A strong planetary government for shared responsibilities

Our planet suffers many challenges such as armed conflict, excessive profits, human trafficking, corruption, environmental destruction, violation of freedom of belief or the violation of individual rights. This list is not exhaustive and could go on and on. Too often, people no longer respect any limits. Due to the globalisation of information and transportation this is all well known. The devastation of all kinds is enormous.

Intergovernmental summits are ineffective

Countless summits and conferences are held, more and more frequently, in an attempt to find solutions. This is the case, for example, with regard to finance and the environment: G8, G20, COP 21, the Financial Stability Forum, and so on. It must be noted, however, that these meetings have no legitimacy or, above all, no effectiveness considering the sovereign will of all the countries in the world. Moreover, there is no real follow up to ensure an implementation of decisions. There are many states participating in these summits – and this not only concerns insignificant ones – which take no concrete action once the diplomatic rhetoric has faded away.

The UN needs to be transformed into a world government

The only way to put all states on an equal footing and to ensure that all governments face their planetary responsibilities would be to transform the UN into a genuine world government with real powers and enforcement capacity, in particular armed forces. Today, the masquerade of the Security Council in which the great powers have a veto undermines any prospect of strong and benign joint action.

This call for a common exercise of responsibility at the global level was made in May this year by Pope Francis. But the very idea of a planetary government had already been expressed in 1970 by Pope Paul VI during his visit to Sidney. This is a worthy mandate that the Federal Council should confer on itself: to develop such a project on the international stage, in line with its policy of good offices, but above all by using and implementing the Swiss model which brings diverse forces together in the pursuit of the common good.

On November 27, Dominique de Buman was elected as President of the lower house of the Swiss parliament, the National Council. One year ago he published this piece on planetary government in the magazine of his political party CVP. Source: “Die Politik”, no. 9, December 2016, p. 20. Note by the editor: A study on the catholic social doctrine and its support of a world authority and a world parliament can be found here.