Autumn Bulletin 2005

President’s Message:

A Look Back at our First Year

At the end of our first year of existence as an Association, it is a good time to review the year’s events. While progress towards our goals may seem infinitesimal on the local scene, important events are occurring overseas. Ten new members were admitted to the European Union last year, extending well into Eastern Europe, and many more are clamouring to join. Turkey is going to be an extremely interesting test case. Agreement on a new Constitution for the Union was also reached last year, and it has been put up for ratification by the member states. Just recently, however, voters in France and Holland have rejected the new Constitution – see item later in this issue. Personally, I think it’s too early for a Constitution setting the Union in concrete: it ought to be left to evolve further, unconstrained.


Elsewhere, other Unions are springing up in imitation of the European Union, including the Andean Union and the African Union. Can we see any prospects of a political union emerging in the Asia-Pacific region?
As concerns our sister organizations elsewhere, we have affiliated with the World Citizens Registry in Paris, and with the Association of World Citizens in California. The World Federalists Association in the US has changed its name to Citizens for Global Solutions – akin to our own name!

The Union of European Federalists has joined the World Federalist Movement, the umbrella organization for similar movements worldwide, and will act as its European arm. There seems to be a trend towards cooperation and consolidation within the movement; although the Association to Unite the Democracies has undergone fission this year. Its membership arm is now called the Streit Council.


Our membership remains small, but of high quality! The strong support and encouragement from our team has been fantastic. Don Maclurcan has been very active in his priority area of human rights, has looked after the email service, and made many thoughtful and helpful suggestions; Michael de Mol has done all he can within work limitations; and Michelle Cavanagh has looked after the finances, and loyally attended every event. Stella Cornelius has been a tower of strength as counsellor and friend; and Doug Everingham, from his base in Queensland, has kept the email wires humming on our behalf, and acted as our window on the world.

Lyndon Storey was extremely committed and active as our first Editor, and continues to participate in the movement in California: he is the Registrar for the upcoming conference in San Francisco. Austin Mackell is extremely keen, and promises great things as our new Editor, and Andrew Greig, who has field experience with the UN, spoke at our first discussion evening and is offering us his media expertise. Finally, I should mention two of our founding members, Thea Waddell and John Hirshman, who were there at the start but have had to retire due to ill-health. My warmest thanks to all of you.


All the best, from
Chris Hamer.


Local News

Annual General Meeting - Summary

The Annual General Meeting was held at CPACS, University of Sydney, at 12.30 am, Wednesday 4 May. Some highlights:

President’s Report – see the President’s Message

Secretary’s Report (Michael de Mol): Our financial membership is still 10; there are another dozen or so well-wishers and supporters on the books.

Treasurer’s Report (Michelle Cavanagh): We have a total of $370.40 in the bank.

Election of Officers: The previous officers were reelected:

President: Chris Hamer

Vice-President: Don Maclurcan

Secretary: Michael de Mol

Treasurer: Michelle Cavanagh

In addition, Austin Mackell will act as Editor of the Bulletin; and Andrew Greig has kindly volunteered to act as Media Relations Manager.

Recruitment. We need to recruit more members, if possible. Current members are encouraged to twist the arms of any likely recruits: friends, relations, or acquaintances. We should try and establish “branches” in Queensland and Victoria.

Website. Matthew Scherf has volunteered to give the website a more professional look: hopefully, we will see progress on this shortly.

Resources Editor Wanted.

One of our major discussions at the previous meeting was the need for an information resource or catalogue on our website, with pointers to books, articles, or other material on world citizenship and global governance. We need one or two volunteers to compile such a catalogue, with a couple of lines annotating each entry to describe it. Michael de Mol has already contributed a list of relevant works from the Baha’i community. CJH can put the catalogue up on the web. Any volunteers out there?

Education

A major priority for the Association is to try and establish some educational programs concerning our goal of world citizenship and global governance. Chris Hamer is presently exploring some possibilities: a general studies course at UNSW, a Continuing Education course at Sydney, or participation in courses at CPACS or AIIA. Would anyone else like to participate, or know of other opportunities?

Future Activities.

The meeting felt that we need to limit our events to one or two per year for the time being, given our small resources. Don Maclurcan has volunteered to organize another discussion evening with the UN Society at UTS, maybe in September.

Andrew Greig suggested that we should look to organize a conference or workshop on a topic of interest to us – e.g prospects for integration in the Asia-Pacific region. It should be possible to attract one or two high-profile speakers who would give us some media publicity. This is an exciting idea, but would involve considerable work: We would perhaps need to do it in partnership with an established organization such as CPACS.

World Citizens Day

On March 20th, we celebrated World Citizens Day at the Glover Cottages in Kent Street, courtesy of the Australian Institute for International Affairs, with a barbecue and a talk by Margaret Reynolds, President of the United Nations Association of Australia. The weather was fine, and about 14 people turned up for a very pleasant barbecue.
Margaret gave an inspiring talk, in which she discussed the concept of world citizenship, and the prospects of meaningful UN Reform. On citizenship, she used the picture of a person walking along Circular Quay, who is suddenly confronted by another person offering a choice between two flags, an Australian flag or a UN flag. One would expect 99% to choose the Australian flag over the UN flag. Margaret herself would choose both: one should be ready to feel loyalty on two levels, to Australia at the national level, and to the UN at the global level. The remarkable response to the tsunami disaster at New Year showed how people can empathize with other members of the global community; but our poor response to the ongoing problems of hunger and poverty in the Third World shows how difficult it is to sustain this involvement.
She briefly mentioned the recent reports commissioned by Kofi Annan on UN Reform, proposing changes in membership ofthe Security Council. She was very pessimistic, however, about the prospects for any major or meaningful reform, e.g. making the UN more democratic.
We are hoping to make the celebration of World Citizens Day an annual event. It would be a great symbolic step forward if we could get the day formally recognized by the UN. I have had advice from UNIC, however, that a new day of celebration can only be added to the UN calendar if it is officially nominated by a member nation. Would we have any chance of persuading the government to nominate the day?


International News

The Pacific Plan – A Vision for the Future

As advised earlier, we have put in a submission concerning the Pacific Plan. The “Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional Co-operation and Integration” is a blueprint for the future of the Pacific Islands Forum, with members consisting of Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and 13 other Pacific island nations. The priority goals of the forum are: economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security. There have been some major issues in the region over recent years, including the breakdowns of law and order in Fiji and the Solomon Islands, and the threat that islands like Kiribati may be submerged due to global warming. It is good to see that New Zealand has offered to resettle any islanders driven from their homelands by the sea.
To summarize, the major points made in the submission were:

This would be an ideal opportunity to propose some degree of political integration via the Pacific Forum, so that it could legitimately oversee peace and security in the region.

The World Citizens Association would therefore advocate a “vision of the future” in which the Pacific Forum would evolve, by easy stages and successive treaties, into a fully fledged political association, along similar lines to the European Union. It would act as a “village council” for the Pacific region, to make decisions on matters of common interest in the region.

This vision would answer the call of the Eminent Persons’ Group Review of the Forum in April 2004, in which they wrote:

“We ask Leaders not only to endorse the concept of the Pacific Plan, but also to be bold and innovative in pursuing it. Greater sharing of resources is the first step. We hope that Leaders will be prepared to go further, to consider regional integration that runs deeper than that established already under regional trade arrangements. We suggest that it would be timely for Leaders to consider options for future economic and political integration – possibly to develop a model that is unique for the Pacific.”

The Pacific Forum already has several of the same basic elements as the European Union, though of course on a much smaller scale. It has a Secretariat to administer day-to-day affairs, and a yearly meeting of leaders, the Forum itself, to decide policy. We have suggested three additional structures:

These elements would provide the embryo of a fully-fledged Pacific Union, and would echo similar calls by the Eminent Persons’ Group, who called for “regional law enforcement aimed at trans-national crime”, a “regional panel of judges”, and mechanisms to assist in conflict prevention and conflict resolution within the region.

According to a recent news report, the Pacific Islands chairperson, Samoan Prime Minister Tuila’epa Sailele is walking right down our street! In an address on ‘The Future of Regionalism in the South Pacific’ he has called for the Pacific countries to be prepared to relinquish [some] sovereignty under the Pacific Plan. He suggested regional cooperation could extend to “harmonized laws and policies”, and include a regional constitutional court and Parliamentary Assembly! Let us hope these exciting ideas come to fruition, and that the Australian government does not prove a stumbling block!
The final Pacific Plan will go to the leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum summit to be held in Papua New Guinea in August. This topic is one which could form a natural focus for our group in the near term. We should see what we can do to publicize these developments, and lobby politicians on the issue.
Reference: see www.islandbusiness.com


Rejection of the European Constitution


In recent weeks, referendum votes have rejected the proposed new European Constitution, by large majorities of 55% in France and 62% in Holland. It is not yet clear what this will mean for the future of the European Union.
The draft Constitution was prepared by a high-level committee, chaired by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, former President of France and member of Jean Monnet’s Action Committee for a United States of Europe. It provided for a degree of closer political integration in Europe, including a new and more democratic voting system, creation of an EU diplomatic corps and foreign minister, and a President for the EU. It required all 25 members of the EU to ratify the Constitution before it would come into force. Nine member countries had already done so, without a popular referendum, but the votes in France and Holland have derailed the process.


There are apparently several reasons for the ‘no’ vote. Voters from the ‘old Europe’ are getting tired of providing financial subsidies to the ‘new Europe’.; and they are afraid of losing their jobs to immigrants from the poorer regions, the ‘Polish plumber’ and the ‘Romanian lory driver’.. They are also rejecting the ‘Anglo-Saxon model’ of unfettered free markets and diluted social welfare benefits. In general, they seem to feel that Europe has expanded too far, too fast.


The consequences of this rejection are not yet clear. It is unlikely that the Constitution can now be approved. Scheduled referenda in Denmark and Britain would probably produce even larger ‘no’ votes. It seems unlikely that Turkey’s application for membership will be successful in the foreseeable future. It may mean that the boundaries of the EU will be fixed fairly close to where they are now, perhaps after Romania and Bulgaria join in 2007. The new political measures proposed in the Constitution might be achieved in another way, by a new Treaty perhaps, in the usual EU fashion.