Rethinking Sovereignty

<blockquote>As a result, new mechanisms are needed for regional and global governance that include actors other than states. This is not to argue that Microsoft, Amnesty International, or Goldman Sachs be given seats in the United Nations General Assembly, but it does mean including representatives of such organizations in regional and global deliberations when they have the capacity to affect whether and how regional and global challenges are met.</blockquote> <p> Nothing could be more lacking in insight as the above statement. Most, if not all, corporations already have a seat at such venues for such global deliberations, it’s just that they are working in the background with government representatives showing their faces publicly to present policies that are grossly influenced by them. Instead of presenting us with a solution, Hass presents us with the problem. If anything, the role of corporations has to be eliminated from these debates. <blockquote>Moreover, states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function. This is already taking place in the trade realm. Governments agree to accept the rulings of the World Trade Organization because on balance they benefit from an international trading order even if a particular decision requires that they alter a practice that is their sovereign right to carry out. </blockquote> <p> The Council on Foreign Relations is a front for advocates of elitist governance achieved through the use of military power (currently largely US power) of supposedly democratically elected governments, as well as such undemocratic institutions as the WTO in which corporate interests take complete precedence and give no voice to social concerns such as universal human rights, universal labour standards, etc. <blockquote>Some governments are prepared to give up elements of sovereignty to address the threat of global climate change. Under one such arrangement, the Kyoto Protocol, which runs through 2012, signatories agree to cap specific emissions. What is needed now is a successor arrangement in which a larger number of governments, including the United States, China, and India, accept emissions limits or adopt common standards because they recognize that they would be worse off if no country did. </blockquote> <p> I have heard of revisionist history but usually the people who engage in it at least wait until the actual history they are trying to change is a generation or more old so no one remembers what actually happened. The USA did not sign the Kyoto Protocol and China and India were specifically exempt from emissions limits as being third world countries (a concession that was most likely offered as a bribe to get them to sign and the one thing in the protocol that nullified the agreement as a solution to the greenhouse gas problem) and in fact under Kyoto polluters were able to buy emission credits from them. <blockquote>The NATO intervention in Kosovo was an example where a number of governments chose to violate the sovereignty of another government (Serbia) to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide. By contrast, the mass killing in Rwanda a decade ago and now in Darfur, Sudan, demonstrate the high price of judging sovereignty to be supreme and thus doing little to prevent the slaughter of innocents. </blockquote> <p> While I do not have much knowledge about what the motivations were for NATO (code word USA) to intervene in Kosovo, some comments from writers such as Noam Chomsky indicate that concern for ethnic cleansing and genocide were not at the top of the list. One thing certain, however, is that their refusal to get intervene in Rwanda and Darfur is not about respect for the sovereignty of these countries and is more likely that neither is economically or politically important enough to deserve such attention. <p> It’s rather obvious that this article is intended to promote globalization and thereby rule by the elite, ie. wealthy, by reducing the ability of sovereign democratic states to represent the will of the people who elected them.

You blew that one out of the water hoopoe.

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"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
(Albert Einstein)

yess he did and thanks for doing so
Conspiracy???

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The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.... : Albert Einstein

"While I do not have much knowledge about what the motivations were for NATO (code word USA) to intervene in Kosovo, some comments from writers such as Noam Chomsky indicate that concern for ethnic cleansing and genocide were not at the top of the list." Quite simply, your friendly neighbourhood commanders at NATO along with the heads of NATO member states were concerned about all large scale unrest on the borders of their countries--nevermind the unrest and atrocities WITHIN the borders of their own NATO countries (Turkey instantly comes to mind).

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"The more you read and learn, the less your adversary will know." --Sun Tzu

Pipeline routes and the refusal to privatize money creation come to mind as well.

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"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
(Albert Einstein)

A healthy scepticism is necessary when discussing a world government -vs- sovereignty of state. The powerful ones always know how to grease the machine, don't they? One has to be quite naive to think that this would change.

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"We are all in this together somehow, some more than others somehow"

Thanks Hoopoe. I was hoping someone would have lots to say about this.

I actually found this article by accident, I was talking to a Serbian from Yugoslavia last week and didn't know anything about the NATO attack. So, I looked it up and stumbled across this. I found an great article about the attack and will post it in the forum later.



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These days, if you are not confused, you are not thinking clearly. Mrs. Irene Peters

World co-operation? If we're lucky.

World government? Impossible uptopianism.

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Multiculturalism is neither left nor right, but rather a sickening indication of what happens when 'representative government' fails the majority. It occurred

Those who want "global governance" are missing one very important point concerning the sovereign state.

Sovereign states tend to keep each other honest and within acceptable boundaries.

With global governance, there would be no such checks and balances. The superstate can do whatever it wants, to whoever it wants, whenever it wants, and all without any expectation of resistance.

If that's not the short path to Hell, I don't know what is.



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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

Hell was probably the whole point--except of course for the super rich.

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Multiculturalism is neither left nor right, but rather a sickening indication of what happens when 'representative government' fails the majority. It occurred