Experts.
The delegates shall meet and function as an
unofficial World Constitutional Convention. They shall draft a complete
Constitution regulating the federal life of the human family in a
superstructure where the states are free to develop independently, their
national sovereignty being unlimited except where their interdependence
requires federal regulation.
The duty of the Convention is to draw up a detailed plan for the political,
economic, and social cooperation of all the nations. It shall also propose a
place for the permanent location of the world parliament and an equitable
division of its expenses. Within one year it shall simultaneously publish
its plan and present it to all the governments of the world.
The World Constitution shall first be urged on all governments for adoption.
After one year, if no government has agreed to initiate the recommended
steps, unofficial steps must be taken by the people to inaugurate the
all-inclusive, non-military, democratic Federation of Nations.
Tentative Plan for the Federation of Nations
In order to clarify and offer our demands in such a shape that they can
serve as a basis of discussion for the World Constitutional Convention, we
submit the following outline of the Federation of Nations (present
United Nations):
The individual development of member states is left to their own decision
except where it may conflict with world welfare.
The world government must
control the international relations between states. This situation will be
similar to that between the states and the federal government in the United
States of America, or that between the cantons and the federal government of
Switzerland.
All the sixty-four states of the world are to be admitted immediately and
unconditionally. There shall be but one class of membership.
The Federation of Nations must be a democratic league controlled by direct
representation of the peoples and not by governments and bureaucracies.
To achieve the direct representation of the peoples to the Federation of
Nations all states shall adopt for the election of their delegates the
voting system recommended by the Committee of Experts on voting methods.
The organs of the Federation of Nations shall be a World Parliament, an
Executive Board, and a Permanent Secretary.
Each state shall elect ten delegates and ten alternates to the World
Parliament for a term of ten years. They shall be subject to recall by their
own electorate.
The votes of the delegates in the World Parliament shall be counted
individually and not by nations.
Delegates from any state may differ among
themselves on any issue and will find similar differences in other
delegations. Every important group in a nation can be represented among its
ten delegates, and will find like-minded groups from other nations in the
World Parliament, where divisions will consequently occur along lines of
opinion, not lines of geography.
No unanimous vote on any question shall be
required from a national delegation.
The delegates shall organize the World Parliament and elect a president, a
vice-president, an executive board and all the necessary commissions,
employing the voting system recommended by the Committee of Experts.
Temporary or permanent vacancies shall be filled by the originally elected
alternates.
The World Parliament shall be in session the first three months of every
year. Sessions may be prolonged or reassembled by vote of the delegates to
the World Parliament.
All sessions of the World Parliament must be public, and an official summary
of its proceedings must be furnished daily to the press.
The Executive Board and the Permanent Secretary shall carry on the business
of the World Parliament and shall reside permanently at its sear. For
administrative purposes regional headquarters shall be established on all
continents. Regional secretaries shall be chosen by the World Parliament.
These continental offices will have direct communication - telegraph,
telephone and wireless - and a central broadcasting station will be
operated.
The commissions will be entitled to employ experts and any other help
necessary to the extent of the appropriations voted them by the World
Parliament
While every delegate shall have the right to use his own language in
Parliament, for the auxiliary world language we recommend English, as it is
already used as auxiliary language by a larger number of people than any
other language.
While every nation, race or religion is free to use its traditional
reckoning of time, we recommend that the World Parliament count its official
time from that year in which world unity shall be attained.
The consummation
of world unification, the most important date in history, will be the point
from which an adult world will reckon time.
Federal Commissions to Be Organized
I. Economic
-
Commission to plan industrial, agricultural, technical, engineering,
scientific and other work extensive enough to absorb the millions liberated
by the abandonment of the war system and also to take care of all the
unemployed of the world. The abolition of armies, navies, air fleets,
armaments and munition factories in all the states of the world will release
for this vast reemployment scheme the scrapped war material and enormous
sums heretofore provided in open and concealed war budgets.
-
Commission to plan the regulation of the world’s production of raw
materials and the control of its distribution according to the needs of all
nations, thus removing the excuse for forcible conquest of territory and for
continued existence of empires, colonies, mandates.
-
Commission to plan the abolition of all tariffs and customs and the
establishment of free trade between all nations and to act as Arbitration
Board in trade disputes between member states.
-
Commission on transportation and communication for international control
of traffic between states by railways and waterways, by automobile
transportation and aviation, and of the postal, telegraph, telephone and
radio services.
-
Commission to plan the regulation of world finance and to evolve a
uniform monetary system.
II. Legal
-
Commission to prepare the code of international laws and to plan
executive machinery for their administration and courts for their
adjudication.
-
Commission on international relations for reorganizing the existing
machinery (Diplomacy) of political contact and intercourse between nations.
-
Commission to plan and set up national arbitration bodies for the
settlement of internal disputes which may cause civil war, and to set up a
federal body to which national arbitration cases may be appealed.
-
Commission to plan and carry out the elimination of capital punishment in
all states, and to set up institutions in which criminals formerly subject
to capital punishment shall be incarcerated for scientific study and
treatment.
III. Population Questions
-
Commission for solving population problems by planned relief of
overpopulated regions and thus removing an excuse of aggressive militarists
for wars of conquest.
By transfer of population to undeveloped territories and under-populated
regions, migration never to be compulsory but induced by making the
under-populated regions and undeveloped territories offer better
opportunities.
By legalization of birth-control.
-
Commission on world citizenship to regulate the rights and duties of
citizens of the Federation of Nations. In addition to equal world
citizenship each human being shall have the rights and duties of a citizen
of the nation where he resides.
IV. Miscellaneous
-
Commission on education to plan educational opportunities for all
children. Textbooks and other materials for education shall be based on
unbiased facts, and history shall be taught from the world point of view,
emphasizing the moral, economic, scientific and artistic contributions to
mankind’s progress and happiness by all nations, races, classes, creeds and
both sexes.
-
Health commission for scientific and practical research into all hygienic
problems and for planning adequate health service.
-
Commission to prepare international legislation to safeguard historically
truthful presentation of news by the press, screen and radio and to protect
the honor of nations and individuals through national and international
Press-Juries, Courts of Honor and similar forums.
Other commissions shall be organized by the World Parliament as needed.
