Concept Paper a global youth network and World Youth Council - An initiative of the Global Youth ACTION Network - Partnership and Strategy: Jonah Wittkamper, jonah@youthlink.org Development: Benjamin Quinto, benjamin@youthlink.org United Nations: Bremley Lyngdoh, bremley@youthlink.org Workshops: Jennifer Corriero, jenergy@takingitglobal.org Technology: Michael Furdyk, mfurdyk@takingitglobal.org Media: Ana Pascual, ana@youthlink.org Special Projects: Nick Moraitis, nick@youthlink.org _________________________________________________________________ 1. YouthMovements.org Strategy version 2.2, updated April 2nd, 2001 1.1 A Process model for collaboration 1.2 Facilitate local circles towards collaboration 1.3 Why nuclear abolition needs a cohesive youth movement 2. YouthMovements.org Technology Collaboration 3. Analyzing fragmentation of youth movements and a rationale for cohesion 4.1 An E-Parliament 4.2 Towards a World Parliament __________________________________ Part 1. YouthMovements.org Strategy Vision: Effecitve and meaningful intergenerational partnership and youth participation in global decision making. Mission: Facilitate collaboration and cohesion of youth movements around the world. Strategy: Expand, connect, evaluate and recreate the following success stories globally. Questions and comments to: +1-212-661-6111 or jonah@youthlink.org Part 1. Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY COCKTAIL FOR YOUTH EMPOWERMENT 1. Collaboration among local youth organizations 2. Weekly posting of local activist events and opportunities 3. Intergenerational, interfaith retreats 4. Youth statements, awards, and conventions plus a citizenship competition 5. Bridging traditional philanthropy with youth activism INTERNET SOLUTIONS FOR YOUTH EMPOWERMENT 6. Shared resource database 7. Democratic vs. corporate media plus peace and justice media BRIDGING INTERNATIONAL YOUTH EMPOWERMENT 8. Pluralism and peace education 9. Connecting global to local 10. The World Assembly of Youth and the UN Youth Unit 11. Globally active communities 12. Pitch to foundations, individuals and other partners 14. Destiny EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The following research urges cohesion among youth movements around the world for the creation of a shared Internet portal and a World Youth Council that stands on the grass roots support of global youth activism. As a cocktail for youth empowerment the research encourages 1) weekly meals and conversations for youth activists and allies in cities everywhere, 2) collaborative weekly e-newsletters of local youth events and opportunities, 3) weekly retreats for youth and allies to move beyond professional boundaries and develop personal relationships, 4) collaboratively built youth platforms/statements, 5) awards and recognition for youth activism, 6) democratically created youth leadership councils, 7) conventions and forums for youth to dialogue with business, non-profit, and governmental leaders, 8) school led activism and citizenship project competitions, 9) and youth led, transparent philanthropy foundations. As an Internet component the research encourages the creation of a portal for youth activism connecting 1) an open shared resource database and 2) a for youth/by youth news center supporting free, transparent democratically empowered media coupled with 3) syndicated for youth/by youth peace and justice media. As a cocktail for supporting international youth collaboration the research supports 1) international schools and student exchanges coupled with service work, 2) peace education 3) interfaith community building coupled with service work, 4) online international collaboration and community building, and 5) youth led, issue focused international conferences to facilitate greater organizing. The document concludes by 1) outlining collaborative projects for youth organizations, 2) recommending conversations with the World Assembly of Youth and the UN Youth Unit, 3) engaging existing global communities in youthMovements.org, 4) arguing for foundation supported local to regional to global gatherings, and 5) reviewing and linking to groups seeking world democracy. COCKTAIL FOR YOUTH EMPOWERMENT 1. Collaboration among local youth organizations In January 1998 Chicago youth activists began gathering each Tuesday night for a meal. In a few months near 100 activists were showing up each week. It became the center for networking, idea sharing, friendship building and collaboration in the Chicago youth movement. In February, 2001 the same practice began in New York, DC, and Sao Paulo. It was the seed for building relationships across networks. 2. Weekly posting of local activist events and opportunities In 1998 Amy Wagner of Youth Activist ~ Youth Allies (a project of the Wagner Foundation) hired a few high school activists.They made site visits to dozens of youth organizations in New York City, gathered email addresses, and collected event announcements. Each Monday they broadcast the events-list via email and fax. Now, three years later 4000 people participate in the mailing list. Teachers and community leaders refer to it as one of the top resources for engaging young people in action. http://www.youthlink.org/yaya 3. Intergenerational, interfaith retreats In 1997 the Interfaith Center of New York began organizing intergenerational, interfaith retreats in the suburbs the city. The retreats, still ongoing in 2001, celebrate diversity, introduce organizers (young and old) to each other and interconnect networks. In 2001 youth organizers began to hold retreats every weekend improving the opportunities for more people to build relationships with activists and expand the community. Retreats are especially effective because the participants move beyond professional relationships and develop personal ones. In NYC the initiative has become one of the best ways to inspire new activism and build trust between groups. 4. Youth statements, awards, and conventions plus a citizenship competition In 1995 Peter Raducha was frustrated with the absent voice and activity of youth in problem solving. He joined the Foundation of America: Youth in Action, connected with groups of young people and organized several programs: 1) awards for young people who made a difference in their communities, 2) a survey asking youth to identify problems in their communities and suggest solutions, a 3) youth council to analyze the responses and build a youth "Platform", and finally 4) to organize a convention and present the "Platform" to leaders. The initiative was very successful winning many articles in the media and two hours for 11 young people to dialogue with US President Bill Clinton. http://www.youthlink.org In 1997, Ashoka fellow, Luciana Martinelli wanted to engage more young people in solving community problems. With friends, she founded the Instituto Proacão in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and began organizing citizenship competitions. Working with the board of education they gathered school administrators with NGO's and developed a strategy for involving students in shaping their communities. IP explained, "Are you teaching your students to be citizens?" The teachers replied, "Yes, through our math and science work." IP replied, "Real citizenship education must happen outside the classroom." After some pushing weekly meetings were organized in the schools. Sixty students, a few teachers, and an IPer sat in a circle to talk about local and national issues. After several months of debate and exploration the young people were challenged to use their knowledge. IP developed relationships with 40 local NGO's (locating them through referrals and a chain of personal friendships) and prepared them to welcome the students. The students formed teams, worked with the NGO's and soon developed their own projects to tackle problems, competing to solve problems most creatively and effectively. At the end of the year IP reviewed the projects giving an award to the best three: lunch with the mayor, publishing a book about the project, or co-leading IP. http://www.proacao.org.br 5. Bridging traditional philanthropy with youth activism William Wimsatt, Gita Drury, and Kofi Taha, a group of celebrated youth activists in the United States, teamed up to create a new kind of foundation. With experience ranging from book authoring, hip-hop music, and prison reform, to fundraising and social entrepreneurship grant making - they drew from a large network. They gather money from foundations and individuals for redistribution into grassroots youth activism - a landscape where neither foundations, nor wealthy individuals have much experience. For youth/by youth philanthropy will be more effective, provide more creative program support, be more transparent, and develop less bureaucracy. http://www.activelement.org THE FIVE BUILDING BLOCKS DETAILED ABOVE TOGETHER CREATE A SYSTEMIC SOLUTION FOR NEW PROBLEM SOLVING. INTERNET SOLUTIONS FOR YOUTH EMPOWERMENT 6. Shared resource database In 1995 Ami Darr observed it was too difficult for people seeking social services to locate them. He created a shared resource database on the Internet allowing non-profit organizations to post job and internship opportunities, contact information, mission statements, and other resources. He supplemented the database with a mailing to announce new jobs and resources to interested subscribers, for free. Five years later 21,000 organizations from 152 countries have posted information to the site matching resources for millions around the world. 12,000 people visit the site daily. It has become the central place on the Internet for listing non-profit resources. http://www.idealist.org 7. Democratic vs. corporate media plus peace and justice media In November of 1999, Matt Arnison of Australia donated his news-center software to anti-WTO organizers in Seattle, USA. With free hosting resources provided by freespeech.org a new service was created on the Internet for journalists, amateur and professional. Carrying the name Independent Media Center, there are now 40 groups around the world that cover local news and events. They permit anyone to instantly post information to their web sites with the most significant information (decided democratically) receiving the most prominent real-estate on the top web page. Articles may be posted as text, sound, and still or moving images. Unfiltered, publicly visible commentary follows each article inviting debate and discussion. http://www.indymedia.org In 1995 Anuradha Vittachi was frustrated by the absence of main stream peace media and by peace groups operating in isolation around the world. With the funding from family connections and support from British Telecom she started a peace and justice news center on the Internet connecting with relevant partner organizations around the world. http://www.OneWorld.net is now one of the leading providers of social change news. BRIDGING INTERNATIONAL YOUTH EMPOWERMENT 8. Pluralism and peace education In 1962 Kurt Hahn founded a boarding school in Wales, UK. Today 300 students from 90 different countries participate in the two-year program at Atlantic College - the oldest of 10 United World Colleges. Today 25,000 alumni make up a global community of people dedicated to peace and justice through action and personal example. In January 2001 Michael Knagenjelm, Board member of UWC, organized a group of European corporations to pay tuition for North African students to attend the Red Cross Nordic United World College, in Norway. These corporations see UWC as an opportunity to invest in international cooperation and future opportunities within developing countries. Michael asserts that this story can be recreated and the result will be more globally minded young leaders, educated from corporate funding, demanding corporate responsibility. The UWC system is a leader in peace and justice education. http://www.uwc.org In 1999 Cora Weiss and the Hague Appeal for Peace organized the largest international peace conference in history - on the 100 year anniversary of the 1899 HAP. Ten thousand participants, from 1000 NGOs, from more than 100 countries formed nine issue specific coalitions including the Global Campaign for Peace Education. Today several countries have ratified their education policies to mandate peace education and dozens of resources have been created and shared around the world. http://www.haguepeace.org In 1988 Peter Copen feared the cold war tension between Russia and the United States. He organized teleconferences to support collaboration between schools in both countries. Shortly thereafter he used the Internet and founded the International Education and Resource Network, www.iearn.org . Today thousands of schools in 95 countries collaborate through the Internet on projects to show young people that they can make a difference. In 1994, to supplement virtual community building IEARN organized conferences to support face to face community building. Today the gatherings continue, online and offline, to build a globally cooperative family. In 1998 Ebrahim Patel was frustrated by the absence of youth participation in interfaith community organizing. Working with the United Religions Initiative and other groups he co-founded the Interfaith Youth Corps to fuse youth leadership with the interfaith network. Today the IFYC consults with many faith organizations and leads advances within the movement. http://www.ifyc.org In December 2000 the Global Youth ACTION Network brought the UWC, the HAP Youth Network, IEARN, and the IFYC together for the first time. International diverse student communities, movements for peace education, Internet based youth collaboration, and youth led interfaith organizing together form a tripod of international youth empowerment. This cocktail of solutions integrates diverse people, diverse ideologies, and diverse technologies to perpetuate a culture of peace. Partnered with corporate interest to build a cooperative global community this tripod will grow, will be sustainable, will become a vital part of educational systems and will diversify, pluralize, interconnect and internationalize institutions. 9. Connecting global to local In 1995 Benjamin Quinto entered the United Nations and began organizing to create a Global Youth Assembly. He discovered other groups with a similar vision and founded the Global Youth ACTION Network to encourage collaboration. In December, 2000, GYAN gathered several dozen youth organizations, adult allies, and representatives of Internet networks. The attendants committed to work with each other and to facilitate cohesion within youth movements around the world. Six parallel initiatives resulted: a. Local gatherings and meals for diverse youth organizers and allies b. Global reunions twice per year c. A shared advocacy and education campaign d. A shared magazine to chronicle youth organizing and leadership e. A collectively created portal connecting databases and resources relevant to youth activists f. A vision statement and a call for the creation of a world youth council to be supported from the grassroots energy of youth networks covering the planet This PDF document describes the meeting MOWsummary2000.pdf 10. The World Assembly of Youth and the UN Youth Unit The World Assembly of Youth is the oldest network of National Youth Councils in the world. Headquartered in Malaysia it analyzes youth research and policies with outreach to millions around the world. http://www.worldassemblyofyouth.org The United Nations Youth Unit is responsible for coordinating youth programs within the UN system, reporting youth statistics, and analyzing youth policies. It has a static list of youth organizations on its web site with links all over the world. http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/ Both of these groups are interested in dynamic databases listing youth organizations and are talking with the Global Youth ACTION Network about collaboration. 11. Globally active communities Fast Company Magazine In 1995 Alan Webber and Bill Taylor founded fast company magazine. Meeting a demand to chronicle social businesses their glossy magazine turned a profit in 2 years; it normally takes 5. The most celebrated part of Fast Company is the readership. In more than ninety cities around the world FC readers have gathered, creating a "Company of Friends" or "cells." The largest is located in New York City. A free, active discussion list among the readers has become a fertile place to match clients and to fundraise support of local causes. Dedicated to progress, the readership is young, and a breeding ground of for-profit/non-profit partnerships. http://www.fastcompany.com The global community of Fast Company cells reflects the activity of many other global communities that are allies to youth movements. International communities with 500+ members include: Boy Scouts, World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, AIESEC, Free the Children, United World Colleges, Camp Rising Sun, Seeds of Peace, Children's International Summer Villages, Legacy International, Pioneers of Change, IEARN, Common Futures Forum, Global Youth Connect, Model United Nations, Youth for Environmental Sanity, International Youth Parliament, Asian Students Association, American Field Service, Alliance for a Responsible and United World, Bahai Youth Councils, World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Roots and Shoots, International Student Movement for the United Nations, Youth Employment Summit, Young General Assembly, Emerging Leaders Program, Volunteers for Peace, Cross Cultural Solutions, Junior Chamber, European Youth Forum, United Nations of Youth Foundation, European Youth Forum, Asian Youth Council, European Students Forum, National Unions of Students in Europe, Asia-Europe Youth Co-operation, and the Sierra Student Coalition. Kindred international communities with 500+ members that are not youth-focused include: MENSA, Doctors without Borders, Peace Corps, Habitat for Humanity, Oxfam, International Indian Treaty Council, Legion of Good Will, United Universalist Association, Pax Christi, Institute for Noetic Sciences, Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, Kiwanis Clubs, World Bank, Fellowship for Reconciliation, Inter American Development Bank, Trust for the Americas, International Youth Foundation, OneWorld.net, Institute for Global Communication, Association of Progressive Communication, Green Peace, Amnesty International, Red Cross, Ashoka, Healthy Cities International, Moral Re-Armament, Servas, Fast Company etc. Each of these communities like Fast Company fills a different niche and offers a different type of expertise to support youth activism. Our challenge is to create a technology and a system to invite their participation and cohesion. The technology strategy linked at the top of this document describes a path to facilitate the collaboration between technology groups. 12. Pitch to foundations, individuals and other partners Many "outside the box" youth organizers have participated in international youth communities. International diversity is a vital component of creative and innovative activism. Activism in isolation often leads to stagnation and "burn out." Every activist needs a "network" to draw from for intelligence, referrals, advice, consulting, resources etc. Many global service organizations (such as the Hague Appeal for Peace Youth Network) and pioneering Internet resources (such as idealist.org) offer compelling, vital programs, connections and resources. Too often they lack diverse participation and do not have truly global reach. Latin America (including the Caribbean) is one of the most critical regions of the planet for the social development of youth. 70% of Internet users in Latin America are under 25. At the same time Internet access and use is growing by more than 50% every year. Unfortunately many pioneering Internet resources and global service organizations do not offer materials in Spanish or Portuguese. Correspondingly many youth organizations in Latin America are ignorant about their existence. For example, Idealist.org is not available in Spanish and before March 2001 the Legion of Good Will (a large Brazilian service organization) was not listed in the database. The four points above demand for a gathering of regional Latin American organizations with pioneering Internet resources and global service organizations. Latin American youth participants at the gathering will enjoy: 1) international community, diversity, and knowledge, 2) development of stronger networks, 3) and new relationships with groups that can provide radically new forms of support. Participants representing global service organizations will 1) discover new opportunities for collaboration, 2) opportunities to share resources and reduce duplicate effort, 3) and ways to avoid "competition" and "territoriality" in youth work. The overall result will be a more globally cohesive community of youth activists and allies. GYAN with partner organizations is planning a Latin American conference between June 4th and June 10th to advance these success stories and this collaboration. Each group will introduce itself and share stories. Free time and working groups will permit each group to build relationships with potential partners. In preparation for the gathering this document will be distributed to all participants. Each group will be invited to introduce themselves and contribute content for document expansion. Representatives of most organizations described above will be invited. The six parallel collaboration initiatives will be developed. 14. Destiny When Einstein passed away he recommended two strategies for solving global problems: a world youth parliament and a global spirituality. Gregory R. Smith, child prodigy and humanist, urges and describes the creation of a United Youth Congress - kindred to a World Youth Parliament. The concept has many names. http://www.gregoryrsmith.com/unitedyouthcongress.html The United Nations is not a democratic institution. The people of the earth call for an alternative. The Global People's Assembly works towards a vision of that alternative. It sprouted from CAMDUN (Campaign for a More Democratic United Nations) and is a global collection of local communities/assemblies that talk about issues and solutions from a local to global level. Simultaneously they work on projects to exercise solutions. Finally, they gather face to face every two years to advance their work. http://www.ourvoices.org The World Federalist Association, like the GPA, works on global issues to strengthen the world - specifically the creation of global institutions and policies such as the International Criminal Court. They hold a vision of a World Federation. http://www.wfm.org Finally, there are a number of other groups that vision a world democracy. Among them are the World Government of World Citizens, the International Registry of World Citizens, the United Planetary Federation, the World Constitution and Parliament Association, and the World Citizen Foundation. The WCF has the most integrative vision with a document (Global Coalition for World Democracy 2010) that is endorsed by world leaders of wide diversity ranging from both wings of the political spectrum. http://www.worldcitizen.org A globally cohesive youth movement, sourced from pluralistic and international understanding, will carry forward and implement the visions of these groups - creating a world that works for all. TEXTS 1.1 1.2 and 1.3 are not inlcuded in this document. 2. YouthMovements.org Tech Collaboration Part 1. YouthMovements.org Strategy version 2.1, updated March 25th, 2001 Part 2. YouthMovements.org Technology Collaboration Part 2.1 An examination of overlap and an "open source content" solution. On December 7th 2000, the Global Youth ACTION Network and Make Our World in cooperation with several groups brought together 30 international youth organizations and allies. We developed several ideas for collaboration with the purpose to "do something together that none of us can do alone." Background The strategy for youthMovements.org described in the previous chapter outlines a process for supporting collaboration between people based communities of young people. As demonstrated by the open source software movement, technology is a leader and teacher of international collaboration. Correspondingly collaboration between Internet-based organizations can be a leader and teacher of collaboration to global people-based organizations. There are many sites on the Internet that offer great resources to youth activists. Unfortunately many of them duplicate effort and as a result the e-traffic is diluted. Critical mass is necessary to create real communities and to provoke change. Shine.com and ThinkPop.org are two examples of online communities that offer online resources to support youth activism but neither site receives adequate traffic or provides access to comprehensive information. The backends of both web sites should connect with the same information source so that the data is shared, supporting the content and strength of all sites involved. In 1997 Carnegie Mellon University published research linking frequent Internet usage with depression. The International Education And Resource Network responded with a letter to the New York Times describing the results of their work: when Internet usage is oriented towards solving world problems and is supplemented with face to face gatherings it causes happiness - a powerful antidote to the CMU findings. Online communities are incomplete without face to face communities. The previous chapter presents a strategy for organizations to collaborate. Internet groups can help people based groups to collaborate but there is a need for Internet groups to collaborate first. Moreover, Internet communities need to supplement their virtual work with face to face work through people based communities. 1. Online Niches Over the past few years I have developed relationships with most organizers of the following sites. Each fills a specific niche in youth activism and deserves to participate in an online collaboration system. www.nation1.net - An online community for youth offering resources to support organizing. They will soon debut news for/by youth, multi-lingual chats, forums and more. www.iyoco.org - Offers lists of organizations and resources in addition to research papers relevant to youth leadership. www.youthlink.org - Offers a survey to build the voice of young people, awards to support youth action, and databases of organizations and events. www.takingITglobal.org - Offers databases of organizations and events, news and profiles of youth activists, and a discussion forum. The vision is to improve IT access and opportunities for youth around the world. www.idealist.org - A database or organizations, jobs, internships, events, and other resources. A new database of individuals. A newsletter for non-profits and many links to support non-profit organizing. www.iearn.org - A community of schools in dozens of countries around the world. They collaborate through the Internet (both web and news groups) on projects to show young people they can make a difference. www.indymedia.org - A progressive news site. Article publishing is open to anyone as is commentary. Forty local Independent Media Centers report on local news and events. Front page content is democratically prioritized. www.oneworld.org - A daily collection of peace and justice articles written by syndicated columnists. Simultaneously a community of several hundred partner organizations that share ideas and resources. www.ideaFund.org & www.globalIdeasBank.org - People post ideas that can help make a difference in the world. The best ideas may receive funding to support them. www.favors.org - A system of individuals who network with each other, invite others into their network, and may exchange goods and services - tracking the exchange online in an alternative currency. www.actionnetwork.org - Online tools for campaigns. Offering web pages to host data and web to fax/web to email broadcast facilities. Permits delivery of custom messages from individuals to campaign targets. Participant information is captured in a database permitting follow up education about the campaign and opportunities for new campaigns on the shoulders of wider networks. www.e-teen.net - An e-magazine for youth focused on community, issue education, volunteerism, and activism. www.CraigsList.org - Online forums dedicated to matching needs with resources. Categories range from roommate boards to car pools. A group of less explicitly socially minded online communities of youth that may wish to participate in the collaboration include: www.bolt.com, www.yack.com, www.snowball.com and www.blackplanet.com And finally, many mailing lists of youth groups have been created on the sites www.yahoogroups.com and www.topica.net VISION FOR INTEGRATING NICHE SITES Action plan towards collaboration a. Prioritize sites and groups to build youthmovements.org and contribute to the strategy b. Educate each group about the others. c. Organize a series of conference calls. d. Develop a joint strategy for developing standards, opening databases and sharing backend data - preserving site identity while strengthening the content and the community. e. Continue to collectively build the youthmovements.org portal while introducing international communities to the resources of these groups. f. Ensure multi-lingual content and accessibility of each site. g. Partner this content-rich community with initiatives to extend its resources beyond the reach of the Internet through paper newsletters, computer education programs, conferences, student exchanges etc. h. Parallel to steps a - g, invite interested groups to attend the gathering of youthmovements.org from June 4th to June 10th in Mexico. INTEGRATION STRATEGIES IN DETAIL 1. Mailing lists and databases yahoogroups.com and Topica.net host many e-mailing lists of youth activists (some are hosted by different systems such as those on university campuses). Many are e-newsletters while others are ongoing e-conversations. Two problems limit their success: 1) information overload and 2) operating in isolation. List owners recognize a need to network, consolidate, organize, and summarize the lists while sites like idealist.org offer a database solution. Individuals can register with idealist.org and chose to receive announcements about jobs, events, internships, and other resources via email. The site also presents a database with information about thousands of organizations all over the world. Kindred youth sites that offer similar resources and online communities include youthlink.org, iyoco.org, takingITglobal.org and nation1.net Idealist.org and favors.org offer databases of individuals. Idealist.org also offers a database of organizations. Nation1.net offers community. Youthlink.org offers awards and a survey to build youth voice. TakingITglobal.org offers youth activist profiles, ideas, and resources. Iyoco.org offers research, analysis, and strategy for cooperation. All sites offer databases. E-teen.net offers an e-zine. There are many opportunities for these groups to partner without losing their niches and identity. Backend databases can connect them all and make them collectively more powerful. An initial strategy for connecting databases and offering them to other groups is described in detail in step 6 below. A suggested integration strategy follows for the sites listed here. 2. News One unmet niche in the online youth activism community is a for youth/by youth news center. The IndyMedia.org system enables democratic and open media. The oneWorld.org site offers syndicated media. YouthMovements.org can offer a site that supports both. Steps to create a for youth/by youth news center. a. Review existing available news systems such as Goofy by Cataweb.It (which has been donated to Nation1.net), Slashdot.com, IndyMedia.org, and NewsPro.cgi b. Review licensing challenges and technologies of existing, relevant syndicated news services such as Children's Express, AlterNet, and OneWorld.net c. Develop a design and structure to integrate syndicated media, democratically prioritized media and a raw news feed. d. Connect the news system with mailing lists, bulletin boards, and databases of all the partner organizations. 3. Funding, resource matching, finances, and demanding responsibility Traditional philanthropy is often bureaucratic, undemocratic, nepotistic and in need of transparency. Many financial challenges are met simply by matching needs with resources and bypassing costs altogether. At the same time our existing global financial system does not demand responsibility but instead requires public advocacy, activism and legal systems to maintain justice. A few online organizations offer solutions to each of these issues. IdeaFund.org and GlobalIDeasBank.org offer financial awards for good ideas that will make a difference in the world. The ideas are publicly visible and invite commentary. This is the seed of democratically controlled transparent philanthropy free of red tape. CraigsList.org matches needs with resources. People wishing to catch a ride between two cities can find someone to car pool with. This cuts costs, reduces wastes and introduces strangers to each other. Favors.org offers an online system for connecting with people, to network, to exchange goods and services and to pay each other with a virtual currency: ThankYous. Like Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) this system localizes resources, reinforces community wealth, and through direct connection with community members demands responsibility. It presents an alternative to our standing economy and can be implemented on a local as well as a global level. ActionNetwork.org provides online campaign tools that allow activists to provide feedback to corporations and government representatives through emails and faxes. The data of the activists is captured in a database permitting follow up education, new campaigns, and coalitions. Dozens of groups run campaigns through the site enabling the possibility of a collective lobby and strength in numbers. The system creates a new way to demand responsibility and justice from Corporations and government leaders. Funding, resource matching, finances, and campaign tools together create a cocktail for breaking the cycle of power that prevents change in our existing unsustainable system. 4. Integrating all features into online communities The cure for AIDS is a cocktail of more than a dozen different drugs. The cure of youth leadership to solve global problems, supported by the Internet, is a cocktail of more than a dozen web sites. YouthMovements.org seeks to integrate these sites into a package and to make the technology available to dozens of youth communities (and allies) around the world. The global community of United World Colleges alumni pursues social responsibility and justice. With these tools integrated and available for their collective action they will usher social change and environmental sustainability into their communities. Together with the global communities named in this document they will make the global youth net work - creating a world that works for all. 5. Joint search engine Collectively, the sites listed above offer comprehensive content for youth activism. Some are linked to each other but it is still a challenge to locate specific information. The solution is to create a search engine to catalogue the public content of each site in addition to the web content of the international youth organizations mentioned in Part 1. Perhaps this site could become youth.google.com? PROPOSED INITIAL TECHNICAL COLLABORATIONS IN DETAIL 6.1 Mailing Lists and Discussions There are many listservs/mailing lists that are dedicated to international youth activism. Following each international conference a new one is created. The two most well known are y-int@egroups.com (The Young Internationalist hosted by Rick Ponzio) and millenniumyouthforum@egroups.com (created following the United Nations NGO Millennium Forum). There also exist many mailing lists for the alumni communities of global organizations such as the United World Colleges, AIESEC, and even the Boy Scouts. Our challenge is to map out these mailing lists, consolidate them where appropriate, and organize a team of people to summarize and archive them on the web. The youthmovements.org mail server can host new mailing lists using Communigate Pro 3.3 by Stalker Software Inc. (a highly sophisticated and customizable program that will allow us to manage mailing lists and databases - without advertisements). Youthmovements.org can serve as a central place for merging many of the Egroups and Topica based mailing lists. Action steps: Catalogue mailing lists Identify list owners Identify "Summarizers" for posting on web Identify "niches" in mailing list networks Consolidate mailing lists where appropriate - replacing many with a few Create an online map of the lists, a system for posting summaries, and diagram of "niches" Integrate online forums and mailing lists - each supplementing the other 6.2 Organizations' Databases There are several sites on the web where organizations are listed in databases. At some sites organizations "own" their data with logins and passwords - the best example is: www.idealist.org . On other sites organization data is "imported," and groups do own their data, e.g. www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/ (UN Youth Unit). Idealist.org and youthlink.org/takingITglobal.org (among others) currently duplicate some effort. They list events, publications, organizations etc. They also offer user accounts with usernames and passwords. Idealist.org holds only "owned" records. youhlink.org holds both "owned" and "imported" data. Proposed action steps with idealist.org and partners a. Create a technology that permits a "shared" logins between idealist.org and other sites. As a result an organization is registered (with a login and password) on one site it will become part of the idealist.org system as well. b. Continue "importing" organizations into the "imported" databases. Consolidate and synchronize these data sources into a central database. The import process must check if each organization is listed in the www.idealist.org - if so it will not be imported. c. Create a tool for imported organizations to securely "claim" their database records by requesting and editing usernames and passwords (like on the youthlink.org site). When an organization is approved to "claim" its data it will receive a shared login/password from idealist.org and will graduate from the "imported" database to the "owned" database. d. Ask registered organizations to market the database(s) and import contact information of other organizations. 6.3 Individuals' Databases expansion proposal for idealist.org and partners The idealist.org Individuals' Database (Indiv. Db.) serves two purposes. First it allows individuals to select pin point specific information that interests them (e.g. Fundraising jobs and events in Egypt etc.) and that will be emailed to them each night after it is entered into idealist.org. Second, it permits people to publicly display information about themselves and their interests allowing volunteer seekers can contact them directly. These two features meet a need in the community of youth organizing. No other site offers them together. They can be particularly valuable to conference organizers by helping to strengthen networks and follow up work. Below is a strategy for opening this resource to other groups. a. Identify a group that will be interested in the system such as the United World Colleges. b. Create a "front end" to the Indiv. Db. Database on the United World Colleges alumni home page. c. Modify the Indiv. Db. to record/ask "how" the individual arrived at the database. This will allow individuals to search for community members and to "participate" in the database from their own online community. For example an individual could browse the UWC web site and explore information that is hosted by idealist.org on the back end. Individuals should also be able to select several communities in their profiles. d. Announce the new resources available to all UWC alumni (in partnership with idealist.org) via email providing each with a "clickable" URL inviting them to register in the Indiv. Db. This permits UWC to track alumni involvement and to target their alumni for follow up activities. e. Permit UWC to supplement the Indiv. Db. registration database with additional questions that are relevant to UWC organizers. f. Repeat steps a. through f. with other groups. Use MetaMerge Integrator software to facilitate the synchronization: http://www.metamerge.com - It can be made free for non-profit organizations. 6.4 Synchronize groups of individuals to a central location on the internet. Many alumni groups and online communities want to participate in the Indiv. Db. system described above. They also want to "own" some of their data privately within their own databases. The best is to permit foreign databases to "synchronize" with the Indiv. Db. System. For example, the UWC system might only upload new usernames and passwords to the Indiv. Db. but download new job information. This synchronization will be vital for cohesion within the global community of youth activism. Why? In order to avoid duplicate effort and territoriality it is important to share information in one place vs. many places. At the same time this centralization of information will permit communication to all individuals in all groups simultaneously from a single source. Who will control this communication? Our charge is to develop a council, a decision making system, and a process for moving through that system. The "council" will be populated by the groups that participate in this network. Perhaps this will be the spark of the "World Youth Council" that we describe in our vision. How will we synchronize systems? Many groups do not have web accessible member/alumni databases. They instead have desktop PC based Filemaker and Access databases. With some minor modifications and configuration these databases can be synchronized through an Internet connection with a web based server. Alternatively, the data can be exported periodically into a web based system. Once the data is web accessible server it can be linked or synchronized with the Indiv. Db. The centralization of data, synchronization of databases, and creation of a shared communication system or newsletter will allow us to achieve CRITICAL MASS and "do something together that none of us can do alone." Does the creation of a World Youth Council invite the creation of a World Youth Parliament? Is a World Youth Parliament the seed for World Democracy? Back to Part 1. YouthMovements.org Strategy version 2.1, updated March 25th, 2001 Fragmentation of youth movements Introduction The charge of this document is to describe the fragmentation of youth movements and illustrate the potential of their cohesion. To this end we define the term "youth movement", map disconnected movements, chart major events, and list milestones. We conclude by urging bottom-up and top-down cooperation, presenting an integrative technology solution to facilitate collaboration, and describing initiatives that will empower youth groups to do more together than they can do alone. The problem is territoriality, competition, and operating in isolation. These problems reduce the efficiency of youth organizing, prevent critical mass, and inhibit real change. The goal is to increase youth participation and opportunities through wise communication, collaboration, and de-fragmentation. The vision is effective youth participation in global decision making. This analysis will define criteria and support selection for the August 2001 MOW / GYAN conference on collaboration. Youth movement definition What characterizes a youth movement? Young people organize themselves to solve social and environmental problems. There is no single youth movement. There are many youth movements. Youth today stand at a threshold Youth movements change over time and quickly adapt to new challenges and new technologies. Diversity and global awareness particularly mark movements of today and the past decade and constitute the values of today's brewing global youth movement. Youth possess many other qualities and challenges that shape their movements. Affinity for new technologies and the Internet empowers youth organizers while fast learning and early adoption of computer skills empowers youth economically, more than at any other point in history. Youth are transient. They are adaptive, open minded, passionate, and less dependent on the economic system (without children to support). At the same time they are less experienced, less educated, naïve, un-professional, and likely to repeat old mistakes (the learning process). Celebrating diversity and global awareness, young people today embrace the oppressed. They recognize a need for cooperation between the North and the global South. Reference: http://iisd1.iisd.ca/youth/ysbk079.htm Every movement has a youth movement Young people have been at the heart of many movements. In the United States the civil rights movement and the peace movement were pioneered by youth. Globally youth have fought alongside workers and peasants against colonial rulers. Today youth struggle in many countries for democracy. Globally youth have pioneered the direct action anti-corporate globalization movement. Religions architect some of the largest youth movements. The B'Nei Akiva youth zionist movement claims 500 thousand members in 30 countries (Judaism). The World Youth Festival and World Youth Day, called by the Catholic church, gathered 2 million youth in Rome (August, 2000) and 4 million youth in Manila (January 1995). The Young Men's Christian Association claims 45 million members around the world. The Bahai faith holds international conferences each year, establishes youth councils, and partners with youth organizations such as AIESEC - the largest student organization in the world. The World Fellowship for Buddhist Youth has offices in 15 countries around the world. The World Assembly of Muslim Youth connects 450 organizations on five continents. Youth leadership is a rising trend. Young people today are wealthier than at any previous point in history. At the same time they are more mobile, have access to more resources and lead more organizations than previous generations. Youth participation is another movement. In the past educators, bureaucrats and policymakers designed and implemented programs for youth without youth consultation. The practice has disenfranchised and distanced youth communities. Today, progressive initiatives seek youth participation, avoiding tokenization. In the United States youth identify "education" as the top issue in the country. Youth, aged 18 - 24, vote less than any other eligible demographic. Young people are inadequately involved in leading government or education. The same is true elsewhere in the world. Youth employment is the priority of many groups today. In the next ten years 500 million youth will enter the work force and require the creation of new jobs. Youth exchanges also constitute a movement. Every year millions of young people travel internationally to experience new cultures. The result is greater awareness and international understanding. "Youth culture" describes the activity and character of young people incorporating the terms above. However, "culture" describes arts, sports, and other activities without emphasizing mobilization. The charge of this document is to examine mobilization. Together religious youth movements, youth leadership movements, youth participation movements, youth employment movements, and youth exchange movements form major components of the global youth movement. They deserve connection and invite a shared global vision and strategy. Youth development is a term that describes many of these movements together. It also focuses on internal advances of young people as opposed to the mobilization of young people. A lengthy definition of youth development is provided at www.nydic.org/devdef.html Other terms that commonly describe youth movements are youth empowerment, youth engagement, youth action, youth leaders, and youth mobilization. Cohesion and global action When Einstein passed away he encouraged two solutions for world problems: 1) a global spirituality and 2) a world youth parliament. Many youth groups share the vision of a World Youth Parliament but are disconnected and have not formed a global mandate. Cohesion of youth movements offers many possibilities. The characteristic direct action of the youth anti-corporation groups needs to be partnered with electoral action. Youth leadership training programs must be partnered with existing campaigns for youth participation. Many religious youth groups wish to share their culture and partner with youth exchange programs. The following 10-step plan facilitates comprehensive cohesion and collaboration among youth groups. (It is a compilation of success stories from around the globe.) Local to global collaboration plan 1. Encourage collaboration among foundations and philanthropists 2. Start (or merge) a youth organizer e/mailing list for events, announcements, and discussion -open to anyone. Outreach aggressively. 3. Hold rotating weekly/monthly gatherings 4. Map and document youth resources and projects 5. Poll organization needs and offer resources (training, technology etc.) 6. Create a shared newsletter - for Internet and/or print 7. Survey youth and build a youth statement/platform 8. Build a transparent, democratic grant-making website giving youth organizers citizenship, logins, and votes. Support awards and projects. 9. Elect a youth council 10. Host conventions and forums led by youth for non-profits, business, and government 11. Develop and strengthen exchange programs with diverse allies (local and global) Implementing these local strategies will enable and deliver global result. Global collaboration result 1. Transparent and democratic philanthropy 2. Global youth cultural exchange 3. Forum on globalization 4. Local, regional, national and world youth councils (World Youth Parliament) Strategy The global action outlined above will only be possible with a rigorous strategy - described at: www.youthmovements.org Youth networks are structured around global events, communication channels, and institutional as well as personal relationships. Advancing the strategies described above requires nurturing trust, transparency, and consolidation of effort. The first priority is to map and link existing events, communication channels and relationships ( www.youthmovements.org/conference.htm) through research and relationship building. The second need is democratic or consensus based information distribution, a process that depends on Internet technology and database synchronization (www.youthmovements.org/tech.htm). The third need is democratic for youth / by youth media and philanthropy (www.youthmovements.org/fund.htm). These processes will reveal some competing truths. For example, democracy works for most but not all, just as free trade works for some but not all. The UN and the World Bank support some youth networks while others protest the UN and the World Bank. Negotiating these relationships requires careful facilitation and planning. Another challenge to facilitating collaboration is approach. The two options are 1) bottom up approach - local grassroots networking and collaboration followed by regional and global activities - or 2) top down approach - global partnerships are forged between key leaders followed by implementation and mandate from the center to a regional and local level. In truth, both approaches are necessary - the challenge is a question of priority. Bottom-up approaches will be more stable, will invite more ownership of local stakeholders, but may take longer. Top-down approaches will be fast but may be victim to politics or bureaucracy and may be unstable on a local level with less ownership from the grassroots community. Top down approaches will also be necessary for local groups that cannot make decisions or take actions without the permission from a central authority. Advancing both approaches simultaneously will ensure meeting somewhere in the middle. Bottom up approaches will be cheaper. Top down approaches will be more expensive and will require more travel and facilitation. As a result the top down approach must be the funding priority. In addition, involving top down global organizations at the start will make it easier to gain their full participation as the initiative matures. Global events, networks, and communication pathways Youth networks are structured around global events, communication channels, and institutional as well as personal relationships. Agents of global collaboration have a responsibility to encourage collaboration, partnership and information sharing in all networks and events where they have voice. Events World Youth Forum - http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/forum/index.html Hosted by the United Nations Youth Unit in Dhakar, Senegal, August 6 - 10, 2001. It takes place every three years. It is the chief youth conference of the UN system and is responsible for developing and implementing global action plans for youth and promoting the UN charter in member countries. (Organizer: 212-963-7763 Joop Theunissen theunissen@un.org) World Youth Festival - http://www.pa/festival2001/ Hosted by the youth ministry of Panama in Panama City, July 19 - 26, 2001. Last held in Portugal in coordination with the UN World Youth Forum, the W. Y. Festival builds from regional youth platforms and uses forums and workshops to build youth networks. (Organizer: 507-321-0315 Torres de Leon vatorres@cwpanama.net) World Festival for Youth and Students - http://www.wfys15.dz/anglais Hosted by Algiers, Algeria, August 8 - 16, 2001. This 15^th Festival follows the 14^th 1997 Festival in Cuba which attracted 17,000. The event is dedicated to celebrating human diversity, denouncing fascism, and protecting human rights. The program builds upon the platforms that support it and reshapes itself to meet the demands of its participants. (Organizer: 00 213 /2/ 72-15-47 UNJA - Algerian National Youth Union snj_unja@yahoo.fr) Articles describing the 1997 event: http://www.firstpage.org/cuba/declaration.html http://www.poptel.org.uk/cuba-solidarity/CubaSi-Autumn/YouthFestival.h tml Hague Appeal for Peace - http://www.haguepeace.org The Hague (Den Haag), Netherlands. On the 100^th anniversary of the May 1899 H. A. P. (the first international peace conference in world history) 10,000 people gathered to discuss a mandate for peace in the 21^st Century. 2,000 of the attendants were youth. The event observed the birth of several networks including the Global Campaign for Peace Education and the Hague Appeal for Peace Youth Network. Millennium Forum - http://www.millenniumforum.org Hosted by the UN Secretariat in New York, USA, May 22 - 26, 2000. Several thousand civil society NGO representatives gathered to consult the UN on its future. 200 of the delegates were youth. The event observed the creation of the millenniumYouthForum@yahoogroups.com mailing list. State of the World Forum - http://www.worldforum.org Hosted originally in San Francisco, USA in September 1995 and in four other cities around the world the SoWF gathers business, academic, government and civil society leaders for multi-stakeholder dialogues. Of the 2,500 participants nearly 10% are youth. Sired by the Gorbachev foundation the event has witnessed the creation of a number of youth networks including Pioneers of Change, the Emerging Leaders Program, and Global Youth Connect. UN World Conferences - http://www.un.org Beginning in the 1990s the UN system called for a series of World Conferences on Women, Habitat, Population, Social Development, Environment and Development, Sustainable Development, Food, Against Racism and others. Each UN World Conference has a youth caucus. Unfortunately the caucuses have not birthed youth networks nor have they been interconnected, permitting them to build off each other. Anti-Globalization Protests - http://www.protest.net and http://www.indymedia.org Seattle hosted the annual meeting of the World Trade Organization in November of 1999. 70,000 anti-corporate globalization activists confronted police officers in the streets and prevented the event from beginning. The event witnessed the birth of indymedia.org (global independent media portal) and the creation of many additional networks. Succeeding protests were organized in Washington DC, Prague, Melbourne, Davos, and Quebec City in opposition to the IMF, World Bank, World Economic Forum, and FTAA. In each city networks of activists formed coalitions and stronger relationships. Consistently well over half of the protestors are youth. World Social Forum - http://www.worldsocialforum.org Hosted by the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, January 2001. In contrast the Switzerland based World Economic Forum the W. S. F. gathered 15,000 peace and justice leaders for a dialogue on globalization preaching that "an alternative is possible." The event bolstered the Brazilian youth network "Rede Jovem" and enjoyed the presence of 3,000 youth. Many global youth organizations, networks, and religions have international conferences that attract thousands. The World Scout Jamboree for example gathers 40 thousand Scouts in a different city every four years. Other groups that host or have hosted such conferences include: the Junior Summit, Millennium Young People's Congress (Peace Child), IEARN, Junior Chamber International, AIESEC, United World Colleges, 4H, YMCA, Sister Cities International, Oxfam, World Assembly of Youth and more. Collaboration Networks Several networks and initiatives share the goal of encouraging cooperation and alliances to advance the youth movement. UNESCO 's Info youth web site http://www.unesco.org/webworld/infoyouth/index.html reads: The INFOYOUTH Network was initiated in 1991 by UNESCO in order to meet two main challenges: on the one hand, the necessity to counteract the splintering of various and scattered information sources and networks on youth, and on the other, the urgent need to implement appropriate and coherent youth policies from local to global levels. Civicus 's initiative "Partnership for Youth Participation" at http://www.civicus.org/pages/youth.html reads: As part of its objective to enhance youth participation in civil society, CIVICUS convened in 1999 a meeting of global youth stakeholders such as the Commonwealth Youth Programme, Development Education for Youth, AIESEC International, World Association for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), and International Youth Foundation. From that meeting has arisen an informal alliance of these global stakeholders, known as Partners for Youth Participation. The Partners are currently discussing areas in which an alliance may add value to what is already underway through their own and other organizations' activities. Complementing and informing this joint activity are the ongoing youth participation programs of each of the Partners. The World Assembly of Youth 's web site http://www.worldassemblyofyouth.org/introduction.htm reads: The World Assembly of Youth (WAY) is the international coordinating body of national youth councils and organizations. Founded in 1949, WAY has consultative status with various agencies in the United Nations System. It acts as a bridge between the youth and the UN. WAY works for the promotion of youth and youth organizations in program areas such as democracy, environment, human rights, population, health, drugs, community development and leadership training. A SEED 's web site http://www.aseed.net reads: A SEED (Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment, and Development) is a global organisation linking youth groups and individuals on all continents. A SEED was established by young people in 1991 in response to the UNCED Earth Summit proceedings in Rio and aimed to forge alliances among young people committed to social and environmental justice. Since 1992, the A SEED decentralised network has been growing continuously and consists of regional "hubs" located in Europe, Asia, North America, Africa, Latin America and Japan, with various levels of activity. International Youth Foundation 's initiative "Global Partnership for Youth Development" at http://www.iyfnet.org/document.cfm/82 reads: The Global Partnership for Youth Development (GPYD) is a unique initiative through which global companies, development banks, bilateral aid agencies, private foundations, and NGOs are working in an unprecedented global partnership to improve the conditions and prospects of children and youth worldwide. The Funder's Collaborative on Youth Organizing web site http://www.jfjustice.org/FCYO%20home.htm reads: The Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO) is a collective of national, regional and local grantmakers dedicated to advancing youth organizing as a strategy for youth development and social justice. Our mission is to substantially increase philanthropic investment in and strengthen the organizational capacities of youth organizing groups across the country. Our goals are to: 1) Raise the profile of youth organizing among grantmakers and community organizations; 2) Increase strategic funding to youth organizing by growing the Collaborative itself, and by promoting the inclusion of youth organizing in the grantmaking programs of foundations; 3) Strengthen the infrastructure of youth organizing groups through a broad range of capacity-building projects; 4) Sharpen funders' grantmaking skills in this arena; and 5) Provide current information to funders and community organizations on youth organizing. The Global Youth ACTION Network's web site http://www.youthlink.org reads: The Global Youth ACTION Network is an international collaboration among youth and youth-serving organizations to share information, resources and solutions. Its purpose is to promote greater youth engagement. The GYAN creates the opportunity for every young person to be heard, leverages their voices to impact national and global agendas and provides tools, recognition and financial support for youth who take positive action to improve our world - community by community. Next conference - August 2001 Hosting organizations that will organize the August 2001 conference and follow up www.takingitglobal.org - Taking IT Global www.nation1.net - Nation 1 www.youthlink.org - Global Youth ACTION Network New groups in the process of building relationships with GYAN and earmarked for inclusion for upcoming global top-down oriented collaboration meetings. www.ymca.int - World Alliance of YMCA's www.worldywca.org - World YWCA world.scout.org - World Organization of the Scout Movement www.wagggsworld.org - World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts www.ifrc.org - International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies www.intaward.org - The International Award Association www.juniorchamber.org - Junior Chamber International www.aseed.net - ASEED Familiar groups to the Global Youth Action Network currently in discussion for the upcoming conference Youth www.aeisec.org - AIESEC www.freethechildren.org - Free the Children www.iearn.org - International Education and Resource Network www.peacechild.org - Peace Child International www.uwc.org - United World Colleges www.afs.org - American Field Service www.globalyouth.org - Global Youth Alliance youth.haguepeace.org - Hague Appeal for Peace Youth Networ www2.edc.org/YES2002 - Youth Employment Summit www.pioneersofchange.net - Pioneers of Change www.thimun.org - The Hague International Model United Nations www.justact.org - Just Act: Youth Action for Global Justice www.worldassemblyofyouth.org - World Assembly of Youth Allies www.fastcompany.com - Fast Company Magazine Companies of Friends www.idealist.org - Action Without Borders www.oneworld.net - One World www.indymedia.org - Independent Media Centers www.unesco.org/webworld/infoyouth - UNESCO Infoyouth www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin - UN Youth Unit www.iyfnet.org - International Youth Foundation www.wkkf.org - W. K. Kellogg Foundation www.highergroundhumanity.org - Higher Ground for Humanity www.lifebridge.org - Lifebridge Foundation Future groups earmarked for contact in second round of outreach, follow conference Youth www.idc.org/gmg - Global Meeting of Generations www.cypyouth.org - Commonwealth Youth Programme www.youthforum.org - European Youth Forum ayc.virtualave.net - Asian Youth Council www.wflry.org - World Federation of Radical and Liberal Youth www.iusy.org - International Union of Socialist Youth www.yap.org - Youth Action for Peace www.studentactivism.org - International Student Activism Alliance www.wcyunited.org - World Congress of Youth www.mandate.org - Mandate the Future www.crossculturalsolutions.org - Cross Cultural Solutions www.vfp.org - Volunteers for Peace www.legacyintl.org - Legacy International www.wiretapmag.org - Wiretap Magazine www.echo.org - Alliance for a Responsible and United World - Youth Workshop Allies www.netaid.org - NetAid www.rotary.org - Rotary International www.habitat.org - Habitat for Humanity International www.amnesty.org - Amnesty International www.comminit.org - The Communication Initiative www.civicus.org - Civicus www.oxfam.org - Oxfam Current smaller seed groups participating in the development process on local levels but not targeted for the August 2001 conference www.iyoco.org - International Youth Cooperation www.globalyouthconnect.org - Global Youth Connect www.seedsofpeace.org - Seeds of Peace www.yesworld.org - Youth for Environmental Sanity www.risingsun.org - Camp Rising Sun www.ifyc.org - Interfaith Youth Core www.wagingpeace.org - Nuclear Age Peace Foundation www.caa.org.au/parliament - International Youth Parliament www.tid.org.uk - Tolerance in Diversity www.beyondlimits.org - Beyond Limits www.treatycouncil.org - International Indian Treaty Council www.fairsay.com - FairSay Young Media Partners Other regional groups to contact: Asia-Pacific Students Association Youth Development and Cooperation Foro Latin-America de Juventud Caribbean Federation of Youth Asian Youth Council African Youth Network THE E-PARLIAMENT For centuries, philosophers and poets have dreamed of a world parliament in which democracy would replace war as a way to determine our future. Today for the first time, the Internet offers the opportunity to create a democratic, accessible and transparent Earth Parliament an E-Parliament. The E-Parliament will link up the world's more than 20,000 democratically-elected national legislators (who represent today over 60% of humanity) into a common decision-making body to deal with global problems. Policy development, debate and voting will take place online. The E-Parliament can: - Enable humanity to act together as one on issues that concern us all, through a common assembly made up of our directly-elected representatives. - Hold intergovernmental institutions democratically accountable to the public, including the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. - Increase support for UN funding in national parliaments, and create a channel for new initiatives to strengthen the UN and solve global problems. - Monitor the role of transnational corporations more effectively than any national government can. - Give each citizen a direct and equal voice in global decision-making. Democratically-elected members of parliament and congress already have the mandate to represent their constituents at the highest level. From their national legislatures, they already provide the funds for intergovernmental organizations, and monitor the work of the national executive branches that together make the major decisions in international organizations. They already have the power to legislate for the people of their country. The E-Parliament represents a natural extension of their role to deal with the global challenges of the 21st century. To give all citizens the chance to participate, the E-Parliament will be linked to an E-Forum in which people (including citizens of non-democratic countries) can register their views before each parliamentary vote. The E-Forum will invite participation from groups, individual voters and young people. WHY IS THE E-PARLIAMENT NEEDED? Faced with the challenges of the 21st century, our international system simply isn't working. Our current system of global governance includes national governments, transnational corporations and unelected international institutions like the UN, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. This system is proving unable to respond effectively to our mounting global problems.The spread of nuclear weapons, climate change and the global AIDS epidemic are just three among many world-wide problems where the international response is clearly inadequate to meet the challenge. Each day 35,000 children die for lack of food and simple vaccines, while each day our governments spend another $2 billion on preparations for war. The failure to meet global needs and solve global problems threatens our children and our planet. Some of the problems with our present international system are: The decision-making process is too slow. To deal with a problem like climate change we must await agreement among more than 100 national governments, each one fiercely defending its short-term national interests. As a result, the problems move faster than the negotiations. There is no adequate source of funds to meet urgent global needs. National governments show no sign of providing resources on the scale needed to end extreme poverty or to protect the global environment. The United Nations is too weak. When close to a million Rwandans were being murdered in cold blood, the UN failed to act. National governments were unwilling to send their own troops to protect the people of Rwanda, and the UN has no rapid deployment force of its own. There is a steady erosion of democracy as decision-making moves to the global level. More and more decisions are shifting from national governments, many of them democratically elected, to corporations and international institutions that are not. Indeed, some of those institutions are very far from democratic. In the World Bank and IMF, the richest 20% of humanity controls a majority of the votes, and the poorest 20% has just a tiny fraction of the voting power. In the UN General Assembly, the Seychelles has the same voting power as India, Iceland the same as the United States. A single national dictator wields the same vote as a government elected by millions of people. Nowhere at the global level is there an influential decision-making body made up of democratically-elected representatives. Few people would choose such a system for their national or local governance, and many people would hesitate to strengthen institutions at the global level that suffer from such a profound democratic deficit. The E-Parliament can help to solve these problems. Rather than awaiting consensus among more than 100 governments, it can adopt proposals in the same way any parliament does: by a vote among the people's elected representatives. By engaging legislators directly in global issues, and enabling them to better oversee the expenditure of funds at the global level, it can increase support in national parliaments for funding global needs. The E-Parliament can be a channel for launching proposals to create new ways to raise funds for global priorities, and to build a more effective United Nations. And it can bring democracy to the global level. Beyond these goals, the E-Parliament can help achieve a deeper objective. If people know that when they vote in national elections they are choosing representatives not only for their national parliament but also for a common parliamentary body at the global level, it can strengthen the sense of global responsibility among both voters and representatives. If in that body every individual is equally represented regardless of their nationality or ideology, race or religion, wealth or poverty, it can strengthen their sense of being not only citizens of their nation, but citizens of the planet. HOW WILL THE E-PARLIAMENT WORK? WEBSITE: A virtual Parliament Building" will be created in a style resembling other parliament buildings. Like other parliaments, as you move from room to room you will pass statues," picturing heroes of the global struggle for democracy from Demosthenes of ancient Athens to Aung San Su Kyi of today's Burma, from Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce who helped to end slavery, to Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. The building will house not only the E-Parliament, but the E-Forum where ordinary citizens and citizen groups can register their views. The web address will be www.e-parl.net, since the first syllable of the word meaning parliament" is common to many languages. MEMBERSHIP: Every member of a national or regional legislature who has been elected in fair, open and democratic elections will be automatically entitled to be a member of the E-Parliament. More than 60% of humanity already has the right to vote in free, multi-candidate elections. As soon as China and other closed societies begin to hold open elections, the members of their parliaments will be entitled to join. A committee of the E-Parliament will be responsible for monitoring elections and determining that they are free and fair. STRUCTURE: The E-Parliament will function like any national parliament or congress, with a system of committees to monitor major international institutions, to oversee the budget, and to cover major global issues such as environment, war prevention, human rights, poverty eradication, etc. VOTING: Each legislator can vote on the E-Parliament website by entering a PIN number. To ensure that every citizen is equally represented, the vote of each member will be weighted according to a simple formula. The weighting will be determined by dividing the population of the country by the number of elected members of parliament. In the European Union, the total number of legislators in each country will include their members of both the national parliament and the European Parliament. Citizens can go to the website and see how their representatives have voted. DECISIONS: The E-Parliament, like many parliaments, can make decisions in three ways: through non-binding resolutions, through budgets, and through proposed legislation which requires action by national parliaments for its implementation. In the latter case, legislation will only bind a country once the national parliament has ratified it, and in some cases only when a set minimum number of countries have ratified. In this way, no nation can be forced into an action it considers unacceptable. MONITORING: The E-Parliament can establish committees to oversee not only intergovernmental institutions, but national compliance with existing UN conventions, such as the Biodiversity Convention or the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It can also monitor the role of transnational corporations, and propose steps toward a safe framework of rules for international economic competition, in which the environment and human rights are protected. Monitoring committees can issue reports to all members of parliament. FUNDS: Funds from the E-Parliament's budget will be devoted to global public goods, including meeting the needs of the poorest citizens, preventing armed conflict, protecting the global environment and promoting democracy and human rights. In all these areas, our current international system has failed to generate funding on the scale needed. Funds for the budget may be provided by national parliaments, from individuals or from agreed common revenue sources. Common revenue sources might include a levy approved by national parliaments on carbon emissions or currency transfers. Some parliaments may allow taxpayers, if they wish, to devote perhaps 1% of their taxes to the E-Parliament. HOW WILL THE E-FORUM WORK? THE ROLE OF CITIZEN MOVEMENTS: Civil society will play a crucial role in the E-Parliament, both in encouraging legislators to take part, and in developing proposals and initiatives for consideration by the E-Parliament. If legislators hear from their constituents that the voters want to be represented on critical global issues as well as national issues, they will participate in the E-Parliament in increasing numbers. The E-Forum will help to ensure maximum public participation in the E-Parliament's work from the start. REGISTERING YOUR OPINION: Before decisions are brought to the E-Parliament, citizens and citizen groups will have an opportunity to express their views through the E-Forum. This may take the form of voting in different categories. The categories might include: citizen groups recognized by the United Nations, with each group's vote listed for all to see; voting by people of voting age; and voting by young people under 18 years old. Individuals could register to vote, just as they would for national elections. A report of how the vote broke down country by country would be sent to all parliamentarians before the vote in the E-Parliament. CITIZENS UNDER AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES: Citizens of countries ruled by dictatorships would also have the right to vote in the E-Forum. They would thus be able to express their views to members of the E-Parliament, even if they cannot do so to their own leaders. SENDING MESSAGES TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVES: The E-Forum will provide an easy way for people to send messages to their representatives. By typing in their postcode or the name of their representative, they will get a blank email message window, in which they can write a letter and send it with one click. DEVELOPING POLICY PROPOSALS: The E-Forum can also provide discussion and drafting rooms where representatives of global civil society can prepare initiatives and proposals for submission to the E-Parliament. IS THERE PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR THIS? Opinion polls show strong public support for more democracy at the global level. For example, in October 2000 EarthAction commissioned a nationwide opinion poll in the United States by the respected pollster Yankelovich Partners. One of the questions asked related to democratizing international relations. The question, and the public's response, were as follows: An increasing number of important decisions are made in international institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank or the World Trade Organization. The people making the decisions are either representatives of national governments or employees of the international organizations. There have been proposals for a People's Assembly at the United Nations, directly elected by the world's citizens, to hold those international organizations democratically accountable to the public. Would you favor or oppose the creation of such a UN People's Assembly? a. Favor 57% b. Oppose 30% c. Don't know 13% Even in the nation that owes more to the UN in unpaid dues than any other, there is majority support for a democratic assembly at the global level. HOW CAN THE E-PARLIAMENT HELP TO SOLVE SPECIFIC GLOBAL PROBLEMS? By its very nature, the E-Parliament helps to reduce the democratic deficit in global decision-making. To understand how it can help to solve other global problems, let us take three examples. CHILDREN'S RIGHTS: Almost all the world's governments have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. By doing so, they have promised among other things to prevent the use of child soldiers, to care for children without families, and to provide universal primary education. These commitments are widely disregarded: there are 100 million homeless children living on the streets of the world, millions more with no chance to go to school, and hundreds of thousands of child soldiers. It is already the role of legislators to monitor the work of national governments. Who better than a committee of the E-Parliament to monitor compliance by national governments with their commitments under the Convention? The parliamentarians could issue regular reports, highlighting cases where governments are showing blatant disregard for their treaty commitments. Members of the relevant national parliaments can then help to draw attention to the reports, and press for changes in policies and budgetary priorities. If the E-Parliament can develop a substantial budget of its own, meeting the needs of the poorest children would undoubtedly be one of the highest priorities for its funds. CLIMATE CHANGE: While increasing floods, hurricanes and droughts claim ever more victims, the intergovernmental negotiations on climate change are moving painfully slowly if they are moving at all. Members of the E-Parliament, working together with civil society groups, could develop a concrete proposal for a global deal" setting a safe global limit to greenhouse gas emissions, equitably shared among the world's nations. A far-reaching solution to the climate threat is much more likely to receive majority support in the E-Parliament, than to achieve consensus" among all governments in the intergovernmental negotiations. If approved by the E-Parliament as a piece of proposed legislation, it could then be introduced into national parliaments for implementation there. The parliamentarians voting on ratification at the national level will have already been involved in shaping the agreement internationally, and therefore may be more likely to support it. A committee of the E-Parliament would monitor compliance by countries that have ratified. Of course, triggering a serious world-wide response to global warming through the parliamentary channel is still not easy, given the vested interests blocking the way. But it is entirely possible that action can be generated more quickly in this way than through the tried and so far failed approach of negotiations between government executive branches. STRENGTHENING THE UN: National executive branches tend to be opposed to a stronger United Nations, because they see it as a competitor for influence. The E-Parliament could be an excellent launching-pad for specific proposals to reform and strengthen the UN. Indeed, if the UN fails to act, the members of the E-Parliament have in principle the democratic mandate, and the resources, to create new international agencies directly accountable to them. PROMOTING DEMOCRACY: More than 60% of humanity now enjoy basic democratic freedoms, though their democracies may be far from perfect. Almost all of Europe and Latin America, North America, much of sub-Saharan Africa and large parts of Asia have won the right to vote in open elections. But some 2 billion people, including 1.3 billion Chinese, are still denied the rights that others take for granted. In the countries still ruled by dictatorships, brave individuals are risking their lives and their freedom to demand democracy. Who better than the elected representatives of the democratic world, coming from every continent and across the political spectrum, to give strong support to those advocates of democracy? National parliaments could contribute funding to the E-Parliament for this purpose, thus making clear that the funding is not intended to advance the interests of any foreign power. With both moral and financial support, the E-Parliament could strengthen the hands of those who have the courage to speak out for the right to vote in countries where the government's power rests on fear. This is a task far better carried out by the E-Parliament than by the UN, where dictators wield the vote and the veto, or by individual Western countries. On these and many other issues, the E-Parliament could improve the prospects for solving global problems. WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF THIS APPROACH TO DEMOCRATIC GLOBAL GOVERNANCE? EASY AND SIMPLE: The very simplicity of the idea to link up existing national legislators into a global body is one of its strengths. The E-Parliament can start small, keep growing, and it's hard to stop. Because the E-Parliament can be established by a group the elected representatives of the people who gain influence as a result of its creation, it is likely to win considerable support. HARD TO CORRUPT OR TAKE OVER: Because of the large number of representatives involved more than 20,000 the E-Parliament will be much more difficult to corrupt than smaller national parliaments. Back-room deals will be hard to hatch. A legislature on this scale wasn't possible until the last year or two; with the Internet, it is quite possible. At the same time, the requirement for national ratification of proposed legislation provides an important safeguard against abuse of the E-Parliament's influence, or the tyranny of the majority." All deliberations and voting will be available for all to see on the Internet, making it fully transparent. IMMEDIATELY HELPS BRING GLOBALIZATION UNDER DEMOCRATIC CONTROL: One of the key problems with globalization has been the lack of accountability. Now there can be a global institution accountable to the people and easily accessible to civil society. It is an institution where the global South will be fairly represented, unlike the World Bank or the IMF. E-PARLIAMENT TIMELINE STAGE 1: PREPARE - Raise funds - Create Organizing Committee of legislators, with Expert Group of advisors, to develop structure, rules of procedure, website design, etc. - Create high-level council of supporters, with celebrities, former political leaders, etc. - Create and begin to implement strategy for media coverage, polling public support and mobilizing support from civil society. - Launch informal working groups on initiatives to bring to the E-Parliament, e.g. on revision of UN Charter, children's rights, global climate change, finance for global needs, promotion of democracy, AIDS. - Create initial website and database of legislators. STAGE II: LAUNCH - Media launch. - Major recruitment drive for participation by legislators, using meetings, speaking tours, peer recruiting, media, Internet and encouragement from civil society groups. - First round of votes on structure and rules of procedure, then election of Speaker, committee membership, etc. - Continue informal working groups to develop new initiatives. STAGE III: E-PARLIAMENT AT WORK - Members debate and vote on first resolutions. - Oversight committees on UN, WTO, World Bank etc. begin work. - Seek funds from parliaments, and from new and innovative sources, for E-Parliament to appropriate towards global public goods. - Work to double number of participating legislators every year for first 5 years, and work to create channels whereby decisions in the E-Parliament can be brought to national legislatures for consideration. - Work to build participation of civil society groups and the public in the E-Folrum, including citizens from non-democratic countries. AN UNPRECEDENTED OPPORTUNITY Two recent developments combine to create a new opportunity to build a more democratic, just and secure world. The first is the growing power of international citizen movements, which we have seen in the movement to ban landmines and the creation of an International Criminal Court, among other examples. The second is the transformation being wrought by the Internet. Using the Internet, we can take democracy to the global level. With democracy, the opportunities for world civil society to reshape the global agenda will be dramatically increased. The creation of the E-Parliament can improve humanity's prospects for a better future. But as our global problems mount, time is not on our side. We must approach the task with real urgency. We would be very grateful for your help in this endeavour. For more information, contact: Lois Barber, Executive Director, EarthAction, Amherst, USA. Email: amherst@earthaction.org Nicholas Dunlop, Executive Director, EarthAction, Wye, United Kingdom. Email: nick@earthaction.org.uk Sirpa Pietikäinen, Member of Parliament, Finland; Chair, Executive Committee, World Federation of United Nations Associations. Email: sirpa.pietikainen@eduskunta.fi William Ury, author and Director, Harvard Project on Preventing War. Email: wury@law.harvard.edu Toward Global Parliament Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss1 CHALLENGING THE DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT ONE CRUCIAL ASPECT of the rising disaffection with globalization is the lack of citizen participation in the global institutions that shape people's daily lives. This public frustration is deeper and broader than the recent street demonstrations in Seattle and Prague. Social commentators and leaders of citizens' and intergovernmental organizations are increasingly taking heed. Over the past 18 months, President Clinton has joined with the secretary-general of the United Nations, the director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the president of the World Bank to call for greater citizen participation in the international order. But to date, these parties have not clearly articulated a general vision of how best to integrate a public role into international institutions. So in the absence of a planned design, attempts to democratize the international system have been ad hoc, as citizen organizations and economic elites create their own mechanisms of influence. In domestic politics, interest-group pluralism flourishes within a parliamentary system of representation. In global politics, interest-group pluralism is growing, but no unifying parliament represents the public interest. This state of affairs cannot last in a world where the prevailing understanding of democracy does not accept the fact that unelected interest groups can speak for the citizenry as a whole. Any serious attempt to challenge the democratic deficit must therefore consider creating some type of popularly elected global body. Before globalization, such an idea would have been considered utopian. Now, the clamor of citizens to participate internationally can no longer be ignored. The only question is what form this participation will take. DECISION-MAKING GOES GLOBAL BEHIND THIS CLAMOR lies a profound shift in power. Thanks to trade, foreign direct investment, and capital flows, globalization is dispersing political authority throughout the international order. International governance is no longer limited to such traditional fare as defining international borders, protecting diplomats, and proscribing the use of force. Many issues of global policy that directly affect citizens are now being shaped by the international system. Workers can lose their jobs as a result of decisions made at the WTO or within regional trade regimes. Consumers must contend with a market in which state-prescribed protections such as the European ban on hormone-fed beef can be overridden by WTO regulations. Patients who need medicines pay prices influenced by WTO-enforced patent rules, which allow pharmaceutical companies to monopolize drug pricing. Most of the 23 million sub-Saharan Africans who have tested positive for the aids virus cannot afford the drugs most effective in treating their illness. They will die much sooner as a consequence. For the half of the world's population that lives on less than $2 a day, governmental social safety nets have been weakened by IMF decisions. The globalized economy has not meaningfully reduced poverty despite a long period of sustained growth. Economic inequality is on the rise, as is the marginalization of regions not perceived as attractive trading partners or "efficient" recipients of investment. Furthermore, environmental trends pose severe dangers that can be successfully dealt with only through global action and treaties. Against such a background, it is little wonder that people who believe they possess a democratic entitlement to participate in decisions that affect their lives are now starting to demand their say in the international system. And global civil society has thus far been their voice as they attempt to have this say. CIVIL SOCIETY'S GLOBAL PRESENCE CIVIL SOCIETY, made up of nonprofit organizations and voluntary associations dedicated to civic, cultural, humanitarian, and social causes, has begun to act as an independent international force. The largest and most prominent of these organizations include Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Oxfam, and the International Committee of the Red Cross; in addition, the U.N. now lists more than 3,000 civil society groups. During the 1990s, these transnational forces effectively promoted treaties to limit global warming, establish an international criminal court, and outlaw antipersonnel land mines. These same actors also helped persuade the International Court of Justice to render an advisory opinion on the legality of nuclear weapons and defeat a multilateral investment agreement. More recently, civil groups mounted a drive to cancel the foreign debts of the world's poorest countries. Although these efforts remain works in progress, civil society to date has been indispensable in furthering them. During the early 1990s, civil society's organizations began visibly cooperating at large international conferences of states. When conservative political pressures forced an end to these conferences, civil society began to coalesce to act cohesively and independently in the international arena. For example, 8,000 individuals representing civil society organizations met in May 1999 at the Hague Appeal for Peace to shape strategy and agree on a common agenda. Among those attending were such luminaries as Nobel Peace Prize winners Desmond Tutu, Jose Ramos-Horta, and Jody Williams. Similar smaller meetings in South Korea, Canada, Germany, and elsewhere followed. These meetings were a prelude to the Millennium NGO Forum held at the United Nations in May 2000, to which U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan invited 1,400 individuals representing international civil society groups to present views on global issues and citizen participation in decision-making. The forum agreed to establish a permanent assembly of civil society organizations, mandated to meet at least every two to three years, before the U.N. General Assembly annual session. Although it is still to be realized, such a forum might earn recognition over time as an important barometer of world public opinion -- and a preliminary step toward creating a global parliament. Regardless of how this specific forum develops, civil society will continue to institutionalize itself into an independent and cohesive force within the international system. THE CORPORATE MOVERS THROUGH EXPANDING TRADE and investment, business and banking leaders have also exercised extraordinary influence on global policy. Even in formerly exclusive arenas of state action, these private-sector actors are making a mark. For example, Secretary-General Annan has made "partnering" with the business community a major hallmark of his leadership. The United Nations has now established a formal business advisory council to formalize a permanent relationship between the corporate community and the U.N. As with citizen groups, elite business participation in the international system is becoming institutionalized. The best example is the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In the 1980s, the WEF transformed itself from an organization devoted to humdrum management issues into a dynamic political forum. Once a year, a thousand of the world's most powerful business executives get together with another thousand of the world's senior policymakers to participate in a week of roundtables and presentations. The WEF also provides ongoing arenas for discussion and recommendations on shaping global policy. It is notable that Annan's ideas about a U.N. partnership with the business community have been put forward and endorsed during his frequent appearances at Davos. In addition, the WEF also conducts and disseminates its own research, which not surprisingly shows a consistently neoliberal outlook. For example, it produces a well-publicized annual index ranking the relative economic competitiveness of all countries in the world. The Davos assembly and overlapping networks of corporate elites, such as the International Chamber of Commerce, have been successful in shaping compatible global policies. Their success has come in the expansion of international trade regimes, the modest regulation of capital markets, the dominance of neoliberal market philosophy, and the supportive collaboration of most governments, especially those of rich countries. PONDERING A GLOBAL PARLIAMENT GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY still cannot match the resources and power linkages of the corporate and banking communities. But many civil society groups have carved out niches within the international order from which to influence decision-making by relying on imagination and information. The evolution of these two networks civil and businesshas been largely uncoordinated, and it remains unclear how they could fit together in a functionally coherent and representative form of global governance. Neither can claim to represent citizenry as a whole. As global civil society acquires a greater international presence, its critics are already challenging its claims to represent the public interest. The charge of illegitimacy has even greater resonance when leveled at corporate and banking elites, who do not speak for organizations. Now that the global system is increasingly held up to democratic standards and often comes up shortthose people who find their policy preferences rejected are unlikely to accept the system's determination as legitimate, and the democratic deficit will remain a problem. Only when citizen and business interests work together within an overarching representative body can they achieve policy accommodations that will be seen as legitimate. For the first time, a widely recognized global democratic forum could consider environmental and labor standards and deliberate on economic justice from the perspectives of both North and South. Even an initially weak assembly could offer some democratic oversight of international organizations such as the IMF, the WTO, and the World Bank. Unlike the United Nations, this assembly would not be constituted by states. Because its authority would come directly from the global citizenry, it could refute the claim that states are bound only by laws to which they give their consent. Henceforth, the ability to opt out of collective efforts to protect the environment, control or eliminate weapons, safeguard human rights, or otherwise protect the global community could be challenged. In addition, the assembly could encourage compliance with established international norms and standards, especially in human rights. The international system currently lacks reliable mechanisms to implement many of its laws. Organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even the International Labor Organization attempt to hold states accountable by exposing their failures of compliance, relying on a process often referred to as the "mobilization of shame." In exercising such oversight, a popularly elected global assembly would be more visible and credible than are existing watchdogs who expose corporate and governmental wrongdoing. The assembly's very existence would also help promote the peaceful resolution of international conflicts. Because elected delegates would represent individuals and society instead of states, they would not have to vote along national lines. Coalitions would likely form on other bases, such as world-view, political orientation, and interests. Compromises among such competing but nonmilitarized coalitions might eventually undermine reliance on the current war system, in which international decisions are still made by heavily armed nations that are poised to destroy one another. In due course, international relations might more closely resemble policymaking within the most democratic societies of the world. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR IN SPITE of its advantages, would the formation of such an assembly threaten established state and business interests so much that its creation would become politically untenable? The European Union's experience suggests otherwise. Established by states -- and with little initial authority -- the transnationally elected European Parliament has now become powerful enough to help close a regional democratic deficit. As with the early European parliament, a relatively weak assembly initially equipped with largely advisory powers could begin to address concerns about the democratic deficit while posing only a long-term threat to the realities of state power. Systemic transformation of world order that would largely affect successors would not significantly threaten those political leaders who are inclined to embrace democratic ideals. Indeed, it might even appeal to them. Despite these humble origins, the assembly would have the potential to become an extremely important fixture of the global architecture. Upon the assembly's inception, civil society organizations would almost certainly lobby it to issue supportive resolutions. Groups who opposed such resolutions could shun the process, but that is not likely: they would concede the support of the world's only elected democratic body. Over time, as the assembly became the practical place for clashing interests to resolve differences, formal powers would likely follow. Some business leaders would certainly oppose a global parliament because it would broaden popular decision-making and likely press for transnational regulations. But others are coming to believe that the democratic deficit must be closed by some sort of stakeholder accommodation. After all, many members of the managerial class who were initially hostile to such reform came to realize that the New Dealor its social-democratic equivalent in Europewas necessary to save capitalism. Many business leaders today similarly agree that democratization is necessary to make globalization politically acceptable throughout the world. As the recent large street protests suggested, globalization has yet to achieve grassroots acceptance and legitimacy. To date, its main claim to popular support is not political but economic: it has either delivered or convincingly promised to deliver the economic goods to enough people to keep the antiglobalization forces from mounting an effective challenge. But economic legitimacy alone can rarely stabilize a political system for long. Market-based economic systems have historically undergone ups and downs, particularly when first forming. The financial crisis that almost triggered a world financial meltdown a few years ago will not be the last crisis to emerge out of globalization. Future economic failures are certain to generate political responses. Standing in the wings in the United States and elsewhere are politicians, ultranationalists, and an array of opportunists on both the left and the right who, if given an opening, would seek to dismantle the global system. A global parliament is therefore likely to serve as an attractive alternative to those people who, out of enlightened self-interest or even public-spiritedness, wish to see the international system become more open and democratic. MAKING IT HAPPEN ALTHOUGH the raw political potential for a global assembly may exist, it is not enough. Some viable way needs to be found for this potential to be realized, and it can most likely be found in the new diplomacy. Unlike traditional diplomacy, which has been solely an affair among states, new diplomacy makes room for flexible and innovative coalitions between civil society and receptive states. The major success stories of global civil society in the 1990sthe Kyoto global warming treaty, the convention banning land mines, and the International Criminal Courtwere produced in this manner. Civil society, aided by receptive states, could create the assembly without resorting to a formal treaty process. Under this approach, the assembly would not be formally sanctioned by states, so governments would probably contest its legitimacy at the outset. But this opposition could be neutralized to some extent by widespread grassroots and media endorsement. Citizens in favor could make their voices heard through popular, fair, and serious elections. Another approach would rely on a treaty, using what is often called the "single negotiating text method." After consultations with sympathetic parties from civil society, business, and nation-states, an organizing committee could generate the text of a proposed treaty establishing an assembly. This text could serve as the basis for negotiations. Civil society could then organize a public relations campaign and persuade states (through compromise if necessary) to sign the treaty. As in the process that ultimately led to the land mines convention, a small core group of supportive states could lead the way. But unlike that treaty, which required 40 countries to ratify it before taking effect, a relatively small number of countries (say, 20) could provide the founding basis for such an assembly. This number is only a fraction of what would be needed for the assembly to have some claim to global democratic legitimacy. But once the assembly became operational, the task of gaining additional state members would likely become easier. A concrete organization would then exist that citizens could urge their governments to join. As more states joined, pressure would grow on nonmember states to participate. The assembly would be incorporated into the evolving international constitutional order. If it gained members and influence over time, as expected, its formal powers would have to be redefined. It would also have to work out its relationship with the U.N. One possibility would be to associate with the General Assembly to form a bicameral world legislature. The pressures to democratize the international system are part of an evolutionary social process that will persist and intensify. The two dominant themes of the post-Cold War years are globalization and democratization. It is often said that the world is rapidly creating an integrated global political economy, and that national governments that are not freely elected lack political legitimacy. It is paradoxical, then, that a global debate has not emerged on resolving the contradiction between a commitment to democracy and an undemocratic global order. This tension may be the result of political inertia or a residual belief that ambitious world-governance proposals are utopian. But whatever the explanation, this contradiction is spurring citizen groups and business and financial elites to take direct actions to realize their aspirations. Their initiatives have created an autonomous dynamic of ad hoc democratization. As this process continues to move along with globalization, pressures for a coherent democratic system of global governance will intensify. Political leaders will find it more difficult to win citizen acquiescence to unaccountable policies that extend globalization's reach into peoples' lives. To all those concerned about social justice and the creation of a humane global order, a democratic alternative to an ossified, state-centered system is becoming ever more compelling. 1RICHARD FALK is Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. ANDREW STRAUSS is Professor of International Law at Widener University School of Law.