After the Falkland, now Lebanon …
The number of touchpoints, where the absolute national
sovereignty claimed by the nation-states can lead to
territorial disputes, is unfortunately increasing,
bringing misfortune to the inhabitants of the disputed
territories.
Among the world's trouble spots one sees :
- some at the moment "alight", such as the
Falklands, Gibraltar, the Beagle Channel and the mouth
of th River Plate ;
- some threatening to become so, such as Hong Kong
and Macau ;
- some forgotten, such as the Channel Islands or
Llivia
- some having themselves become nation-states but
nevertheless still disputed, such as Taiwan, Cyprus of
Guyana ;
- some, such as Belize of Sikkim, too weak to uphold
their own independence, and finally
- some entitles, such as Israel, Lebanon and
Palestine, seemingly doomed to exist or survive only
in a context of violence.
And yet are not the inhabitants of such places united
in the same desire to live in peace and security ? Facing
the nation-state, how can that peace and security be
guaranteed ?
President Mitterrand suggested recently, as a means of
saving Beirut, a solution close to mundialist ideas,
incorporating U.N. intervention. Has the time no come to
set up an International commission of jurists to promote
the study and practice of such solutions, charged with
instituting a thoroughgoing system of International
(indeed World) law, to be backed up by a global Security
Body independent of nation-states and having power to
enforce respect of the right to peace ?
The peoples involved in these troubles would then be
able to appeal for judgment to a world authority, as was
happening recently over the
Falklands. Gradually humanity could thus progress
towards world federation, as a natural extension of
regional or local federation. Would anything else succeed
in protecting minorities from the jealous grasp of the
nation-state ?
World Peace Through
World Law
PARLIAMENTARIANS FOR WORLD ORDER : the members
of this international network, comprising 550 MPs from 22
countries and whose declared aim is "World Peace Through
World Law" held a conference at U.N. headquarters early
in June, under the chairmanship of the Canadian MP
Douglas Roche. In a call for the survival of humanity,
issued at the end of the conference, the PWO made
proposals for disarmament control with ground
inspection.
