by
Germain Dufour
September 2015
Text
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How the Earth should be owned is the major economic question of this
time. The world should be owned not just by the people living in it but by all life on Earth and the Soul of Life, the Soul of Humanity.
Today, the impacts of our democracy are destroying the Earth global life-support systems.
A few people have control over so much of the Earth.
To live in a world at peace and have conditions of basic justice and fairness in human interactions,
our democratic values must be based on the principle of equal rights to the Earth.
The core concept needed by Global Community for a better tomorrow is the need to manage our planet, to take charge and take care of our planet with fair benefits for all. To accomplish this, four major items need to be
addressed: Ecology, Sovereignty, Governance and Ethics.
Ecology.
A first priority is protection and care of the environment and natural resources, including creatures large and small. Everyone should be encouraged to think and act as
an Earth manager and support an Earth care initiative. At this moment Global Warming is a major problem. Everyone should seek to reduce its causes, and everyone can further these goals by thinking and acting as an Earth manager and by joining in the observance of one great global holiday: Life Day Celebration on May 26 of each year  .
Sovereignty.
Planet Earth is humanity's inheritance. The land, water, air, and the wonderful bounty of natural resources were not human made. Everyone, all lifeforms, has a common right and ownership to their uses. We must recognize the rightful claim of every person to inherit an equitable portion of Earth's natural bounty. That is humanity common heritage.
Governance.
To achieve a balance of freedom and order, local communities must be given a larger responsibility for peace and the care for Earth. Let towns
and cities link with each other locally and across national boundaries in major vigorous independent programs to foster understanding and cooperation in solving social and environmental problems. This can bring the measure of unity we need in our diversity and help foster the trust needed by nations to achieve lasting peace for all peoples.
Ethics.
One of the greatest causes of conflict in history has been the conflicting views of different religions. And at the same time it is religion that has most effectively fostered
humanitarian actions. The question is, can the obvious benefits in different religions be approved and supported without approving that part of their faith with which we differ?
Allegiance to a faith dealing with the mysteries of life: why are we here? Is there a future life? Is there a God? often provides meaning and incentives for a virtuous life. But each person must temper their belief by recognizing any virtue they see in people with a different hypothesis about the mysteries of life. The Golden Rule Principle, also called the Ethic of Reciprocity by theologians, says: "Dont do to others what you wouldn't want done to you." Or treat others the way you would want to be treated. The Golden Rule has a moral aspect found in each religion or faith. It could be used as a global ethic. Every faith is unanimous of saying that every individual should be treated with the same respect and dignity we all seek for ourselves. As a first step in bringing together religious leaders all around the world, the Global Community is presenting here 13 statements that unify us all in one Golden Rule  .
Promoting an action program for Ethics  of Earth with these redemptive policies would quickly bring new attitudes of trust and hope a change of heart worldwide.
Can the world become a better place to live in? Of course! The means of great change are at our fingertips. With the aid of the telephone, radio, TV, computers and web sites we can inspire a new global support for
opinion that will enable us to harvest Earth's bounty. Let us all act together! Let us launch a global campaign for the restoration and renewal of our planet and ourselves as one humanity. Let us promote the creative actions and the ideas that are healing and nurturing people and planet.
We are all members of Global Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people. No humans have the right to encroach on the ecological space of other species and other people,
or treat them with cruelty and violence. All life species, humans and cultures, have intrinsic worth. They are subjects, not objects of manipulation or ownership. No humans have the right to own other species, other people or the knowledge of other cultures through
patents and other intellectual property rights. Defending biological and cultural diversity is a duty of all people. Diversity is an end in itself, a value, a source of richness both material and cultural.
All members of Global Community including all humans have the right to food and water, to safe and clean habitat, to security of ecological space.
These rights are natural rights, they are birthrights given by
the fact of existence on Earth and are best protected through community rights and global commons. They are not given by states or corporations, nor can they be extinguished by state or corporate action. No state or corporation has the right to erode or undermine these natural rights or enclose the commons that sustain all through privatisation or monopoly control.
Land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property or a commodity. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should therefore be given equal access to all natural resources.
Only Global Community can rightfully claim ownership of the Earth.
All the Earth natural resources belong to Global Community to be used, developed and protected for the maximum benefit of the people and of all life.
We the Peoples of Global Community are reaffirming faith in the fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and smalll. We the Peoples
implies every individual on Earth. Earth management and good governance is now a priority and a duty of every responsible person on Earth. We will establish conditions under which justice and
respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and we promote
social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.
Earth rights are ecological rights and the rights that Global Community has in protecting the global life-support systems. Earth rights are those rights that demonstrate the connection between human well-being and a sound environment. They include individuals and global
communities human rights and the rights to a clean environment, and participation in development decisions. We define ecological rights as those rights of the ecosystem of the Earth beyond human purpose. They are those rights that protect and
preserve the ecological heritage of the Earth, a global commons, for future generations.
The biggest challenge for social democracy
today is to articulate coherent policies based on a unifying vision for
society.
The major problems to address include:
A. the enormous worldwide wealth gap and the underlying concentration of land and natural resource ownership and control;
B. the privatized monetary structures; and
C. building global governance institutions and financing governance and development in such a way as to divert funds
from military industrial profits and into social development and environmental restoration.
We need a basic clarification on the concept of "land ownership", starting with the principle that the land
and natural resources of the planet are a common heritage and belong equally as a birthright to everyone. Products and services created by individuals
are properly viewed as private property. Products and services created by groups of individuals are properly viewed as collective property.
However, we have reached the deplorable circumstance where in large measure
a very powerful few are in possession of the Earth's resources, the land
and all its riches, and all the franchises and other privileges that yield
a return. These monopolistic positions are kept by a handful of men who
are maintained virtually without taxation.
In today's affairs a very powerful few are in possession of the land and the Earth's resources. These few people operate practically without taxation.
Is that what we want as a global democracy? Who should own the Earth? Who has sovereignty over our planet?
Soveveignty is the status of a person or group
of persons having supreme and independent political authority. The concept of sovereignty is related to the concept of power:
power over a territory, land and water, oil and minerals, as
well as life on Earth. The United Nations (UN) cannot have
normal attributes of sovereignty, which has been defined around a territory
and population.
Global Community has in fact been defined around a given territory,
that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population,
which is Global Community. The issue here is not that of populations
and boundary lines, but of the demarcation of power and control over the
Earth that is the foremost formal attribute of sovereignty. Therefore, Global Community sovereignty has sovereignty over the Earth.
To speak of enforceable global law is to speak of world power. Global
Parliament has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules
for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be
researched and developed for this purpose.
Today our democracy is not based on equal rights to the Earth and its natural resources.
Conservation, restoration, and protection of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is conected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources. This causes a fundamental threat to democracy. What has become of democracy?
What has become " we the people? "
We need to take a giant step forward to a new form of democracy. We, Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
Global Community has proposed a new democratic mandate recognizing
that the land, the air, oil and natural gas, minerals, all other natural resources
rightly belong to Global Community. The Earth is our birthright and
our common heritage. What we make from our mental and physical labor can
rightfully be held as individual property but the profit of the Earth should
be shared by all life. The unjust and inequitable ownership
of the land and of all other natural resources has caused the great majority of local-to-global conflicts
and wars.
Let us remind everyone the definition that has been guiding us throughout the previous dialogues: 
Global Community concept was first
defined by myself and my wife, Virginie,
back in 1985 and is truly the 21st
century philosophy of life framework,
some called it the religion of the third
millennium, others called it the
politics of the future generations now.
"Global Community is defined as being all
that exits or occurs at any location at any
time between the Ozone layer above and the core of the planet below. It is defined around a given territory, that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population, which is all life forms on Earth."
This definition includes all people, all life on Earth. And life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does SoulLife, also named the Soul of all Life, Soul of Humanity or God’s Spirit. By extension, the expression Global Community includes the entire Universe, space and time, all matter, galaxies, dark matter, all particles and all unknown parts of the Universe yet to be discovered. Again, Global Community also includes all Souls, God’s Spirit, and that makes it different than just saying Global Community is the Universe, or that God is the Universe. God is everywhere within the Universe and beyond, elsewhere. Guiding Souls serving God are always helping the formation of Life in all places and times. Global Community ethics embrace the process of understanding what is truly important for humanity’s survival on our planet, and that is the Scale of Global Rights which give Peoples the moral foundation for a better individual and community. Global Community ethical grounds are practical, real, and applicable for all women and men of good will, religious and non-religious.
This is the fundamental definition of the expression "Global Community".
This definition includes all people, all life on Earth.
It also implicitly says that no-one in particular owns the Earth but we all own it together.
Not just us people, but all life on Earth owns it. The beginning of life
stretches as far back as 4 billion years, and so Life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does the Soul of all Life, the Soul of Humanity.
Throughout this paper the land ownership of the Earth means ownership of the land and of all other Earth natural resources.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein. A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
As mentioned above, land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should therefore be given equal
access to such natural resources.
Similarly, all the Earth natural resources belong to Global Community to be used, developed and conserved for the maximum benefit of the people and of all life.
Global Community should set up expert groups and begin the necessary intergovernmental negotiations towards establishing alternative revenue sources, which could include fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees levied on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on carbon content of fuels.
Territorial conflict has for millennium been the basis of war and mass killing of others.
Throughout the ages wars been fought over land, and other Earth natural resources.
We have seen oil conflictsin the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea Basin.
We have seen water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, and Indus River Basins.
We have seen wars being fought over minerals and timber in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo, New Guinea, and Borneo. We have seen conflicts over valuable gems, minerals and timber in Brazil, Angola, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Liberia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
The view from space shows us a global landscape in which competition over resources is the governing principle behind the use of military power. Truly, resources have become the new political boundaries.
Each day taxpayers hand over astronomical amounts of money to build weapons
of mass destruction, fuel dangerous and polluting technologies, and subsidize giant corporations which concentrate the wealth and power of the world in the hands of an elite few.
There is a way to share the Earth? The Global Economic Model proposed by Global Community is truly the best response to the world.
Whoever owns the land and all other natural resources exerts power over those who are landless and no resources. Global Community proposes to
extend democratic principles to include the ownership and control
of the Earth. The Global Economic Model was created for all
the people on the planet. The model makes sure that the
rights of all people and the rights of the planet are one and the same. The Global Economic Model stipulates as well that we, as human beings, are trustees and caretakers
of all other life forms on Earth. The Global Economic Model is global, as people are freed to move beyond
borders and boundaries and claim the whole Earth as their birthplace.
Land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like
surface land, minerals deposits (gold, oil etc), water, electromagnetic
spectrum, the trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat
land as private property. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should
therefore be given equal access to natural resources.
The Global Economic Model proposes to make private property the product of labor. Common property
is all what Nature offers. The Global Economic Model policy removes
taxes from wages and increases taxes and user
fees on common property. The model eliminates subsidies that are environmentally or socially
harmful, and inequitable.
Every national government must show a commitment to making available
enough land in the context of sustainable land-use policies. Governments at all levels should remove all possible obstacles
that may hamper equitable access to land and ensure that equal rights of
women and men related to land and property are protected under the law.
When there are noone wanting the land then Global Community will have
people from other countries in need of land to settle with their families.
Truly, we are on the threshold of a global revolution, and we need to
proceed with the non-violent approach. We need to build an economic democracy
based firmly on the basic principle that the Earth belongs equally to
everyone as a birthright. The Earth is for all people to labor and live
on and should never be the possession of any individual, corporation,
or uncaring government, any more than the air or water, or any other
Earth natural resources. An individual, or a business should have
no more than is needed for a healthy living.
The global economic model is based on respect and value all life on
Earth. It recognizes that we as human beings are trustees and caretakers
of the many life forms that dwell here with us. A global economic model
extends the democratic mandate to solve the land problem by affirming the
equal right of all people to the Earth. It will have a balanced and just
relationship of citizenry to government with enlightened public finance
policy based on land and land rent for the people. Money will be issued
and circulated as a service for the people as a whole rather than used
as a mechanism for the exploitation of the many by the few.
The global economic model is global, as people are freed to move beyond
borders and boundaries and claim the whole Earth as their birthplace. It
is highly decentralized as well, with people living and producing for their
basic human needs within the constraints and parameters of local ecological
systems. A global economic model is about a world that works for
everyone, with plenty of time to expand our minds and elevate our spirits.
We must grasp the injustice at the core of our present economic system.
We need to understand how far we have strayed from reality, and how we have
been led into illusionary games of finance. Our treatment of the Earth
as a market commodity, just like a car or television, is the basic flaw
in our economic ground rules.
When land became a 'commodity' and lost its status as provider and sustainer
of life, Western civilization began its history of subjugation and exploitation
of the Earth and Earth based cultures.
A global economic model can achieve fairness by giving
the equal right of all people to the land and to all other natural
resources, and the right of the individual to the products of labor.
A condition of "ownership" of any particular landsite or natural resource
is payment of the fee back to the community as a whole. This fee is the proper source of public finance for the needs of
the Community.
On the global level the Law of the Seas Covenant is an example of a fee collected basis for public needs as it means that ocean resources are the common heritage of all and a proper source of funding for global institutions.
In order to democratize land rights, we can make land available to individuals and groups
who wish to live in ecologically sustainable villages and farms. Community land trusts can hold title to such lands. The buildings and improvements can be privately owned. This process is a strong incentive for the creation of employment.
The global economic model also allows for an increase of taxes and fees on natural resources:
- Emissions into air, water, or soil
- Land sites according to land value
- Lands used for timber, grazing, mining
- Ocean and freshwater resources
- Electromagnetic or radio-frequency spectrum
- Satellite orbital zones
- Oil and minerals
- Hydropower
The planet and all its resources of land, water, forests, minerals,
the atmosphere, electro-magnetic frequencies, and even satellite orbits belong to Global Community. The Global Economic
Model makes sure that the profits of the Earth will benefit the people
and all life, and secure an age of peace and fairness for all.
Properly managed small farms along with ecological villages
can produce a diverse range of food, fiber, livestock, and energy products
for local markets. Bio methods of farming depending on renewable
energy sources can yield both social and environmental stability. Tax policies that remove taxes on labor and productive capital
will be the sustainable pillar that makes the global economic model works for all.
This Global Movement for land value taxation and natural resource rent
for revenue can provide the basis for worldwide economic democracy. Freedom
to live or work in any part of the globe would also further equality of
entitlement to the planet, and provide a basis for the resolution of resource
wars and territorial conflicts. There would be no more private profit as
unearned income from Earth natural resources. Instead, transparent and
accountable resource agencies would collect resource rents and distribute
those funds in public services or as direct citizen dividends. With fundamental
democracy in rights to the Earth firmly established through legal means
and mandates, basic needs would be secured for all and the militarized
national security state and its bloated budgets could wither away.
Melting ice sheets are critically impacting the geoeconomic and geopolitical environment in the Artic. An ice-free Arctic is already changing now the economic and political conflict with serious impact on geopolitics and the ecosystem of the planet.
Ice-breaking makes Arctic navigation expensive. Highest temperature change now dramatically melts Arctic ice during part of the summer. Conservative estimates calculate a 20 to 40 percent reduction in summer. Commercially viable Arctic sea lanes are anticipated to be opened for part of year well before 2050, which could make the ocean a major world trade route.
The Northwest Passage may open itself for navigation for most of the year within 10-20 years. The Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan will remain ice-free throughout the year. The Russian coast and the Canadian Archipelago will be open to navigation by non-ice-strengthened ships in summer. The entire Russian coast will be ice-free, facilitating navigation through the Barents, Kara, Laptev and East Siberian Seas along the entire Northern Sea Route (NSR).
The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Archipelago and along the coast of Alaska will be navigable every summer by non-icebreaking ships. Significant areas of the Arctic may turn permanently ice-free in the future while the entire area may become seasonally ice-free. An ice-free Arctic passage will provide easy access to natural resources. Trade routes through the Arctic will significantly reduce distances between commercial regions and trade centers and will increase trade.
Fishing activity in the Arctic, particularly in the Barents Sea and Beaufort/Chukchi region, will influence fishing industry that faces continued dwindling of fishing stocks and increased pressure on fishery resources in the North Pacific and North Atlantic producing strategic implications.
Offshore hydrocarbon exploitation will accelerate in the Artic region and put pressure to open the NSR.
Technologies are being innovated to open remote and environmentally hostile areas to petroleum production. Reserves of oil and natural gas resources are estimated to be comparable to those in the Middle East.
Russia has made plans to exploit oil from the Barents and Timano-Pechora basins. Ice-capable tankers are being added to fleets, and petro-industry is moving into deeper water. After solving problems related to drilling and producing oil offshore as sea ice extent and thickness diminishes will expand exploration and production opportunities in the Arctic. Plans are also being made for offshore drilling in the US Arctic and the Canadian parts are also strong potential sites for offshore exploration.
Uninterrupted exploitation of energy, mineral and forest resources are expected to continue in Russia Artic. Interests of China and Japan in the Russian Far East are growing. A proper Earth governance is needed to deal with activities going on in the Artic region. Environment protection is crucial.
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The old concept of a community being the street where we live in and surrounded by a definite geographical and political boundary has originated during the Roman Empire period. An entire new system of
values was then created to make things work for the Roman Empire. Humanity has lived with this concept over two thousand years. Peoples from all over the world are ready to kill anyone challenging their
border. They say that this is their land, their property, their 'things'. This archaic concept is endangering humanity and its survival. The Roman Empire has gone but its culture is still affecting us today. We
need to let go the old way of thinking. We need to learn of the new concept, and how it can make things work in the world.
A typical community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people sharing with the same values. It can be a group of people with the same cultural background, or the
same religious background. Or they can be people with totally different backgrounds and beliefs. The people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's
communications it is easy to group people in this fashion. It can be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one Community. The two villages may be found in different parts of
the world. It can be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together.
A global community has a well defined criteria based on global symbiotical relationships. And it does not require the occupation of a specific area of land.
These relationships allow a global equitable and peaceful development and a more stable and inclusive global economy.
Let us remind everyone the definition that has been guiding us throughout the previous dialogues:
Global Community concept was first
defined by myself and my wife, Virginie,
back in 1985 and is truly the 21st
century philosophy of life framework,
some called it the religion of the third
millennium, others called it the
politics of the future generations now.
"Global Community is defined as being all
that exits or occurs at any location at any
time between the Ozone layer above and the core of the planet below. It is defined around a given territory, that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population, which is all life forms on Earth."
This definition includes all people, all life on Earth. And life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does SoulLife, also named the Soul of all Life, Soul of Humanity or God’s Spirit. By extension, the expression Global Community includes the entire Universe, space and time, all matter, galaxies, dark matter, all particles and all unknown parts of the Universe yet to be discovered. Again, Global Community also includes all Souls, God’s Spirit, and that makes it different than just saying Global Community is the Universe, or that God is the Universe. God is everywhere within the Universe and beyond, elsewhere. Guiding Souls serving God are always helping the formation of Life in all places and times. Global Community ethics embrace the process of understanding what is truly important for humanity’s survival on our planet, and that is the Scale of Global Rights which give Peoples the moral foundation for a better individual and community. Global Community ethical grounds are practical, real, and applicable for all women and men of good will, religious and non-religious.
This is the fundamental definition of the expression "Global Community".
This definition includes all people, all life on Earth.
It also implicitly says that no-one in particular owns the Earth but we all own it together.
Not just us people, but all life on Earth owns it. The beginning of life
stretches as far back as 4 billion years, and so Life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does the Soul of all Life, the Soul of Humanity.
Throughout this paper the land ownership of the Earth means ownership of the land and of all other Earth natural resources.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
As mentioned above, land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the
trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should therefore be given equal
access to such natural resources.
Similarly, all the Earth natural resources belong to Global Community to be used, developed and conserved for the maximum benefit of the people and of all
life.
Global Community is this great, wide, wonderful world made of all these diverse global communities.
Global Community is defined around a given territory,
that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population,
which is Global Community. Global Community has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules
for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be
researched and developed for this purpose.
Global Community concept of ownership states that land
and natural resources of the planet are a common heritage and belong equally to everyone as a birthright. Products and services created by individuals
are properly viewed as private property. Products and services created by groups of individuals are properly viewed as collective property.
Global Community allows people to take control of their own lives. Global Community was built from a grassroots process with a
vision for humanity that is challenging every person on Earth as well as nation governments. Global Community has a vision of the
people working together building a global civilization including a healthy and rewarding future for the next generations. Global cooperation
brings people together for a common future for the good of all.
The spiritual belief, universal values, principles and aspirations of Global Community will be attained by:
* practicing tolerance and living together in peace and harmony with one another as neighbours,
* promoting the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
* maintaining peace and security in the world by using negotiations and peaceful means,
* finding unity in diversity with all Life,
* establishing the respect for the life-support system of the planet,
* keeping Earth healthy, productive and hospitable for all people and living things, and
* applying the principle that when there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible,
which causes reversible damage as opposed to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.
The definition of Global Community concept is truly the 21st century "philosophy of life" framework, some called it the religion of the third millennium, others called it
the politics of the future generations now.
This definition includes all people, all life on Earth. 
It also implicitly says that no-one in particular owns the Earth but we all own it together.
Not just us people, but all life on Earth owns it. The beginning of life
stretches as far back as 4 billion years, and so Life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does the Soul of all Life, the Soul of Humanity.
The Earth, and all its natural resources, are owned by Global Community, along with all the "global communities" contained therein.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is connected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources.We,
Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
And that is a new global commons.
Global Community has proposed a democracy for the people based on the fact that land, the air, oil, minerals, other natural resources
rightly belong to Global Community. The Earth is the birthright of all life.
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The definition of Global Community concept is truly the 21st century "philosophy of life" framework, some called it the religion of the third millennium, others called it
the politics of the future generations now. Let us remind everyone the definition that has been guiding us throughout the years:
The concept of 'a global community' is part of the
Glass Bubble concept of a Global Community. The concept was
first researched and developed by the Global Community Organization (ECO) and was summarized on Global Community
website. Then it was further researched and developed by Global Community
and results obtained were published by Global Community in its February
2003 Newsletter.
The Glass Bubble concept
of
"a Global Community"
The Glass Bubble is designed to illustrate the
concept of "a global community" to elementary school children as opposed
to the idea a community is "the street where I live".
It is an imaginary space enclosed in a glass bubble. Inside
this is everything the child can see: above to the clouds, below into the waters
of a lake or in the earth, to the horizons in front, in back, and on the sides.
Every creature, every plant, every person, every structure that is visible to
him(her) is part of this "Global Community. "
By focusing on familiar ground in this manner it can be taught
that every living thing within the glass bubble is there because his/her food is
there, his/her home is there, all he/she needs to survive is there. And every creature
will stay as long as what his/her needs remains to be available within that
"Global Community. "
Look up, look down, to the right, to the left, in front and
behind you.
Imagine all this space is inside a giant clear glass bubble.
This is "a global community."
Wherever you go, you are inside a "global"
Community. Every thing, every living creature there, interacts one upon the
other. Influences inter-weave and are responsible for causes and effects. Worlds
within worlds orbiting in and out of one another's space, having their being.
Your presence has influence on everything else inside your immediate Global Community.
Learn to be aware of that and act accordingly, to create good
or destroy, to help or to hurt. Your choice.
Now let us explore this Global Community that we have
visited and discover why each member is important ~ each bird, each tree, each
little animal, each insect, plant and human being ~ and how all work together to
create a good place to live.
You walk like a giant in this Global Community. To all
the tiny members you are so big, so powerful, even scary…
You can make or break their world. But by knowing their needs,
and taking care, you can help your whole Global Community be a good one.
From the experience in your life and local community tell us:
* Why are you important to this "Global
Community"?
* Why is it important to you?
* What do you like about it?
* What bothers you about it?
* Anything need to be done?
* What is really good there?
* What is very very important?
* What is not so important?
* What is not good?
* What is needed to keep the good things?
* What could make them even better?
* What could you do to keep the good things good?
* Could they help get rid of bad things?
* What unimportant things need to go?
* How could you help get rid of these things?
to sustain Global Community, humanity and all life.
Let each child be aware he/she either grows up to be a person who
helps or a person who destroys.
Each child makes his own choice. He creates his own future in this way. He
becomes a responsible citizen. This may or may not inspire some sort of creative project of
what "could be" to aid this Global Community to remain healthy. To interact knowledgeably within one's global community has to
be taught ~ especially to urban children. It has to be brought to them very
clearly all life forms interact and depend upon other life forms for survival.
They need to know "reasons why" ignorance of nature's law causes such
damage, and why working in harmony with nature produces such good results. The concept of the Glass Bubble can be extended to
include planet Earth and all the "global communities" contained
therein.
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Global Community Citizenship is offered to anyone who accepts
the Criteria of Global Community Citizenship as a way of life. It
is time now to take the oath of global community citizenship. We all belong
to this greater whole, the Earth, the only known place in the universe
we can call our home.
Before you make your decision, we are asking you to read very carefully
the Criteria of Global Community Citizenship, make sure
you understand every part of the criteria, and then make the oath of belonging
to Global Community, the human family.
You do not need to let go the citizenship you already have. No! You
can still be a citizen of any nation on Earth. The nation you belong to
can be called 'a global community'. It should be your local global community.
But you are a better human being as you belong also to Global Community,
and you have now higher values to live a life, to sustain yourself and
all life on the planet.
You have become a person with a heart, a mind and Soul of the same as
that of Global Community.
Global Community welcomes you!
Criteria to obtain Global Community Citizenship1. Acceptance of the rights
and responsibilities of a person belonging to 'a global community'
and to 'Global Community', the
human family. That is, to take such a stand has four parts:a) I am not just a woman, I am a person, I am citizen
of a Global Community,
b) I am not just a man, I am a person, I am citizen of
a Global Community,
c) We are responsible, accountable and equal persons
in every way and,
d) We are citizens of Global Community, the human family.We need to take this stand for the survival of our species.
2. Acceptance of the concept of 'a global community'.
The concept of 'a global community' is part of the
Glass Bubble concept of a Global Community. The concept was
first researched and developed by the Global Community Organization (ECO) and was summarized on Global Community
website. Then it was further researched and developed by Global Community
and results obtained were published by Global Community in its February
2003 Newsletter.
We have already said that 'a global community' is not
about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. A typical global
community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can
be a group of people with the same values. It can be a group of people
with the same cultural background, or the same religious background. One
could think of a typical global community of a million people that does
not have to be bounded by a geographical or political border. It can be
a million people living in many different locations all over the world.
Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. Global Community
is this great, wide, wonderful world made of all these diverse global communities.
We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the street
where we live and contained by a border. The people making a global community
may be living in many different locations on the planet. It can be a village,
or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one Global Community. The two villages may be found in different parts of the world.
It can be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together. We can no longer perceive ourselves as a People who could
survive alone and a People who does not need anyone else. We belong and
depend to this much larger group, that of Global Community. The 21st
Century will see limitless links and symbiotical relationships with and
within Global Community. A global symbiotical relationship between
two or more nations, or between two or more global communities, can have
trade as the major aspect of the relationship or it can have as many other
aspects as agreed by the people involved. The fundamental criteria is that
a relationship is created for the good of all groups participating in the
relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The relationship
allows a global equitable and peaceful development.The emphasis of a global symbiotical relationship is not
so much on how much money a nation should have or how high a GDP should
be although money can be made a part of the relationship. We all know developed
countries live off developing countries so the emphasis has no need to
stress out the profit a rich nation is making off a poor nation. The emphasis
of the relationship should give more importance to the other aspects such
as quality of life, protection of the environment and of the global life-support
systems, the entrenchment of the Scale of Global Rights and the
Constitution of Global Community into our ways of life, justice, peace, cultural
and spiritual freedom, security, and many other important aspects as described
in the global
ministries (health, agriculture, energy, trade, resources,
etc.).3. Acceptance of the Scale of Global Rights.
To determine rights requires an understanding of needs and reponsibilities
and their importance. The Scale
of Global Rights and the Constitution
of Global Community were researched and developed by Global Community to guide us in continuing this process. The Scale shows social
values in order of importance and so will help us understand the rights
and responsibilities of global communities.
Scale of Global Rights
* Ecological rights and the protection of the global life-support
systems
* Primordial human rights
* The ecological rights, the protection of the global
life-support systems and the primordial human rights of future generations
* Community rights and the right that the greatest number
of people has by virtue of its number (50% plus one) and after voting representatives
democratically
* Economic rights (business and consumer rights, and
their responsibilities and accountabilities) and social rights (civil and
political rights)
* Cultural rights and religious rights4. Accptance of the Constitution of Global Community.
The Constitution of Global Community is a declaration of interdependence
and responsibility and an urgent call to build a global symbiotical relationship
between nations for sustainable development. It is a commitment to Life
and its evolution to bring humanity to God. Global Community has focused
people aspirations toward a unique goal: humanity survival now and in the
future along with all Life on Earth. The "Belief,
Values, Principles and Aspirations of the New Age" of the Constitution
are closely interrelated. Together they provide a conception of sustainable
development and set forth fundamental guidelines for achieving it; they
were drawn from international law, science, philosophy, religion, and they
were discussed as research papers during the global dialogues.5. Acceptance of your birth right of electing a democratic
government to manage Earth. The political system of an individual country
does not have to be a democracy. Political rights of a country belong to
that country alone. Democracy is not to be enforced by anyone and to anyone
or to any Global Community. Every global community can and should choose
the political system of their choice with the understanding of the importance
of such a right on the Scale
of Global Rights. On the other hand, representatives
to Global Community must be elected democratically in every part of the
world. An individual country may have any political system at home but
the government of that country will have to ensure (and allow verification
by Global Community ) that representatives to Global Community have been
elected democratically. This way, every person in the world can claim the
birth right of electing a democratic government to manage Earth: the rights
to vote and elect representatives to form Global Community .
6. Acceptance of the Earth Court of Justice as the highest Court on Earth. 
Global Community is promoting the settling of disputes between nations through the process of the Earth Court of Justice. Justice for all is what we want.
Justice withour borders! The Earth Court of Justice will hear cases involving crimes related to the global ministries.
It will have the power to rule on cases involving crimes related to each one of the ministries.
Prosecuting criminals on the basis of universal jurisdiction regardless of a territorial or nationality nexus required a solid
commitment of political will from national governments and Global Community. Once in effect, the Earth Court of Justice will become the principal judicial organ of Global Community.
The Court will have a dual role: to settle in accordance with international law the legal disputes submitted to it by national
governments, local communities, and in some special cases by corporations, non-government-organizations and citizens, and to give
advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by duly authorized organs and agencies.
The Court will be composed of judges elected by the Elected Representatives Council and
Earth Security Council. It may not include more than one judge of any nationality. The Members of the Court do not represent
their governments but are independent magistrates. The judges must possess the qualifications required in their respective countries
for appointment to the highest judicial offices, or by jurists of recognized competence in international law. The composition of the
Court has also to reflect the main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world.
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We are all members of Global Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people. No humans have the right to encroach on the ecological space of other species and other people,
or treat them with cruelty and violence. All life species, humans and cultures, have intrinsic worth. They are subjects, not objects of manipulation or ownership. No humans have the right to own other species, other people or the knowledge of other cultures through
patents and other intellectual property rights. Defending biological and cultural diversity is a duty of all people. Diversity is an end in itself, a value, a source of richness both material and cultural.
All members of Global Community including all humans have the right to food and water, to safe and clean habitat, to security of ecological space.
These rights are natural rights, they are birthrights given by
the fact of existence on Earth and are best protected through community rights and global commons. They are not given by states or corporations, nor can they be extinguished by state or corporate action. No state or corporation has the right to erode or undermine these natural rights or enclose the commons that sustain all through privatisation or monopoly control.
Land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property or a commodity. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should therefore be given equal access to all natural resources.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is connected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources.We,
Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
And that is a new global commons.
Global Community has proposed a democracy for the people based on the fact that land, the air, oil, minerals, other natural resources
rightly belong to Global Community. The Earth is the birthright of all life.
For our survival as Global Community,
and as a collective intelligence, we need to learn about ecological dangers we face, their causes,
and how to render them harmless. We all have a strong moral obligation to protect and conserve the biodiversity of life on Earth. Local,
community-based economies are crucial for the well-being of our children and to make community a reality.
We need to create a Global Ministry for the economic sharing, production and distribution of resources. We need global ministries for the commons.
Earth rights are ecological rights and the rights that Global Community has in protecting the global life-support systems. Earth rights are those rights that demonstrate the connection between human well-being and a sound environment. They include individuals and global
communities human rights and the rights to a clean environment, and participation in development decisions. We define ecological rights as those rights of the ecosystem of the Earth beyond human purpose. They are those rights that protect and
preserve the ecological heritage of the Earth, a global commons, for future generations.
The biggest challenge for social democracy
today is to articulate coherent policies based on a unifying vision for
society.
Today our democracy is not based on equal rights to the Earth and its natural resources.
Conservation, restoration, and protection of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is conected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources. This causes a fundamental threat to democracy. What has become of democracy?
What has become " we the people? "
We need to take a giant step forward to a new form of democracy. We, Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
Global Community has proposed a new democratic mandate recognizing
that the land, the air, oil and natural gas, minerals, all other natural resources
rightly belong to Global Community. The Earth is our birthright and
our common heritage. What we make from our mental and physical labor can
rightfully be held as individual property but the profit of the Earth should
be shared by all life. The unjust and inequitable ownership
of the land and of all other natural resources has caused the great majority of local-to-global conflicts
and wars.
Global Ministries are the new global commons:
- Global Ministry of Essential Services
- Ministry of Global Resources
- Ministry of Global Peace in government
- Earth Environmental Governance
- Earth Ministry of Health
- Global Ministry of Forests
- Global Ministry of Agriculture, Food Production and Distribution
- Global Civilization Ministry of Peace and Disarmament
- Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs: Global Government of Africa
- Global Ministry of Water Resources Protection
- Global Environment Ministry
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to everyone for the benefits of all.
These resources are held in common and not to be owned privately. The most important commons for all life on our planet are certainly the global life-support systems without which noone could survive on our planet.
The global life-support systems are the Commons with the highest priorities.
There are many
related aspects of the
global life-support
systems:
- climate change
- global warming
- Oxygen supplies
- Ozone depletion
- wastes of all kind including nuclear and release of radiation; chemical pollution
- primordial global rights deterioration
- species of the fauna and flora becoming extinct
- losses of forest cover and of biological diversity
- the capacity for photosynthesis
- the water cycle and fresh water use
- phosphorus and nitrogen cycles
- food production systems
- genetic resources
- change in land use and lost of agricultural soils
- global ocean acidification
The Scale of Global Rights prioritizes the Commons to save all life on Earth.
The Scale of Global Rights contains six (6) sections. Section 1 has more importance than all other sections below, and so on. Concerning Sections 1, 2, and 3, it shall be Global Community highest priority to guarantee these rights to Member Nations and to have proper legislation and implement and enforce Global Law. Concerning Sections 4, 5, and 6, it shall be the aim of Global Community to secure these other rights for all global citizens but without immediate
guarantee of universal achievement and
enforcement. These rights are defined as
Directive Principles, obligating Global
Community to pursue every reasonable
means for universal realization and implementation.
Sections 1, 2 and 3 on the Scale of Global Rights defines the Commons with the highest priorities.
Section 2. Primordial human rights:
- safety and security
- have shelter
- ‘clean’ energy
- a ‘clean’ and healthy environment
- drink fresh water
- breath clean air
- eat a balance diet
- basic clothing
- universal health care and education
- employment for all
Section 3.
global rights of future generations to have their life-support systems protected and primordial human rights taken care of today.
Historically, the commons was regualted; for examples hunting, fishing, farming, grazing of livestock, land irrigation, community forests, etc.
In our society, the commons, which were supposed to be a vehicle for meeting everyone’s basic needs in a roughly equitable way, have been used to serve a global market economy. On a cultural level, the commons include music, arts, video, television, literature, radio, media information, software, etc.
The normal workings of market economy require the appropriations of resources that morally or legally belong to everyone. In turn, these resources must be changed to tradeable commodities. For example, the World Trade Organization, which claims to advance human development through free trade, is essentially a system for seizing non-market resources from communities, dispossessing people and exploiting fragile ecosystems with the full sanction of international and domestic law.
For economic reasons, society has privatized lifeforms, replaced biodiverse lands with crop monocultures, allowed businesses to use groundwater supplies to make bottled water, and exchange self-reproducing agricultural crops for sterile, proprietary seeds that must be bought again and again.
As shown in the above global life-support systems listing and in the Scale of Global Rights, the most well-known commons that has been successful for billions of years is the biosphere. Nature has been and is still today the most important commons and society needs to build an economy of the commons that makes democracy based on the fact that land, air, water, oil & gas, minerals, space, the electromagnetic spectrum, and all other natural resources rightly belong to Global Community as a birthright, and they are for sharing as per the Scale of Global Rights.
All major habitat types across the planet are substantially degraded with alarming implications for their continued capacity to support human well-being into the long-term future.
And there are many instances of aggressive and competitive exploitation leading to the degradation or even collapse of marine and fresh water fisheries, grazing lands, water resources and other important commons.
We live today in an era when a burgeoning global human population is colliding with seriously degraded and degrading ecosystem quality, making increasingly evident and urgent the need for the moderation of human activities towards the achievement of a sustainable balance. This necessarily includes ensuring equitable access to resources, essential for social stability at everything from local to global scales. For example, carbon-rich emissions from anywhere in the world affect all who share this planet's climate system, and equally carbon sequestered in any one locality represents a potential benefit to everyone on Earth including future generations.
So, how do we go about adapting our behaviours to manage in a sustainable way the many environmental commons upon which we rely but have consistently overlooked in decision-making at the very least since the outset of the Industrial Revolution?
The major transition to a more sustainable world lies in the distinction between, on the one hand, the ownership of land and other key natural resources and, on the other, the many benefits that these ecosystems provide to people regardless of ownership. The old ways are no longer morally nor even economically acceptable.
Today, we describe these many societal benefits from the natural world as ecosystem services. These services are very important to survival, our enjoyment of a decent quality of life, and contributes to the wellbeing of humanity. For examples, Global Community has put forward a long list of new policies reflecting the deep interconnections between people and ecosystems, as well as leading business practices to help society step into a more sustainable and safe future with ecosystems and their many services as core considerations:
- storage and cleansing of water,
- production of food and fibre from fertile soils and marine waters,
- regulation of air quality and flood peaks,
- pollination,
- recruitment of stocks of fish of commercial,
- values of aesthetic,
- inspiring, educational and spiritually-uplifting places,
- sustainable forestry practices securing both dependable supplies into the future,
- business-led natural resource stewardship include organic and other food chain certification schemes,
- catchment management and providing incentives for farmers and other land users to withhold practices that degrade the quantity and/or quality of water draining from landscapes,
- cash incentives for upstream land managers to maintain or revert to more sustainable practices,
- markets have been created, known as paying for ecosystem services (or PES),
- sequestration of carbon in forests and other land to address the increasing climate change concerns of governments and businesses,
- PES markets developing for the safeguarding of biodiversity and a range of other socially-valued ecosystem services,
- the library,
- bike lanes
- dog parks
- music,
- recipes,
- the amazing murals,
- hope,
- passion,
- the future,
- our democracy,
- monuments,
- open spaces for recreation, and many other services can be added here as part of the commons.
The Commons is based on the notion that just by being members of the human family, we all have rights to certain common heritages, such as the atmosphere and oceans, freshwater and genetic diversity, or culture. In most traditional societies, it was assumed that what belonged to one belonged to all. Many indigenous societies to this day cannot conceive of denying a person or a family basic access to food, air, land, water and livelihood. Many modern societies extended the same concept of universal access to the notion of a social Commons, creating education, health care and social security for all members of the Community. Since adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, governments are obliged to protect the human rights, cultural diversity and food security of their citizens.
Equitable access to natural resources is another key character of the Commons. These resources are not there for the taking by private interests who can then deny them to anyone without means. The human right to land, food, water, health care and biodiversity should all be codified.
Historically, in terms of property law, the commons were bound to ownership of fields; everyone who owned fields was permitted to herd their cattle on the commons. Arable farming was organized in cooperatives, and the village cooperative had the authority to manage the commons. An important rule concerned the date when the harvest was concluded; on that date, cattle were herded to the stubble, where they manured the soil. In other words, fields and meadows turned into commons after the grain and hay were harvested. Private property was in abeyance and treated as common property until spring returned.
At some point in time, only landowners had property rights to the commons. The commons were part of an economic system that had no alternative but to be communal. Managing the commons was based on social and cultural interaction and closely connected to the cooperative's property rights to the common resources. The stronger the peasants property rights to the fields, and therefore also to the commons, the stronger their self-government. At the village court, it was no longer the interests of the lord that were determinative, but those of the peasants cooperative.
The historical concept of the commons covers a broad spectrum of communal property rights, from merely the right to use a resource owned by the feudal lords to self-management, the exclusion of third parties, and even the right to sell the resource.
In contrast, the concept of the commons today often refers to open-access natural resources such as oceans, the atmosphere and space. Such aspirational uses of the term do not specify the actual governance regimes that can sustainably manage them.
High-seas fisheries can serve as an example. Limiting a fishing season to counter overfishing has a parallel in the grazing season on the commons; extending national fishing zones to 200 miles from the coast is analogous to the boundaries of a village's grazing land and the determination of who had rights to graze livestock there. The establishment of national quotas and individual fishermen's quotas resembles the practice of stinting on the commons. Similar institutions regulating use of the atmosphere, they believe, might emerge. Following those who consider the oceans to be the common heritage of all mankind, one could consider these resources to be a giant commons managed as a trust by some global agency such as Global Protection Agency (GPA).
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When a group of ordinary people realized they, personally, will make the changes they need in their fields, in their village. They can then find ways to bring these changes
for all. There is a wisdom in the ways of very humble people that needs to be used. Every humble person deserves to have ideas respected, the courage to develop his
own life for the better and for the good of all. Sound solutions to help manage and sustain Earth will very likely be found this way. Everyone can help assess the needs of
the planet now and propose sound solutions for its proper management, present and future.
Global Community has given
back responsibility to every citizen on Earth. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being
of life within Global Community. We will work together in working out sound solutions to local and global problems. It would be wrong and dishonest to
blame it all on the leader of a country. Most problems in the world must find solutions at the local and global community levels (and not assume that the
leader alone is responsible and will handle it). There is a wisdom in the ways of very humble people
that needs to be utilized. Every humble person deserves to have ideas respected, and encouraged to develop his or her own life for the better.
Sound solutions to help manage and sustain Earth will very likely be found this way. Everyone can help assess the needs of the planet and
propose sound solutions for its proper management, present and future. Everyone can think of better ideas to sustain all life on Earth and
realize these ideas by conducting positive and constructive actions. When there is a need to find a solution to a problem or a concern, a sound
solution would be to choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible damage as opposed to a measure or an
action causing an irreversible loss; that is the grassroots process. Global Community can help you realize your actions by
coordinating efforts efficiently together.
Global Community found evident that
the ecological base is the essential prerequisite for the effectiveness
and exercise of all rights recognized for human beings. The stewardship
of the ecological base has to be given priority before the fulfilment of
various economic and social wishes. Demands resulting from the socio-economic
system of a particular country have to find their limits in the protection
of the global ecosystem. Vital interests of future generations have to
be considered as having priority before less vital interests of the present
generation. Supply chains have to be designed in a way, that the goods
can enter after usage or consumption into natural or industrial recycling
processes. If serious damages to persons, animals, plants and the ecosystem
cannot be excluded, an action or pattern of behaviour should be refrained
from. A measure for supplying goods or services should choose a path which
entails the least possible impact on the ecological and social system concerned.
This way functioning proven systems will not be disturbed, and unnecessary
risks will not be taken. Supply strategies consuming less resources should
have preference before those enhancing more resource consumption. When there is a need to find a
solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to
choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible
damage as opposed to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.
Truly, the world is on the threshold of a global revolution, and needs to
proceed with the non-violent approach. Global Community needs to build an economic democracy
based firmly on the basic principle that the Earth belongs equally to
everyone as a birthright. The Earth is for all people to labor and live
on and should never be the possession of any individual, corporation,
or uncaring government, any more than the air or water, or any other
Earth natural resources. An individual, or a business should have
no more than is needed for a healthy living.
Territorial conflict has for millennium been the basis of war and mass killing of others.
Throughout the ages wars have been fought over land, and other Earth natural resources.
We have seen oil conflicts in the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea Basin.
We have seen water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, and Indus River Basins.
We have seen wars being fought over minerals and timber in Brazil, Angola, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Liberia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
The view from space shows us a global landscape in which competition over resources is the governing principle behind the use of military power.
Truly, resources have become the new political boundaries.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is connected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources. We, Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
The power of Global Community was de-centralized to give each Global Government a better chance to find the right solutions and policies to global issues. Each Global Government can act faster and be more effective and efficient in the context of Global Community,
this great, wide, wonderful world made of all these diverse global communities within each Nation. Global Community becomes thus more fluid and dynamic. A global symbiotical relationship is created
between Nations and Global Community for the good of all groups participating in the relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The relationship allows a global equitable and peaceful development. This is
the basic concept that is allowing us to group willing Member Nations from different parts of the world. A typical example is the Global Government of North America (GGNA)
can be made of willing Member Nations such as Canada, the United States, Mexico, the Territories, and include the North Pole region.
Global Community allows people to take control of their own lives. Global Community was built from a grassroots process with a
vision for humanity that is challenging every person on Earth as well as nation governments. Global Community has a vision of the
people working together building a global civilization including a healthy and rewarding future for the next generations. Global cooperation brings people together for a common future for the good of all.
Earth governance does not imply a lost of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. A nation government exists within the framework of an
effective Global Community protecting common global values and humanity heritage. Earth governance gives a new meaning to the notions
of territoriality, and non-intervention in a state way of life, and it is about protecting the cultural heritage of a state. Diversity of cultural and
ethnic groups is an important aspect of Earth governance.
Earth governance is a balance between the rights of states with rights of people, and the interests of nations with the interests of Global Community, the human family, the global civil society.
Earth governance is about the rights of states to self-determination in the global context of Global Community rather than the traditional
context of a world of separate states.
In case of an environmental disaster or of any king of emergency in the North, Global Community is offering services such as those shown here:
- Provide basic medical care: Its tented medical aid station can serve up to 250 outpatients and 10 inpatients a day. The medical platoon treats minor injuries and tries to keep diseases
from spreading, but doesn't perform surgeries. The aid station includes a lab, a pharmacy, limited obstetrics services and rehydration and preventative medicine section.
- Produce safe drinking water: Water purification staff can produce up to 50,000 litres of potable water a day, as well as chlorinating local wells and monitoring water supplies.
- Repair basic infrastructure: Engineers can fix roads and bridges, repair electrical and water supply systems and build refugee camps.
- Make communication easier: DART sets up facilities to make communication easier between everyone involved in the relief effort, including the afflicted country, non-governmental
organizations and UN aid agencies.
- Provide environmental clean up and decommissioning
- Global Community of North America (GCNA) Emergency, Rescue, and Relief Centre
Perhaps now is time to elaborate more on responsibility and accountability of a Global Community.
The Global Citizens Rights, Responsibility and Accountability Act is a good start.
The peoples of all Nations, in creating an ever closer Global Community among
them, are resolved to share a peaceful future based on common values. Conscious
of its spiritual and moral heritage,Global Community is founded on
the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality and
solidarity; it is based on the principles of democracy and the rule of law.
It places the individual at the heart of its activities, by establishing
Global Community citizenship and by creating
an era of freedom, security and justice.
Global Community contributes
to the preservation and to the development of these common values while
respecting the diversity of the cultures and traditions of the peoples of
all Nations as well as the national identities of Member Nations and the
organisation of their public authorities at national, regional and local
levels; it seeks to promote balanced and sustainable development and ensures
free movement of persons, goods, services and capital, and the freedom of
establishment. To this end, it is necessary to strengthen the protection
of fundamental rights in the light of changes in society, social progress
and scientific and technological developments by making those rights more
visible in the Global Constitution  .
The Global Constitution reaffirms, with due regard for the powers
and tasks of Global Community and the principle of subsidiarity, the
rights as they result, in particular, from the constitutional traditions
and international obligations common to Member Nations, the Scale of Social Values, or Scale of Global Rights,
adopted by Global Community and by the Global Council of all Nations
and the case law of the Earth Court of Justice of Global Community and of the
Global Court of Global Rights. Enjoyment of these rights entails responsibilities
and duties with regard to other persons, to the human community and to future
generations. Global Community therefore recognises the rights, freedoms
and principles set out hereafter.
For the first time in human history, and the first time this millennium, humanity has proposed a benchmark:
* formation of global ministries in all important aspects of our lives
* getting ride of corruption at all levels of government
* the establishment of Global Police to fight against the growing threat to the security of all Peoples, and to fight against global crimes
* the Scale of Global Rights as a replacement to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
* Statement of Rights, Responsibilities and Accountabilities of a person belonging to 'a global community' and to 'Global Community '
* an evolved global democracy based on the Scale of Global Rights and the Global Constitution
* a central organization for Earth management, the restoration of the planet and Earth governance: Global Community Assessment Centre (GCAC)
* the Earth Court of Justice to deal with all aspects of governance and management of the Earth
* a new impetus given to the way of doing business and trade
* more new, diversified (geographical, economical, political, social, business, religious) symbiotical relationships between nations, communities, businesses, for the good and well-being of all
* proposal to reform the United Nations, NATO, World Trade Organization, World Bank, IMF, E.U., NAFTA, FTAA, and to centralize them under Global Community, and these organizations will
be asked to pay a global tax to be administered by Global Community
* the Peace Movement of Global Community and shelving of the war industry from humanity
* a global regulatory framework for capitals and corporations that emphasizes global corporate ethics, corporate social responsibility,
protection of Global rights, the environment, community and family aspects, safe working conditions, fair wages and sustainable
consumption aspects
* the ruling by the Earth Court of Justice of the abolishment of the debt of the poor or developing nations as it is really a form of global tax to be paid
annually by the rich or industrialized nations to the developing nations
* establishing freshwater and clean air as primordial human rights
We can no longer perceive ourselves as a People who could survive alone and a People who does not need anyone else. We belong and depend to this much larger
group, that of Global Community. The 21st Century will see limitless links and interrelationships within Global Community. That is the 'raison d'etre'
of the Global Governments Federation. 
The power of Global Community was de-centralized to give each GG a better chance to find the right solutions to global issues. It can act faster and be more effective and efficient in
the context of Global Community,
this great, wide, wonderful world made of all these diverse global communities within each Nation. Global Community becomes thus more fluid and dynamic. A global
symbiotical relationship is created
between Nations and Global Community for the good of all groups participating in the relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The relationship allows a global
equitable and peaceful development. This is
the basic concept that is allowing us to group willing Member Nations from different parts of the world.
Perhaps now we should introduce some important members of Global Community: the global civil society, the human family, all different ways of expressing the same people. Most of the time many politicians representing their citizens at the United Nations have no knowledge,
experience, and understanding of global problems. They seek advise from others, and these 'others' are always members of the global civil society. Yet politicians make
global decisions or the lack of them during meetings. Politicians become actors on the world scene. Actors taken jobs they are not always qualified to take in reality.
They make decisions, and they dont understand consequences. In effect, politicians are threatening the security of all people and all life on Earth. And that is the 'raison d'etre'
of the House of Advisors in Global Community.
You will be required to send representatives to your House of Advisors.
The global civil society is made of people from all aspects of life who have a greater understanding of the problem whatever it may be. The global civil society is the mind,
heart and Soul of humanity, the human family. They maybe NGOs, businesses, agencies, scientists and professionals, religious groups, or other groups. They should
have a voting right during all meetings of the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations. They are given an important status in Global Community.
The political system of an individual country does not have to be a democracy. Political rights of a country belong to that country alone. Democracy is not to be enforced by anyone and to anyone or to any
Global Community. Every community can and should choose the political system of their choice with the understanding of the importance of such a right on the Scale of Global Rights . On the
other hand, representatives to Global Community must be elected democratically in every part of the world. An individual country may have any political system at home but the government of that
country will have to ensure (and allow verification by Global Community ) that representatives to Global Community have been elected democratically. This way, every person in the world can claim
the birth right of electing a democratic government to manage Earth: the rights to vote and elect representatives to form the Global Community.
As we have shown in the Global Constitution, Global Community is defined as being all that exits or occurs at any location at any time between the Ozone layer above and the core of the planet below.
This is an important concept and particularly useful in the context of the Global Governments Federation. A community is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. One could think of a
typical community of a million people that does not have to be bounded by a geographical or political border. It can be a million people living in many different locations all over the world. Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the street where I live and contained by a border. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing
ourselves as people with a heart, a mind and a Soul, and as part of a community with the same. Global Community is this great, wide, wonderful world made of all these diverse global communities.
A global symbiotical relationship between two or more nations, or between two or more global communities, can have trade as the major aspect of the relationship or it can have as many other aspects as
agreed by the people involved. The fundamental criteria is that a relationship is created for the good of all groups participating in the relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The
relationship allows a global equitable and peaceful development.
Global Community will do everything possible to give trade the proper guidance for humanity. Trade will become a global co-operation between all nations. The kind of behaviour that happened in the Middle East and in many other parts
of the world will not be allowed again. That is Global Community's commitment to make government and global citizens responsible and accountable. This commitment was defined in sections 11 to 14 of the Global
Citizens Rights, Responsibility and Accountability Act. 
Governance of the Earth will make the rule of arbitrary power--economic (WTO, FTAA, EU), political (UN), or military (U.S.A. and NATO)-- subjected to the rule of Global Law
within the global civil society, the human family. Justice is for everyone and is everywhere, a universal constant. Earth governance does not imply a lost of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. A nation government can
exists within the framework of
an effective Global Community  protecting common global values and humanity heritage. Earth governance gives a new meaning to the
notions of territoriality, and non-intervention in a state way of life, and it is about protecting the cultural heritage of a state. Diversity of
cultural and ethnic groups is an important aspect of Earth governance. Earth governance is a balance between the rights of states with rights of people, and the interests of nations with the interests of the Global Community, the human family, the global civil society. Earth governance is about the rights of states to self-determination in the global context of Global Community rather than the
traditional context of a world of separate states. Although Global Community ensures state governments that it will obey the principle of non-intervention in domestic affairs, it will
also stand for the rights and interests of the people within individual states in which the security of people is extensively endangered. A
global consensus to that effect will be agreed upon by all Member Nations.
The earth's ecological problems stem largely from our collective failure to share. It is now increasingly evident that only by sharing the world's resources more equitably and sustainably will we be able to address both the ecological and social crisis we face as a Global Community.
The principle of sharing has always formed the basis of social relationships in societies across the world. We all know from personal experience that sharing is central to family and community life, and the importance of sharing is also a key component of many of the world’s religions.
Given the importance of the principle of sharing in human life, it is logical to assume that it should play an important role in the way we organise economies and manage the world’s resources.
Humanity currently consumes 50 percent more natural resources than the earth can sustainably produce, which means we already require the equivalent of one and a half planets to support our consumption levels.
This calculation does not even take into account the massive growth in consumption that is widely predicted to take place over coming decades, in which the global ‘middle class’ is expected to grow from under 2 billion consumers today to nearly 5 billion by 2030. Clearly, the ecological consequences of increased consumption across the world will be severe.
But our failure to share resources has also resulted in severe social consequences which cannot be divorced from any discussion about the environment. Ecological chaos, poverty and inequality are related outcomes of an ill-managed world system.
There are massive differences in the consumption patterns and carbon emissions of people living in rich and poor countries. A small proportion of the world’s population – around 20 percent – consumes the vast majority of the world’s resources. Excessive consumption by the wealthiest 10 percent of the world’s population poses the biggest threat to the environment today.
At the same time, the poorest 20 percent of the world’s population do not have access to the basic resources they need to survive. Around a billion people are officially classified as hungry, and almost half of the developing world population is trying to survive on less than $2 a day. Over 40,000 people die every single day from a lack of access to those resources that many of us take for granted. This is perhaps the starkest illustration of the human impact of our failure to share.
For too long, governments have put profit and growth before the welfare of all people and the sustainability of the biosphere. Public policy under the influence of neoliberalism has created a world economy that is structurally dependent upon unsustainable levels of production and consumption for its continued success.
Global Community has put forward a blueprint of the specific policies and actions governments need to take.
Global Community has outlined a bold vision of how and why these reforms should be based firmly on the principle of sharing. Sharing the world’s resources equitably and sustainably is arguably the most pragmatic way of simultaneously addressing both the ecological and social crises we face.
Essentially, a Global Commons Trust would embody the principle of sharing on a global scale, and it would enable the international community to take collective responsibility for managing the world’s resources.
With resources held in trust for all, it would be much easier to implement the second element required to establish a global sharing economy, which is to equalise global consumption levels so that all human beings can flourish within ecological limits. To achieve this, over-consuming countries need to significantly reduce their resource use, while developing countries must be able to increase theirs until a convergence in global per capita consumption levels is eventually reached.
The real challenge is reducing consumption levels in industrialised nations, and many proposals already exist for how to achieve this. For example, it is clear that resource management would need to be at the forefront of policymaking, and consumption-led economic growth can no longer be the goal of government policy. Much would also need to be done to dismantle the culture of consumerism; and investment must shift to building and sustaining a low-carbon infrastructure.
With both of these key elements in place (trusteeship of shared resources and reduced global consumption), natural resources would be accessible to people in all countries, consumed within planetary limits and preserved for future generations.
Social injustice and ecological crises must be recognised as inextricable parts of the same problem: our failure to share the world's resources in a way that benefits all people and preserves the biosphere. A universal call for sharing has the potential to unite both environmentalists and those campaigning for global justice, paving the way to a more just, sustainable and peaceful world.
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We need to create a Global Ministry for the economic sharing, production and distribution of resources. We need global ministries for all the commons.
Global Ministries  :
- Global Ministry of Essential Services
- Ministry of Global Resources
- Ministry of Global Peace in government
- Earth Environmental Governance
- Earth Ministry of Health
- Global Ministry of Forests
- Global Ministry of Agriculture, Food Production and Distribution
- Global Civilization Ministry of Peace and Disarmament
- Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs: Global Government of Africa
- Global Ministry of Water Resources Protection
- Global Environment Ministry
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All people on Earth have been wondering what will it take to create and obtain a global community citizenship that is based on
fundamental principles and values of Global Community. Now is time to enact your dream! It is time because humanity has no time
to waste as we have done in the past. It is time to be what we are meant to become to save us and all life along with us. It is time
to be citizens of the Earth. It is time to gather our forces and to stand for our global values, the only humane values that can save humanity and life on the planet
from extinction.
You may be eligible to become a citizen of Global Community.
To become a citizen of Global Community you may be:
* a person
* a global community
* an institution
* a town, city or province
* a state or a nation
* a business
* an NGO
* a group of people who decided to unite for the better of everyone participating in the relationship, or you may be
* an international organization
Global Community Citizenship is given to anyone who accepts
the Criteria of Global Community Citizenship as a way of life. It
is time now to take the oath of global community citizenship. We all belong
to this greater whole, the Earth, the only known place in the universe
we can call our home.
Before you make your decision, we are asking you to read very carefully
the Criteria of Global Community Citizenship, make sure
you understand every part of the criteria, and then make the oath of belonging
to Global Community, the human family.
You do not need to let go the citizenship you already have. No! You
can still be a citizen of any nation on Earth. The nation you belong to
can be called 'a global community'.
But you are a better human being as you belong also to Global Community,
and you have now higher values to live a life, to sustain yourself and
all life on the planet.
You have become a person with a heart, a mind and Soul of the same as
that of Global Community.
Global Community welcomes you!
A global community citizen could travel the world with Global Community citizenship and work in nations where the citizenship is obtained.
Global Community would conduct the proper investigation concerning the security aspects of Global Community citizen requesting the citizenship and also be responsible for the legitimacy of the application for the citizenship.
A citizenship could have several different applications depending of the request:
a) work permit
b) short visit
c) volunteer work
Accountable government is what humanity needs. Global Community deserves nothing less.
A very important legislation is the Global Citizens Rights, Responsibility and Accountability Act which was
approved by Global Parliament, define rights, responsibility and accountability of all global citizens. Each and everyone of us will make decisions, deal
with one another, and basically conduct our actions as per the Act.
To recognize one as a "sovereign citizen" therefore is to also affirm global citizenship as its social/political/economic corollary.
The definition of "sovereignty" is political choice. As we humans are all "planetary citizens" by virtue of the collapse of time and distance in the present century via technology and electronics, our claim to sovereignty is not only legitimate but critical for survival itself.
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Earth is finite and, therefore, both population growth and economic activity must reach a limit in the very near future. Earth cannot and will not support continued population and/or economic growth. Humanity requires continual and never ending economic and population growth, in direct conflict with nature's finite resources.
In the current economic crisis almost every country and probably all the industrialized countries have taken steps to stimulate their economies without making a determination as to what level of economic activity is best for the long term survival of humankind. While many people understand that population growth must cease if humanity is to survive, no action has been taken on a world-wide basis which will insure that population growth is reduced to zero. Earth cannot and will not wait even twenty years before the horrible destruction of humanity commences.
Peoples believe that everyone should have the right to reproduce even though many individuals are genetically deficient and don’t have the necessary skills to function in the environment occupied by humanity. This belief is based on two erroneous concepts:
1) morality and
2) the inability of humanity to determine the skills which are necessary for survival and reproduction.
In reality, Nature has very little to do with humanity's morality and humanity's inability to determine the necessary skills to function and reproduce. Nature will do for our species as nature has always done: by violence and death. Except in this case Nature has weapons of mass destruction which were created by humanity. Nature will not merely cause death and destruction by disease, starvation, predation and the other horrors it used in the past to determine who will survive to reproduce, Nature will cause the determination to be made by ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, wars gang raping to death millions of women and other horrors beyond our imagination.
While in the past Nature destroyed the vast numbers of species, that destruction has usually occurred over an extended period of time. Nature now has weapons of mass destruction which can kill billions of our species almost instantaneously.
Every aspect of humanity society will have to be evaluated and most likely changed. Every aspect of morality, charity, government, religion, politics, philosophy, etc. will have to be evaluated and revised in almost an instant of time. That is the problem facing humanity.
Every single human being must deal responsibly with the affairs going on in his (her) own 'global community' ~ when a person takes personal responsibility for his own
affairs ~ he becomes empowered as a person. He can then reach beyond his own property and family, and help to work with others living in and around, even a part of the
local community he lives in ~ the villages, the town community, the surrounding territory, and so on.
The key is personal responsibility. Therefore the individual is the important element, one who takes responsibility for his Community. This individual cares about jobs,
homes, streets, the welfare and success of his Community.
When a group of ordinary people realized they, personally, will make the changes they need in their fields, in their village, they can then find ways to bring these changes
for all. There is a wisdom in the ways of very humble people that needs to be used. Every humble person deserves to have ideas respected, the courage to develop his
own life for the better and for the good of all. Sound solutions to help manage and sustain Earth will very likely be found this way. Everyone can help assess the needs of
the planet now and propose sound solutions for its proper management, present and future.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein. A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
Global Community has established the criteria of 'a global community of a million people'.
There is no need of having a piece of land at all costs. We have shown that a community is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. A typical global community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people with the same values. It can be a group of people with
the same cultural background, or the same religious background. Or it can be people with different values, cultural background or religious values and beliefs. The
people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's communications it is easy to group people in this fashion. It can
be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one Global Community. The two villages may be found in different parts of the world. It can
be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together.
Global Community had no other choice than to research and develop a proper system of governance for all of humanity.
Global Community has established the criteria of 'a global community of a million people'. There is no need of having a piece of land at all costs. Let Global Community help you here.
It is best for humanity and the increasing world population to see ourselves as people living together or far apart but in constant communication with each other. A community has no boundaries except of those of the heart, mind and Soul. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing ourselves as people with a heart, a mind and a Soul (a global community), and as part of a community with the same. You should seek forming a Global Government (GG) with nations of similar beliefs and interests. We should seek to de-centralize the U.N. by creating GGs. 
Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic.
A global community is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. One could think of a typical global community of a million people that does not have to be bounded by a geographical or political
border. It can be a million people living in many different locations all over the world. Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the
street where I live and contained by a border. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing ourselves as people with a heart, a mind and a Soul, and as part of a community with the same.
The old concept of a community being the street where we live in and surrounded by a definite geographical and political boundary has originated during the Roman Empire period. An entire new system of
values was then created to make things work for the Roman Empire. Humanity has lived with this concept over two thousand years. Peoples from all over the world are ready to kill anyone challenging their
border. They say that this is their land, their property, their 'things'. This archaic concept is endangering humanity and its survival. The Roman Empire has gone but its culture is still affecting us today. We
need to let go the old way of thinking. We need to learn of the new concept, and how it can make things work in the world.
A typical global community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people sharing with the same values. It can be a group of people with the same cultural background, or the
same religious background. Or they can be people with totally different backgrounds and beliefs. The people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's
communications it is easy to group people in this fashion. It can be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one Community. The two villages may be found in different parts of
the world. It can be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together.
The number of people making a typical global community becomes important when a democratic election to elect representatives to Global Community is going on. The voting system of Global Community is very simple and practical. One representative per million people. A global community of 300 million people would have three hundred representatives.
It all means that Canada and Nunavut must invite and help settlers from around the world to come to Nunavut. It is the only way Canada can use the 'community' card in its claim of sovereighty
and of ownership of the land and of all its natural resources, including the control of the Northwest Passage.
Land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the
trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property or a commodity. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should therefore be given equal
access to all natural resources.
In the case of Nunavut, we see land ownership is a significant problem. We have said that the Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
The fundamental criteria is that a relationship is created for the good of all groups participating in the
relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The relationship allows a global equitable and peaceful development and a more stable and inclusive global
economy.
A global symbiotical relationship is created
between nations and Global Community for the good of all groups participating in the relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The relationship allows a global
equitable and peaceful development. This is
the basic concept that is allowing us to group willing Member Nations from different parts of the world.
And that is the major problem with Nunavut. The Inuit people are trying very hard to keep control over a territory that is much too large and important for other nations.
It is not possible to claim ownership of Nunavut when it was never yours except in your dreams. It is like putting a flag on the Moon and say the Moon is all yours.
Or going to Mars and say Mars is all yours. No one owns the Moon or Mars, or the Earth. No one ever did! And no one ever will! All you can say is that you put a flag on the Moon.
Nothing more, nothing less! It is also like going on top of Mount Everest in the Himalayas. Just by climbing to the top does not give you ownership of the mountain.
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Here are important questions to ask ourselves.
Does planting a titanium flag of Russia on the seabed gives Russia ownerhsip of any kind? Is that not like putting a flag on the Moon or on Mount Everest?
The answer is no. Russia does not own whatever they claim they do own.
Does mapping the ocean floor gives you ownership of the land nearby? No it does not.
Just because you put a flag on the Moon means you own the Moon. It just does not work that way.
A dog, a bear, a wolf, and many other life species, leave 'something' at the bottom of a tree, a bush, a building, a park bench, but this does not mean the life species owns the
tree, the forest, the park, the building or the town. People can leave a flag or whatever else, but that does not mean they own the Moon, planet Mars, Nunavut or Greenland.
As a more obvious example, let us assume that, sometimes in the future, the Chinese government decides to send a rocket to planet Mars with one person on board. Now the rocket lands safely on the planet and the person on board of the rocket place in the ground a stick with the Chinese flag on top. The questions to be asked: Does that means that the person owns the planet? Does the Chinese government owns the planet?
Global Community perspective is very clear neither can claim ownership or sovereignty. Only a community already established in place can claim ownership and sovereignty. If there were Martians, native inhabitants of the planet Mars, near the site where the rocket landed, and the pilot from Earth started to kill Aboriginals , does that means the pilot or the Chinese government owns planet Mars? Of course not! It means the pilot is a killer, a murderer, a genocider. Now if planet Mars was the North American continent at the time of Christopher Columbus, year 1492 when his little sailboat arrived on the coast, and years afterwards after the Europeans arrived in groups, does that means they owned the Americas? Does that means their governments owned the Americas? No it does not! It means they were killers, murderers and genociders.
Global Community "Criteria for sovereignty and ownership" is very clear on those issues. Let us explore their meanings. First the Criteria will be defined, and then other issues will be discussed: various laws, treaties, and legislation that have been enacted over the centuries following colonization of the continent. June 2014 Supreme Court of Canada ruling on the ownership of the ancestral lands, and title, of the aboriginal populations will also be discussed in the light of the Criteria.
Criteria for sovereignty and ownership
We are all members of Global Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people. No humans have the right to encroach on the ecological space of other species and other people, or treat them with cruelty and violence. All life species, humans and cultures, have intrinsic worth. They are subjects, not objects of manipulation or ownership. No humans have the right to own other species, other people or the knowledge of other cultures through patents and other intellectual property rights. Defending biological and cultural diversity is a duty of all people. Diversity is an end in itself, a value, a source of richness both material and cultural. All members of Global Community including all humans have the right to food and water, to safe and clean habitat, to security of ecological space. These rights are natural rights, they are birthrights given by the fact of existence on Earth and are best protected through community rights and global commons. They are not given by states or corporations, nor can they be extinguished by state or corporate action. No state or corporation has the right to erode or undermine these natural rights or enclose the commons that sustain all through privatisation or monopoly control.
Land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property or a commodity. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should therefore be given equal access to all natural resources.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein. A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
Global Community has established the criteria of 'a global community of a million people'.
There is no need of having a piece of land at all costs. We have shown that a community is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. A typical global community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people with the same values. It can be a group of people with
the same cultural background, or the same religious background. Or it can be people with different values, cultural background or religious values and beliefs. The
people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's communications it is easy to group people in this fashion. It can
be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one Global Community. The two villages may be found in different parts of the world. It can
be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together.
We need a basic clarification on the concept of "ownership", starting with the principle that the land
and natural resources of the planet are a common heritage and belong equally as a birthright to everyone.
Criteria for sovereignty
- a global community is in place
- a typical community has a population of one million people
- the land and its natural resources are just enough to live a sustainable life and for a healthy living
- the community governs its owns affairs as per the Scale of Global Rights, Global Law, Global Constitution, and the protection of the environment
and of the global life-support systems
- a symbiotical relationship exists between the citizens and Global Community
- a democracy based on the fact that land, the air, water, oil, minerals, and all other natural resources within the community rightly belongs to the community along with Global Community, and
that the Earth is the birthright of all life
- Earth management and taxation of all Earth natural resources
The definition of sovereignty helps in understanding Canada's position. Sovereignty implies control, authority over a territory. The concept of state sovereignty is
embedded in international law. Traditionally, this definition reflects a state’s right to jurisdictional control, territorial integrity,
and non-interference by outside states. Sovereignty implies both undisputed
supremacy over the land’s inhabitants and independence from unwanted intervention by an outside authority.
However, sovereignty has also been increasingly defined in terms of state responsibility. This includes a state’s exercise of control and authority over its territory, and
the perception of this control and authority by other states. Sovereignty is thus linked to the maintenance of international security.
Another important dimension of the assertion of Canadian sovereignty includes stewardship, an issue that has been raised by Canada’s northern Inuit and Aboriginal peoples.
Specifically, use and occupancy by Canada’s northern inhabitants is significant in terms of the validity of Canada’s sovereign claims.
No one could own the Moon, planet Mars, or America just by going there and back.
All the technology in the world to get to the Moon, and now Mars, all the hard work, all the sweat and pain endured, and more, much more, to finally put a flag on the
Moon. Amazing human achievement! We can really be proud of a team that did it.
How does this relate to Canada's sovereighty in the North?
The question should be how does this relate to ownership of the Earth?
Does putting a flag on the Moon gives you ownership of the Moon?
Does putting a flag on Mars gives you ownership of the planet?
Does discovering the Americas by explorers gave them ownership of the Americas?
Does climbing Mount Everest gives ownership of the mountain?
Does Canada own the Northwest Passage or Nunavut?
Historical agreement(s) between the aboriginal people and the government of Canada.
The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic ocean from Spain in 1492, 1498 and 1502. He landed with his small sailboat upon the Americas. Millions of people already lived there! Extensive European colonization of the "New World", the Americas, began in 1492. European conquest, large-scale exploration, colonization and industrial development soon followed. In the 19th century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas. Various treaties and laws have been enacted between European settlers and the aboriginal populations (First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people).
In 1867, Canada was formed as a federal dominion. Over centuries, elements of Aboriginal, French, British and more recent immigrant customsm have formed the Canadian culture.
Now let us apply Global Community Criteria to the first explorers of the Americas.
During the very first years after year 1492,the British Crown never owned the land in North America. The Criteria says that only the community living on the land can claim ownership and sovereignty. A far away nation, such as the British Crown, could not have claimed or have rights on the land. The local community had all the rights, ownership and sovereignty, on the land and of its natural resources within its boundaries.
What happened back in 1492 and afterward, the Europeans forced the aboriginal people off their land and colonized the region where they landed. Now, according to the Criteria, as soon as the aboriginal people were forced out of their land, they no longer owned that land. The newly arrived Europeans owned the land.
Over time, various laws, treaties, and legislation have been enacted between European immigrants and the Aboriginal populations across Canada. Starting in 1701, the Birtish Crown entered into solemn treaties to encourage peaceful relations between First Nations and non-Aboriginal people. Over the next centuries, treaties were signed to define the respective rights of Aboriginal people and governments to use and enjoy lands that Aboriginal people traditionally occupied.
On June 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada has put Aboriginals on a new footing in a landmark ruling that has implications for natural resource industries across the country. Aboriginal communities gain important new economic assets, and powerful leverage over development by outsiders, but not a veto. The Court determined that native Canadians still own their ancestral lands, unless they signed away their ownership in treaties with government.
For the first time, the Court recognized the existence of Aboriginal title on a particular site. The Aboriginal title means control of ancestral lands and the right to use them for modern economic purposes, without destroying those lands for future generations. The Court said"
The doctrine of "terra nullius" [that no one owned the land prior to European assertion of sovereingty] never applied in Canada.
Of course, Global Community Criteria shows very clearly that this Court ruling was wrong and illegal.
Historically, at the time of signing treaties or agreements with the European immigrants, the Aboriginal people could no longer claimed ownership, title, or sovereignty over their ancestral lands because they were no longer communities living on those lands. They had been killed or forced out of their ancestral lands by the European immigrants. The Criteria says that only a community already living on a land can claim its ownership and sovereignty.
Now the British Crown could not have claimed ownership or sovereignty either because they were not living on the land. Proxy immigrants dont work here. Because the British Crown sent people to live in Canada does not implies ownership or sovereignty of Canada. In fact, proxy abuses (or vicarious abuses), such as proxy European immigrants supposedly representing the British Crown for ownership and sovereignty, were abuses committed on behalf of the British Crown. Global Community Criteria is very specific: only the people actually living on the land can claim ownership and sovereignty on land and its natural resources within its boundaries. And certainly this does not include all of Canada. A community can only claim a specific piece of land but that does not mean all of Canada. In fact, back during colonization, none of the European immigrants knew of what Canada meant geographically. They were only interested in a specific land where they could build a community as defined by the Criteria.
The ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada assumed that, back during colonization, the British Crown owned the land today called Canada, and that the Aboriginal people were still living on specific sections of that land the Europeans immigrants wanted to colonized. Both assumptions were wrong from the beginning and therefore the ruling was wrong and was illigal. From there on, all treaties and agreements signed between the European immigrants and the Aboriginal people were also wrong because treaties signed bases on previously illegal treaties are also wrong and illegal.
The example given above here about the Chinese government deciding to send a rocket to planet Mars with one person on board. The questions to be asked: Does that means that the person owns the planet? Does the Chinese government owns the planet?
Global Community perspective is very clear: neither the pilot or the Chinese government can claim ownership or sovereignty. Only a community already established in place can claim ownership and sovereignty.
In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice declared the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark. The status of Hans Island was not addressed. However, decades later, Denmark would claim that geological evidence pointed to Hans Island being part of Greenland, and that it belongs to Denmark by extension of the
Court's ruling.
Does Denmark truly owns Greenland? Just because you say you do? Just because the Permanent Court of International Justice say you do? What if the Court was wrong or corrupted?
Canada says it owns the Northwest Passage and Nunavut but how is that possible? Just because Canada says it does? Or because the United Nations say it does?
What if the UN is corrupted? or wrong?
No one can own Mount Everest in the Himalayas just by climbing to the top
Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, as measured by the height of its summit above sea level. The mountain, which is part of the Himalaya range, is located on the border between Nepal and Tibet, China. As of the end of the 2006 climbing season, there have been 3,050 ascents to the summit, by 2,062 individuals, and 203 people have died on the mountain. There have been more than 630 further ascents in 2007. The conditions on the mountain are so difficult that most of the corpses have been left where they fell; some of them are easily visible from the standard climbing routes. Climbers are a significant source of tourist revenue for Nepal; they range from experienced mountaineers to relative novices who count on their paid guides to get them to the top. The Nepalese government also requires a permit from all prospective climbers; this carries a heavy fee, often more than $25,000 (USD) per person.
Obviously we know the answers to all thes questions. You dont own it. You never did and never will.
Only Global Community can rightfully claim ownership.
Just like the first European explorers who discovered America, they arrived and conquered. Aboriginals did not have a chance.
Aboriginals said America was their home. But no longer! The explorers said it is now ours. Most Aboriginals were shot in the USA. More survived in Canada! Explorers were not doing this hard work just for the pleasure of finding something new. Their countries sent them and pay for their expenses. Explorers were expected to find something tangible that could make their countries proud and rich.
The impacts of our democracy are destroying the Earth global life-support systems.
A few people have control over much of the Earth.
To live in a world at peace and have conditions of basic justice and fairness in human interactions,
our democratic values must be based in the principle of equal rights to the Earth.
Territorial conflict has for millennium been the basis of war and mass killing of others.
Throughout the ages wars been fought over land, and other Earth natural resources.
We have seen oil conflictsin the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea Basin.
We have seen water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, and Indus River Basins.
We have seen wars being fought over minerals and timber in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo, New Guinea, and Borneo.
We have seen conflicts over valuable gems, minerals and timber in Brazil, Angola, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Liberia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
The view from space shows us a global landscape in which competition over resources
is the governing principle behind the use of military power.
Truly, resources have become the new political boundaries.
Each day taxpayers hand over astronomical amounts of money to build weapons
of mass destruction, fuel dangerous and polluting technologies,
and subsidize giant corporations which concentrate the wealth and power of the world in the hands of an elite few.
Truly, we are on the threshold of a global revolution, and we need to
proceed with the non-violent approach. We need to build an economic democracy
based firmly on the basic principle that the Earth belongs equally to
everyone as a birthright. The Earth is for all people to labor and live
on and should never be the possession of any individual, corporation,
or uncaring government, any more than the air or water, or any other
Earth natural resources. An individual, or a business should have
no more than is needed for a healthy living.
All the climbing techniques in the world to get to the top of Mount Everest, all the hard work, all the sweat and pain endured, and more, much more, to finally put a flag on top of the mountain. Amazing human achievement! We can really be proud of a team that did it.
But you dont own the mountain.
Criteria for sovereignty
- a global community is in place
- a typical community has a population of one million people
- the land and its natural resources are just enough to live a sustainable life and for a healthy living
- the community governs its owns affairs as per the Scale of Global Rights, Global Law, Global Constitution, and the protection of the environment
and of the global life-support systems
- a symbiotical relationship exists between the citizens and Global Community
- a democracy based on the fact that land, the air, water, oil, minerals, and all other natural resources within the community rightly belongs to the community along with Global Community, and
that the Earth is the birthright of all life
- Earth management and taxation of all Earth natural resources
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What makes a 'nation' ? And what makes 'a global community' ?
Perhaps it is time to leave behind the concept of 'nation'. It has confusing meanings and has been over-used in many situations and by everyone. Is it truly necessary
to discuss about it? I dont think so. Let us move on to the twenty first century. Global Community has researched and developed new global concepts more
appropriate to our times. The concept of 'a global community' 
is one of them and is certainly a powerful new concept that will make its place in history.
A nation is defined primarily by its people, its communities; arts, history, social, languages, religious and cultural aspects included.
Fundamentally a nation or a state is defined as "a politically unified population occupying a specific area of land".
A global community has a well defined criteria based on global symbiotical relationships. And it does not require the occupation of a specific area of land.
These relationships allow a global equitable and peaceful development and a more stable and inclusive global economy.
Global Community is promoting the settling of disputes between nations through the process of the Earth Court of Justice. Justice for all is what we want. Justice is a universal value for anyone, anywhere, and in any situations.
All nations have to be educated of the new way for the good of all.
Global Community is promoting that the creation of a new nation does not have to be at the expenses of human lives and destruction of an entire world. It can and should always be done through a decision made by a higher Court. We are promoting the immediate use of this higher Court, the Earth Court of Justice to hear cases and to prosecute those nations, corporations, communities, individuals who commit crimes
such as:
* nation states in disagreement with Global Law
* national political and military leaders accountable for violations of international humanitarian law
* 'core' crimes of genocide
* crimes against humanity and Global Rights
* war crimes
* crimes with significant impacts perpetuated against the life-support systems of the planet (for instance wars and use of weapons of widespread destruction are listed under this category)
* crimes related to the relentless misused of the Earth resources
* environmental crimes
* social crimes as the Court may see apply
* crimes stemming from the global ministries
The Earth Court of Justice will also rule on global problems and concerns such as the creation of a new nation in the world, and disputing territories or land between nations.
The Statute of the Earth Court of Justice will be established later.
The Earth Court of Justice established by the Constitution of Global Community as the principal organ of Global Community
shall be constituted and shall function in accordance with the provisions of the Statute.
The Court will also be asked to decide on
* the formation of a new nation in the world,
* on disputed lands between nations,
* the de-institutionalization of market speculation, and
* the annulment of the debt of poor or 'developing' nations as the loans are actually a form of global tax given by the rich nations to the poorer ones.
The IMF and World Bank loans are called taxes from the rich nations paid to the 'developing' nations; these loans/taxes are really a method of raising global
taxes, of redistributing incomes to the poorest communities, of providing debt-free
technical assistance to non-industrial and 'developing' countries to help them out of poverty and to meet environmental and social standards.
These loans/taxes are not to be paid back to the rich nations.
The Court decides in accordance with:
* the Scale of Global Rights,
* the Global Constitution 
* Global Law
* the Global Citizens Rights, Responsibility and Accountability Act
* the belief, values, principles and aspirations of Global Community,
* international treaties and conventions in force,
* international custom,
* the general principles of law, and
* as subsidiary means, judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists.
Perhaps it is time to leave behind the concept of 'nation'. It has confusing meanings and has been over-used in many situations and by everyone. Is it truly necessary
to discuss about it? I dont think so. Let us move on to the twenty first century. Global Community has researched and developed new global concepts more
appropriate to our times. The concept of 'a global community'
is one of them and is certainly a powerful new concept that will make its place in history.
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The Arctic will witness an increase in surface naval activity over subsurface activity. Investments are being made in physical infrastructure. An unimpeded flow of oil requires Artic management and maritime patrol.
Both Canada and Russia claim navigable straits in the NSR and the Northwest Passage under their exclusive control. The US asserts that the ice-covered straits of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) are international and subject to the right of transit passage while Russia claims the straits as internal waters. Denmark and Norway are challenging these claims. The point of argument is the way to increase share of the Arctic riches, claiming overlapping parts of the region. They are also disputing over the control of the still frozen shipping routes.
China, not a member of the Arctic Council that determines Arctic policies, is actively searching ways to reap economic and strategic benefits from the ice melting despite having no Arctic coast, and hence no sovereign rights to underwater continental shelves there. The emerging giant is assessing the commercial, political and security implications of a seasonally ice-free Arctic region. It has allocated more resources to Arctic research. The country owns one of the world’s strongest polar scientific research capabilities and the world’s largest non-nuclear icebreaker.
Now let us have a closer look at who, and what nations really should be claiming ownership and sovereignty of the Artic region.
There are important questions to be asked.
Does mapping the ocean floor gives you ownership of the land nearby? No it does not.
Just because you put a flag on the Moon means you own the Moon. It just does not work that way.
Several centuries ago Canadian first explorers landed on the North America shore. Just because they arrived on the North America coast on a sail boat does not imply that Canadians owned Canada or the continent. Of course not!
A dog, a bear, a wolf, and many other life species, leave 'something' at the bottom of a tree, a bush, a building, a park bench, but this does not mean the life species owns the
tree, the forest, the park, the building or the town. People can leave a flag or whatever else, but that does not mean they own the Moon, planet Mars, Nunavut or Greenland.
Hans Island has no one living on the island so Canada or Denmark cannot claim sovereignty over the island.
Most of Greenland and Nunavut are practically empty of people.
Similarly for the case of Hans Island. Just because you say you own an island does not give you ownership of the island. It is totally arbitrarily to claim ownership of
Hans Island by either Canada or Denmark. No one lives on the island so anyone in the world can say they own it. Right now no one does own the island.
Whatever rulings nations and organizations can come up with, they are only applicable by the nations who have signed in.
Let us take another look at the legal instances where the ownership of the North Pole region have been given attention.
A) The requirements of an international sea waterway are both geographic and functional. An international sea waterway must connect two bodies of the high seas, in this case the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and must also satisfy the criterion of being a useful route for navigation, and must
have experienced a sufficient number of transits. Considering the International Court of Justice’s ruling in the Corfu Channel Case, it becomes readily available that
this criterion fails to be met in the case of the Northwest Passage, as there has not yet been a sufficient number of transits to qualify it as a useful route for
international maritime traffic. However, if a sufficient number of vessels transit the passage without seeking Canadian permission, Canada’s claims to the legal
status of the passage could be challenged, as there would be an increasing claim and perception that the passage constitutes an international sea waterway.
B) In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice declared the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark. The status of Hans Island was not addressed. However,
decades later, Denmark would claim that geological evidence pointed to Hans Island being part of Greenland, and therefore that it belongs to Denmark by extension of the
Court's ruling.
C) Hans Island is the subject of a well-reported dispute over Canada’s land territory in the Arctic. The island is claimed by both Canada and Denmark as sovereign territory.
These competing claims have never been finally settled in international law. A border between Canada and Greenland was established in the delimitation treaty about the Continental Shelf between Greenland and Canada, ratified by the United Nations
on December 17, 1973, and in force since March 13, 1974. At that time, it was the longest shelf boundary treaty ever negotiated and may have been the first ever continental shelf boundary developed
by a computer program.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Canada ratified the UNCLOS in 2003 and has 10 years from that date to determine the extent of
its continental shelf. This mapping will help to determine Canada’s exact sovereign rights in terms of economic control (beyond the UNCLOS - defined
200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone) and resource exploration. The United States has not ratified the UNCLOS, despite a vote in 2004 by the U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee recommending ratification.
So there two international organizations concerned with territorial sovereignty:
1) the International Court of Justice, and
2) the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
and one organization concerned with the international maritime traffic: the International Maritime Organization.
Whatever rulings these organizations can come up with, they are only applicable by the nations who have signed in.
These rulings can be wrong. For instance, what gave the Permanent Court of International Justice the right to declare the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark.
How can that be? The ruling is totally arbitrarily. Probably the Permanent Court of International Justice itself was especially created to declare the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark.
There is corruption anywhere at all levels of government, and there can be corruption at the Court.
Similarly for the case of Hans Island. Just because you say you own an island does not give you ownership of the island. It is totally arbitrarily to claim ownership of
Hans Island by either Canada or Denmark. No one lives on the island so anyone in the world can say they own it.
Everyone remembers the Falkland Islands war.
The islands were uninhabited when they were first discovered by European explorers.
The Falkland Islands have had a complex history since their discovery, with France, Britain, Spain, and Argentina all claiming possession, and establishing as well as
abandoning settlements on the islands. The islands have been the subject of a claim to sovereignty by Argentina since the British invasion of 1833.
In pursuit of this claim in 1982, the islands were invaded by Argentina, precipitating the two-month-long undeclared Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom,
which resulted in the defeat and withdrawal of Argentine forces. Since the war there has been strong economic growth in both fisheries and tourism. The inhabitants of the
islands are British citizens (since a 1983 Act) and under Argentine Law are eligible for Argentine citizenship. Many trace their origins on the islands to early
19th-century Scottish immigration. The islands' residents reject the Argentine sovereignty claim.
From Global Community perspective the Falkland Islands truly belong to the inhabitants of the islands. There exist a strong sustainable community on the islands, and they
dont need anyone's approval to keep living on the islands.
But in the case of Hans Island, no one live on the island. From Global Community perspective, any new sustainable community brave enough to live on Hans Island
owns it. That is a basic principle. There no need to ask permission from any organization such as the International Court of Justice or the United Nations.
Someday people from a nation will land on the Moon and on planet Mars for the purpose of settling a colony. They wont ask permission from anybody because there is no one there.
People from another nation might do the same and settle a colony somewhere else on the Moon and Mars. There again they dont need to ask permission to do so.
Things get more complicated when a nation is a predator nation like the first explorers of North America. There were people living on the continent.
The explorers shut dead the Aboriginals when they got there. The explorers behave very much like predators. And the nations they represented were predator nations.
A predator nation is behaving more or less like a shark eating smaller fishes. No organization in the world should be going along with such human behavior.
Civilized people can live without killing others to survive. We dont need blood resources to survive. The global
civilization we have created has called upon the Agency of Global Police (AGP) to deal with predator nations.
On the global level the Law of the Seas Covenant is an example of a global community lease payment basis for public needs as it has affirmed that ocean resources are the
common heritage of all and a proper source of funding for global institutions. Water belongs to the Earth and all species and is sacred to life therefore, the world’s water must be conserved, reclaimed and protected for all future
generations and its natural patterns respected. Oceans are a commons.
Water is a fundamental human right and a public trust to be guarded by all levels of government; therefore, it should not be commodified, privatized or
traded for commercial purposes. These rights must be enshrined at all levels of government. In particular, an international treaty must ensure these
principles are noncontrovertable.
Water is best protected by local communities and citizens, who must be respected as equal partners with governments in the protection and regulation of
water. Peoples of the Earth are the only vehicle to promote democracy and save water.
Similarly, all the Earth natural resources belong to Global Community to be used, developed and protected for the maximum benefit of the people and of all life. Water are a commons. All natural resources are a commons.
Global Community has many expert groups able to begin the necessary intergovernmental negotiations towards establishing alternative revenue sources, which could include fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees levied on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on carbon content of fuels.
An Arctic Forum was held in the Russian capital of Moscow and organized by the Russian Geographic Society together with Russia’s press agency RIA Novosti, brought together hundreds of scientists and politicians hailing from countries bordering the Arctic region and from countries located farther away. During the forum Russia's government claimed over large parts of the North Pole which is covered by an icecap. Previously, in 2007, Russia already had pushed its claims, when its scientists had boarded a mini-submarine and had planted a rust-free flag of their nation on the bottom of the North Pole. Earlier yet, in 2001, Russia had submitted its bid to ownership over the underwater ridge known as ‘Lomonosov’ to the United Nations, arguing that the given geographic formation is an extension of Russia’s continental shelf. As Russian news reports on the Arctic Forum indicate, - Russia believes its claim to 1.2 million kilometer of the Arctic circle are in line with the rules set by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
In fact, each of the five nations bordering the Arctic has been making its own separate bids. Denmark for instance, which claims over the vast ice-covered land mass of Greenland, largely located within the Arctic circle, has carried out its own scientific expedition aimed at backing up its own claims. And Denmark’s Scandinavian neighbor Norway has officially demanded that its rights over the eastern part of the Arctic be extended. The rationale underlying the fever of the Arctic border states appears to be just one: to reach out to the rich reserves of oil and gas deposited at the bottom of the Arctic circle.
The important issue of climate change is causing conflicts over the Artic region to become a global problem requiring all Peoples on Earth to participate in the debate. The risks deriving from the warming-up of the earth can very well be illustrated with data on the situation in the Arctic. If the whole ice sheet covering Greenland today were to melt, this would result in a 7 meter rise in sea levels worldwide. Greenland’s glaciers for instance have accelerated the speed at which they flow towards the sea along the country’s coast. The Arctic ice sheet has lost a reported 15 percent of its surface over the last thirty years, and 40 percent of its thickness. Both indigenous hunters and animals which depend on the ice sheet for their habitat suffer in consequence. Considered to be the symbol of the Arctic, the ice bear is threatened with extinction in the short term.
Another way Arctic warming could have worldwide consequences is through its influence on permafrost. Permanently frozen soils worldwide contain 1400-1700 Gigatons of carbon, about four times more than all the carbon emitted by human activity in modern times. A 2008 study found that a period of abrupt sea-ice loss could lead to rapid soil thaw that would result to an annual carbon emissions which could amount to 15-35 percent of today’s yearly emissions from human activities.
Another important source of greenhouse gases is the methane in the seabed of the Arctic Ocean. These so-called clathrates contain an estimated 1400 Gigatons of methane, a more potent though shorter-lived greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Methane clathrate, a form of water ice that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure, remains stable under a combination of high pressure and low temperature. At a depth of 50 meters or less the East Siberian Arctic Shelf contains the shallowest methane clathrate deposits, and is thus most vulnerable to rising water temperatures. Current methane concentrations in the Arctic already average about 1.90 parts per million, the highest in 400,000 years.
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The astonishing beauty of the North is itself a natural resource.
Glaciers are made of the purest drinking waters on Earth.
There is also a vast array of different life-form communities such as the polar bears, Arctic foxes, seals, beluga whales, northern fulmars, and those communities of organisms that inhabit the sea
floor like brittle stars, worms, zooplankton, microalgae, bivalves and some of the lesser known sea spiders. Everyone of those communities have an Earth right of ownership
of the North and of all its natural resources. It is their birthright. They dont express themselves in English, but we understand them. Human beings have a moral obligation to protect and conserve the biodiversity of life on Earth which is why Global Community has created a biodiversity zone in the North by way of Earth rights and taxation of natural resources.
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Climate change is a result of the rising global temperatures associated with global warming, the effects of which have a direct impact on fragile ecosystems. It is
contributing to the melting of the polar ice caps and that will open the Northwest Passage to increased shipping activity.
Beside the global warming of the planet, there is another factor that contributes to warming of the waters in the Arctic
It is the increase in discharge rates from melting glaciers. This runoff is much warmer than the Arctic Ocean water. The net result is a slight warming of the Arctic
Ocean waters and a dilution of salinity.
The Northwest Passage is a sea route (see Maps) that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
From the east coast of Canada and the Atlantic Ocean, the Northwest Passage runs through waterways such as the Davis pass and Baffin Bay.
From there on there are seven different channels, collectively known as the Northwest Passages, to get to the west coast but not all of them are good for large ships.
Only two channels are considered accessible to large ships.
All of them are a part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and they include the Prince of Wales pass, Dease pass and the McClure pass.
Then the Passage runs through Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea and, finally, the Bering Strait that separates Russia and Alaska, to the Pacific Ocean.
In the past the Northwest Passage has been practically impassable because it was covered by thick, year-round sea ice. However, satellite and other monitoring confirm that the
Arctic sea ice has been declining in both thickness and size.
For over a decade, satellite images taken near the end of the Arctic summer often show that large portions of the Passage are almost ice free. In September of 2006, these
images showed that the Arctic Ocean was free to sail directly to the North Pole from northern Europe. In the summer of 2007, the area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has
shrunk to its lowest level. There was a drop of 1 million sq km of ice cover in just one year. The Northwest Passage was opened for sailing.
This extreme reduction in just one year indicates that the summer ice may disappear much sooner than expected, and that Canada urgently needs to understand better the processes involved.
Several countries, including the United States and Europe, have claimed that the Northwest Passage is an international strait that should be governed by the
world's shipping community, not by Canada alone.
If it were to become more accessible to navigation and for longer portions of the year, the Northwest Passage would represent a potentially attractive and valuable
commercial shipping route.
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Inuit living in Northern Greenland or Canada had likely crossed this area for centuries. Up to the early 19th century, the northern area of Greenland and Canada remained completely unexplored by Europeans.
The economic value of a short waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was the subject of many early dreams. English explorers, including Martin Frobisher, John
Davis and Henry Hudson searched for it from the Atlantic side in the late 1500's and early 1600's. These expeditions were unsuccessful.
Explorations continued through the 1600's and 1700's without success. Then in 1849 Robert McClure passed through the Bering Strait with the intent of sailing through
to the Atlantic. His ship was trapped in the ice not far from making it to Viscount Melville Sound and probable passage to the Atlantic. After spending three
winters on the ice McClure and crew were rescued by a sledge party from one of Sir Edward Belcher's ships and transported by to the Sound.
McClure and his crew became the first to survive a trip through the Northwest Passage.
From 1850 to 1880, the area in which Hans Island is situated was explored by American and British expeditions. Reasons of these expeditions were to search for
the missing British explorer John Franklin, and for the elusive Northwest Passage.
The Danish "Celebration Expedition" of 1920 to 1923 accurately mapped the whole region of the Northern Greenland coast from Cape York (Kap York) to Denmark Sound (Danmark fjord).
In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice declared the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark. The status of Hans Island was not addressed. However, decades later, Denmark would claim that geological evidence pointed to Hans Island being part of Greenland, and therefore that it belongs to Denmark by extension of the Court's ruling.
Since the 1960s, a few surveys have been made in the Nares Strait region: ice flow, seismic, mapping, archeological and economic surveys.
From 1980 to 1983, Canadian-based Dome Petroleum Ltd. investigated the movement of ice masses and also made surveys on and around Hans Island.
In 1972, a team consisting of personnel from the Canadian Hydrographic Service and Danish personnel, working in the Nares Strait determined the geographic coordinates for
Hans Island. During negotiations between Canada and Denmark on Northern maritime boundaries in 1973, Canada claimed that Hans Island was part of its territory. No agreement
was ever reached between the two governments on the issue.
The border is established in the delimitation treaty about the Continental Shelf between Greenland and Canada, ratified by the United Nations on December 17, 1973, and in force since March 13, 1974. At that time, it was the longest shelf boundary treaty ever negotiated and may have been the first ever continental shelf boundary developed by a computer program.
The Northwest Passage was first navigated by Roald Amundsen in 1903-6. Him and his crfew were the first to have successfully completed a path from Greenland to Alaska
in the Gjøa. Although the crossing was an important "first" it had
little economic value because the journey took three years and used waters that were too shallow for commercial shipping.
Since that date, a number of ice-fortified ships have made the journey.
The first traversal of the Northwest Passage via dog sled was accomplished by Greenlander Knud Rasmussen while on the Fifth Thule Expedition (1921-1924). Rasmussen, and two Greenland Inuit, traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific over the course of 16 months via dog sled.
In 1940, Canadian RCMP officer Henry Larsen was the second to sail the passage, crossing west to east, from Vancouver to Halifax.
In 1969, the SS Manhattan made the passage, accompanied by the Canadian icebreaker John A. Macdonald. The Manhattan was a specially reinforced supertanker sent to test the viability of the passage for the transport of oil. While the Manhattan succeeded, the route was deemed not cost effective and the Alaska Pipeline was built instead.
In 1957, three United States Coast Guard Cutters, Storis, Bramble and SPAR became the first ships to cross the Northwest Passage along a deep waterway route of the Passage.
They covered the 4,500 miles of semi-charted water in 64 days.
Roald Amundsen was the first over a century ago and between his journey and 1990 there was a total of 50. Since then there have been roughly the same number again.
In the past few years, there have been about 8 crossings a year. But almost all of these have involved ships specially reinforced
or icebreakers. The significance of the news last summer was that the entire passage was seen in satellite pictures to be clear of ice,
making it possible for vessels to make it through.
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Hans Island is a small, uninhabited barren island, located in the centre of the Kennedy Channel of Nares Strait — the waterway that separates Ellesmere Island from northern
Greenland, a territory of Denmark, and connects Baffin Bay with the Lincoln Sea. This island is uninhabited and is only 1.3 km² (0.5 mi²) in size.
Hans Island is the subject of a well-reported dispute over Canada’s land territory in the Arctic. The island is claimed by both Canada and Denmark as sovereign territory.
These competing claims have never been finally settled in international law. A 1973 agreement between
Canada and Denmark on the delimitation of the continental shelf between Greenland and Canada did not resolve the issue.
Canada’s ability to show control over Hans Island represents a significant indicator of Canada’s ability to exercise
sovereignty over its Arctic territory. Former National Defence Minister Bill Graham visited the island in July 2005,
as did Canadian military personnel, who placed a Canadian flag on the territory. The Danish navy made similar visits in 2002 and 2003.
The dispute over Hans Island may turn into a test case on territorial claims in the Arctic especially regarding the
contested Northwest Passage south of the island, a region that could become more important if Arctic shrinkage opens it up to more human activity.
In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice declared the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark. The status of Hans Island was not addressed. However,
decades later, Denmark would claim that geological evidence pointed to Hans Island being part of Greenland, and that it belongs to Denmark by extension of the
Court's ruling.
In 1972, a team consisting of personnel from the Canadian Hydrographic Service and Danish personnel, working in the Nares Strait determined the geographic coordinates for
Hans Island. During negotiations between Canada and Denmark on Northern maritime boundaries in 1973, Canada claimed that Hans Island was part of its territory. No agreement
was reached between the two governments on the issue.
The border is established in the delimitation treaty about the Continental Shelf between Greenland and Canada, ratified by the United Nations on December 17, 1973, and in
force since March 13, 1974. At that time, it was the longest shelf boundary treaty ever negotiated and may have been the first ever continental shelf boundary developed by
a computer program.
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The impacts of climate change heighten disputes over the status of the Northwest Passage.
All water routes through the Northwest Passage pass between the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. On that basis, Canada claims the Passage as
Canadian Internal Waters, and thus fall under Canadian jurisdiction and control. And that means Canada has the
right to set the rules over who gets to go through. A key concern is to avoid letting unsafe vessels sally through the passage and risk
a devastating oil spill in the fragile Arctic ecosystem that Canada would have to do the clean up.
However, this claim has been disputed, especially by the United States and
the European Union. They argued that the Northwest Passage represents international waters, which allows the right
of transit passage, and that the strait ought to be governed by the world's shipping community, not by Canada alone.
In such a régime, Canada would have the right to enact fishing and environmental
regulation, and fiscal and smuggling laws, as well as laws intended for the safety of shipping, but not the right to close the passage.
In 1969, the US sent the oil tanker Manhattan through the Northwest Passage in defiance of Canada's claim that it has exclusive rights over those waters.
Navigation was difficult. The Manhattan was damaged during the voyage which may have planted the seed for Canada’s future pollution legislation.
In 1970, the Canadian government enacted the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, which
asserts Canadian regulatory control over pollution within a 100-mile zone. In response, a U.S. foreign relations document from 1970 stated that the US
cannot accept the assertion of a Canadian claim that the Arctic waters are internal waters of Canada because such acceptance would jeopardize the freedom of navigation essential for United States naval
activities worldwide.
In 1985, the U.S. icebreaker
Polar Sea passed through, and the U.S. government made a point of not asking permission from Canada. They claimed that this was simply a cost-effective way to get the ship
from Greenland to Alaska and that there was no need to ask permission to travel through an international waterway. The Canadian government issued a declaration in 1986
reaffirming Canadian rights to the waters. However, the United States refused to recognize the Canadian claim. In 1988 the governments of Canada and the U.S. signed an
agreement, "Arctic Cooperation", that did not solve the sovereignty issues but stated that U.S. icebreakers would require permission from the Government of Canada to
pass through.
Each of those voyages became the known international incidents. The Polar Sea expedition galvanized the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to set out a policy for
the North and to pledge to get a top-class Polar 8 icebreaker to patrol its northern border. The Polar 8 purchase was cancelled in 1989. No reason given!
In 1988, however, Canada and the United States forged an agreement on Arctic Cooperation, which pledges that voyages of U.S. icebreakers will be undertaken with the
consent of the Government of Canada. The agreement did not alter either country’s legal position vis-à-vis the Arctic waters. With regard to the United States’ legal
position, however, there have been some suggestions that U.S. concerns with continental security since the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 could dampen its assertions
that Canada’s Arctic waters constitute an international waterway. Accordingly, Canada might be wise to manage the passage as a way of securing the North American perimeter.
Protectionist sentiments apply to both Canada and the US when it comes to the Passage but for Canada, the concern for
Arctic sovereignty is deep-seated. The claim
of sovereignty over the artic archipelago is uniquely tied to Canada’s sense of national pride
and identity and therefore, any suggestions or actions that endanger the government’s exclusive
authority over the disputed territory sparks an emotional and defensive response.
Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic embraces land, sea and ice. It extends without
interruption to the seaward - facing coasts of the Arctic islands. These islands are joined by the waters between them.
Inuit people have used and occupied the ice as
they have used and occupied the land.
The difficulty for Canada is that many, including the Americans believe insufficient resources
and personnel have been dedicated to the Arctic to demonstrate a significant presence thereby
weakening its sovereignty claim. Weak resources translate into a weak claim.
During the Cold War, lacking the finances and manpower, Canada had little choice but to turn to the United States for
military presence and weapons. These collaborative defence efforts to guard against a common
nuclear threat, while maximizing Canada’s security, also maximized Canada’s potential loss of
sovereignty. This fact has not been forgotten.
It all means that Canada and Nunavut must invite and help settlers from around the world to come to Nunavut. It is the only way Canada can use the 'community' card in its claim of sovereighty
and of ownership of the land and of all its natural resources, including the control of the Northwest Passage.
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Who owns the Nortwest Passage? What is Canada sovereignty in the North?
Global Community perspective.
Letter to all Canadians concerning the Northwest Passage and sovereignty of Nunavut
Letter to the Honourable Paul Okalik, Premier of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, concerning the Northwest Passage and sovereignty of Nunavut
Who owns the Nortwest Passage? What is Canada sovereignty in the North?
Climate change is a result of the rising global temperatures associated with global warming, the effects of which have a direct impact on all life on Earth.
Global warming due to human activities is contributing to the melting of the polar ice caps.
The Polar Regions are very sensitive indicators of global warming. These regions are highly vulnerable to rising temperatures and may be virtually ice free by the
summer of 2030.
The Northwest Passage is a sea route near the North Pole that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
In the past the Northwest Passage has been practically impassable because it was covered by thick, year-round sea ice. However, satellite and other monitoring
confirm that the Arctic sea ice has been declining in both thickness and size. A significant reduction last summer indicates that the summer ice may disappear much sooner
than expected. Canada urgently needs to understand better the processes involved. If it were to become more accessible to navigation and for longer portions of the year, the Northwest Passage would represent a potentially attractive and valuable
commercial shipping route.
The economic value of a short waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans was the subject of many early dreams. Over the centuries many attempts were made
to find and explore the elusive Northwest Passage, and many expeditions were unsuccessful.
The Northwest Passage was first navigated by Roald Amundsen in 1903-6. Him and his crfew were the first to have successfully completed the sailing from Greenland to Alaska.
In 1940, Canadian RCMP officer Henry Larsen was the second to sail the passage, crossing west to east, from Vancouver to Halifax.
In 1969, the SS Manhattan made the passage, accompanied by the Canadian icebreaker John A. Macdonald. The Manhattan was a specially reinforced supertanker sent to test the viability of the passage for the transport of oil. While the Manhattan succeeded, the route was deemed not cost effective and the Alaska Pipeline was built instead.
Roald Amundsen was the first over a century ago and between his journey and 1990 there was a total of 50.
In the past few years, there have been about 8 crossings a year. But almost all of these have involved ships specially reinforced
or icebreakers. The significance of the news last summer was that the entire passage was seen in satellite pictures to be clear of ice,
making it possible for vessels to make it through.
Several countries, including the United States and Europe, have claimed that the Northwest Passage is an international waterway that should be governed by the
world's shipping community, not by Canada alone.
Canada wants control of the Northwest Passage and have this control accepted by relevant international organizations. The Northwest Passage is part of Nunavut, a territory
of Canada. Canadian sovereignty of Nunavut is itself very questionable. The ownership of the entire region of the North Pole is questionable.
All water routes through the Northwest Passage are located between the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. On that basis, Canada claims the Passage as
Canadian Internal Waters, and thus fall under Canadian jurisdiction and control. And that means Canada has the
right to set the rules over who gets to go through. A key concern is to avoid letting unsafe vessels sailing through the passage and risk
a devastating oil spill in the fragile Arctic ecosystem and Canada would have to do the clean up.
However, this ownership claim has been disputed, especially by the United States and
the European Union. They argued that the Northwest Passage represents international waters, which allows the right
of transit passage, and that the Passage ought to be governed by the world's shipping community, not by Canada alone.
In such a régime, Canada would have the right to enact fishing and environmental
regulation, and fiscal and smuggling laws, as well as laws intended for the safety of shipping, but not the right to close the passage.
The definition of sovereignty helps in understanding Canada's position. Sovereignty implies control, authority over a territory. The concept of state sovereignty is
embedded in international law. Traditionally, this definition reflects a state’s right to jurisdictional control, territorial integrity,
and non-interference by outside states. Sovereignty implies both undisputed
supremacy over the land’s inhabitants and independence from unwanted intervention by an outside authority.
However, sovereignty has also been increasingly defined in terms of state responsibility. This includes a state’s exercise of control and authority over its territory, and
the perception of this control and authority by other states. Sovereignty is thus linked to the maintenance of international security.
Another important dimension of the assertion of Canadian sovereignty includes stewardship, an issue that has been raised by Canada’s northern Inuit and Aboriginal peoples.
Specifically, use and occupancy by Canada’s northern inhabitants is significant in terms of the validity of Canada’s sovereign claims.
Canada’s legal position is sound today but as the ice melts, there is the genuine fear that this
sovereignty will float away with the melting ice. However there are actions that can be taken and factors that could mitigate against a legal
challenge.
This new method of measurement introduced the concept of straight baselines.
Rather than following the outline of a
country’s land mass, as was the more traditional method, the straight baseline method allows a
country with offshore islands and/or very jagged coastlines to calculate its territorial seas from
straight lines drawn from a point on the coast to the islands or from island to island. One then
connects the dots literally and the water behind the lines is designated internal waters while
waters away from the line and toward open waters are considered territorial seas. Hence the
term straight baseline. The old method of measurement (which is still used and favoured
by the US) simply calculated the territorial seas from a baseline not exceeding twelve nautical
miles from shore that traced the outline of the coast. Therefore the baseline would exactly match
the seacoast (but twelve miles out toward sea). The area encompassing a country’s internal
waters can be greatly increased by adopting the new method of calculation thus increasing the
amount of water deemed internal and under the full authority and sovereignty of the coastal state.
The coastal state may pass laws it deems fit to control traffic and more importantly, no foreign
ship may claim automatic right of passage.
This new method of measurement was reinforced seven
years later at the first United Nations (UN) Conference on the Law of the Sea.
Canada, however, had still not adopted any national legislation to formally claim a historic right
to the Passage because, the new jurisprudence was considered quite radical
and, at the time, Canada was more preoccupied with protecting Canada’s fishing industry. As
well, the anticipated reaction from the US to any formalizing of a Canadian
position that the waters of the Arctic Archipelago were internal waters of Canada discouraged
precipitate action.
Only in a few legal instances has the ownership of the North Pole region been given attention:
A) The requirements of an international sea waterway are both geographic and functional. An international sea waterway must connect two bodies of the high seas, in this case the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and must also satisfy the criterion of being a useful route for navigation, and must
have experienced a sufficient number of transits. Considering the International Court of Justice’s ruling in the Corfu Channel Case, it becomes readily available that
this criterion fails to be met in the case of the Northwest Passage, as there has not yet been a sufficient number of transits to qualify it as a useful route for
international maritime traffic. However, if a sufficient number of vessels transit the passage without seeking Canadian permission, Canada’s claims to the legal
status of the passage could be challenged, as there would be an increasing claim and perception that the passage constitutes an international sea waterway. This
international status would limit Canada’s ability to control these waters, especially in terms of rules governing environmental issues and shipping practices, which would
potentially be governed by the International Maritime Organization. Most agree that ensuring control requires a stronger Government of Canada presence in the region, to monitor
the passage and ensure compliance with Canadian sovereign claims.
B) In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice declared the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark. The status of Hans Island was not addressed. However,
decades later, Denmark would claim that geological evidence pointed to Hans Island being part of Greenland, and therefore that it belongs to Denmark by extension of the
Court's ruling.
C) In 1951, the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling on the Fisheries Case
(United Kingdom v. Norway), is particularly important for Canada because the ruling shown some direction regarding jurisdiction of states
over waters adjacent to their coasts. This ruling:
- recognized the concept of historic title to coastal waters, and
- accepted a new method of measurement of territorial seas that Canada preferred.
D) Hans Island is the subject of a well-reported dispute over Canada’s land territory in the Arctic. The island is claimed by both Canada and Denmark as sovereign territory.
These competing claims have never been finally settled in international law.
In 1972, a team consisting of personnel from the Canadian Hydrographic Service and Danish personnel, working in the Nares Strait determined the geographic coordinates for
Hans Island. During negotiations between Canada and Denmark on Northern maritime boundaries in 1973, Canada claimed that Hans Island was part of its territory. No agreement
was reached between the two governments on the issue. Canada’s ability to show control over Hans Island represents a significant indicator of Canada’s ability to exercise
sovereignty over its Arctic territory. The dispute over Hans Island may turn into a test case on territorial claims in the Arctic especially regarding the
contested Northwest.
A border between Canada and Greenland was established in the delimitation treaty about the Continental Shelf between Greenland and Canada, ratified by the United Nations
on December 17, 1973, and in force since March 13, 1974. At that time, it was the longest shelf boundary treaty ever negotiated and may have been the first ever continental shelf boundary developed
by a computer program.
E) In 1969, the US sent the oil tanker Manhattan through the Northwest Passage in defiance of Canada's claim that it has exclusive rights over those waters.
Navigation was difficult. The Manhattan was damaged during the voyage which may have planted the seed for Canada’s future pollution legislation.
In 1970, the Canadian government enacted the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act.
Conceived by Jean Chrétien, the sole purpose of the Act was to establish a one hundred-mile wide Arctic
pollution control zone measured outward from the nearest Canadian land in which environmental
controls to shipping practices and the protection of the marine environment were to be enforced
by Canada. The Act was generally accepted by the international Community. Canada’s thinking behind its Arctic Waters Pollution
Prevention Act with its emphasis on the uniqueness of the Arctic translated into the arctic
exception - Article 234 that was adopted by the final UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, December 10, 1982, Article 234.
In response, a U.S. foreign relations document from 1970 stated that the US
cannot accept the assertion of a Canadian claim that the Arctic waters are internal waters of Canada because such acceptance would jeopardize the freedom of navigation essential for United States naval
activities worldwide.
Article 234 is shown below:
Coastal States have the right to adopt and enforce non-discriminatory laws and
regulations for the prevention, reduction and control of marine pollution from vessels in
ice-covered areas within the limits of the exclusive economic zone, where particularly
severe climatic conditions and the presence of ice covering such areas for most of the
year create obstructions or exceptional hazards to navigation, and pollution of the marine
environment could cause major harm to or irreversible disturbance of the ecological
balance. Such laws and regulations shall have due regard to navigation and the protection
and preservation of the marine environment based on the best available scientific
evidence.
F) In 1985, the U.S. icebreaker Polar Sea passed through, and the U.S. government made a point of not asking permission from Canada. They claimed that this was simply a cost-effective way to get the ship
from Greenland to Alaska and that there was no need to ask permission to travel through an international waterway. The Canadian government issued a declaration in 1986
reaffirming Canadian rights to the waters. However, the United States refused to recognize the Canadian claim. In 1988 the governments of Canada and the U.S. signed an
agreement, "Arctic Cooperation", that did not solve the sovereignty issues but stated that U.S. icebreakers would require permission from the Government of Canada to
pass through. The agreement pledges that voyages of U.S. icebreakers will be undertaken with the
consent of the Government of Canada. The agreement did not alter either country’s legal position vis-à-vis the Arctic waters. With regard to the United States’ legal
position, however, there have been some suggestions that U.S. concerns with continental security since the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 could dampen its assertions
that Canada’s Arctic waters constitute an international waterway. Accordingly, Canada might be wise to manage the passage as a way of securing the North American perimeter.
G) Canada and the United States have disputed the maritime boundary in the Beaufort Sea, an area that potentially has strong oil and gas resources. Exploration licences and
competing claims to jurisdiction could be an ongoing issue. Under the leadership of Jean Chrtien, Canada has committed $51 million to map and identify the boundary of its continental shelf in the Arctic,
pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Canada ratified the UNCLOS in 2003 and has 10 years from that date to determine the extent of
its continental shelf. This mapping will help to determine Canada’s exact sovereign rights in terms of economic control (beyond the UNCLOS - defined
200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone) and resource exploration. The United States has not ratified the UNCLOS, despite a vote in 2004 by the U.S. Senate Foreign
Relations Committee recommending ratification.
H) In 1988, however, Canada and the United States forged an agreement on Arctic Cooperation, which pledges that voyages of U.S. icebreakers will be undertaken with the
consent of the Government of Canada. The agreement did not alter either country’s legal position vis-à-vis the Arctic waters. With regard to the United States’ legal
position, however, there have been some suggestions that U.S. concerns with continental security since the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 could dampen its assertions
that Canada’s Arctic waters constitute an international waterway. Accordingly, Canada might be wise to manage the passage as a way of securing the North American perimeter.
In 1988 the governments of Canada and the U.S. signed an
agreement, "Arctic Cooperation", that did not solve the sovereignty issues but stated that U.S. icebreakers would require permission from the Government of Canada to
pass through. U.S. concerns with continental security since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, could dampen its assertions
that Canada’s Arctic waters constitute an international waterway.
I) After several multilateral conferences and meetings, Canada was able to get acceptance of its idea of custodianship to the world. Few nations recognized the US’s strong legal argument to designate the Passage as an international waterway, and Canada secured enough international support especially amongst the circumpolar
Scandinavian states of Sweden, Norway, Iceland and most importantly, the Soviet Union to
rejected the US international claim for a Canadian claim focused on custodianship. Canada was recognized by its environmental protection vision for the Passage without having to raise the
sovereignty issue. This is further evidence of Canada’s assertion that the Passage is part of Canada’s internal waters. Canada has in fact staged the first global step toward the Earth management of natural resources.
Earth management is something Global Community has been promoting ever since 1985.
The eight circumpolar states have established an Arctic
Council - an intergovernmental forum in which issues and concerns related to the environment,
sustainable development, as well as social and economic considerations are addressed. This
council can only function by putting sovereignty to the side in order to tackle the wider and
common concerns of Canada, Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland,
Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States.
Learning to live in harmony with our environment is a challenge that we all face today in the Northwest Passage. Global Community has risen to this challenge
and proposed sound solutions. The stewardship of our natural resources is a responsibility we all have.
Sovereignty implies control, authority within a territory, and also implies responsibility, environmental protection, and maintenance of international security over that territory.
Earth management is certainly an important part of sovereignty. The focus should be on the Earth management of the Northwest Passage.
Nunavut's territory covers 772,260 sq mi (2,000,671 sq km)
of land and water in Northern Canada including part of the mainland, most of the Arctic Archipelago, and all of the islands in Hudson Bay, James Bay, and Ungava Bay
(including the Belcher Islands) which belonged to the Northwest Territories.
Nunavut is both the least populated and the largest of the provinces and territories of Canada. It has a population of only about 30,000 spread over an area the size
of Western Europe. The population density of Nunavut is 0.015 persons per square kilometer.
The territory is effectively controlled by the Inuit, who make up
85% of the population, although control could change with population growth.
The Inuit hold outright title to about to 136,000 square miles of land, 17.6 % of Nunavut,
including 13,896 sq mi (36,000 sq km) of subsurface mineral rights, 1.8% of Nunavut. So 82.4% of Nunavut is empty of people. One can say Nunavut is mostly without
people. This means that people from all over the world could come to settle a community in Nunavut.
The Inuit lived in the Nunavut region for thousands of years before the first European explorers arrived searching for a Northwest Passage.
For all but the last 250 years or so
of their history, they were free to govern their lives and manage their territory and resources according to Inuit needs and traditional practices. With the arrival of explorers
first from Europe and later from North America, the Inuit way of life started to change, and they have had to struggle very hard to maintain control over their culture,
territory and resources. The Inuit are in Canada one of three groups of Aboriginal peoples. The other two are the First Nations and the Métis.
The Inuit people used to hunt the caribou, seals, and fish for food, most Inuit now live in small communities that depend on trapping, sealing, mining such as diamonds, and the production
of arts and crafts for their livelihood. There is a small tourist trade, lured by the wildlife and vast space, as well as Inuit cultural attractions.
The creation of Nunavut was the outcome of the largest aboriginal land claims agreement between the Canadian government, a liberal government, and the native Inuit people.
The Inuit is one of the first indigenous peoples in the Americas to achieve self-government. They have the right to participate in decisions regarding the land and water resources, and rights to harvest wildlife on their lands.
In the pass, the Canadian Government took advantage of the Inuit to further its sovereignty
agenda while ignoring their suggestions and demands. The importance of an equal partnership
between the federal government and the Inuit regarding a future Northern Strategy should not have been
underestimated. The Inuit have a very practical interest in stewardship in the North. The
Canada’s Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act is a good start, but without the ability to
enforce this Act at present, the likelihood of protecting Northern resources is unlikely.
The Inuit community has to be actively involved with both the Earth management of the Northwest passage and Nunavut territory.
All of the above historical facts seem to indicate more than one way to reach the light at the end of the tunnel.
What does the Government of Canada says today?
Protectionist sentiments apply to both Canada and the US when it comes to the Passage but for Canada, the concern for
Arctic sovereignty is deep-seated. The claim
of sovereignty over the artic archipelago is uniquely tied to Canada’s sense of national pride
and identity and therefore, any suggestions or actions that endanger the government’s exclusive
authority over the disputed territory sparks an emotional and defensive response.
Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic embraces land, sea and ice. It extends without
interruption to the seaward - facing coasts of the Arctic islands. These islands are joined by the waters between them.
Inuit people have used and occupied the ice as
they have used and occupied the land.
The difficulty for Canada is that many, including the Americans, believe insufficient resources and personnel have been dedicated to the Arctic to demonstrate a significant presence thereby weakening its sovereignty claim. Weak resources translate into a weak claim.
During the Cold War, lacking the finances and manpower, Canada had little choice but to turn to the United States for
military presence and weapons. These collaborative defence efforts to guard against a common
nuclear threat, while maximizing Canada’s security, also maximized Canada’s potential loss of
sovereignty. This fact has not been forgotten.
The Arctic contains an estimated one-quarter of the world’s undiscovered energy resources, that is up to 50 per cent of the Earth’s remaining undiscovered
reserves of hydrocarbons are located north of 60°n latitude.
Canada’s Arctic territory and waters have been given increasing attention as areas for the:
- billions of dollars in transportation costs could be saved each year
- vast mineral resources of the Canadian North will be much easier and economical to develop
- ship routes from Europe to Japan, China and other eastern destinations would be 4000 kilometers shorter
- exploration and shipping of resources, including oil, gas, minerals, and fish
- eastern portion of the Northwest Passage is important from a commercial and a strategic standpoint as it means a significant economy of time and fuel
- pristine waters of the North make up 10 per cent of the world's freshwater and will eventually become a hot international commodity worth more than oil
- oil and gas pools under the frigid Arctic waters
- oil produced in Alaska could move quickly by ship to eastern North American and European markets
- besides pipelines, the Passage could represent an expedient way to transport large amounts of oil from the west to the east coast of Canada and the US
- huge diamond deposits
- minerals and metals that are just beneath the surface near Cambridge Bay
- facilitate Canada's development of northern lands and provide an important economic and military possession
- astonishing beauty of the North is itself a natural resource
- glaciers are made of the purest drinking waters on Earth
- vast array of different life-form communities such as the polar bears, caribou, Arctic foxes, seals, beluga whales, northern fulmars, and those communities of organisms that inhabit the sea
floor like brittle stars, worms, zooplankton, microalgae, bivalves and some of the lesser known sea spiders
At the moment there are several ways Canada’s Arctic presence is being applied:
-
The Canadian Coast Guard operates a fleet of five icebreakers that guide foreign vessels through Canada’s Arctic waters and assist in harbour breakouts, routing, and
northern resupply. These icebreakers are often the only federal resource positioned in a particular area of the Arctic, and they must also serve in the Gulf of
St. Lawrence and the Atlantic.
- The Canadian Forces Northern Area (CFNA) is headquartered in Yellowknife. CFNA headquarters comprises 65 Regular Force, Reserve, and civilian personnel. CFNA military
activities per year include two Sovereignty Operations (Army), two Northern Patrols (flights of Aurora patrol aircraft), 10-30 Sovereignty Patrols (CFNA), and one
Enhanced Sovereignty Patrol. As part of the Canadian Forces Transformation, CFNA assumes a greater command and control function. CFNA is now the Northern
regional headquarters of Canada Command.
- Within the CFNA, the Canadian Ranger Patrol Group provides a military presence in northern and remote areas by conducting patrols, monitoring Canada’s northern
territory, and collecting information. These part-time reservists comprise a significant element of Canada’s northern presence.
- As part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Canada maintains a chain of unmanned radar sites, the North Warning System (NWS). The NWS provides limited
aerospace surveillance of Canadian and United States Arctic territory. In addition, Canada’s Department of National Defence recently announced the creation of Project
Polar Epsilon, which will provide all-weather, day/night [surface] observation of Canada’s Arctic region, using information from Canada’s RADARSAT 2 satellite,
by May 2009.
- As per the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, all vessels in the Northwest Passage are subjected to search for pollution control verification purposes; this way
would-be terrorists, smugglers and criminals might consider an alternate route. Currently, vessels voluntarily declare their adherence to the conditions of the Act.
The Canadian Navy does not currently have the capacity to operate within the Arctic ice.
Canada requires more all-season icebreaker capabilities in order to properly monitor and patrol the area.
We have seen so far that Canada's assertion of the Northwest Passage had to be substantiated by a proper Earth management of the Northwest Passage. Let
us now take a look at how Earth management can be applied throughout Nunavut territory.
Nunavut territory is bordered by Manitoba and Saskatchewan to the south, Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea to the east, and the Northwest Territories to the west.
Its territory covers 772,260 sq mi (2,000,671 sq km)
of land and water in Northern Canada including part of the mainland, most of the Arctic Archipelago, and all of the islands in Hudson Bay, James Bay, and Ungava Bay
(including the Belcher Islands) which belonged to the Northwest Territories. It is almost 20% of Canada, and is larger than Alaska.
Nunavut contains three regions—Kitikmeot, Kilvalliq (Keewatin) and Qikiqtani (formerly Baffin) — and 28 communities.
Nunavut is both the least populated and the largest of the provinces and territories of Canada. It has a population of only about 30,000 spread over an area the size of Western
Europe. The population density of Nunavut is 0.015 persons per square kilometer.
The land is in large part tundra, rock, frozen and snow-covered for more than half the year. Although there are rich mineral deposits,
the lack of paved roads and an infrastructure, as well as the harsh climate, make the development of these resources difficult.
The capital and largest town (population 4,200) is Iqaluit on Baffin Island at Frobisher Bay. The territory is effectively controlled by the Inuit, who make up
85% of the population, although control could change with population growth.
The Prime Minister talk may not mean much of anything new.
In 1969, the US sent the oil tanker Manhattan through the Northwest Passage in defiance of Canada's claim that it has exclusive rights over those waters.
And again, in 1985, the U.S. icebreaker Polar Sea passed through, and the U.S. government made a point of not asking permission from Canada. They claimed that this was simply a cost-effective way to get the ship
from Greenland to Alaska and that there was no need to ask permission to travel through an international strait.
The Polar Sea expedition galvanized the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, head of the Conservatives of those years, to set out a policy for
the North and to pledge to get a top-class Polar 8 icebreaker to patrol its northern border. The Polar 8 purchase was cancelled in 1989. No reason given!
During his time as Prime Minister Jean Chretien and head of the Liberals, Canada has committed $51 million to map and identify the boundary of its continental shelf in the Arctic,
pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Canada ratified the UNCLOS in 2003 and has 10 years from that date to determine the extent of
its continental shelf. This mapping will help to determine Canada’s exact sovereign rights in terms of economic control (beyond the UNCLOS - defined
200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone) and resource exploration.
So Prime Minister Harper's throne speech does not add anything new to the problem Canadians have with sovereignty in the North and control of the Northwest Passage. And so far the Conservatives have
never brought anything new that last more than a year or so. We remember that the purchase of the Polar 8 icebreaker to patrol Canada northern border was cancelled in 1989
by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, head of the Conservatives. If the Conservatives want to make a difference with Canada's sovereignty it better be a real one, not a fake one.
Furthermore, today's Prime Minister Harper, head of the Conservatives,
has already spent several billion taxpayers dollars toward the military invasion of Afghanistan.
If Canada wish to help the people of Middle East nations and of others nearby it would be better to offer them to resettle in Nunavut.
This Canadian spending helps President Obama in many ways. Bush needs an ally
for his own invasion of the Middle East to gain control over the oil and gas resources. While the Canadians taxpayers are spending their money in Afghanistan, they are
not spending money to gain control over the Canadian Northern Passage and strengthening Canada's sovereignty in the North. That is what the White House wants no matters
who is at the helm, Republicans or Democrates alike. The US can see the immense benefits of the North: energy, fresh water, minerals, Northwest Passage, etc. They would not want a
Canadian Prime Minister who would buy a Polar 8 icebreaker to patrol Canada's northern border or spend real money to map and identify the boundary of its continental shelf in the Arctic.
From the east coast of Canada and the Atlantic Ocean, the Northwest Passage runs through waterways such as the Davis pass and Baffin Bay.
From there on there are seven different channels, collectively known as the Northwest Passages, to get to the west coast but not all of them are good for large ships.
Only two channels are considered accessible to large ships.
All of them are a part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and they include the Prince of Wales pass, Dease pass and the McClure pass.
Then the Passage runs through Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea and, finally, the Bering Strait that separates Russia and Alaska, to the Pacific Ocean.
Explorations continued through the 1600's and 1700's without success. Then in 1849 Robert McClure passed through the Bering Strait with the intent of sailing through
to the Atlantic. His ship was trapped in the ice not far from making it to Viscount Melville Sound and probable passage to the Atlantic. After spending three
winters on the ice McClure and crew were rescued by a sledge party from one of Sir Edward Belcher's ships and transported by to the Sound.
McClure and his crew became the first to survive a trip through the Northwest Passage.
From 1850 to 1880, the area in which Hans Island is situated was explored by American and British expeditions. Reasons of these expeditions were to search for the missing British explorer John Franklin, and for the elusive Northwest Passage.
The Danish "Celebration Expedition" of 1920 to 1923 accurately mapped the whole region of the Northern Greenland coast from Cape York (Kap York) to Denmark Sound (Danmark fjord).
Since the 1960s, a few surveys have been made in the Nares Strait region: ice flow, seismic, mapping, archeological and economic surveys.
From 1980 to 1983, Canadian-based Dome Petroleum Ltd. investigated the movement of ice masses and also made surveys on and around Hans Island.
In 1972, a team consisting of personnel from the Canadian Hydrographic Service and Danish personnel, working in the Nares Strait determined the geographic coordinates for
Hans Island. During negotiations between Canada and Denmark on Northern maritime boundaries in 1973, Canada claimed that Hans Island was part of its territory. No agreement
was ever reached between the two governments on the issue.
The border is established in the delimitation treaty about the Continental Shelf between Greenland and Canada, ratified by the United Nations on December 17, 1973, and in force since March 13, 1974. At that time, it was the longest shelf boundary treaty ever negotiated and may have been the first ever continental shelf boundary developed by a computer program.
The first traversal of the Northwest Passage via dog sled was accomplished by Greenlander Knud Rasmussen while on the Fifth Thule Expedition (1921-1924). Rasmussen, and two Greenland Inuit, traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific over the course of 16 months via dog sled.
In 1940, Canadian RCMP officer Henry Larsen was the second to sail the passage, crossing west to east, from Vancouver to Halifax.
In 1969, the SS Manhattan made the passage, accompanied by the Canadian icebreaker John A. Macdonald. The Manhattan was a specially reinforced supertanker sent to test the viability of the passage for the transport of oil. While the Manhattan succeeded, the route was deemed not cost effective and the Alaska Pipeline was built instead.
In 1957, three United States Coast Guard Cutters, Storis, Bramble and SPAR became the first ships to cross the Northwest Passage along a deep waterway route of the Passage.
They covered the 4,500 miles of semi-charted water in 64 days.
Hans Island is a small, uninhabited barren island, located in the centre of the Kennedy Channel of Nares Strait — the waterway that separates Ellesmere Island from northern
Greenland, a territory of Denmark, and connects Baffin Bay with the Lincoln Sea. This island is uninhabited and is only 1.3 km² (0.5 mi²) in size.
Hans Island is the subject of a well-reported dispute over Canada’s land territory in the Arctic. The island is claimed by both Canada and Denmark as sovereign territory.
These competing claims have never been finally settled in international law. A 1973 agreement between
Canada and Denmark on the delimitation of the continental shelf between Greenland and Canada did not resolve the issue.
Canada’s ability to show control over Hans Island represents a significant indicator of Canada’s ability to exercise
sovereignty over its Arctic territory. Former National Defence Minister Bill Graham visited the island in July 2005,
as did Canadian military personnel, who placed a Canadian flag on the territory. The Danish navy made similar visits in 2002 and 2003.
The dispute over Hans Island may turn into a test case on territorial claims in the Arctic especially regarding the
contested Northwest Passage south of the island, a region that could become more important if Arctic shrinkage opens it up to more human activity.
In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice declared the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark. The status of Hans Island was not addressed. However,
decades later, Denmark would claim that geological evidence pointed to Hans Island being part of Greenland, and that it belongs to Denmark by extension of the
Court's ruling.
In 1972, a team consisting of personnel from the Canadian Hydrographic Service and Danish personnel, working in the Nares Strait determined the geographic coordinates for Hans Island. During negotiations between Canada and Denmark on Northern maritime boundaries in 1973, Canada claimed that Hans Island was part of its territory. No agreement was reached between the two governments on the issue.
The border is established in the delimitation treaty about the Continental Shelf between Greenland and Canada, ratified by the United Nations on December 17, 1973, and in
force since March 13, 1974. At that time, it was the longest shelf boundary treaty ever negotiated and may have been the first ever continental shelf boundary developed by
a computer program.
The impacts of climate change heighten disputes over the status of the Northwest Passage.
All water routes through the Northwest Passage pass between the islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. On that basis, Canada claims the Passage as
Canadian Internal Waters, and thus fall under Canadian jurisdiction and control. And that means Canada has the right to set the rules over who gets to go through. A key concern is to avoid letting unsafe vessels sally through the passage and risk a devastating oil spill in the fragile Arctic ecosystem that Canada would have to do the clean up.
However, this claim has been disputed, especially by the United States and
the European Union. They argued that the Northwest Passage represents international waters, which allows the right
of transit passage, and that the strait ought to be governed by the world's shipping community, not by Canada alone.
In such a régime, Canada would have the right to enact fishing and environmental
regulation, and fiscal and smuggling laws, as well as laws intended for the safety of shipping, but not the right to close the passage.
The Arctic region has featured prominently in debates about Canadian sovereignty.
Canada’s identity and well-being as a country must not rest solely with ownership of the Passage.
There has been a renewed focus on the Arctic due to the effects of climate change in the region, notably the melting of the polar ice caps. At the same time, there are
continuing strategic issues relating to potential incursions into Canadian Arctic territory at various levels – airspace, surface (terrestrial and maritime), and
sub-surface (by nuclear submarines). Canada’s ability to detect and monitor such territorial incursions and to enforce sovereign claims over its Arctic territory in such
cases has been questioned. Canada’s identity needs to include monitoring of the Northwest Passage, and drawing new legislation for enforcement of Canadian sovereignty.
Other countries, including the United States, Russia, Denmark, Japan, and Norway, as well as the European Union, have expressed increasing interest in the region and
differing claims in relation to international law. As the ice melts, the shipping route through Canada’s Arctic waters
will be open to increased shipping activity in the coming decades. Canada’s assertion that the Northwest Passage represents internal, territorial waters
has been challenged by other countries, including the United States, which argue that these waters constitute an international waterway. Interest
in the region’s economic potential has resulted in discussions of increased resource exploration and disputed sub-surface resources, as well as concerns over
environmental degradation, control and regulation of shipping activities, and protection of northern inhabitants. It is important to note that the Arctic is a vast and
remote territory that presents many difficulties in terms of surveillance, regulation, and infrastructure development.
The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located 300 miles (483 km) from the coast of Argentina, 671 miles (1,080 km) west of the
Shag Rocks (South Georgia), and 584 miles (940 km) north of Antarctica (Elephant Island). They consist of two main islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, together
with 776 smaller islands. Stanley, on East Falkland, is the capital city.
The islands were uninhabited when they were first discovered by European explorers.
The islands are a self-governing Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom, but have
been the subject of a claim to sovereignty by Argentina since the British invasion of 1833.
In pursuit of this claim in 1982, the islands were invaded by Argentina, precipitating the two-month-long undeclared Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom,
which resulted in the defeat and withdrawal of Argentine forces. Since the war there has been strong economic growth in both fisheries and tourism. The inhabitants of the
islands are British citizens (since a 1983 Act) and under Argentine Law are eligible for Argentine citizenship. Many trace their origins on the islands to early
19th-century Scottish immigration. The islands' residents reject the Argentine sovereignty claim.
The Falkland Islands have had a complex history since their discovery, with France, Britain, Spain, and Argentina all claiming possession, and establishing as well as
abandoning settlements on the islands. The Falklands Crisis of 1770 was nearly the cause of a war between France, Spain and Britain. The Spanish government's claim was
continued by Argentina after the latter's independence in 1816 and the independence war in 1817. The United Kingdom took control of the islands by force with the 1833
invasion of the Falkland Islands following the destruction of the Argentine settlement at Puerto Luis by the American sloop USS Lexington (28 December 1831). Argentina
has continued to claim sovereignty over the islands, and the dispute was used by the military junta as a reason to invade and briefly occupy the islands before being
defeated in the two-month-long Falklands War in 1982 by a United Kingdom task force which returned the islands to British control.
When Argentina declared its independence from Spain in 1816, it laid claim to the islands according to the uti possidetis juris principle, since they had been under the
administrative jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. On 6 November 1820, Colonel David Jewett, an American sailor at the service of Buenos Aires and
captain of the frigate Heroina, raised the flag of the United Provinces of the River Plate (which later became Argentina) at Port Louis. He warned the British and American
seal hunting ships present that they did not have authorisation to hunt seals in the area, and then returned to Buenos Aires; the sealers ignored his warning.
Occupation began in 1826 with the foundation of a settlement and a penal colony. The settlement was destroyed by United States warships in 1831 after the Argentinian
governor of the islands Luis Vernet seized U.S. seal hunting ships during a dispute over fishing rights. They left behind escaped prisoners and pirates. In November 1832,
Argentina sent another governor who was killed in a mutiny.
In January 1833, British forces returned and informed the Argentine commander that they intended to assert British sovereignty. The existing settlers were allowed to remain,
with an Irish member of Vernet's settlement, William Dickson, appointed as the Islands' governor. Vernet's deputy, Matthew Brisbane, returned later that year and was
informed that the British had no objections to the continuation of Vernet's business ventures provided there was no interference with British control.
The Royal Navy built a base at Stanley, and the islands became a strategic point for navigation around Cape Horn. A World War I naval battle, the Battle of Falkland Islands,
took place in December 1914, with a British victory over the Germans. During World War II, Stanley served as a Royal Navy station and serviced ships which took part in
the Battle of the River Plate.
Sovereignty over the islands became an issue again in the latter half of the 20th century. Argentina, which had never renounced its claim to the islands, saw the creation of
the United Nations as an opportunity to present its case before the rest of the world. In 1945, upon signing the UN Constitution , Argentina stated that it reserved its right to
sovereignty of the islands, as well as its right to recover them. The United Kingdom responded in turn by stating that, as an essential precondition for the fulfilment of
UN Resolution 1514, regarding the de-colonisation of all territories still under foreign occupation, the Falklanders first had to vote for the British withdrawal at
a referendum to be held on the issue.
Talks between British and Argentine foreign missions took place in the 1960s, but failed to come to any meaningful conclusion. A major sticking point in all the negotiations
was that the two thousand inhabitants of mainly British descent preferred that the islands remain British territory.
The reasoning for the creation of new human settlements in Nunavut is that Nunavut territory covers 772,260 sq mi (2,000,671 sq km) and has a population
of only about 30,000 spread over that area.
The population density of Nunavut is thus 0.015 persons per square kilometer.
The capital and largest town has a population of about 5000.
So 1/6 of the entire population is found in an area of about 1000 sq km.
The territory of Nunavut hardly qualifies to be a Global Community. I cannot say it is. The capital may qualify if it satisfies the test of being sustainable, without the
federal government help, and the test of having a symbiotical relationship with Global Community.
In the pass, the Canadian Government took advantage of the Inuit to further its sovereignty
agenda while ignoring their suggestions and demands. The importance of an equal partnership
between the federal government and the Inuit regarding a future Northern Strategy should not have been
underestimated. The Inuit have a very practical interest in stewardship in the North. The
Canada’s Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act is a good start, but without the ability to
enforce this Act at present, the likelihood of protecting Northern resources is unlikely.
It all means that Canada and Nunavut must invite and help settlers from around the world to come to Nunavut. It is the only way Canada can use the 'community' card in its claim of sovereighty
and of ownership of the land and of all its natural resources, including the control of the Northwest Passage.
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Russia claims North Pole by planting flag on seabed August 2, 2007
Russian expedition Arktika 2007 made the first descent to the ocean bottom below the North Pole, and planted a titanium flag of Russia on the seabed.
Submarines have in the past traveled below the Arctic ice cap, but this was the first time man has reached the seabed below the North Pole. The Mir-1 and a second Mir-2 submarine faced the challenge of diving 13,980 feet (4,261 metres) deep, and then having to resurface at the exact location where they had submerged, because they were not strong enough to penetrate the ice themselves. The nuclear ice-breaker vessel Rossiya was keeping the ice open for the research ship and the submarines.
The expedition ship Akademik Fyodorov was carrying over 100 scientists to the North Pole. Apart from the purely scientific goal of a comprehensive study of the climate and
seabed at the North Pole, this expedition may help Russia to enlarge its territory by more than one million square kilometers, the Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research
Institute said. The mini-submarine Mir-1 has successfully reached the Arctic seabed. "Our mission is to remind the whole world that Russia is a great polar and research
power," said expedition leader and deputy speaker of the Russian parliament Artur Chilingarov, who has been named presidential envoy to the Arctic by Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
Some Western politicians have portrayed the planting of Russia's flag on the seabed as Russia's territorial claim. Canada, the United States, Norway and Denmark (through
Greenland) have an Exclusive Economic Zone 200 miles north of their Arctic coastline, established under international laws. Russia is claiming a larger area, extending
to the North Pole, saying that a continental shelf called the Lomonosov Ridge runs from Siberia on the Arctic seabed to the North Pole. As such, it would be an extension
of Russian territory.
In 2001, Russia made a case with the United Nations to extend its boundaries to the Arctic, but the U.N. requested more scientific data to strengthen the Russian case.
They collected evidence to submit another request in 2009, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Canada and Denmark sent out a joint
mission to establish whether the Lomonosov Ridge is connected to their territories, and Norway is investigating this possibility too. U.S. senator Richard Lugar
(Rep, Indiana) said that it would be difficult to negotiate about Russia's claims as long as the U.S. has not ratified the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that any issues about Russia's claims would be resolved "in strict compliance with international law."
The claimed territory could contain undiscovered natural resources such as oil and gas.
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The Polar Regions are very sensitive indicators of global warming. These regions are highly vulnerable to rising temperatures and may be virtually ice free by the
summer of 2030.
Because sea ice has a bright surface, the majority of solar energy that hits it is reflected back into space. When sea ice melts, the dark-coloured ocean surface is exposed.
Solar energy is then absorbed rather than reflected, so the oceans get warmer and temperatures rise, making it difficult for new ice to form.
Increased navigation and commercial use of the Passage create several environmental risks. The Arctic ecosystem is very fragile and the fauna strongly depends on the ice
for its survival. The seasonal ice that serves as a hunting platform for coastal communities is very sensitive to heavy traffic. Even the icebreaker Amundsen is a source
of concern.
There are risks concerning eventual accidents, such as oil spills and groundings in the the Passage. Canada has duties and responsibilities to the ecosystem and the Inuit.
After the first voyage of the Manhattan and the realization that it could be the start of an
international navigation practice, Canada searched for ways to, above all, protect the delicate
environment of the Passage. Even though the Manhattan supertanker was empty of oil when it was damaged on its first voyage, and quite seriously damaged,
the Canadian government realized that legislation had to be passed to protect the North from environmental damage.
In fact, the Government of Canada has created the Canada’s Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act.
The Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act was a truly novel response to the potential crisis.
The Act enabled Canada to exercise jurisdiction over shipping in the Passage in order to protect
the Arctic marine environment but it did not, in any way, change the position of Canada with
respect to their claim of sovereignty over the Passage.
At the time of the first Manhattan voyage, the Canadian public, the media and the opposition
cried foul and demanded more concrete action by the government to protect its sovereignty.
Prime Minister Trudeau, however, resisted this pressure in favour of a Canadian liberal internationalist ideology. The
Act was seen as a vital tool to protect the distinctive way of life of Canada’s northern
communities. Conceived by Jean Chrétien, the sole purpose of the Act was to establish a one hundred-mile wide Arctic
pollution control zone measured outward from the nearest Canadian land in which environmental
controls to shipping practices and the protection of the marine environment were to be enforced
by Canada. This legislation was necessary because of the danger posed by
oil-laden tankers that could spill their contents thus permanently damaging the fragile Arctic
environment. Such actions could not be considered “innocent”. The 100-mile limit was
chosen as it was compatible with international legal standards applicable to oil pollution from
tankers. The thinking was: if states could defend themselves against armed attack, why not
environmental attack? At a time when the world was only beginning to think about
environmental protection issues, this legislation was particularly avant-garde in its custodianship
concept. The Act was generally accepted by the international Community.
After several multilateral conferences and meetings, Canada was able to get acceptance of its idea
of custodianship to the world. Few nations recognized the US’s strong legal argument to
designate the Passage as an international waterway, and Canada secured enough international support especially amongst the circumpolar
Scandinavian states of Sweden, Norway, Iceland and most importantly, the Soviet Union to
rejected the US international claim for a Canadian claim focused on custodianship and
exceptionalism. Eventually, Canada’s thinking behind its Arctic Waters Pollution
Prevention Act with its emphasis on the uniqueness of the Arctic translated into the arctic
exception - Article 234 that was adopted by the final UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,
December 10, 1982. Article 234 is shown below:
Coastal States have the right to adopt and enforce non-discriminatory laws and
regulations for the prevention, reduction and control of marine pollution from vessels in
ice-covered areas within the limits of the exclusive economic zone, where particularly
severe climatic conditions and the presence of ice covering such areas for most of the
year create obstructions or exceptional hazards to navigation, and pollution of the marine
environment could cause major harm to or irreversible disturbance of the ecological
balance. Such laws and regulations shall have due regard to navigation and the protection
and preservation of the marine environment based on the best available scientific
evidence.
Canada had obtained environmental protection for the Passage without having to raise the
sovereignty issue. This is further evidence of Canada’s assertion that
the Passage is part of Canada’s internal waters.
Canada has in fact staged the first global step toward the Earth management of natural resources.
Earth management is something Global Community has been promoting ever since 1985.
Regardless
of sovereignty, protection of the environment is key and Canada’s Arctic Waters Pollution
Prevention Act does not cover many forms of natural pollution. Which means that any exploitation of resources via use of the Passage will not only impact Canada but
also the other circumpolar states. Recognizing the limits of its pollution act, Canada has been a
leader in establishing multilateral discussions amongst the various nations to discuss common
threats and concerns. In Finland in 1996, the eight circumpolar states established an Arctic
Council - an intergovernmental forum in which issues and concerns related to the environment,
sustainable development, as well as social and economic considerations are addressed. This
council can only function by putting sovereignty to the side in order to tackle the wider and
common concerns of Canada, Denmark (including Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland,
Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States.
Here’s the simplest fact: we are killing our oceans. Already, the massive atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases from the burning of non-Arctic fossil fuels has, scientists believe, caused a rise in sea surface temperature of 1 degree Centigrade over the past 140 years. This may not seem impressive, but much of this increase has occurred during the past few decades. As a result, scientists again believe, there has been a potentially catastrophic 40% decline, largely since 1950, in the phytoplankton that support the whole marine food chain.
In addition, the oceans absorb about 25% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) we put in the atmosphere and this has made their waters abnormally acidic, transforming coral reefs into graveyards. Earlier this year, we learned that “the current acidification is potentially unparalleled in at least the last 300 million years of Earth history, and raises the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change.” This July, Jane Lubchenco, chief of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, referred to such ocean acidification as climate change's "equally evil twin.
Similarly, the rapid melting of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is already proving catastrophic for a host of species, including narwhals, polar bears, walruses, seals, and sea birds. And you have undoubtedly heard about the massive expanses of garbage, especially plastic, now clotting our oceans. Chris Jordan’s powerful photographs of dead albatrosses at Midway Atoll, their bellies full of plastic, catch what this can mean for marine life. And then there’s the increasing industrial overfishing of all waters, which is threatening to decimate fish populations globally.
Plumes of methane – a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide – have been seen bubbling to the surface of the Arctic Ocean by scientists undertaking an extensive survey of the region.
The scale and volume of the methane release has worried the head of the Russian research team who has been surveying the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf off northern Russia for nearly 20 years.
Scientists estimate that there are hundreds of millions of tonnes of methane gas locked away beneath the Arctic permafrost, which extends from the mainland into the seabed of the relatively shallow sea of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. One of the greatest fears is that with the disappearance of the Arctic sea-ice in summer, and rapidly rising temperatures across the entire region, which are already melting the Siberian permafrost, the trapped methane could be suddenly released into the atmosphere leading to rapid and severe climate change.
The Russian research vessel Academician Lavrentiev conducted an extensive survey of about 10,000 square miles of sea off the East Siberian coast. Scientists deployed four highly sensitive instruments, both seismic and acoustic, to monitor the "fountains" or plumes of methane bubbles rising to the sea surface from beneath the seabed.
In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles, we have counted more than 100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling through the water column and injected directly into the atmosphere from the seabed. Checks were carried out at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale. Some plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal.
Quite simply, human-centered governance systems are not working and we need new economic, development and environmental policies.
We all know that the earth and all upon it face a growing crisis. Global climate change is rapidly advancing, melting glaciers, eroding soil, causing freak and increasingly wild storms, and displacing untold millions from rural communities to live in desperate poverty in peri-urban slums. Almost every human victim lives in the global South, in communities not responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. The atmosphere has already warmed up almost a full degree in the last several decades and a new Canadian study reports that we may be on course to add another 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.
Half the tropical forests in the world – the lungs of our ecosystems – are gone; by 2030, at the current rate of harvest, only 10% will be left standing. Ninety percent of the big fish in the sea are gone, victim to wanton predatory fishing practices. Says a prominent scientist studying their demise “there is no blue frontier left.” Half the world’s wetlands – the kidneys of our ecosystems – were destroyed in the 20th century. Species extinction is taking place at a rate one thousand times greater than before humans existed. According to a Smithsonian scientist, we are headed toward a “biodiversity deficit” in which species and ecosystems will be destroyed at a rate faster than Nature can create new ones.
We are polluting our lakes, rivers and streams to death. Every day, 2 million tons of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste are discharged into the world’s water, the equivalent of the weight of the entire human population of 6.8 billion people. The amount of wastewater produced annually is about six times more water than exists in all the rivers of the world. A comprehensive new global study recently reported that 80% of the world’s rivers are now in peril, affecting 5 billion people on the planet.
We are also mining our groundwater far faster than nature can replenish it, sucking it up to grow water-guzzling chemical-fed crops in deserts or to water thirsty cities that dump an astounding 200 trillion gallons of land-based water as waste in the oceans every year. The global mining industry sucks up another 200 trillion gallons, which it leaves behind as poison. Fully one third of global water withdrawals are now used to produce biofuels, enough water to feed the world. A recent global survey of groundwater found that the rate of depletion more than doubled in the last half century. If water was drained as rapidly from the Great Lakes, they would be bone dry in 80 years.
The global water crisis is the greatest ecological and human threat humanity has ever faced. As vast areas of the planet are becoming desert as we suck the remaining waters out of living ecosystems and drain remaining aquifers in India, China, Australia, most of Africa, all of the Middle East, Mexico, Southern Europe, US Southwest and other places. Dirty water is the biggest killer of children; every day more children die of water borne disease than HIV/AIDS, malaria and war together. In the global South, dirty water kills a child every three and a half seconds. And it is getting worse, fast. By 2030, global demand for water will exceed supply by 40%— an astounding figure foretelling of terrible suffering.
Knowing there will not be enough food and water for all in the near future, wealthy countries and global investment, pension and hedge funds are buying up land and water, fields and forests in the global South, creating a new wave of invasive colonialism that will have huge geo-political ramifications. Rich investors have already bought up an amount of land double the size of the United Kingdom in Africa alone.
While mouthing platitudes about caring for the earth, most of our governments are deepening the crisis with new plans for expanded resource exploitation, unregulated free trade deals, more invasive investment, the privatization of absolutely everything and unlimited growth. This model of development is literally killing the planet.
Unlimited growth assumes unlimited resources, and this is the genesis of the crisis. Quite simply, to feed the increasing demands of our consumer based system, humans have seen nature as a great resource for our personal convenience and profit, not as a living ecosystem from which all life springs. So we have built our economic and development policies based on a human-centric model and assumed either that nature would never fail to provide or that, where it does fail, technology will save the day.
The support of false solutions such as carbon markets, which, in effect, privatize the atmosphere by creating a new form of property rights over natural resources. Carbon markets are predicated less on reducing emissions than on the desire to make carbon cuts as cheap as possible for large corporations.
Another false solution is the move to turn water into private property, which can then be hoarded, bought and sold on the open market. The latest proposals are for a water pollution market, similar to carbon markets, where companies and countries will buy and sell the right to pollute water. With this kind of privatization comes a loss of public oversight to manage and protect watersheds. Commodifying water renders an earth-centred vision for watersheds and ecosystems unattainable.
Then there is PES, or Payment for Ecological Services, which puts a price tag on ecological goods – clean air, water, soil etc, – and the services such as water purification, crop pollination and carbon sequestration that sustain them. A market model of PES is an agreement between the “holder” and the “consumer” of an ecosystem service, turning that service into an environmental property right. Clearly this system privatizes nature, be it a wetland, lake, forest plot or mountain, and sets the stage for private accumulation of nature by those wealthy enough to be able to buy, hoard sell and trade it. Already, northern hemisphere governments and private corporations are studying public/private/partnerships to set up lucrative PES projects in the global South. Says Friends of the Earth International, “Governments need to acknowledge that market-based mechanisms and the commodification of biodiversity have failed both biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation.”
The second problem with our movement is one of silos. For too long environmentalists have toiled in isolation from those communities and groups working for human and social justice and for fundamental change to the system. On one hand are the scientists, scholars, and environmentalists warning of a looming ecological crisis and monitoring the decline of the world’s freshwater stocks, energy sources and biodiversity. On the other are the development experts, anti-poverty advocates, and NGOs working to address the inequitable access to food, water and health care and campaigning for these services, particularly in the global South. The assumption is that these are two different sets of problems, one needing a scientific and ecological solution, the other needing a financial solution based on pulling money from wealthy countries, institutions and organizations to find new resources for the poor.
The notion that inequitable access can be dealt with by finding more money to pump more groundwater is based on a misunderstanding that assumes unlimited supply, when in fact humans everywhere are overpumping groundwater supplies. Similarly, the hope that communities will cooperate in the restoration of their water systems when they are desperately poor and have no way of conserving or cleaning the limited sources they use is a cruel fantasy. The ecological health of the planet is intricately tied to the need for a just system of water distribution.
Fighting for equitable water in a world running out means taking better care of the water we have, not just finding supposedly endless new sources. We are also deeply critical of the trade and development policies of the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the World Water Council (whom I call the “Lords of water”), and we openly challenge their model and authority.
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Here’s the simplest fact: we are killing our oceans. Already, the massive atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases from the burning of non-Arctic fossil fuels has, scientists believe, caused a rise in sea surface temperature of 1 degree Centigrade over the past 140 years. This may not seem impressive, but much of this increase has occurred during the past few decades. As a result, scientists again believe, there has been a potentially catastrophic 40% decline, largely since 1950, in the phytoplankton that support the whole marine food chain.
Seeing blue whales breaching and feeding is indeed a thrill and does breed an urge for protection and conservation, but what we see on the surface of the planet’s oceans is only a miniscule fraction of all their life.
What happens there will also affect us in frightening ways. The rapid disintegration and melting of Arctic icebergs, glaciers, and sea ice is projected to raise global sea levels, threatening coastal cities across the northern hemisphere. And the melting of the Arctic permafrost and of frozen areas of the seafloor is likely to release huge amounts of methane (about 20 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas) that could prove potentially catastrophic for the planet. This is why the time has come to focus on oceanic interconnectedness -- if we hope to save our oceans and the planet as we have known it.
If we are to protect our oceans, the public must be engaged. If our children and grandchildren are to experience the excitement of seeing blue whales breach and feed, we better get busy.
For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its 2-mile-thick (3.2-kilometer) center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface, according to measurements from three independent satellites analyzed by NASA and university scientists.
On average in the summer, about half of the surface of Greenland's ice sheet naturally melts. At high elevations, most of that melt water quickly refreezes in place. Near the coast, some of the melt water is retained by the ice sheet, and the rest is lost to the ocean. But this year the extent of ice melting at or near the surface jumped dramatically. According to satellite data, an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July.
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At the moment there are several ways Canada’s Arctic presence is being applied:
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The Canadian Coast Guard operates a fleet of five icebreakers that guide foreign vessels through Canada’s Arctic waters and assist in harbour breakouts, routing, and
northern resupply. These icebreakers are often the only federal resource positioned in a particular area of the Arctic, and they must also serve in the Gulf of
St. Lawrence and the Atlantic.
- The Canadian Forces Northern Area (CFNA) is headquartered in Yellowknife. CFNA headquarters comprises 65 Regular Force, Reserve, and civilian personnel. CFNA military
activities per year include two Sovereignty Operations (Army), two Northern Patrols (flights of Aurora patrol aircraft), 10-30 Sovereignty Patrols (CFNA), and one
Enhanced Sovereignty Patrol. As part of the Canadian Forces Transformation, CFNA assumes a greater command and control function. CFNA is now the Northern
regional headquarters of Canada Command.
- Within the CFNA, the Canadian Ranger Patrol Group provides a military presence in northern and remote areas by conducting patrols, monitoring Canada’s northern
territory, and collecting information. These part-time reservists comprise a significant element of Canada’s northern presence.
- As part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Canada maintains a chain of unmanned radar sites, the North Warning System (NWS). The NWS provides limited
aerospace surveillance of Canadian and United States Arctic territory. In addition, Canada’s Department of National Defence recently announced the creation of Project
Polar Epsilon, which will provide all-weather, day/night [surface] observation of Canada’s Arctic region, using information from Canada’s RADARSAT 2 satellite,
by May 2009.
- As per the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, all vessels in the Northwest Passage are subjected to search for pollution control verification purposes; this way
would-be terrorists, smugglers and criminals might consider an alternate route. Currently, vessels voluntarily declare their adherence to the conditions of the Act.
The Canadian Navy does not currently have the capacity to operate within the Arctic ice.
Canada requires more all-season icebreaker capabilities in order to properly monitor and patrol the area.
Because the Cold War is over, protection of the North is not as urgent as it once was simply
because the proximity of Russia to the US and Canada no longer represents an immediate threat.
However, since the events of 9/11, the US and Canada focus is on continental security. The US would be unwise to aggravate relations with Canada at a time
when cooperation is needed. The US should, therefore, abandon its insistence the Passage be
designated an international strait in favour of Canadian control through its Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act in order to complete a security perimeter around the
North. The US would be better served in the long run by abandoning its international strait argument and courting Canada
for preferential treatment. In political terms, this would be referred to as a harmonization of policies.
Canada recently took over the leadership of the Arctic Council and will be succeeded by the U.S. in 2015. With back-to-back chairmanships, it gives both countries an opportunity to increase cooperation on initiatives that could enhance the development of a shared North American vision for the Arctic. The U.S. has significant geopolitical and economic interests in the high north and have released a new national strategy which seeks to advance their Arctic ambitions. While the region has thus far been peaceful, stable and free of conflict, there is a danger of the militarization of the Arctic. It has the potential to become a front whereby the U.S. and other NATO members are pitted against Russia or even China. In an effort to prevent any misunderstandings, there are calls for the Arctic Council to move beyond environmental issues and become a forum to address defense and security matters.
In May, Canada assumed the chairmanship of the Arctic Council where they will push for responsible resource development, safe shipping and sustainable circumpolar communities. The Arctic Council is the leading multilateral forum in the region and also includes the U.S., Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. During the recent meetings, members signed an Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic which seeks to improve coordination and planning to better cope with any such accidents. In addition, China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, along with Italy were granted permanent observer status in the Arctic Council. With the move, China has gained more influence in the region. The potential for new trade routes that could open up would significantly reduce the time needed to transport goods between Europe and Asia. The Arctic is an important part of China’s global vision, as a place for economic activity and a possible future mission for its navy. In order to better reflect the realities of politics in the high north, there are calls to expand the Arctic Council’s mandate to also include security and military issues.
While the Arctic Council is formally forbidden from discussing military security in the Arctic, the time has arrived to rethink this policy. The militaries of most Arctic states are taking on new and expanded roles in the region that go beyond their traditional responsibilities, which may create friction in the region. These new developments need to be discussed to ensure that all Arctic Council member states understand why they are occurring, and increase the confidence of members that these new developments are not about a conflict in the Arctic, but about the defence of core strategic interests. It is easy to see how both the Americans and Russians will become increasingly concerned about the security steps that the other is taking. But now is the time for all to openly discuss these developments so that old suspicions and distrusts do not resurface.
We must be able to project power into the Arctic environment and extensive Arctic training is needed to do that.” Some have pointed out that the true nature surrounding U.S. plans to shift additional missile interceptors to Alaska is not to protect against a North Korean threat, but is instead aimed at control over Arctic resources. Meanwhile, there have also been renewed discussions about Canadian participation in the U.S. anti-ballistic missile shield, a move that could damage relations with Russia and China. In order to enhance its presence and security in the Arctic, the U.S. is increasing cooperation with Canada. This includes expanding joint military exercises and intelligence gathering operations in the region. Washington's militarization of the Arctic is part of the process of North American integration.
Even though NATO has yet to truly define its role in the area, Arctic member countries are stepping up military and naval operations in the high north. In the future, NATO’s mandate could include economic infrastructure and maritime security. It could also serve as a forum for discussing Arctic military issues. Expanding NATO activity in the region might signal the militarization of the Arctic which could raise tensions with both Russia and China.
There are fears that the Arctic could become an arena for political and military competition. With potential new shipping routes and countries further staking their claims to the vast untapped natural resources, defending strategic and economic interests may lead to rivalries in the region. There is also the possibility that conflicts which originate in other parts of the world could spillover and affect the stability of the Arctic.
Shell Oil operates around the world and their Industry standard is one of pressuring governments to allow exploration of oil and gas resources in a way that maximizes profits for them at the expense of the environment and human rights, in particular those of Indigenous peoples. Here in Alaska, We’ve seen nearly every large multi-national company come into our homelands. The problem with their presence here is that these big oil companies like Shell have a proven record of negligence and a legacy of pollution in Alaska. Shell itself is encumbered with their own appalling record of Indigenous rights violations, human rights abuses and a trail of broken promises within Indigenous territories in Canada, Nigeria, and Russia. Despite their own destructive record, they expect that Americans and the Inupiat among other Alaska Indigenous coastal tribes will trust them when it comes to offshore development of the Arctic Ocean’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas? The future of these Oceans and People are in their hands. A scary thought in itself.
First of all, the profit-at-all-cost mentality of corporations is the primary threat to Inupiat and the ecosystem that sustains their way of life. Indigenous peoples subsistence rights are intrinsic to the environment due to the intimate connection we have in relation to our physical nourishment, health, cultural practices, spirituality, and social systems. The reality is, the ecosystem, when left intact, is the greatest assurance that subsistence rights will remain intact. Therefore when there is discussion of ensuring subsistence rights in the terms of development it is an absolute contradiction.
Members of the Native Village of Point Hope, Alaska and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) attended the Royal Dutch Shell AGM to confront the Chairman and Board over Shell’s decision to pursue highly risky ‘extreme energy’ projects without adequate consultation and accommodation of Indigenous communities. Projects such as Arctic offshore drilling and tar sands will have little long-term benefit for the company, and expose it to reputational damage, political and financial risk, including litigation.
Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL) sent Mae Hank, Inupiat from Point Hope Alaska to be our representative at the Shell AGM to address the Chairman, Board and Shareholders on behalf of her Community. We wanted to show Shell that their risky Alaska offshore plans for the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas impact Indigenous Peoples, the Inupiat of Alaska directly and all Indigenous coastal communities down the western coastline of Alaska indirectly. Sending Mae was a tactic to put a human face to their drilling projects. We felt that they needed a reality check, to be confronted with the human element, not just a financial statistic of their endeavours. They also need to realize that there is a large majority of Inupiat that oppose Shell’s offshore plans and they should not buy the company line “Inupiat support offshore development” Shell lies.
Shell must understand the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of the Arctic Ocean are critical to the Indigenous people of Alaska’s Arctic Slope, the Inupiat and their subsistence way of life, which is interdependent with the marine ecosystem of the Arctic Oceans. The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas provide critical habitat for the endangered bowhead whale, beluga whales, gray whales, walruses, seals and polar bears as well as staging and molting areas for migratory birds among them threatened spectacled and Steller’s eiders. The Inupiat call the ocean their garden. It provides for all their physical, spiritual, cultural and social needs. The relationship of the people to the ocean runs deep.
In spite of the inundation of substantial problems throughout and after the drilling season, Shell plans to continue it’s efforts for exploratory drilling in 2014 in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The massive drilling plans project an estimated 174 exploratory and extraction wells within critical habitats of culturally sensitive marine mammals. Shell Oil and associated agencies lack huge gaps of information of the harsh conditions, current and tidal systems, ever changing and unpredictable ice, and dangers of the Arctic Ocean; in turn, which could potentially lead to a very large oil spill. An oil spill in the remote Arctic ecosystem would be devastating – currently, there is no effective way to clean up an oil spill in Arctic conditions, and there is a lack of infrastructure in the region to support an adequately safe drilling or cleanup program.
The company has spent $4.5bn securing permits to drill in Arctic waters, however they have been proven incapable of operating here. Shell’s experiences should serve as a reality check as decisions are made about whether to authorize these activities in the future. This is why we sent Mae Hank to the Shell AGM, to assert that Shell should not move forward with Arctic Drilling! After the Shell AGM, Mae spoke eloquently about the experience:
There is still no viable spill plan in place not only for cleaning up spills but how the company will compensate our community for the loss of food and food security. I asked the Chairman and the Board to explain how they would compensate our community’s food security and needs when the next major oil spill disaster happens. The Chairman and the board simply danced around the question and did nothing to quell my concerns.”
When it comes to offshore drilling in Alaska the risks outweigh the benefits in this case, and there is absolutely no way that shell can operate safely in the Arctic environment under the cover of darkness, severe cold weather, perilous storms and broken ice conditions. When we take a look at the ridiculous mishaps that occurred with their Arctic Activity last year, this is very clear. To date there is still no viable spill plan in place. If drilling offshore in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas resumes we could be left with another spill like the deepwater horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the destruction of one of our planet’s most vital ecosystems.
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The requirements of an international sea waterway are both geographic and functional. An international sea waterway must connect two bodies of the high seas, in this case the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and must also satisfy the criterion of being a useful route for navigation, and must
have experienced a sufficient number of transits. Considering the International Court of Justice’s ruling in the Corfu Channel Case, it becomes readily available that
this criterion fails to be met in the case of the Northwest Passage, as there has not yet been a sufficient number of transits to qualify it as a useful route for
international maritime traffic. However, if a sufficient number of vessels transit the passage without seeking Canadian permission, Canada’s claims to the legal
status of the passage could be challenged, as there would be an increasing claim and perception that the passage constitutes an international sea waterway. This
international status would limit Canada’s ability to control these waters, especially in terms of rules governing environmental issues and shipping practices, which would
potentially be governed by the International Maritime Organization. Most agree that ensuring control requires a stronger Government of Canada presence in the region, to monitor
the passage and ensure compliance with Canadian sovereign claims.
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Learning to live in harmony with our environment is a challenge that we all face today in the Northwest Passage. Global Community has risen to this challenge
and proposed sound solutions. The stewardship of our natural resources is a responsibility we all have.
Sovereignty implies control, authority within a territory, and also implies responsibility, environmental protection, and maintenance of international security over that territory.
Earth management is certainly an important part of sovereignty. The focus should be on the Earth management of the Northwest Passage. There are
many aspects of Earth management:
- Socioeconomic health of Inuit communities
- Economic ethics and social environment
- Inuit and Canadian Governments cooperation, partnership, and agreements
- Circumpolar nations responsibility, cooperation and agreements
- Government agencies and institutions
- Financial issues
- Protection and health of other life-form communities in the Passage
- Environmental protection and conservation
- North America security issues
- Immigration issues
- Natural resources protection, exploration, research and development
- Mineral and energy resources exploration and development
- Transportation and shipping issues
- Emergency response, rescue and relief issues
- Construction standards for tankers
- Rules for safe sailing in the Passage
- Aids for navigation, icebreaking, weather and ice forcasting
- User fees
- Compliance issues and liability for spills and other damages
- Drug trafficking and other criminal activity issues
- Clean-up issues
- Water issues
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Nunavut (nOO'nuvOOt') territory is bordered by Manitoba and Saskatchewan to the south, Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea to the east, and the Northwest Territories to the west.
Its territory covers 772,260 sq mi (2,000,671 sq km)
of land and water in Northern Canada including part of the mainland, most of the Arctic Archipelago, and all of the islands in Hudson Bay, James Bay, and Ungava Bay
(including the Belcher Islands) which belonged to the Northwest Territories. It is almost 20% of Canada, and is larger than Alaska.
Nunavut contains three regions—Kitikmeot, Kilvalliq (Keewatin) and Qikiqtani (formerly Baffin) — and 28 communities.
Nunavut includes Ellesmere Island to the north, as well as the eastern and southern portions of Victoria Island in the west.
Nunavut is both the least populated and the largest of the provinces and territories of Canada. It has a population of only about 30,000 spread over an area the size of Western
Europe. If Nunavut were a sovereign nation, it would be the least densely populated in the world: nearby Greenland, for example, has almost the same area and twice the
population.
The population density of Nunavut is 0.015 persons per square kilometer. There are three official languages, Inuktitut, English, and French.
The land is in large part tundra, rock, frozen and snow-covered for more than half the year. Although there are rich mineral deposits,
the lack of paved roads and an infrastructure, as well as the harsh climate, make the development of these resources difficult.
Nunavut encompassess most of Canada's Arctic islands, including Ellesmere, Baffin, Devon, Prince of Wales, Southampton, and Coats, as well as the islands in
Hudson and James bays.
The capital and largest town (population 4,200) is Iqaluit on Baffin Island at Frobisher Bay. The territory is effectively controlled by the Inuit, who make up
85% of the population, although control could change with population growth.
Grise Ford, the northernmost city, (population less than 150) lies north of the Arctic Circle. Temperatures range from -40 degrees F in the winter to 5 degrees F in the
summer.
Inuit means "the people who are alive at this time" in Inuktitut and refers to the people of "Eskimoid" ancestry inhabiting northern Canada. The term Eskimo, a Cree Indian
word meaning "eaters of raw meat," is no longer used in Nunavut.
The Inuit lived in the Nunavut region for thousands of years before the first European explorers arrived searching for a Northwest Passage.
For all but the last 250 years or so
of their history, they were free to govern their lives and manage their territory and resources according to Inuit needs and traditional practices. With the arrival of explorers
first from Europe and later from North America, the Inuit way of life started to change, and they have had to struggle very hard to maintain control over their culture,
territory and resources. The Inuit are in Canada one of three groups of Aboriginal peoples. The other two are the First Nations and the Métis.
The Inuit people used to hunt the caribou, seals, and fish for food, most Inuit now live in small communities that depend on trapping, sealing, mining such as diamonds, and the production
of arts and crafts for their livelihood. There is a small tourist trade, lured by the wildlife and vast space, as well as Inuit cultural attractions.
The separation of Nunavut from the Canadian Northwest Territories began with a 1992 territorial referendum in which the electorate approved the move as part
of the largest native land-claim settlement in Canadian history. The creation of Nunavut was the outcome of the largest aboriginal land claims agreement between the Canadian government and the native Inuit people.
The Inuit is one of the first indigenous peoples in the Americas to achieve self-government. The process concluded with the establishment of the new territory on April 1, 1999.
The Nunavut land claims settlement, one of
the most comprehensive and innovative land claims between an aborigine group and a state, gives the Inuit control over their economic, political, and cultural future.
The Inuit hold outright title to about to 136,000 square miles of land, 17.6 % of Nunavut,
including 13,896 sq mi (36,000 sq km) of subsurface mineral rights, 1.8% of Nunavut, $1.1 billion dollars in compensation, a share of mineral, oil, and gas
development, the right to participate in decisions regarding the land and water resources, and rights to harvest wildlife on their lands..
Nunavut has an elected 19 members assembly,
which will assume all governing powers by 2009. Members of the assembly are elected on a nonpartisan basis. Paul Okalik, an Inuit, was elected by the assembly as Nunavut's
first premier; he was reelected in 2004. The territory sends one senator and one representative to the national parliament.
Nunavut's head of state is a Commissioner appointed by the federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. As in the other territories, the commissioner's role
is symbolic and is analogous to that of a lieutenant governor. While the Commissioner is not formally a representative of the Queen of Canada, a role roughly analogous to
representing the Crown has accrued to the position.
The members of the unicameral legislative assembly are elected individually; there are no parties and the legislature is consensus-based. The head of government, the
premier of Nunavut, is elected by, and from the members of the legislative assembly.
The Nunavut government faces many challenges with high unemployment, low educational levels and little infrastructure. Some 90% of its budget currently comes from the
Canadian government. There are no paved roads, and long-distance travel is largely by air.
The Inuit people face many issues including: aboriginal rights; concerns about both large scale development, especially the potential of oil exploration, and smaller scale or local development
such as the establishment of northern tourism by outside interests; the need to formalize Inuit rights with respect to development and to establish appropriate mechanisms
for Inuit participation, consultation and decision making powers; formulating policies, programmes and research for dealing with rights to territory and resources and
concerns about the right to maintain traditional land use and harvesting practices.
The discovery of oil in the northern regions of Canada during the 1960s and 1970s stimulated aboriginal groups to bring several land claims against the Canadian Government.
Inuit Comprehensive Land Claim Agreements signing:
- November 11, 1975 - James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement
- June 5, 1984 - Inuvialuit Final Agreement
- May 25, 1993 - Nunavut Final Agreement
- April 1, 1999 - Creation of Nunavut Territory
- January 22, 2005 - Nunatsiavut Final Agreement
In the pass, the Canadian Government took advantage of the Inuit to further its sovereignty
agenda while ignoring their suggestions and demands. The importance of an equal partnership
between the federal government and the Inuit regarding a future Northern Strategy should not have been
underestimated. The Inuit have a very practical interest in stewardship in the North. The
Canada’s Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act is a good start, but without the ability to
enforce this Act at present, the likelihood of protecting Northern resources is unlikely.
Many Inuit initiatives have been noticed:
- the Commercial Renewable Resource Development policy
- the Aboriginal and Arctic Circumpolar Affairs committee
- Nunavut Wildlife Service Conflict Control Policy
- Indian and Northern Affairs’ Sustainable Development Strategy 2004-2006
- Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS)
- Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP)
Faced by criticism of his policies, Premier Paul Okalik set up an advisory council of eleven elders, whose function is to help incorporate "Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit"
(Inuit culture and traditional knowledge, often referred to in English as "IQ") into the territory's political and governmental decisions.
The territory has an annual budget of $700 million, provided almost entirely by the federal government. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin designated support for
Northern Canada as one of his priorities, with an extra $500 million to be divided among the three territories.
In October 16, 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has also said if the throne speech passes his government will strengthen Canada’s Sovereignty.
Canada is built on a common heritage of values, which Canadians have fought and died to defend. It is a country that continues to attract newcomers seeking refuge and opportunity, who see Canada as a place where they can work hard, raise families and live in freedom. Our Government is resolved to uphold this heritage by protecting our sovereignty at home and living by our values abroad.
The Arctic is an essential part of Canada’s history. One of our Fathers of Confederation, D’Arcy McGee, spoke of Canada as a northern nation, bounded by the blue rim of the ocean. Canadians see in our North an expression of our deepest aspirations: our sense of exploration, the beauty and the bounty of our land, and our limitless potential.
But the North needs new attention. New opportunities are emerging across the Arctic, and new challenges from other shores. Our Government will bring forward an integrated northern strategy focused on strengthening Canada’s sovereignty, protecting our environmental heritage, promoting economic and social development, and improving and devolving governance, so that northerners have greater control over their destinies.
To take advantage of the North’s vast opportunities, northerners must be able to meet their basic needs. Our Government will work to continue to improve living conditions in the North for First Nations and Inuit through better housing.
Our Government will build a world-class arctic research station that will be on the cutting edge of arctic issues, including environmental science and resource development. This station will be built by Canadians, in Canada’s Arctic, and it will be there to serve the world.
As part of asserting sovereignty in the Arctic, our Government will complete comprehensive mapping of Canada’s Arctic seabed. Never before has this part of Canada’s ocean
floor been fully mapped.
Defending our sovereignty in the North also demands that we maintain the capacity to act. New arctic patrol ships and expanded aerial surveillance will guard Canada’s Far North and the Northwest Passage. As well, the size and capabilities of the Arctic Rangers will be expanded to better patrol our vast Arctic territory.
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The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located 300 miles (483 km) from the coast of Argentina, 671 miles (1,080 km) west of the
Shag Rocks (South Georgia), and 584 miles (940 km) north of Antarctica (Elephant Island). They consist of two main islands, East Falkland and West Falkland, together
with 776 smaller islands. Stanley, on East Falkland, is the capital city.
The islands were uninhabited when they were first discovered by European explorers.
The islands are a self-governing Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom, but have
been the subject of a claim to sovereignty by Argentina since the British invasion of 1833.
In pursuit of this claim in 1982, the islands were invaded by Argentina, precipitating the two-month-long undeclared Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom,
which resulted in the defeat and withdrawal of Argentine forces. Since the war there has been strong economic growth in both fisheries and tourism. The inhabitants of the
islands are British citizens (since a 1983 Act) and under Argentine Law are eligible for Argentine citizenship. Many trace their origins on the islands to early
19th-century Scottish immigration. The islands' residents reject the Argentine sovereignty claim.
The Falkland Islands have had a complex history since their discovery, with France, Britain, Spain, and Argentina all claiming possession, and establishing as well as
abandoning settlements on the islands. The Falklands Crisis of 1770 was nearly the cause of a war between France, Spain and Britain. The Spanish government's claim was
continued by Argentina after the latter's independence in 1816 and the independence war in 1817. The United Kingdom took control of the islands by force with the 1833
invasion of the Falkland Islands following the destruction of the Argentine settlement at Puerto Luis by the American sloop USS Lexington (28 December 1831). Argentina
has continued to claim sovereignty over the islands, and the dispute was used by the military junta as a reason to invade and briefly occupy the islands before being
defeated in the two-month-long Falklands War in 1982 by a United Kingdom task force which returned the islands to British control.
When Argentina declared its independence from Spain in 1816, it laid claim to the islands according to the uti possidetis juris principle, since they had been under the
administrative jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. On 6 November 1820, Colonel David Jewett, an American sailor at the service of Buenos Aires and
captain of the frigate Heroina, raised the flag of the United Provinces of the River Plate (which later became Argentina) at Port Louis. He warned the British and American
seal hunting ships present that they did not have authorisation to hunt seals in the area, and then returned to Buenos Aires; the sealers ignored his warning.
Occupation began in 1826 with the foundation of a settlement and a penal colony. The settlement was destroyed by United States warships in 1831 after the Argentinian
governor of the islands Luis Vernet seized U.S. seal hunting ships during a dispute over fishing rights. They left behind escaped prisoners and pirates. In November 1832,
Argentina sent another governor who was killed in a mutiny.
In January 1833, British forces returned and informed the Argentine commander that they intended to assert British sovereignty. The existing settlers were allowed to remain,
with an Irish member of Vernet's settlement, William Dickson, appointed as the Islands' governor. Vernet's deputy, Matthew Brisbane, returned later that year and was
informed that the British had no objections to the continuation of Vernet's business ventures provided there was no interference with British control.
The Royal Navy built a base at Stanley, and the islands became a strategic point for navigation around Cape Horn. A World War I naval battle, the Battle of Falkland Islands,
took place in December 1914, with a British victory over the Germans. During World War II, Stanley served as a Royal Navy station and serviced ships which took part in
the Battle of the River Plate.
Sovereignty over the islands became an issue again in the latter half of the 20th century. Argentina, which had never renounced its claim to the islands, saw the creation of
the United Nations as an opportunity to present its case before the rest of the world. In 1945, upon signing the UN Constitution , Argentina stated that it reserved its right to
sovereignty of the islands, as well as its right to recover them. The United Kingdom responded in turn by stating that, as an essential precondition for the fulfilment of
UN Resolution 1514, regarding the de-colonisation of all territories still under foreign occupation, the Falklanders first had to vote for the British withdrawal at
a referendum to be held on the issue.
Talks between British and Argentine foreign missions took place in the 1960s, but failed to come to any meaningful conclusion. A major sticking point in all the negotiations
was that the two thousand inhabitants of mainly British descent preferred that the islands remain British territory.
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The reasoning for the creation of new human settlements in Nunavut is that Nunavut territory covers 772,260 sq mi (2,000,671 sq km) and has a population
of only about 30,000 spread over that area.
The population density of Nunavut is thus 0.015 persons per square kilometer.
The capital and largest town has a population of about 5000.
So 1/6 of the entire population is found in an area of about 1000 sq km.
The territory of Nunavut hardly qualifies to be a Global Community. I cannot say it is. The capital may qualify if it satisfies the test of being sustainable, without the
federal government help, and the test of having a symbiotical relationship with Global Community.
Now the territory is effectively controlled by the Inuit people, who make up 85% of the population. This implies the Inuit people controls the government of Nunavut.
In order to become a global community the government of Nunavut would have to help with the creation of several new large settlements over the entire area of Nunavut.
That is to ask Canadians and people from other nations to move in and help them to settle in Nunavut.
In the pass, the Canadian Government took advantage of the Inuit to further its sovereignty
agenda while ignoring their suggestions and demands. The importance of an equal partnership
between the federal government and the Inuit regarding a future Northern Strategy should not have been
underestimated. The Inuit have a very practical interest in stewardship in the North. The
Canada’s Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act is a good start, but without the ability to
enforce this Act at present, the likelihood of protecting Northern resources is unlikely.
The definition of sovereignty helps in understanding Canada's position. Sovereignty implies control, authority over a territory. The concept of state sovereignty is
embedded in international law. Traditionally, this definition reflects a state’s right to jurisdictional control, territorial integrity,
and non-interference by outside states. Sovereignty implies both undisputed
supremacy over the land’s inhabitants and independence from unwanted intervention by an outside authority.
However, sovereignty has also been increasingly defined in terms of state responsibility. This includes a state’s exercise of control and authority over its territory, and
the perception of this control and authority by other states. Sovereignty is thus linked to the maintenance of international security. Former National Defence Minister Bill Graham has stated that
'Sovereignty is a question of exercising, actively, your responsibilities in an area'.
Another important dimension of the assertion of Canadian sovereignty includes stewardship, an issue that has been raised by Canada’s northern Inuit and Aboriginal peoples.
Specifically, use and occupancy by Canada’s northern inhabitants is significant in terms of the validity of Canada’s sovereign claims.
Canada’s legal position is sound today but as the ice melts, there is the genuine fear that this
sovereignty will float away with the pack ice. However there are actions that can be taken and factors that could mitigate against a legal
challenge.
Protectionist sentiments apply to both Canada and the US when it comes to the Passage but for Canada, the concern for
Arctic sovereignty is deep-seated. The claim
of sovereignty over the artic archipelago is uniquely tied to Canada’s sense of national pride
and identity and therefore, any suggestions or actions that endanger the government’s exclusive
authority over the disputed territory sparks an emotional and defensive response.
Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic embraces land, sea and ice. It extends without
interruption to the seaward - facing coasts of the Arctic islands. These islands are joined by the waters between them.
Inuit people have used and occupied the ice as
they have used and occupied the land.
The difficulty for Canada is that many, including the Americans believe insufficient resources
and personnel have been dedicated to the Arctic to demonstrate a significant presence thereby
weakening its sovereignty claim. Weak resources translate into a weak claim.
During the Cold War, lacking the finances and manpower, Canada had little choice but to turn to the United States for
military presence and weapons. These collaborative defence efforts to guard against a common
nuclear threat, while maximizing Canada’s security, also maximized Canada’s potential loss of
sovereignty. This fact has not been forgotten.
It all means that Canada and Nunavut must invite and help settlers from around the world to come to Nunavut. It is the only way Canada can use the 'community' card in its claim of sovereighty
and of ownership of the land and of all its natural resources, including the control of the Northwest Passage.
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Russian expedition Arktika 2007 made the first descent to the ocean bottom below the North Pole, and planted a titanium flag of Russia on the seabed.
Submarines have in the past traveled below the Arctic ice cap, but this is the first time man has reached the seabed below the North Pole. The Mir-1 and a second Mir-2
submarine face the challenge of diving 13,980 feet (4,261 metres) deep, and then having to resurface at the exact location where they've submerged, because they are not
strong enough to penetrate the ice themselves. The nuclear ice-breaker vessel Rossiya is keeping the ice open for the research ship and the submarines.
The expedition ship Akademik Fyodorov is carrying over 100 scientists to the North Pole. Apart from the purely scientific goal of a comprehensive study of the climate and
seabed at the North Pole, this expedition may help Russia to enlarge its territory by more than one million square kilometers, the Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research
Institute said. The mini-submarine Mir-1 has successfully reached the Arctic seabed. "Our mission is to remind the whole world that Russia is a great polar and research
power," said expedition leader and deputy speaker of the Russian parliament Artur Chilingarov, who has been named presidential envoy to the Arctic by Russian President
Vladimir Putin.
Some Western politicians have portrayed the planting of Russia's flag on the seabed as Russia's territorial claim. Canada, the United States, Norway and Denmark (through
Greenland) have an Exclusive Economic Zone 200 miles north of their Arctic coastline, established under international laws. Russia is claiming a larger area, extending
to the North Pole, saying that a continental shelf called the Lomonosov Ridge runs from Siberia on the Arctic seabed to the North Pole. As such, it would be an extension
of Russian territory.
In 2001, Russia made a case with the United Nations to extend its boundaries to the Arctic, but the U.N. requested more scientific data to strengthen the Russian case.
The current mission is collecting evidence to submit another request in 2009, under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Canada and Denmark last year sent out a joint
mission to establish whether the Lomonosov Ridge is connected to their territories, and Norway is investigating this possibility too. Last May, U.S. senator Richard Lugar
(Rep, Indiana) said that it would be difficult to negotiate about Russia's claims as long as the U.S. has not ratified the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that any issues about Russia's claims would be resolved "in strict compliance with international law."
The claimed territory could contain undiscovered natural resources such as oil and gas.
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All the technology in the world to get to the Moon, and now Mars, all the hard work, all the sweat and pain endured, and more, much more, to finally put a flag on the
Moon. Amazing human achievement! We can really be proud of a team that did it.
Just like the first European explorers who discovered America, they arrived and conquered. Aboriginals did not have a chance.
Aboriginals said America was their home. But no longer! The explorers said it is now ours. Most Aboriginals were hot in the USA. More survived in Canada!
Explorers were not doing this hard work just for the pleasure of finding something new. Their countries sent them and pay for their expenses. Explorers were expected
to find something tangible that could make their countries proud and rich.
How does this relate to Canada's sovereighty in the North?
The question should be how does this relate to ownership of the Earth?
Does putting a flag on the Moon gives you ownership of the Moon?
Does putting a flag on Mars gives you ownership of the planet?
Does discovering the Americas by explorers gave them ownership of the Americas?
Does climbing Mount Everest gives ownership of the mountain?
Does Canada own the Northwest Passage or Nunavut?
In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice declared the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark. The status of Hans Island was not addressed. However,
decades later, Denmark would claim that geological evidence pointed to Hans Island being part of Greenland, and that it belongs to Denmark by extension of the
Court's ruling.
Does Denmark truly owns Greenland? Just because you say you do? Just because the Permanent Court of International Justice say you do? What if the Court was wrong or corrupted?
Canada says it owns the Northwest Passage and Nunavut but how is that possible? Just because Canada says it does? Or because the United Nations say it does?
What if the UN is corrupted? or wrong?
Obviously we know the answers to all thes questions. You dont own it. You never did and never will.
Only Global Community can rightfully claim ownership.
Just like the first European explorers who discovered America, they arrived and conquered. Aboriginals did not have a chance.
Aboriginals said America was their home. But no longer! The explorers said it is now ours. Most Aboriginals were shot in the USA. More survived in Canada!
Explorers were not doing this hard work just for the pleasure of finding something new. Their countries sent them and pay for their expenses. Explorers were expected
to find something tangible that could make their countries proud and rich.
Truly, we are on the threshold of a global revolution, and we need to
proceed with the non-violent approach. We need to build an economic democracy
based firmly on the basic principle that the Earth belongs equally to
everyone as a birthright. The Earth is for all people to labor and live
on and should never be the possession of any individual, corporation,
or uncaring government, any more than the air or water, or any other
Earth natural resources. An individual, or a business should have
no more than is needed for a healthy living.
The impacts of our democracy are destroying the Earth global life-support systems.
A few people have control over so much of the Earth.
To live in a world at peace and have conditions of basic justice and fairness in human interactions,
our democratic values must based in the principle of equal rights to the Earth.
Territorial conflict has for millennium been the basis of war and mass killing of others.
Throughout the ages wars been fought over land, and other Earth natural resources.
We have seen oil conflictsin the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea Basin.
We have seen water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, and Indus River Basins.
We have seen wars being fought over minerals and timber in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo, New Guinea, and Borneo.
We have seen conflicts over valuable gems, minerals and timber in Brazil, Angola, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Liberia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
The view from space shows us a global landscape in which competition over resources
is the governing principle behind the use of military power.
Truly, resources have become the new political boundaries.
Each day taxpayers hand over astronomical amounts of money to build weapons
of mass destruction, fuel dangerous and polluting technologies,
and subsidize giant corporations which concentrate the wealth and power of the world in the hands of an elite few.
There is a way to share the Earth? The Global Economic Model proposed by Global Community is truly the best response to the world.
Today we have a situation in the Middle East whereby the USA has been invading the area ever since 1947.
Osama Bin Laden is actually a prophet in his own ways, a freedom fighter, not a terrorist. He objected to the invasion by Russia during the Cold War. America was quite please to get his help in those days.
Actually he was being help by the Americans to get rid of the Russians. It is a question of who help who. He also objected to be invaded by Americans, to our ways of life, our consumer
driven society, a 'waste land' found in the West.
Soon the production of oil and gas will decline rapidly. Global Community Assessment Centre (GCAC) 
has analyzed the total production of oil and gas in the world and found the peak had already been attained and production should decline steadily over the coming 40 years. Humanity
will have completely consumed the oil and gas reserves in the world between 50 and 100 years from now.
This explain why there is so much rush for those resources by countries such America in Iraq, and India,
Russia, China and Europe in Iran. Actually they are all over the Middle East but everyone seems to have chosen a specific territory to invade or exploit: America in Iraq,
the others in Iran.
What we have here are all the ingredients needed for World War III. Let me invade this nation says America, and I will invade the other ones say Russia and China. They will be there until
all the oil and gas reserves have been suck up from the ground. If one of them is not happy then we will have a war. They have all agreed that Iraquis and Iranians are
casualities of war.
So what is the Canadian military doing in Afghanistan in a war-like mission?
In its own way, our military is telling President Bush we are supporting the American effort
of wanting a democratic Middle East. At least this is the lie to the American people. President Bush, the Commander in Chief of the United States of America has been telling
so many lies to the American people that no one knows who is telling the truth. Even our military does not know. So our military follows the big guys with more muscles and more
guns, the mother of the biggest guns, the USA.
So now why would we need to have our military back home?
In two generations from now most civilizations on the planet will be facing terrible problems: the end of the oil and gas production, the end of our consumer driven society as no
oil and gas means no plastic base products, which also implies no jobs and chaos everywhere in the wolrd. We will literally be invaded by Americans.
Poverty and diseases will be widespread. The environment will be completely out of control. Global warming will cause tremendous environmental and climate change problems.
Nothing we could ever imagine will happen. Gangs in Canada will be controlling cities much like warlords in Afghanistan. Not even the military could stop them
from committing crimes. Government will be corrupted. Somewhat like the situation we see in Iraq today but 100 times worst. And the world will never get any better.
I will show here that our so called 'modern civilizations' will collapse. Our own civilization is base on oil and gas, and on the products we get from the oil and gas, mainly
plastics, and not on principles and values.
So why do we need our military back home?
We need our military back home because we need to prepare for what is coming in about 40 years. Our own grand-children
will become terrorists. Osama Bin Laden, the prophet, was a civilian at first who could see the arm of an invasion, and he fought back. Al Qua'ida 'terrorists' are
mostly young civilians who are ready to fight back by becoming suicide bombers. I believe their are other ways to fight back, at least for us here in Canada. We must
find our own brand of solutions. We have time to prepare for what is coming sooner or later in a few generations. We need politicians that can see at least two
generations ahead of us. We need to start now, today. Bring back our military from Afghanistan. Let us plan ahead together. Let us build our own Global Community of North America.
Let us use our tax dollars in education, research for alternative energy solutions. Workable technologies are available today but left on shelves. Let us use them to
make up for the lack of oil and gas. If nothing else works enough, let us build nuclear power plants. Several of them! Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) is certaily a good start but needs to be upgraded to handle large crowds
in need of help right here in Canada, in North America, and elsewhere in the world if we can.
I dont want Canada to have anything to do with the Americans stand in the Middle East and have to side with them in a World War. I want Canada out of NATO now.
But now we have made ourselves a target by those who dont want Americans to be in the Middle East. We thought about the Al Qua'ida 'terrorists' as suicide bombers and truly
hated Americans. The Al Qua'ida 'terrorits' want Americans out of the region. The reality is that Osama Bin Laden fought along with the American in Afghanistan to force
the Russians out of the region. The question is what were Americans doing over there in the first place? Why would Americans be on the other side of the world to fight the Russians?
After the Cold War, Americans left Afghanistan in a terrible state. Destruction every where. They left the people of Afghanistan living with a nightmare.
But they were free of the Russians. Today, no wonder civilians objected to be treated as 'non-human beings' by Americans. They wanted Americans out of their country. Suicide bombers are actually civilians
who cannot see any other way to fight back. We call them 'terrorists' here in the West. The word 'terrorists' was invented by President Bush and the American Congress.
Instead of caring for the Iraqi people, Americans have killed, starved, maimed, tortured thousands of Iraqi people, destroying
their infrastructure, including their water and health facilities. In the name of democracy they have created a corporate tyranny which has essentially stolen Iraq out from
under the Iraqi people. They have
committed war crimes against Iraqi people in prisons and have made freedom of movement and speech almost impossible. This was done by the US government,
by Americans. The people of the US are responsible and must hold their government accountable.
Suicide bombers may as well be Canadian civilians defending Canada on Canadian soil against Americans invading Canada.
"Terrorists' can actually be anyone in any place on the planet. They may even be Canadians not wanting WW III. WW III is going on right now in the Middle East
region, at least its beginning.
Other than America, who else wants the oil and gas of the Middle East?
India, Russia, Europe Union nations, and China! They want the oil and gas of the Middle East very badly. How else could they become the biggest
growing economies of the world? Without the oil and gas they have no energy and no plastic base products. That means they cannot manufacture anything. Nothing!
More than half of the world population out of a job. Starving and dying! No medicinal products because you need a plastic container to hold them. Hospitals have
no plastic tubes to feed you with whatever fluids your body needs. All civilizations on the planet would come to a halt without the oil and gas. Yet it is the oil
and gas that is creating global warming and forcing the climate to change around the globe. This of course shows that our own civilization is base on oil and gas, and
on the base products we can get from the oil and gas, manly plastics. Our civilization is, therefore, not based on principles and values as it would fall completely without oil and gas.
As far as India, Russia, Europe, and China are concerned, there is an absolute need to obtain the oil and gas of the Middle East to survive. No other ways! So now that we have
understood the problem so far, what are Americans truly doing in the Middle East? Are they in the Middle East because of their dislike of Saddam Hussain? Not likely!
Saddam Hussain was never important, just an excuse for the invasion.
But then they never had a reason to invade Vietnam. So what is different today? The Al Qua'ida 'terrorists' threatening their way of life? We know the 'terrorist' and suicide
bombers are often civilians who have got so disgusted of being invaded, their homes destroyed, and their relatives killed, that the only way to fight back was by being
suicide bombers. They are soldiers in their own way defending their country from the invaders and thieves who just want to steal their resources.
So obviously Americans are in the Middle East to steal the oil and gas. Their thinking is simple: better us having the oil and gas then them, 'them'
being the Iragis, or any Muslims or Arabs for that matters. But the people from the
Middle East are not so stupid. They know India, Russia, European nations and China are willing to pay for their resources. So now what situation do we have here? We have
Americans who want to steal the oil and gas and treat the people of the Middle East like dirt, "non human beings', and we have the people from India, Russia, European nations and China
willing to pay the price and to agree that the people from the Middle East have human rights. They are 'persons' just like we are.
What we have here are the ingredients needed for World War III.
Simple as that! Nothing less!
Now our Government has changed Canada stands in the world from a peace-keeping mission to that of a war-type action as we are seeing in Afghanistan. First of all,
being and showing that we are 'the very good friends of the US' was not a good thing to do. I am a Canadian, and I am not a very good friend of the Americans. I totally
disagree with the invasion of the Middle East. And I dont want Canada to be thrown into a situation that has all the ingredients of WW III at the end of the tunnel.
We dont actually need to steal the oil and gas. Being with the Americans will imply we are just as much thieves and invaders as they are. Not a good scenario!
What is Canada doing in Afghanistan?
Up until now Canada was on a peace-keeping mission but this was changed to a war-like stand. It looks like we want to show Americans
we can be as they are: big guys with big guns, and ready to kill. Why? What are we really doing in Afghanistan? Why are we in Afghanistan when right here in Canada we
need all the help we can get? We sure dont need to steal the oil and gas. Even if we had no oil and gas reserves, no resources, I would not agree of stealing anything.
So why are we, Canadians, in Afghanistan? Afghans want all foreigners out of Afghanistan so what will it take to understand what they are telling us?
In order to help their political parties win the next elections, the United States and Canada have obtained surveys conducted in Iraq and in Afghanistan. They asked
questions to villagers such as
"Do you like the military from Canada and the US?"
If I was one of the villagers I would say:
"YES! I love the military. The military should stay much longer. There is one or two more bridges to destroy, more oil and gas to steal, more children, women and men to kill.
Please stay!"
Gosh! What else can anyone say when you have tanks and bombers over your head, and people being shot at everyday. The NATO invaders have practically destroyed everything.
The White House and the Government of Canada are going to use their surveys to benefit their invasion of Afghanistan and the Middle East.
How strange! I thought we were civilized.
The current war and occupation of Iraq were undertaken in disregard of the most fundamental principles of Global Law and
with obvious contempt for truth, posterity, and the morality which should guide all human actions. The result has been the occupation and colonization of Iraq and
the destruction of its economy and increased violence and insecurity for the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi population. The world cannot sit by passively and
watch the continued deterioration of the future of our planet.
A few years ago, President Bush was elected for a second term as President of the worst polluters on the planet, and of a predator nation. During his campaign he was using religion,
his religion, and its membership or supporters, to elect him. Ever since 9/11 Global Community has fought his policies at home and
abroad, and how his daily lies and brain-washing exercises which have changed the American people to follow his lead. The use of the military has been
abused to the detriment of Global rights.
Military intervention in the affairs of other nations is wrong.
There are other ways, there are peaceful ways, ways that are not based on profit-making and the gain of power for itself. Global Community
and its membership are
conscientious objectors, "nonresistants". That word comes from Jesus, opposing the use of violence:
"Ye have heard that it hath been
said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy
right cheek, turn to him the other also."
We, Global Citizens, therefore affirm the following conclusions and recommendations:
1. That the US and its coalition partners immediately cease all violations of the civil, political and human rights of the people of Iraq;
2. That the military occupation of Iraq be immediately ended;
3. That all parties guilty of war crimes against the Iraqi people be brought to justice under Global Law; the Earth Court of Justice will prosecute the offenders;
4. That reparations be paid by all responsible parties to the people of Iraq for the damages caused by both the war and the occupation;
the amount to be paid should be no less than 8 trillion US dollars coming from the governments involved, and not from the resources of Iraq;
5. That we work to strengthen the mobilization of the global antiwar movement;
6. That the occupation of Palestine, Afghanistan and all other colonized
areas is illegal and should be brought to an end immediately;
7. That our military be coming back home as this is the place it is needed most to prepare for Canada's future;
8. That Canada's military be used for peace-keeping mission and not war-like stand;
9. That our military be used for the protection of the global-life support systems.
10. That tax money not be used on the military, instead, tax money be used to prepare for the future: research and development on new ways to replace oil and gas, and plastics;
alternative energy technologies be used now; the development of new technologies and conservation strategies is essential both to reduce pollution and to make the most
of North America's resource strengths.
11. That our commitment to the Kyoto Protocol be made a real commitment, with real tangible, meaningful actions. Status quo is not an option! It was never
an option. Those who dont do anything about the global warming of the planet are criminals. Those who dont help protecting the global life-support systems are criminals of
the worst kind, they are 'terrorists' threatening all life on the planet.
War is not sustainable. It never was. The military option, war, is against global sustainability and global peace in a big way.
The worst environmental degradation happens in wars. Farm products in fields and livestock are abandoned, there is no more control on toxic wastes, and water, air, and land are polluted. People are displaced and feel no longer
responsible for the quality of life in their communities. Historically, the industrialized nations have caused the most damage to the environment, with their careless technology and policies. Emissions from factories and vehicles have
caused ozone depletion, acid rain, and dangerous
greenhouse gases
have forced the global warming of the planet and the climate to change dangerously, the worst threat to humanity and all life. Leaders of the wealthier nations must be willing to accept responsibility for past mistakes and to help pay the financial burden for environmental protection of the developing nations. This is the
most damaging conflict of interests between the rich industrialized countries and those that are poor and struggling just for existence. Global Community helps wealthy and poorer nations reach a better understanding of each other's needs.
All aspects are interrelated: global peace, global sustainability, Global rights and the environment. The poor is more concerned with ending starvation, finding a proper shelter and employment, and helping their children to survive. Environmental issues become
meaningless to the poor. In reality, all concerns are interrelated. As soon as the environment is destroyed beyond repair, human suffering is next. Ecology has no boundaries. All nations suffer the effects of air pollution, global
warming, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, acid rain, ozone depletion, silting of streams, and countless of other environmental problems. This was the reason for developing the
Scale of Global Rights.
Now, a short while ago, the Government of Canada has followed into the same steps of this culture of violence that orginated from the USA and the U.N., and that
was accomplished without asking Canadians
permission, not even a public debate on the issue. Our democracy has been demoted, devalued to that of a dictatorship. And yet our government wants to teach to the people of
Afghanistan the benefits of democracy. Another Busk-like lie to the world but this time by ricochet to the Canadian people.
During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Israel were the countries that sold arms to the people of the Middle East and to Afghanistan. They have shown no ethical and moral values in the activities of their trade.
They have made trade a despicable act of dealing with one another between human beings and between nations. No laws! No regulations! No ethics! No moral responsibility and accountability! Everyone has the "freedom" of
destroying the global life-support systems! Everyone has the "freedom" of human rights abuses! Now pollution, diseases, terrorism, poverty, social and economic injustice have no boundaries.
Global Community requires that those six nations to provide massive financial aid to the amount of eight trillion US dollars to the countries of the Middle East and to Afghanistan to help them overcome the ravages of war they have
brought to them by the selling of war product and equipment. The money has to come directly from the six nations listed here and not from stealing the oil and gas resources of the Middle East. The financial aid
will be administered by Global Community . The first priority of Global Community will be to build sustainable communities in all of the Muslim nations of the Middle East, including Afghanistan.
Several times in the past Global Community has requested of the United Nations to restructure and reform its organization to be in touch with the problems humanity is facing in this millennium. They have never replied. Four of the five UN
Permanent Members, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Russia, are those countries that, not only control the UN, but they are the same countries that have brought disgrace to humanity by their selfish, immoral, unethical,
incoherent, inconsistent, dishonnest, erratic, and mostly aimed at making money behavior in the Middle East and towards Afghanistan. They have given to trade a bad name. Because of them free trade has become a danger to the
extinction of life on Earth. They even got China, the fifth Permanent Member of the UN, to vote YES to invade Afghanistan (without that vote the UN could not have approved), in exchange of China got its membership into the
World Trade Organization (WTO).
Global Community will do everything possible to give trade the proper guidance for humanity. Trade will become a global co-operation between all nations. The kind of behaviour that happened in the Middle East and in many other parts
of the world will not be allowed again. That is Global Community’s commitment to make government and global citizens responsible and accountable. This commitment was defined in sections 11 to 14 of the Global
Citizens Rights, Responsibility and Accountability Act.
Governance of the Earth will make the rule of arbitrary power--economic (WTO, FTAA, EU), political (UN), or military (U.S.A. and NATO)-- subjected to the rule of Global Law
within the global civil society, the human family. Justice is for everyone and is everywhere, a universal constant. Earth governance does not imply a lost of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. A nation government can
exists within the framework of
an effective Global Community protecting common global values and humanity heritage. Earth governance gives a new meaning to the
notions of territoriality, and non-intervention in a state way of life, and it is about protecting the cultural heritage of a state. Diversity of
cultural and ethnic groups is an important aspect of Earth governance. Earth governance is a balance between the rights of states with rights of people, and the interests of nations with the interests of the Global Community, the human family, the global civil society. Earth governance is about the rights of states to self-determination in the global context of Global Community rather than the
traditional context of a world of separate states. Although Global Community ensures state governments that it will obey the principle of non-intervention in domestic affairs, it will
also stand for the rights and interests of the people within individual states in which the security of people is extensively endangered. A
global consensus to that effect will be agreed upon by all Member Nations.
The U.N. and all its related organizations have failed humanity and all life on Earth on many levels:
1. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be replaced by the Scale of Global Rights; 
2. corruption, mismanagement at the highest levels, and bad global governance;
3. promotion of the military option, war;
4. allowing the genocides of several peoples;
5. the business of deceiving, making believe, controlling without a democratic mandate from Global Community ;
6. the U.N. is operating using precepts dating back 2000 years and developed by the Roman Empire; those precepts best suit the invasion
of nations and the destruction of the global life-support systems and the Earth environment;
7. the absence of proper governance and justice at the U.N.; and
8. the use of trickery to deceive the world and subdue nations.
|
Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, as measured by the height of its summit above sea level. The mountain, which is part of the Himalaya range,
is located on the border between Nepal and Tibet, China. As of the end of the 2006 climbing season, there have been 3,050 ascents to the summit,
by 2,062 individuals, and 203 people have died on the mountain. There have been more than 630 further ascents in 2007. The conditions on the mountain are so
difficult that most of the corpses have been left where they fell; some of them are easily visible from the standard climbing routes.
Climbers are a significant source of tourist revenue for Nepal; they range from experienced mountaineers to relative novices who count on their paid guides to get them to
the top. The Nepalese government also requires a permit from all prospective climbers; this carries a heavy fee, often more than $25,000 (USD) per person.
How does this relate to Canada's sovereighty in the North?
The question should be how does this relate to ownership of the Earth?
Does climbing Mount Everest gives ownership of the mountain?
How does this relate to Canada's sovereighty in the North?
The question should be how does this relate to ownership of the Earth?
Does putting a flag on the Moon gives you ownership of the Moon?
Does putting a flag on Mars gives you ownership of the planet?
Does discovering the Americas by explorers gave them ownership of the Americas?
Does Canada own the Northwest Passage or Nunavut?
In 1933, the Permanent Court of International Justice declared the legal status of Greenland in favour of Denmark. The status of Hans Island was not addressed. However,
decades later, Denmark would claim that geological evidence pointed to Hans Island being part of Greenland, and that it belongs to Denmark by extension of the
Court's ruling.
Does Denmark truly owns Greenland? Just because you say you do? Just because the Permanent Court of International Justice say you do? What if the Court was wrong or corrupted?
Canada says it owns the Northwest Passage and Nunavut but how is that possible? Just because Canada says it does? Or because the United Nations say it does?
What if the UN is corrupted? or wrong?
Obviously we know the answers to all thes questions. You dont own it. You never did and never will.
Only Global Community can rightfully claim ownership.
All the climbing techniques in the world to get to the top of Mount Everest, all the hard work, all the sweat and pain endured, and more, much more, to finally put a flag on
top of the mountain. Amazing human achievement! We can really be proud of a team that did it.
But you dont own the mountain.
Just like the first European explorers who discovered America, they arrived and conquered. Aboriginals did not have a chance.
Aboriginals said America was their home. But no longer! The explorers said it is now ours. Most Aboriginals were shot in the USA. More survived in Canada!
Explorers were not doing this hard work just for the pleasure of finding something new. Their countries sent them and pay for their expenses. Explorers were expected
to find something tangible that could make their countries proud and rich.
Truly, we are on the threshold of a global revolution, and we need to
proceed with the non-violent approach. We need to build an economic democracy
based firmly on the basic principle that the Earth belongs equally to
everyone as a birthright. The Earth is for all people to labor and live
on and should never be the possession of any individual, corporation,
or uncaring government, any more than the air or water, or any other
Earth natural resources. An individual, or a business should have
no more than is needed for a healthy living.
The impacts of our democracy are destroying the Earth global life-support systems.
A few people have control over so much of the Earth.
To live in a world at peace and have conditions of basic justice and fairness in human interactions,
our democratic values must based in the principle of equal rights to the Earth.
Territorial conflict has for millennium been the basis of war and mass killing of others.
Throughout the ages wars been fought over land, and other Earth natural resources.
We have seen oil conflictsin the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea Basin.
We have seen water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, and Indus River Basins.
We have seen wars being fought over minerals and timber in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo, New Guinea, and Borneo.
We have seen conflicts over valuable gems, minerals and timber in Brazil, Angola, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Liberia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
The view from space shows us a global landscape in which competition over resources
is the governing principle behind the use of military power.
Truly, resources have become the new political boundaries.
Each day taxpayers hand over astronomical amounts of money to build weapons
of mass destruction, fuel dangerous and polluting technologies,
and subsidize giant corporations which concentrate the wealth and power of the world in the hands of an elite few.
There is a way to share the Earth? The Global Economic Model proposed by Global Community is truly the best response to the world.
|
Global Community is defined around a given territory,
that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population,
which is Global Community. Global Community has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules
for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be
researched and developed for this purpose.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is connected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources.We,
Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
Global Community has proposed a democracy for the people based on the fact that land, the air, oil, minerals, other natural resources
rightly belong to Global Community. The Earth is the birthright of all life.
The Global Economic Model proposed by Global Community is truly the best response to the world.
The definition of Global Community concept is truly the 21st century "philosophy of life" framework, some called it the religion of the third millennium, others called it
the politics of the future generations now. Let us remind everyone the definition that has been guiding us throughout the years.
Let us remind everyone the definition that has been guiding us throughout the previous dialogues:
Global Community concept was first
defined by myself and my wife, Virginie,
back in 1985 and is truly the 21st
century philosophy of life framework,
some called it the religion of the third
millennium, others called it the
politics of the future generations now.
"Global Community is defined as being all
that exits or occurs at any location at any
time between the Ozone layer above and the core of the planet below. It is defined around a given territory, that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population, which is all life forms on Earth."
This definition includes all people, all life on Earth. And life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does SoulLife, also named the Soul of all Life, Soul of Humanity or God’s Spirit. By extension, the expression Global Community includes the entire Universe, space and time, all matter, galaxies, dark matter, all particles and all unknown parts of the Universe yet to be discovered. Again, Global Community also includes all Souls, God’s Spirit, and that makes it different than just saying Global Community is the Universe, or that God is the Universe. God is everywhere within the Universe and beyond, elsewhere. Guiding Souls serving God are always helping the formation of Life in all places and times. Global Community ethics embrace the process of understanding what is truly important for humanity’s survival on our planet, and that is the Scale of Global Rights which give Peoples the moral foundation for a better individual and community. Global Community ethical grounds are practical, real, and applicable for all women and men of good will, religious and non-religious.
This is the fundamental definition of the expression "Global Community".
This definition includes all people, all life on Earth.
It also implicitly says that no-one in particular owns the Earth but we all own it together.
Not just us people, but all life on Earth owns it. The beginning of life
stretches as far back as 4 billion years, and so Life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does the Soul of all Life, the Soul of Humanity.
Throughout this paper the land ownership of the Earth means ownership of the land and of all other Earth natural resources.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
As mentioned above, land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should therefore be given equal
access to such natural resources.
Similarly, all the Earth natural resources belong to Global Community to be used, developed and conserved for the maximum benefit of the people and of all life.
"A global community" is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. One could think of a typical community that does not have to be bounded by a geographical or political
border. It can be people living in many different locations all over the world. Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the
street where we live and contained by a border. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing ourselves as people with a heart, a mind and a Soul, and as part of a community with the same.
The old concept of a community being the street where we live in and surrounded by a definite geographical and political boundary has originated during the Roman Empire period. An entire new system of
values was then created to make things work for the Roman Empire. Humanity has lived with this concept over two thousand years. Peoples from all over the world are ready to kill anyone challenging their
border. They say that this is their land, their property, their 'things'. This archaic concept is endangering humanity and its survival. The Roman Empire has gone but its culture is still affecting us today. We
need to let go the old way of thinking. We need to learn of the new concept, and how it can make things work in the world.
A typical community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people sharing with the same values. It can be a group of people with the same cultural background, or the
same religious background. Or they can be people with totally different backgrounds and beliefs. The people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's
communications it is easy to group people in this fashion. It can be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one Community. The two villages may be found in different parts of
the world. It can be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
As mentioned above, land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the
trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property or a commodity. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should therefore be given equal
access to all natural resources.
On the global level the Law of the Seas Covenant is an example of a global community lease payment basis for public needs as it has affirmed that ocean resources are the
common heritage of all and a proper source of funding for global institutions. Water belongs to the Earth and all species and is sacred to life therefore, the world’s water must be conserved, reclaimed and protected for all future
generations and its natural patterns respected.
Water is a fundamental human right and a public trust to be guarded by all levels of government; therefore, it should not be commodified, privatized or
traded for commercial purposes. These rights must be enshrined at all levels of government. In particular, an international treaty must ensure these
principles are noncontrovertable.
Water is best protected by local communities and citizens, who must be respected as equal partners with governments in the protection and regulation of
water. Peoples of the Earth are the only vehicle to promote democracy and save water.
Similarly, all the Earth natural resources belong to Global Community to be used, developed and protected for the maximum benefit of the people and of all
life.
Global Community has many expert groups able to begin the necessary intergovernmental
negotiations towards establishing alternative revenue sources, which could include fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the
skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees levied on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on carbon content of fuels.
This thinking should give us a fresh start for a better future and bring some light to understanding previous claims of the many different
groups such as:
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Native and aboriginal people claiming that their ancestors owned the land so now they do
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God gave it to us so the land is ours
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Property ownership system of the Roman Empire to today, our social-economic system of land owership
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The military power of this world forcing ownership of land and of all other Earth natural resources against the will of everyone else
None of the above groups can claim ownership of the land and other Earth natural resources. They never did own the land and of all other Earth natural resources. And they never will.
Only Global Community can rightfully claim ownership of the Earth.
In the case of Nunavut, we see land ownership is a significant problem. We have said that the Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
The fundamental criteria is that a relationship is created for the good of all groups participating in the
relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The relationship allows a global equitable and peaceful development and a more stable and inclusive global
economy.
A global symbiotical relationship is created
between nations and Global Community for the good of all groups participating in the relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The relationship allows a global
equitable and peaceful development. This is
the basic concept that is allowing us to group willing Member Nations from different parts of the world.
And that is the major problem with Nunavut. The Inuit people are trying very hard to keep control over a territory that is much too large and important for other nations.
It is not possible to claim ownership of Nunavut when it was never yours except in your dreams. It is like putting a flag on the Moon and say the Moon is all yours.
Or going to Mars and say Mars is all yours. No one owns the Moon or Mars, or the Earth. No one ever did! And no one ever will! All you can say is that you put a flag on the Moon.
Nothing more, nothing less! It is also like going on top of Mount Everest in the Himalayas. Just by climbing to the top does not give you ownership of the mountain.
Every single human being must deal responsibly with the affairs going on in his (her) own 'global community' ~ when a person takes personal responsibility for his own
affairs ~ he becomes empowered as a person. He can then reach beyond his own property and family, and help to work with others living in and around, even a part of the
local community he lives in ~ the villages, the town community, the surrounding territory, and so on.
The key is personal responsibility. Therefore the individual is the important element, one who takes responsibility for his Community. This individual cares about jobs,
homes, streets, the welfare and success of his Community.
When a group of ordinary people realized they, personally, will make the changes they need in their fields, in their village. They can then find ways to bring these changes
for all. There is a wisdom in the ways of very humble people that needs to be used. Every humble person deserves to have ideas respected, the courage to develop his
own life for the better and for the good of all. Sound solutions to help manage and sustain Earth will very likely be found this way. Everyone can help assess the needs of
the planet now and propose sound solutions for its proper management, present and future.
The reasoning for the creation of new human settlements in Nunavut is that Nunavut territory covers 772,260 sq mi (2,000,671 sq km) and has a population
of only about 30,000 spread over that area.
The population density of Nunavut is thus 0.015 persons per square kilometer.
The capital and largest town has a population of about 5000.
So 1/6 of the entire population is found in an area of about 1000 sq km.
The territory of Nunavut hardly qualifies to be a Global Community. I cannot say it is. The capital may qualify if it satisfies the test of being sustainable, without the
federal government help, and the test of having a symbiotical relationship with Global Community.
Now the territory is effectively controlled by the Inuit people, who make up 85% of the population. This implies the Inuit people controls the government of Nunavut.
In order to become a global community the government of Nunavut would have to help with the creation of several new large settlements over the entire area of Nunavut.
That is to ask Canadians and people from other nations to move in and help them to settle in Nunavut.
In the pass, the Canadian Government took advantage of the Inuit to further its sovereignty
agenda while ignoring their suggestions and demands. The importance of an equal partnership
between the federal government and the Inuit regarding a future Northern Strategy should not have been
underestimated. The Inuit have a very practical interest in stewardship in the North. The
Canada’s Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act is a good start, but without the ability to
enforce this Act at present, the likelihood of protecting Northern resources is unlikely.
The definition of sovereignty helps in understanding Canada's position. Sovereignty implies control, authority over a territory. The concept of state sovereignty is
embedded in international law. Traditionally, this definition reflects a state’s right to jurisdictional control, territorial integrity,
and non-interference by outside states. Sovereignty implies both undisputed
supremacy over the land’s inhabitants and independence from unwanted intervention by an outside authority.
However, sovereignty has also been increasingly defined in terms of state responsibility. This includes a state’s exercise of control and authority over its territory, and
the perception of this control and authority by other states. Sovereignty is thus linked to the maintenance of international security. Former National Defence Minister Bill Graham has stated that
'Sovereignty is a question of exercising, actively, your responsibilities in an area'.
Another important dimension of the assertion of Canadian sovereignty includes stewardship, an issue that has been raised by Canada’s northern Inuit and Aboriginal peoples.
Specifically, use and occupancy by Canada’s northern inhabitants is significant in terms of the validity of Canada’s sovereign claims.
Canada’s legal position is sound today but as the ice melts, there is the genuine fear that this
sovereignty will float away with the pack ice. However there are actions that can be taken and factors that could mitigate against a legal
challenge.
Protectionist sentiments apply to both Canada and the US when it comes to the Passage but for Canada, the concern for Arctic sovereignty is deep-seated. The claim of sovereignty over the artic archipelago is uniquely tied to Canada’s sense of national pride
and identity and therefore, any suggestions or actions that endanger the government’s exclusive authority over the disputed territory sparks an emotional and defensive response. Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic embraces land, sea and ice. It extends without
interruption to the seaward - facing coasts of the Arctic islands. These islands are joined by the waters between them. Inuit people have used and occupied the ice as they have used and occupied the land.
The difficulty for Canada is that many, including the Americans believe insufficient resources
and personnel have been dedicated to the Arctic to demonstrate a significant presence thereby
weakening its sovereignty claim. Weak resources translate into a weak claim.
During the Cold War, lacking the finances and manpower, Canada had little choice but to turn to the United States for
military presence and weapons. These collaborative defence efforts to guard against a common
nuclear threat, while maximizing Canada’s security, also maximized Canada’s potential loss of
sovereignty. This fact has not been forgotten.
It all means that Canada and Nunavut must invite and help settlers from around the world to come to Nunavut. It is the only way Canada can use the 'community' card in its claim of sovereighty
and of ownership of the land and of all its natural resources, including the control of the Northwest Passage.
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We will not explain here why we need to have a biodiversity zone in the North because I believe most people know why it is necessary and must be done. But we will how it can
be done. The fundamental definition of the "Global Community" includes all people, all life on Earth.
Global Community is this great, wide, wonderful world made of all these diverse global communities of all life-forms.
It also implicitly says that no-one in particular owns the Earth but we all own it together.
Not just us people, but all life on Earth owns it. The beginning of life
stretches as far back as 4 billion years, and so Life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does the Soul of all Life, the Soul of Humanity.
The land ownership of the Earth means ownership of the land and of all other Earth natural resources.
Global Community is defined around a given territory,
that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population,
which is Global Community. Global Community has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules
for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be
researched and developed for this purpose.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?"
We can create a biodiversity zone in the North by way of Earth rights and taxation of natural resources.
The following backgroung information was taken from the Global Constitution. These passages give us the processes by which we can create a biodiversity zone in the North.
As described in the Global Constitution Chapter 6.3.2 Rights, responsibilities and accountabilities, Article 13: Global Rights
Part 48. We are all members of Global Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people. No humans have the right to encroach on the ecological space of other species and other people,
or treat them with cruelty and violence.
Part 49. All species, humans and cultures have intrinsic worth. They are subjects, not objects of manipulation or ownership. No humans have the right to own other species, other people or the knowledge of other cultures through
patents and other intellectual property rights.
Part 50. Defending biological and cultural diversity is a duty of all people. Diversity is an end in itself, a value, a source of richness both material and cultural.
Part 51. All members of Global Community including all humans have the right to sustenance -- to food and water, to safe and clean habitat, to security of ecological space. These rights are natural rights, they are birthrights given by
the fact of existence on earth and are best protected through community rights and commons. They are not given by states or corporations, nor can they be extinguished by state or corporate action. No state or corporation has the
right to erode or undermine these natural rights or enclose the commons that sustain all through privatisation or monopoly control.
and in Chapter 10.2 Change our ways of doing things, and our ways of doing business, as per the Scale of Global Rights
Article 3: Scale of Global Rights
Global Community found evident that
the ecological base is the essential prerequisite for the effectiveness
and exercise of all rights recognized for human beings. The stewardship
of the ecological base has to be given priority before the fulfilment of
various economic and social wishes. Demands resulting from the socio-economic
system of a particular country have to find their limits in the protection
of the global ecosystem. Vital interests of future generations have to
be considered as having priority before less vital interests of the present
generation. Supply chains have to be designed in a way, that the goods
can enter after usage or consumption into natural or industrial recycling
processes. If serious damages to persons, animals, plants and the ecosystem
cannot be excluded, an action or pattern of behaviour should be refrained
from. A measure for supplying goods or services should choose a path which
entails the least possible impact on the ecological and social system concerned.
This way functioning proven systems will not be disturbed, and unnecessary
risks will not be taken. Supply strategies consuming less resources should
have preference before those enhancing more resource consumption. When there is a need to find a
solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to
choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible
damage as opposed to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.
Article 3: Scale of Global Rights
The Scale of Global Rights contains six (6) sections. Section 1 has more importance than all other sections below, and so on.
Concerning sections 1, 2, and 3, it shall be Global Community highest priority to guarantee these rights to Member Nations and to have proper lesgislation and
implement and enforce global law as it applies.
Section 1. Ecological rights and the protection of the global life-support systems
Section 2. Primordial human rights
It is made clear how little importance was given to Sections 1,2,3, and 4 of the Scale of Global Rights. And it is made clear how urgent
it is to replace both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Constitution s from all nations by the Scale of Global Rights.
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- safety and security
- have shelter
- ‘clean’ energy
- a ‘clean’ and healthy environment
- drink fresh water
- breath clean air
- eat a balance diet
- basic clothing
- universal health care and education
- employment for all
Section 3. The ecological rights, the protection of the global life-support systems and the primordial human rights of future generations
Concerning Sections 4, 5 and 6, it shall be the aim of Global Community to secure these other
rights for all global citizens within the federation of all nations, but
without immediate guarantee of universal achievement and enforcement. These
rights are defined as Directive Principles, obligating the Global Community
to pursue every reasonable means for universal realization and implementation.
Section 4. Community rights, rights of direct democracy, the right that the greatest number of people has by virtue of its number (50% plus one) and after voting representatives democratically
Section 5. Economic rights
(business and consumer rights, and their responsibilities and accountabilities)
and social rights (civil and political rights)
Section 6. Cultural rights and religious rights
Chapter 10.3 Section 1. Ecological rights and the protection of the global life-support systems
Article 8: Conservation of natural resources
Conservation of those natural resources of Earth which are limited so that present and future generations may continue to enjoy
life on the planet Earth.
Article 9: The rights that Global Community has in protecting the global life-support systems
Earth rights are ecological rights and the rights that Global Community has in protecting the global life-support systems.
Earth rights are those rights that demonstrate the connection between human well-being and a sound environment. They include individuals and global
communities human rights and the rights to a clean environment, and participation in development decisions. We define ecological rights as those rights of the ecosystem of the Earth beyond human purpose. They are those rights that protect and
preserve the ecological heritage of the Earth for future generations.
The biggest challenge for social democracy
today is to articulate coherent policies based on a unifying vision for
society.
The major problems to address include:
A. the enormous worldwide wealth gap and the underlying concentration of land and natural resource ownership and control;
B. the privatized monetary structures; and
C. building global governance institutions and financing governance and development in such a way as to divert funds
from military industrial profits and into social development and environmental restoration.
We need a basic clarification of First Principles on the concept of "ownership", starting with the principle that the land
and natural resources of the planet are a common heritage and belong equally as a birthright to everyone. Products and services created by individuals
are properly viewed as private property. Products and services created by groups of individuals are properly viewed as collective property.
We can hatch many birds out of one egg when we shift public finance OFF of private property and ONTO common heritage
property. From the local to the global level we need to shift taxes off of labor and productive capital and onto land and natural resource
rents. In other words, we need to privatize labor (wages) and socialize rent (the value of surface land and natural resources). This public finance
shift will promote the cooperatization of the ownership of capital in a gradual way with minimal government control of the production and exchange of individual
and collective wealth. Natural monopolies (infrastructure, energy, public transportation) should be owned and/or controlled or regulated by government
at the most local level that is practical.
The levels of this public finance shift can be delineated thusly: municipalities and localities to collect the surface
land rents within their jurisdiction. Regional governing bodies to collect resource rents for forest lands, mineral, oil and water resources; the global level
needs a Global Resource Agency to collect user fees for transnational commons such as satellite geostationary orbits, royalties on minerals mined
or fish caught in international waters and the use of the electromagnetic spectrum.
An added benefit of this form of public finance is that it provides a peaceful way to address conflicts over land and natural
resources. Resource rents should be collected and equitably distributed and utilized for the benefit of all, either in financing social services
and/or in direct citizen dividends in equal amount to all individuals.
A portion of revenues could pass from the lower to the higher governance levels or vice versa as needed to ensure a just development pattern
worldwide and needed environmental restoration.
In the area of monetary policy we need seignorage reform, which means that money should be issued as spending by governments,
not as debt by private banking institutions. We also need guaranteed economic freedoms to create local and regional currencies on a democratic and transparent basis.
Policies for securing earth rights are:
1. It is better to tax "bads" rather than "goods". Governments have long used selective taxation to discourage use of alcohol and cigarettes,
while unprocessed food and children¹s clothing remain tax-free. It is best to continue this tradition with selective "eco-sin taxes" to
discourage a wide range of grey products and lifestyles. At the same time, taxes would be eliminated on green products and lifestyles. People
should be able to avoid taxation by choosing green products and lifestyles.
2. Taxes should be designed to conserve resources and energy. Rather than taxing jobs and profits,
taxes should be moved to resource use and energy consumption to reward conservation. The community should benefit from the use of commonly
held resources. Using resources is a privilege, not a right, and the user should pay for the privilege. Resources must also be shared with future generations and other species.
3. Taxes should be designed to increase employment. Moving taxes onto resources and land use and off of incomes will make people less
expensive to employ. Products produced by green production methods, which tends to use fewer resources and less energy will avoid
taxation. As energy costs rise, the price of labour becomes more economical, and green products which tend to encourage value-added
processes, will provide more high quality, skilled jobs than resource intensive products.
4. Distributive taxes are preferable to re-distributive taxes. If wealth is distributed more fairly
in the first place less re-distribution will be necessary. Eliminating consumption taxes will eliminate the only tax the poor must pay. By moving
taxes on to resource use and land, the poor, who generally own less land and use fewer resources, will avoid taxation, thus requiring
less redistribution. Taxing land but not the use of land, will reduce taxation on higher density housing, lowering housing costs for low-income
citizens, thus reducing another need for re-distribution.
5. Resource taxes should be assessed as early as possible. Resources should be taxed before entering
the manufacturing process in order to green all aspects of the manufacturing process from extraction to the finished product.
Increasing taxes on resource and energy use will encourage resource and energy efficiency, innovation, reuse, repair, recycling, and used material recovery.
6. Taxing unearned income is preferable to taxing earned income. The tax shift to resource use and
community-generated land values will distribute income more fairly without dependence on income and business taxation to redistribute
income. Taxing unearned income (resources, and not earned income (jobs, profits) will reduce the rich-poor gap since the rich
are always in a better position to capture unearned or windfall income by their ability to hold assets that they do not have to consume.
7. Green tax shifting is revenue-neutral, not a tax break or tax grab. The taxes paid by businesses and individuals
collectively will not change, but greener businesses and consumers will reduce their taxes. Grey businesses and consumers will pay higher taxes. Studies have
shown that 50% of businesses and consumers will be unaffected or only slightly affected by tax shifting, roughly one quarter will realize tax reductions one quarter will be taxed more.
8. Resource use and community-generated land value taxation are fairer. Resource use and land taxes are much simpler
to collect and harder to evade than taxes on income and business profits. Since there are far fewer points of taxation than with traditional tax sources, a move
to resource use and land taxation will reduce the size of the underground economy. The difficulty of evading these taxes will reduce the problem of overseas tax havens.
9. Green taxation increases international competitiveness. Eliminating taxes on domestic labour will reduce labour costs in Ontario and
therefore reduce out-sourcing by businesses seeking cheap labour in other countries or provinces.
10. Pay for what you take, not for what you make. Businesses should not be taxed for hiring people or for
earning a profit, but should be charged for using resources and polluting the planet. People should not be taxed for
earning an income or purchasing products but should be charged for the value of land they own and the resources used in the products they
buy. Resource use and polluting are privileges not rights, and businesses and consumers should pay for these privileges.
11. Taxing community-generated land values is beneficial. Since the community around it, not its owner, creates
the value of land, the community should receive the benefits it has created. The owner is entitled to a fair profit
but not to a windfall profit that rightfully belongs to the community that generated the wealth in the first place. Under LVT the specific use
of the land will not be taxed, only the land itself, within the existing zoning. Community-generated land value taxation encourages the efficient
use of land, reduces sprawl, reduces speculation, tends to reduce land prices and improves land use patterns.
12. Taxes should encourage local, sustainable, value-added production over imports. Culturally unique products
and services will be valued by green tax reform over mass production. The sale price should include the true costs of products, services and distances
traveled, and should be designed to encourage local, sustainable production.
13. Taxes should break up monopolies. The most important monopolies are resource monopolies and land monopolies.
When a person or a business has control or exclusive rights over large amounts of a resource or large amounts of land, this person or business reaps windfall
profits, which is unjust. These resources and this land belong to the community and if individuals are granted access to it they should pay a fair
price for this privilege or right. Land Value Taxation aims to ensure that the wealth created by usage of land and resources that rightfully belong
to the community accrue back to that Community.
14. Taxes should be applied only once. Rather than taxing the same wealth repeatedly through personal income, business income, sales, re-sale, interest, capital gains, property transfer, inheritance, taxation should only impact the
use of a resource and the ownership of land on a sustained basis (ie property tax on site value).
15. MINIMIZING INCOME TAXES
a) Moving taxes off of incomes and onto resource
use and community-generated land value is critical in order to achieve
and maintain a green economy
and society.
b) Traditionally governments tax the component
of production in least supply. In the first half of the 20th century labour
was scarce and resources and
land were plentiful and indeed considered
infinite, so it made sense for government to tax incomes and not resource
use or land. Now, however,
resources and land are scarce and labour is
plentiful, so governments should modernize the tax structure by switching
the source of taxation away
from incomes and onto resources use and land.
c) Income taxes are a regressive tax since they
tax a "good" not a "bad". Since jobs are desirable we should not tax employment.
Income taxes are a
disincentive to employment since they make
people expensive to employ. Employers often avoid taxation by employing
fewer people and opting
instead for energy-intensive, chemical-intensive
and resource-intensive production. Conversely, taxing resource and land
lightly sends the message
that these community-held resources are unimportant
and may be squandered by anyone without consequences.
d) It is claimed that income taxes help reduce
economic inequity among people. This is untrue since employers simply pass
on the extra payroll
deduction to consumers. The amount of income
tax paid is irrelevant to labour negotiations, since bargaining is based
on net pay, not gross pay. In
determining an employee's worth, the employer
simply calculates the gross amount based on take-home pay. Salaries of
high worth employees and
CEOs are simply raised to the level necessary
to ensure net pay reaches the desired level.
e) In contrast the rich-poor gap will be narrowed
more effectively by moving taxes off of incomes and onto resource and land
use, since wealthier
people who choose to spend their money on
grey products and lifestyles will be taxed more while people with lower
incomes will be able to avoid
taxation by living green. In addition, replacing
income taxes with green taxes would help conserve resources, save energy,
foster value-added and
labour intensive production (ie. more jobs),
and reduce pollution.
16. MINIMIZING BUSINESS TAXES
a) Neither the right wing call for corporate tax
cuts nor the left-wing mantra of increased corporate taxes will engender
a transition to a just or green
society. Reducing or increasing taxes on corporate
profits is green-neutral (taxes which neither encourage nor discourage
greening the planet). If the
goal is for businesses to succeed and employ
people, it makes no sense to apply business taxes or payroll deductions.
b) Moving taxes off of profits and employment
and onto the resources, land and pollution will speed progress toward a
green industrial economy.
Recourse use and pollution are privileges
not rights, and businesses should pay for these privileges. While business
people would prefer not to pollute
the planet or squander resources, the present
tax structure gives them little choice. Businesses usually follow the path
of least tax resistance and will
readily go green if tax incentives pointed
the way.
c) Green production means more jobs, resource
conservation, and less pollution. Ecological fiscal reform and green tax
shifting are revenue neutral; the
collective tax burden paid by business is
unchanged, but it will reward businesses that go green and discourage businesses
that remain grey.
17. PHASE OUT CONSUMPTION TAXES
a) Sales taxes are unhelpful in moving to a green
society since socially useful and ecologically sound products are taxed
equally to socially or ecologically
detrimental products. To reduce consumption
of resources, taxes should be applied early in the manufacturing process
in order to green all aspects of
the manufacturing process. Taxing early will
dramatically reduce the ticket price of green products and raise the price
of grey products, positively
influencing consumer behaviour. Taxing early
will encourage resource and energy efficiency, innovation, reuse, repair,
recycling, and used material
recovery.
b) Sales taxes are regressive since they discourage
people from making both green and grey purchases, thus damaging the economy
and killing jobs. As
well sales taxes are often unfairly evaded
by the underground economy, while resource use, pollution and land rent
levies, by contrast, are simpler to
apply and more difficult to evade.
18. RESOURCE USE TAXATION
a) Income taxes, consumptions taxes, and taxes
on profits are all green-neutral, ie. green jobs, green purchases and green
profits are taxed at the same
rate as grey jobs, grey purchases and grey
profits. By contrast, resources taxes levied early in the production process
foster conservation,
efficiencies, innovation, value-added production,
and labour-intensive production. Local sustainable production, short run
niche production, and
skilled trades and crafts receive a bias since
the full costs of transportation and mass production are internalized.
b) Taxing resources minimizes waste and pollution
thus reducing the load on government for health care costs, waste disposal
costs, transportation
infrastructure, and pollution cleanup costs.
The market will drive resource and energy conservation without government
micro-management.
c) Resource taxation would focus on a small number
of key local resources and a small number of imported resources
Article 10: To build a sustainable global community
In order to build a sustainable Global Community, each individual, each local community, and national governments of the world must initiate their commitment to Global Community, fulfill their obligations under existing international agreements, and support the implementation of Constitution principles with an international legally
binding instrument on environment and development.
Article 11: Every individual, family, organization, and community has a vital role to play
Life often involves tensions between important values. This can mean difficult choices. However, we must find ways to harmonize diversity with unity, the exercise of
freedom with the common good, short-term objectives with long-term goals. Every individual, family, organization, and community has a vital role to play. The arts,
sciences, religions, educational institutions, media, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and governments are all called to offer creative leadership. The
partnership of government, civil society, and business is essential for effective governance. In order to build a sustainable Global Community, each individual, each local community, and national governments of the world must initiate their commitment to Global Community, fulfill their obligations under existing international agreements, and support the implementation of Global Constitution principles with an international legally
binding instrument on environment and development.
|
Building global communities require understanding of global problems this generation is facing. There are several major problems: conflicts and wars,
no tolerance and compassion for one another, world overpopulation, human activities,
as population increases the respect and value of a human life is in decline,
insufficient protection and prevention for global health, scarcity of resources and drinking water, poverty, Fauna and Flora species disappearing at a fast rate,
global warming and global climate change, global pollution, deforestation, permanent lost of the Earth's genetic heritage, and the destruction of the global life-support systems and the eco-systems of the planet. We need to build global
communities for all life on the planet. We need to build global communities that will manage themselves with the understanding of the above problems.
|
Global Law
God Law, Nature Law, the teaching of the Soul of Humanity with the teaching of the prophet are fundamental pillars of our Global Law.
The work of Global Community, the global civil society, and the determination of government worldwide, make it possible for everyone to comply with the law.
The Global Protection Agency (GPA) enforces the law.
|
Results from previous Global Dialogues
have showed us that the governance of Earth through global cooperation and
symbiotical relationships was the only possible option for a large population such as the Earth's population, and so, to help
achieve this goal we have developed the Global Constitution
and the
Global Citizens Rights, Responsibility and Accountability Act
to govern ourselves as member nations of Earth Govewrnment.
Building global communities requires a mean to enforce global law that protects all life on Earth.
Global Protection Agency will train and lead a global force, bypassing traditional peacekeeping and military bodies such as the United Nations and NATO.
This is a great opportunity for globallateralism.
The Global Protection Agency (GPA) is leading a group of people in the world who participate in:
a) peacekeeping or peacemaking mission;
b) creating global ministries for:
1. the policy response to the consequences of the global warming, and
2. the development of strategies to adapt to the consequences of the unavoidable climate change.
c) enforcing global law;
d) saving the Earth's genetic heritage;
e) keeping the world healthy and at peace;
f) protecting the global life-support systems and the eco-systems of the planet;
g) dealing with the impacts of: global poverty, lack of drinking water and food, global warming and the global climate change, threat to security, conflicts and wars,
lack of good quality soil for agriculture, polluted air, water and land, overcrownded cities, more new and old diseases out of control, widespread drugs, Global rights
abuses, world overpopulation, and lack of resources;
h) broadening the traditional focus of the security of states to include both the security of people as well as that of the
planet. Global security policies include:
* every person on Earth has a right to a secure existence, and all states have an obligation to protect those rights
* prevention of conflicts and wars; identification, anticipation, and resolving conflicts before they become armed confrontations. The Earth
Court of Justice will help here.
* military force is not a legitimate political instrument
* weapons of mass destruction are not legitimate instruments of national defence
* eliminate all weapons of mass destruction from all nations and have inspectors verifying progress to that effect
* all nations should sign and ratify the conventions to eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons
* the production and trade in arms should be listed as a criminal act against humanity; this global ministry will introduce a
Convention on the curtailment of the arms trade, a provision for a mandatory Arms Register and the prohibition of the financing or
subsidy of arms exports by governments
* the development of military capabilities is a potential threat to the security of people and all life on Earth; the ministry
will make the demilitarization of global politics a high priority.
* anticipating and managing crises before they escalate into armed conflicts and wars
* maintaining the integrity of the environment and global life-support systems
* managing the environmental, economic, social, political and military conditions that threatened the security of people and all life on the planet
* over the past decades and even now today, all Five Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council (mostly the United States,
Russia and Britain) were responsible for selling weapons and war equipment. These three nations are required to give back to Global Community
an amount of 8 trillion dollars (American) as a payment for the immense damage they have caused in the world.
They have created a culture of violence throughout the world. They are nation bullies, nation predators. They are responsible for economic mismanagement, ethnic tensions,
crimes, drug abuse, high unemployment, urban stress, worldwide poverty, and pressures on natural resources. Most conflicts in the world
are direct legacies of cold war power politics, senseless politics. Other conflicts were caused by the end of the cold war and the collapse
of old regimes. Other factors have combined to increase tension: religious, economical, political, and ethnic aspects.
The dollar fine is to be administered by Global Parliament.
In the past, security was thought as better accomplished through military means. Expanding the military capabilities and forming alliances
with other nations were the only way to 'win'. Today wars are unlikely to produce winners. Global Community is all over the planet. Ethnic
groups are everywhere. Some say there are more Italians in Montreal, Canada that there are in Italy. So we would fight our own people? Wars truly
make no sense! The world is too crowded and too small nowadays! And weapons too lethal! So security cannot be achieved through the military. The
only job the military should be asked to do today is to protect the global life-support systems. These systems have the highest priority
on the Scale of Global Rights and are certainly more important than any of the other rights on the Scale including security. Simply because without life there is
no other right possible. Without Oxygen there is no life! Without clean water there is no life! So protect life on Earth at all costs.
Wars are the biggest threat to life and the ecosystem of the planet. Primordial human rights come next on the Scale of Global Rights. Without a shelter life will still exist in some places but is not possible in cold place.
There are many related aspects of the global life-support systems:
* global warming
* Ozone layer
* wastes of all kind including nuclear and release of radiation
* climate change
* species of the fauna and flora becoming extinct
* losses of forest cover and of biological diversity
* the capacity for photosynthesis
* the water cycle
* food production systems
* genetic resources
* chemicals produced for human use and not found in nature and, eventually, reaching the environment with impacts on Earth's waters, soils,
air, and ecology
So security must be achieved by other means than wars. We might as well shelved the war industry from humanity right now and that means phasing
out all nuclear, biological, chemical weapons right now. No waiting! That also means having inspectors verifying the phasing out in
all nations of the world, and not just in some Middle East country. The nature of global security has changed since the rise of Global Community.
Security used to be about the protection of the state and its boundaries, people, institutions and values from an outside threat.
Global Community emphasizes as a priority the prohibition of external interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Today the security of
people within Global Community is just as important as the security of states. Citizens must be secure. Global Community is just as important as the security
and life of citizens and states.
There are many threats to security other than the threats to the global life-support systems and threat caused by weapons of mass destruction and the threats to
the sovereignty of a state, and they include:
* the proliferation of conventional small arms
* the terrorizing of civilian populations by domestic groups
* gross violations of Global rights
Global security can only be achieved if it can be shared by all peoples and through global co-operation, based on principles as explained
in the Global Constitution such as justice, human dignity, and equity for all and for the good of all. All people and states
are protected by Global Community.
In connection between human well-being and a sound environment, Earth rights are ecological rights and the rights that human beings have in protecting their global life-support systems.
Earth rights are those rights that demonstrate the connection between human well-being and a sound environment. They include individuals and global
communities human rights and the rights to a clean environment, and participation in development decisions. We define ecological rights as those rights of the ecosystem of the Earth beyond human purpose. They are those rights that protect and
preserve the ecological heritage of the Earth for future generations. The Earth Court of Justice guarantees ecological rights in its Statute. The Court guarantees also the rights to a safe environment and an environment free
from environmental degradation.
Earth rights are the rights to life on Earth.
The Global Protection Agency provides leadership for training of other countries' citizens who would like to participate in peacekeeping and Earth security  ...
so that we have a ready cadre of people who are trained and equipped and organised and have communications that they can work with each other.
The overall size of the force, or who would pay for it, have not been discussed, but the idea has been raised with countries in Europe and Asia.
As well, there are questions about how many nations would sign up if such a force were under the control of Global Community.
To act as a global policing force, as the GPA aspires to do, many foundations must be laid, especially regarding the move from wielding power derived from
Global Community to legitimate global leadership. There are many required characteristics that are prerequisite for legitimate leadership:
1. Legitimate leadership is built upon trust. Those who are led must largely believe that the leader is committed to integrity, honesty, and transparent inquiry into problems. The leader’s actions must align with his words
2. Legitimate leadership rests upon checks and balances, which are necessary to ensure power is not corrupted.
3. Legitimate leadership is an act of service. Those in power must show a primary interest in the good of the collective ahead of their self-interest. In this way, true leaders are mission-centered rather than self-centered.
4. Legitimate leadership empowers others appropriately rather than concentrating power disproportionately. In other words, true leaders produce more leaders and empower them as situations demand.
5. Legitimate leadership is visionary, carrying the torch of a possible future.
6. Legitimate leadership is willing to lead by example, including following a foundation of ethics, performing more than one’s share of work, and making sacrifices where appropriate.
7. Legitimate leadership is compassionately fierce when something undermines the good of the whole.
In a company this might mean the CEO fires a slacking employee. In a city, the police may jail a murderer. On a global level, this might even mean
arresting those breaking global law.
The defence function of a leader requires that he safeguard the good of the whole by whatever the most skillful means are to accomplish that defence.
While that is not a comprehensive catalog of leadership prerequisites, I do think those few requirements are foundational and relatively unquestionable.
Without at least a solid foundation of those requirements, the GPA’s actions among nation-states will remain those of a unilateralist leader rather than a global leader.
We will be, and should be, legitimated in the role of a global leader among nation-states and validated as an enforcer of global law.
Global Community offers a few recommendations for actions that would strengthen and legitimate the GPA’s role as a true global leader by gradually creating an international structure
that better safeguards the whole than we can ever do now as a unilateralist leader.
The GPA recommendations:
1. Ban military action in all parts of the world;
2. Lead the way in creating legitimate power for Global Parliament, subjecting ourselves and multinational corporations to taxation that generates money for programs
that are focused on world betterment and world problems. As a mark of our global leadership, we should commit a greater percentage of our resources to this effort
than any other organization.
3. Hold ourselves to a high standard of compliance around global treaties that aim for collective benefit and the redress of economic, environmental, military,
and political problems. Our adherence should be exemplary. Or, if we truly question the merit of a global accord, we should lead the way in creating agreements
that even better serve the global interest rather than simply ignoring or undermining the existing attempts.
4. Exert strong global leadership on multinational solutions to pressing health, environmental, and other problems. We should propose innovative new solutions and show leadership in carrying them out, especially in areas such as clean energy development.
5. Take seriously the process of coming clean by exposing corporate interests in politics, lobbying by powerful organizations,
subsidies of fringe military groups, etc. When our global government officials commit to be honest and transparent, a much deeper foundation of international trust
will be built.
As we enact global law, we will begin to take on a much deeper kind of global leadership, one that earns more respect than envy and more gratitude than hatred, one that
can catapult the whole planet forward into a future where war is no longer thinkable between nation-states and a legitimate and beneficial global government is able to cope
with global problems.
I believe that there is no greater task in the world today than for Global Community to proceed through the maturation of its leadership, emerging from a more self-interested
adolescence as a global leader into a nobler adulthood. We have the potential to act as a torchbearer for a better tomorrow. Do we heed the call? I hope this message has convinced
at least a few people that the question of how to proceed with that maturation is of far deeper significance than the reforming of the United Nations. I thus pray that we move
with wisdom, grace, clarity, and love in the days, years, and even decades ahead.
|
Building global communities require understanding of global problems this generation is facing. There are several major problems: conflicts and wars,
no tolerance and compassion for one another, world overpopulation, human activities,
as population increases the respect and value of a human life is in decline,
insufficient protection and prevention for global health, scarcity of resources and drinking water, poverty, Fauna and Flora species disappearing at a fast rate,
global warming and global climate change, global pollution, deforestation, permanent lost of the Earth's genetic heritage, and the destruction of the global life-support systems and the eco-systems of the planet. We need to build global
communities for all life on the planet. We need to build global communities that will manage themselves with the understanding of the above problems.
Results from previous Global Dialogues
have showed us that the governance of Earth through global cooperation and
symbiotical relationships was the only possible option for a large population such as the Earth's population, and so, to help
achieve this goal we have developed the Global Constitution
and the
Global Citizens Rights, Responsibility and Accountability Act
to govern ourselves as member nations of Earth Govewrnment.
Building global communities requires a mean to enforce global law that protects all life on Earth.
Global Community Agency of Global Police will train and lead a global police force, bypassing traditional peacekeeping and military bodies such as the United Nations and NATO.
This is a great opportunity for globallateralism.
The Agency of Global Police (AGP) is leading a group of people in the world who participate in:
a) peacekeeping and peacemaking mission;
b) creating global ministries for:
1. the policy response to the consequences of the global warming, and
2. the development of strategies to adapt to the consequences of the unavoidable climate change.
c) enforcing global law;
d) saving the Earth's genetic heritage;
e) keeping the world healthy and at peace;
f) protecting the global life-support systems and the eco-systems of the planet;
g) dealing with the impacts of: global poverty, lack of drinking water and food, global warming and the global climate change, threat to security, conflicts and wars,
lack of good quality soil for agriculture, polluted air, water and land, overcrownded cities, more new and old diseases out of control, widespread drugs, Global rights
abuses, world overpopulation, and lack of resources;
h) broadening the traditional focus of the security of states to include both the security of people as well as that of the
planet. Global security policies include:
* every person on Earth has a right to a secure existence, and all states have an obligation to protect those rights
* prevention of conflicts and wars; identification, anticipation, and resolving conflicts before they become armed confrontations. The Earth
Court of Justice will help here.
* military force is not a legitimate political instrument
* weapons of mass destruction are not legitimate instruments of national defence
* eliminate all weapons of mass destruction from all nations and have inspectors verifying progress to that effect
* all nations should sign and ratify the conventions to eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons
* the production and trade in arms should be listed as a criminal act against humanity; this global ministry will introduce a
Convention on the curtailment of the arms trade, a provision for a mandatory Arms Register and the prohibition of the financing or
subsidy of arms exports by governments
* the development of military capabilities is a potential threat to the security of people and all life on Earth; the ministry
will make the demilitarization of global politics a high priority.
* anticipating and managing crises before they escalate into armed conflicts and wars
* maintaining the integrity of the environment and global life-support systems
* managing the environmental, economic, social, political and military conditions that threatened the security of people and all life on the planet
* over the past decades and even now today, all Five Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council (mostly the United States,
Russia and Britain) were responsible for selling weapons and war equipment. These three nations are required to give back to Global Community
an amount of 8 trillion dollars (American) as a payment for the immense damage they have caused in the world. They have created a culture
of violence throughout the world. They are nation bullies, nation predators. They are responsible for economic mismanagement, ethnic tensions,
crimes, drug abuse, high unemployment, urban stress, worldwide poverty, and pressures on natural resources. Most conflicts in the world
are direct legacies of cold war power politics, senseless politics. Other conflicts were caused by the end of the cold war and the collapse
of old regimes. Other factors have combined to increase tension: religious, economical, political, and ethnic aspects.
In the past, security was thought as better accomplished through military means. Expanding the military capabilities and forming alliances
with other nations were the only way to 'win'. Today wars are unlikely to produce winners. Global Community is all over the planet. Ethnic
groups are everywhere. Some say there are more Italians in Montreal, Canada that there are in Italy. So we would fight our own people? Wars truly
make no sense! The world is too crowded and too small nowadays! And weapons too lethal! So security cannot be achieved through the military. The
only job the military should be asked to do today is to protect the global life-support systems. These systems have the highest priority
on the Scale of Global Rights and are certainly more important than any of the other rights on the Scale including security. Simply because without life there is
no other right possible. Without Oxygen there is no life! Without clean water there is no life! So protect life on Earth at all costs.
Wars are the biggest threat to life and the ecosystem of the planet. Primordial human rights come next on the Scale of Global Rights. Without a shelter life will still exist in some places but is not possible in cold place.
There are many related aspects of the global life-support systems:
* global warming
* Ozone layer
* wastes of all kind including nuclear and release of radiation
* climate change
* species of the fauna and flora becoming extinct
* losses of forest cover and of biological diversity
* the capacity for photosynthesis
* the water cycle
* food production systems
* genetic resources
* chemicals produced for human use and not found in nature and, eventually, reaching the environment with impacts on Earth's waters, soils,
air, and ecology
So security must be achieved by other means than wars. We might as well shelved the war industry from humanity right now and that means phasing
out all nuclear, biological, chemical weapons right now. No waiting! That also means having inspectors verifying the phasing out in
all nations of the world, and not just in the Middle East region and North Korea. The nature of global security has changed since the rise of Global Community.
Security used to be about the protection of the state and its boundaries, people, institutions and values from an outside threat.
Global Community emphasizes as a priority the prohibition of external interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Today the security of
people within Global Community is just as important as the security of states. Citizens must be secure. Global Community is just as important as the security
and life of citizens and states.
There are many threats to security other than the threats to the global life-support systems and threat caused by weapons of mass destruction and the threats to
the sovereignty of a state, and they include:
* the proliferation of conventional small arms
* the terrorizing of civilian populations by domestic groups
* gross violations of Global rights
Global security can only be achieved if it can be shared by all peoples and through global co-operation, based on principles as explained
in the Global Constitution such as justice, human dignity, and equity for all and for the good of all. All people and states
are protected by Global Community.
The Agency of Global Police provides leadership for training of other countries' citizens who would like to participate in peacekeeping and Earth security ...
so that we have a ready cadre of people who are trained and equipped and organised and have communications that they can work with each other.
The overall size of the force, or who would pay for it, have not been discussed, but the idea has been raised with countries in Europe and Asia.
To act as a global policing force, as the AGP aspires to do, many foundations must be laid, especially regarding the move from wielding power derived from
Global Community to legitimate global leadership. There are many required characteristics that are prerequisite for legitimate leadership:
1. Legitimate leadership is built upon trust. Those who are led must largely believe that the leader is committed to integrity, honesty, and transparent inquiry into problems. The leader’s actions must align with his words
2. Legitimate leadership rests upon checks and balances, which are necessary to ensure power is not corrupted.
3. Legitimate leadership is an act of service. Those in power must show a primary interest in the good of the collective ahead of their self-interest. In this way, true leaders are mission-centered rather than self-centered.
4. Legitimate leadership empowers others appropriately rather than concentrating power disproportionately. In other words, true leaders produce more leaders and empower them as situations demand.
5. Legitimate leadership is visionary, carrying the torch of a possible future.
6. Legitimate leadership is willing to lead by example, including following a foundation of ethics, performing more than one’s share of work, and making sacrifices where appropriate.
7. Legitimate leadership is compassionately fierce when something undermines the good of the whole.
In a company this might mean the CEO fires a slacking employee. In a city, the police may jail a murderer. On a global level, this might even mean
arresting those breaking global law.
The defence function of a leader requires that he safeguard the good of the whole by whatever the most skillful means are to accomplish that defence.
While that is not a comprehensive catalog of leadership prerequisites, I do think those few requirements are foundational and relatively unquestionable.
Without at least a solid foundation of those requirements, the AGP’s actions among nation-states will remain those of a unilateralist leader rather than a global leader.
We will be, and should be, legitimated in the role of a global leader among nation-states and validated as police enforcer.
Global Community offers a few recommendations for actions that would strengthen and legitimate the AGP’s role as a true global leader by gradually creating an international structure
that better safeguards the whole than we can ever do now as a unilateralist leader.
The AGP recommendations:
1. Ban military action in all parts of the world;
2. Lead the way in creating legitimate power for Global Parliament, subjecting ourselves and multinational corporations to taxation that generates money for programs
that are focused on world betterment and world problems. As a mark of our global leadership, we should commit a greater percentage of our resources to this effort
than any other organization.
3. Hold ourselves to a high standard of compliance around global treaties that aim for collective benefit and the redress of economic, environmental, military,
and political problems. Our adherence should be exemplary. Or, if we truly question the merit of a global accord, we should lead the way in creating agreements
that even better serve the global interest rather than simply ignoring or undermining the existing attempts.
4. Exert strong global leadership on multinational solutions to pressing health, environmental, and other problems. We should propose innovative new solutions and show leadership in carrying them out, especially in areas such as clean energy development.
5. Take seriously the process of coming clean by exposing corporate interests in politics, lobbying by powerful organizations,
subsidies of fringe military groups, etc. When our global government officials commit to be honest and transparent, a much deeper foundation of international trust
will be built.
As we enact global law, we will begin to take on a much deeper kind of global leadership, one that earns more respect than envy and more gratitude than hatred, one that
can catapult the whole planet forward into a future where war is no longer thinkable between nation-states and a legitimate and beneficial global government is able to cope
with global problems.
I believe that there is no greater task in the world today than for Global Community to proceed through the maturation of its leadership, emerging from a more self-interested
adolescence as a global leader into a nobler adulthood. We have the potential to act as a torchbearer for a better tomorrow. Do we heed the call? I hope this message has convinced
at least a few people that the question of how to proceed with that maturation is of far deeper significance than the reforming of the United Nations. I thus pray that we move
with wisdom, grace, clarity, and love in the days, years, and even decades ahead.
The Earth Court of Justice has made clear that the new global law legislation has been enacted, the
Global Citizens Rights, Responsibility and Accountability Act,
will be enforced by the AGP. Global Law is now the law of the land on the planet. No one is excuse! Everyone is included! Those breaking Global Law will be prosecuted.
For now, those committing crimes against humanity and all life on Earth will be arrested. There are Global Community Arrest Warrants against all
world leaders of the Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council.
Global Community blames the actions of the Five Permanent Members for not having put hard sanctions against the USA for having unilaterally invaded Iraq and letting Americans plundering the oil and gas resources
of the Iraquis. That in itself is a crime against humanity and all life on the planet. That goes against Global Sustainability and Global Peace. Through the manipulation of the
world media, it now seems OK to prepare for the invasion of Iran. That also is a crime.
It is a crime against humanity to promote the military option, war, as a solution to the world problems.
Certainly we ought to disarm all nations from all weapons of mass destruction.
The leadership of the United Nations has failed to enforce disarmement. It is a tragedy that such a failure is now seen as the source of other nations, such as
Iran and others, wanting to defend themselves against an invasion by the USA.
And that is a crime against humanity and all life. The Earth Court of Justice has now
a Global Community Arrest Warrant against world leaders of the Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council for crimes against humanity.
The following table shows their names and one kind of WMDs they possess.
The Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council are all declared nuclear weapons states
| Country leader |
Warheads active/total |
Year of first test |
 United States President George Walker Bush |
40,000 |
1945 |
 Russia President Vladimir Putin |
10,000 |
1949 |
 United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair |
<200 |
1952 |
 President of the French Republic Jacques Chirac |
350 |
1960 |
 President of the People's Republic of China Hu Jintao |
130 |
1964 |
With their nuclear war heads and other WMDs, the Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council are holding the world and all life on Earth hostage.
We are being threatened by their warheads. All life on the planet is being threatened. That makes them terrorists. The Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council
are terrorists, criminals and ought to be stopped. Global Community will disarm you, like it or not. No waiting! There has been enough wasted time during the Cold War.
The AGP will come to your country and disarm you. Right now!
The North Korea crisis is just another example of the lack of proper leadership of the United Nations. Everyone saw the problem coming from the time President Bush insulted:
Kim Jong-il, the leader of Democratic People's Republic of Korea,
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, and
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Remember the now famous 'axe of evil' expression?!
The world knew America was invading the Middle East. Why has the UN not enforced hard sanctions against the USA for its bullying tactics at the UN to get what it wants?
Proper UN leadership could have avoided the situation we have today. The UN did nothing at a critical time and just watched things happening.
The UN is the organization where bullying takes place by those with nuclear war heads. The world is threatened by nuclear war heads. The Five Permanent Members of the UN
are allowed to bully any other nations. They are holding the world hostage with the threat of their nuclear war heads. They are all terrorist governments.
There are Global Community Arrest Warrants against all Five Permanent Members leaders. They are terrorists, dangerous criminals, and must be stopped.
We will disarm you, like or not! Life on Earth has no need of all you with nuclear war heads and other WMDs.
If you refuse to disarm it will be because you are very much like those others you accuse of being terrorists: you are the worst terrorists on the planet.
The USA is invading the world, and the UN can do nothing to stop them. The USA was allowed to invade other nations, change their governments,
and has often made lies in speeches to the UN, to the world. Remember what the US representatives told the world at the UN prior to the invasion of Iraq? Lies! All lies!
And the leadership of the UN never did anything to reprimand the US representatives and implement hard sanctions for the invasion of Iraq.
There is now a Global Community Arrest Warrant against Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General. Many reasons!
He is a criminal because he had the power and was able to show leadership as per the Constitution of the UN but never did anything to follow those principles
in the Constitution he was supposed to be standing for. To do nothing is a crime against humanity and all life on Earth.
It is pure disgrace that we now have the UN organization allowing the USA break the friendship between North Korea and China.
The USA invaded the Middle East in a similar way: breaking frienships between the different communities of the Middle East, creating hate between communities.
The USA is responsible and accountable for the civil war in Iraq.
In conclusion, the eventual invasion of China is the reason why the United States dont want North Korea and other Middle East nations to have nuclear weapons. What else could it
be? Americans are all over the Middle East creating hate between the different communities, invading, stealing oil and gas reserves, and spreading the false belief that
democracy is the best political system. Democracy got us to where we are today: the worst polluters on the planet and threatening the existence of all life. Our consumer driver
political system is wrong. Our ways of life are wrong! We know it, and we still try to impose them to other Peoples. America would like the Peoples of North Korea, China and of the Middle East nations
to be like us consumers, the worst polluters and on a planetary destructive path. In this way, Americans back home would not be feeling so guilty of being so bad.
They would rather let others take the blame for their failure as a society.
Have you ever flown over North Korea at night? Almost no light above cities! Why? No electricity! That makes them environmentally friendly and non-polluters. What about
plastics!? To have no electricity implies no consumer products made of plastics. No fridges! No freezers, which also means that they do not destroy the Ozone layer around the planet, a global life-support system to all life. Fridges
and freezers use refrigerants which eventually are released to the atmosphere and destroy the Ozone layer. We could go on listing the implications of no light at night. Yet the people of North Korea live happy lives. Well! That was
until Americans got into the picture. The people of North Korea are the most environmentally friendly people on the planet and Americans are jealous of that. Americans want
everyone on the planet to be just like they are in America: the worst polluters on a planetary destructive path.
And guess who is next: China. Americans want the people of China to be just like they are: a consumer driven society and
the worst polluters. And the invasion of China is their long term economic and military plan. If the United States can destroy North Korea,
and its friendship with China,
they can destroy China.
North Korea is just a strategic military test to see how far and how well Americans can do invading the region without being told off. And what will be China's reaction...?
If China does nothing meaningful to stop the invasion then America will continue further its progressive 'democratisation' of the world.
But the United States would rather make money in the process, and that means letting rich American corporations getting richer by having the people of China working for them and so, polluting
the planet even more on their behalf. Global Community has developed and implemented the 'New Way of Doing Business'.
Over its long past history trade has never evolved to require from the trading partners to become legally and morally responsible and
accountable for their products from beginning to end. At the end the product becomes a waste and it needs to be properly dispose of. Now
trade must be given a new impetus to be in line with the global concepts of Global Community. You manufacture, produce, mine, farm or
create a product, you become legally and morally responsible and accountable of your product from beginning to end (to the point where it
actually becomes a waste; you are also responsible for the proper disposable of the waste). This product may be anything and everything from oil and gas, weapons, war products, to genetically engineered food products. All consumer products. All medicinal products! All pharmaceutical products!
Som when America sells technology, or anything at all, to China, America becomes responsible and accountable of its trade from beginning to end. If the technology is a car, and car
manufacturing, then America is responsible and accountable of the pollution coming out of it. The pollution coming out of the car manufactured in China is to be added to the
USA pollution. A political border does not take away your responsibility and accountability. Selling something does not take away your responsibility and accountability.
That is the idea!
Prosecuting criminals on the basis of universal jurisdiction regardless of a
territorial or nationality nexus required a solid commitment of political will from
national governments and Global Community.
Global Community has now implemented a total embargo on all U.S., France, United Kingdom, China and Russia consumer products, goods and services including mass destruction chemicals,
small arms, nuclear war heads, weapons of mass destruction, , war products and war equipment.
The war industry throughout the world must be put to a complete halt and shelved forever from humanity. Global Community is asking
all Peoples never again to buy their products and services, and never supply them with the same.
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In today's affairs a very powerful few are in possession of the land and the Earth's resources. These few people operate practically without taxation.
Is that what we want as a global democracy? Who should own the Earth?
Soveveignty is the status of a person or group
of persons having supreme and independent political authority. The concept of sovereignty is related to the concept of power:
power over a territory, land and water, oil and minerals, as
well as life on Earth. The United Nations (UN) cannot have
normal attributes of sovereignty, which has been defined around a territory
and population.
Global Community has in fact been defined around a given territory,
that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population,
which is Global Community. The issue here is not that of populations
and boundary lines, but of the demarcation of power and control over the
Earth that is the foremost formal attribute of sovereignty.
To speak of enforceable global law is to speak of world power. Global
Parliament has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules
for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be
researched and developed for this purpose.
Today our democracy is not based on equal rights to the Earth and its natural resources.
Conservation, restoration, and protection of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is conected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources. This causes a fundamental threat to democracy. What has become of democracy?
What has become " we the people? "
We need to take a giant step forward to a new form of democracy. We,
Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
Global Community has proposed a new democratic mandate recognizing
that the land, the air, oil and natural gas, minerals, all other natural resources
rightly belong to Global Community. The Earth is our birthright and
our common heritage. What we make from our mental and physical labor can
rightfully be held as individual property but the profit of the Earth should
be shared by all life. The unjust and inequitable ownership
of the land and of all other natural resources has caused the great majority of local-to-global conflicts
and wars.
The Global Economic Model proposed by Global Community is truly
the best response to the world.
Let us remind everyone the definition that has been guiding us throughout the previous dialogues:
"Global Community is defined as being all that exits or occurs at any location at any time between the Ozone layer above and the core of the planet below."
This is the fundamental definition of the expression "Global Community".
This definition includes all people, all life on Earth.
It also implicitly says that no-one in particular owns the Earth but we all own it together.
Not just us people, but all life on Earth owns it. The beginning of life
stretches as far back as 4 billion years, and so Life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does the Soul of all Life, the Soul of Humanity.
Throughout this paper the land ownership of the Earth means ownership of the land and of all other Earth natural resources.
"A global community" is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. One could think of a typical community that does not have to be bounded by a geographical or political
border. It can be people living in many different locations all over the world. Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the
street where we live and contained by a border. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing ourselves as people with a heart, a mind and a Soul, and as part of a community with the same.
The old concept of a community being the street where we live in and surrounded by a definite geographical and political boundary has originated during the Roman Empire period. An entire new system of
values was then created to make things work for the Roman Empire. Humanity has lived with this concept over two thousand years. Peoples from all over the world are ready to kill anyone challenging their
border. They say that this is their land, their property, their 'things'. This archaic concept is endangering humanity and its survival. The Roman Empire has gone but its culture is still affecting us today. We
need to let go the old way of thinking. We need to learn of the new concept, and how it can make things work in the world.
A typical community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people sharing with the same values. It can be a group of people with the same cultural background, or the
same religious background. Or they can be people with totally different backgrounds and beliefs. The people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's
communications it is easy to group people in this fashion. It can be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one Community. The two villages may be found in different parts of
the world. It can be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
We will see in the Preview how this new system can work.
As mentioned above, land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the
trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should therefore be given equal
access to such natural resources.
On the global level the Law of the Seas Covenant is an example of a ground rent basis for public needs as it has affirmed that ocean resources are the
common heritage of all and a proper source of funding for global institutions. Water belongs to the Earth and all species and is sacred to life therefore, the world’s water must be conserved, reclaimed and protected for all future
generations and its natural patterns respected.
Water is a fundamental human right and a public trust to be guarded by all levels of government; therefore, it should not be commodified, privatized or
traded for commercial purposes. These rights must be enshrined at all levels of government. In particular, an international treaty must ensure these
principles are noncontrovertable.
Water is best protected by local communities and citizens, who must be respected as equal partners with governments in the protection and regulation of
water. Peoples of the Earth are the only vehicle to promote democracy and save water.
Similarly, all the Earth natural resources belong to Global Community to be used, developed and conserved for the maximum benefit of the people and of all
life.
Global Community should set up expert groups and begin the necessary intergovernmental
negotiations towards establishing alternative revenue sources, which could include fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the
skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees levied on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on carbon content of fuels.
This thinking should give us a fresh start for a better future and bring some light to understanding previous claims of the many different
groups such as:
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Native and aboriginal people claiming that their ancestors owned the land so now they do
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God gave it to us so the land is ours
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Property ownership system of the Roman Empire to today, our social-economic system of land owership
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The military power of this world forcing ownership of land and of all other Earth natural resources against the will of everyone else
None of the above groups can claim ownership of the land and other Earth natural resources. They never did own the land and of all other Earth natural resources. And they never will.
Only Global Community can rightfully claim ownership of the Earth.
However, we have reached the deplorable circumstance where in large measure
a very powerful few are in possession of the Earth's resources, the land
and all its riches, and all the franchises and other privileges that yield
a return. These monopolistic positions are kept by a handful of men who
are maintained virtually without taxation.
Whoever owns the land and all other natural resources exerts power over those who are landless and no resources. Global Community proposes to
extend democratic principles to include the ownership and control
of the Earth. The Global Economic Model was created for all
the people on the planet. The model makes sure that the
rights of all people and the rights of the planet are one and the same.
The Global Economic Model stipulates as well that we, as human beings, are trustees and caretakers
of all other life forms on Earth.
The Global Economic Model is global, as people are freed to move beyond
borders and boundaries and claim the whole Earth as their birthplace.
How the Earth should be owned is the major economic question of this
time. The world should be owned not just by the people living in it but by all life on Earth and the Soul of Life, the Soul of Humanity.
Unless a reformed or empowered Global Parliament is leading firmly upon
the principle of equal rights for Global Community, then the planet
will be controlled by a handful of vested interests.
Land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like
surface land, minerals deposits (gold, oil etc), water, electromagnetic
spectrum, the trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat
land as private property. Land is not a product of labor. Everyone should
therefore be given equal access to natural resources.
The Global Economic Model proposes to make private property the product of labor. Common property
is all what Nature offers. The Global Economic Model policy removes
taxes from wages and increases taxes and user
fees on common property.
The model eliminates subsidies that are environmentally or socially
harmful, and inequitable.
The ownership of natural resources ultimately determines the social,
the political and consequently the mental and physical condition of a people.
Attaining an ethic of wise and careful stewardship of the Earth is likewise
inseparable from the task of securing the well-being of individuals. The
health of a person and the health of the Earth are interrelated.
The Earth is our birthright and
our common heritage. What we make from our mental and physical labor can
rightfully be held as individual property but the profit of the Earth should
be shared by all life. and for all.The unjust and inequitable ownership and control
of vast amounts of the land and of other natural resources
has caused many global conflicts and wars.
Every national government must show a commitment to making available
enough land in the context of sustainable land-use policies. This policy applies as well to the Inuit people, and to all Native communities in Canada.
Governments at all levels, including all Native communities, should remove all possible obstacles
that may hamper equitable access to land and ensure that equal rights of
women and men related to land and property are protected under the law.
When there are no Canadians wanting the land then Global Community will have
people from other countries in need of land to settle with their families.
Truly, we are on the threshold of a global revolution, and we need to
proceed with the non-violent approach. We need to build an economic democracy
based firmly on the basic principle that the Earth belongs equally to
everyone as a birthright. The Earth is for all people to labor and live
on and should never be the possession of any individual, corporation,
or uncaring government, any more than the air or water, or any other
Earth natural resources. An individual, or a business should have
no more than is needed for a healthy living.
The impacts of our democracy are destroying the Earth global life-support systems.
A few people have control over so much of the Earth.
To live in a world at peace and have conditions of basic justice and fairness in human interactions,
our democratic values must based in the principle of equal rights to the Earth.
Territorial conflict has for millennium been the basis of war and mass killing of others.
Throughout the ages wars been fought over land, and other Earth natural resources.
We have seen oil conflictsin the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea Basin.
We have seen water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, and Indus River Basins.
We have seen wars being fought over minerals and timber in Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo, New Guinea, and Borneo.
We have seen conflicts over valuable gems, minerals and timber in Brazil, Angola, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Liberia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
The view from space shows us a global landscape in which competition over resources
is the governing principle behind the use of military power.
Truly, resources have become the new political boundaries.
Each day taxpayers hand over astronomical amounts of money to build weapons
of mass destruction, fuel dangerous and polluting technologies,
and subsidize giant corporations which concentrate the wealth and power of the world in the hands of an elite few.
There is a way to share the Earth? The Global Economic Model proposed by Global Community is truly the best response to the world.
A global economic model is based on respect and value all life on
Earth. It recognizes that we as human beings are trustees and caretakers
of the many life forms that dwell here with us. A global economic model
extends the democratic mandate to solve the land problem by affirming the
equal right of all people to the Earth. It will have a balanced and just
relationship of citizenry to government with enlightened public finance
policy based on land and land rent for the people. Money will be issued
and circulated as a service for the people as a whole rather than used
as a mechanism for the exploitation of the many by the few.
A global economic model is global, as people are freed to move beyond
borders and boundaries and claim the whole Earth as their birthplace. It
is highly decentralized as well, with people living and producing for their
basic human needs within the constraints and parameters of local ecological
systems. A global economic model is about a world that works for
everyone, with plenty of time to expand our minds and elevate our spirits.
How the Earth should be owned is the major economic question of this
time. The world should be owned by the people living in it. The Earth itself
is the bottom line. The land is the source of all life and wealth. To survive,
we must have somewhere to stand and to rest. But this absolute necessity
for our very existence is nowhere guaranteed in our constitutional laws.
Our Bill of Rights did not proclaim the human right to the Earth.
We must grasp the injustice at the core of our present economic system.
We need to understand how far we have strayed from reality and how we have
been led into illusionary games of finance. Our treatment of the Earth
as a market commodity, just like a car or television, is the basic flaw
in our economic ground rules.
When land became a 'commodity' and lost its status as provider and sustainer
of life, Western civilization began its history of subjugation and exploitation
of the Earth and Earth based cultures.
A global economic model can achieve fairness by giving
the equal right of all people to the land and to all other natural
resources, and the right of the individual to the products of labor.
A condition of "ownership" of any particular landsite or natural resource
is payment of the fee back to the community as a whole. This fee is the proper source of public finance for the needs of
the Community.
On the global level the Law of the Seas Covenant is an example of a fee collected basis for public needs as it means that ocean resources
are the common heritage of all and a proper source of funding for global institutions.
In order to democratize land rights, we can make land available to individuals and groups
who wish to live in ecologically sustainable villages and farms. Community
land trusts can hold title to such lands. The buildings and improvements can be privately owned.
This process is a strong incentive for the creation of employment.
The global economic model also allows for an increase of taxes and fees on natural resources:
- Emissions into air, water, or soil
- Land sites according to land value
- Lands used for timber, grazing, mining
- Ocean and freshwater resources
- Electromagnetic or radio-frequency spectrum
- Satellite orbital zones
- Oil and minerals
- Hydropower
Most issues and aspects of global governance and Earth management 
are already being applied by Global Community. But there is no agency 
powerful enough to protect life on Earth from those who care not about it. At best what we have is
the Global Justice Movement for all life 
which has found a process for the establishment of justice amongst us all.
What we have not done is the actual governing and managing of the planet as per the Global Constitution 
and Global Law.
And that is our first priority now.
The planet and all its resources of land, water, forests, minerals,
the atmosphere, electro-magnetic frequencies, and even satellite orbits belong to Global Community. The Global Economic
Model makes sure that the profits of the Earth will benefit the people
and all life, and secure an age of peace and fairness for all.
Properly managed small farms along with ecological villages
can produce a diverse range of food, fiber, livestock, and energy products
for local markets. Bio methods of farming depending on renewable
energy sources can yield both social and environmental stability. Tax policies that remove taxes on labor and productive capital
will be the sustainable pillar that makes the global economic model works for all.
This Global Movement for land value taxation and natural resource rent
for revenue can provide the basis for worldwide economic democracy. Freedom
to live or work in any part of the globe would also further equality of
entitlement to the planet, and provide a basis for the resolution of resource
wars and territorial conflicts. There would be no more private profit as
unearned income from Earth natural resources. Instead, transparent and
accountable resource agencies would collect resource rents and distribute
those funds in public services or as direct citizen dividends. With fundamental
democracy in rights to the Earth firmly established through legal means
and mandates, basic needs would be secured for all and the militarized
national security state and its bloated budgets could wither away.
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