Chapter XIII     Earth Government finances
Article 1:    Budgetary and financial principles
1.     All items of Earth Government revenue and expenditure shall be included in estimates drawn up for each financial year and shall be shown in the budget, in accordance with the provisions of Chapters 19 to 26.
2.     The revenue and expenditure shown in the budget shall be in balance.
3.     The expenditure shown in the budget shall be authorised for the annual budgetary period in accordance with the global law referred to in Article 2, Chapter 14.6.4.
4.     The implementation of expenditure shown in the budget shall require the prior adoption of a binding legal act providing a legal basis for Earth Government action and for the implementation of the expenditure in accordance with the global law referred to in Article 2, Chapter 14.6.4. This act must take the form of a global law , a global framework law, a global regulation or a global decision.
5.     With a view to maintaining budgetary discipline, Earth Government shall not adopt any act which is likely to have appreciable implications for the budget without providing an assurance that the proposal or measure in question is capable of being financed within the limit of Earth Government's own resources and the multiannual financial framework referred to in Article 1, Chapter 13.
6.     Earth Government's budget shall be implemented in accordance with the principle of sound financial management. Member Nations shall cooperate with Earth Government to ensure that the appropriations entered in the budget are used in accordance with the principles of sound financial management.
7.     Earth Government and Member Nations shall counter fraud and any other illegal activities affecting the financial interests of the Earth Government in accordance with the provisions of Article 2, Chapter 14.3.3.
Article 2:    Earth Government's resources
1.     Earth Government shall provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies.
2.     Without prejudice to other revenue, Earth Government's budget shall be financed wholly from its own resources.
3.     A global law of the Earth Executive Council shall lay down the limit of Earth Government's resources and may establish new categories of resources or abolish an existing category. That law shall not enter into force until it is approved by Member Nations in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. The Earth Executive Council shall act unanimously after consulting Global Parliament .
4.     A global law of the Council shall lay down the modalities relating to Earth Government's resources. The Earth Executive Council shall act after obtaining the consent of Global Parliament .
Article 3:    The multiannual financial framework
1.     The multiannual financial framework shall ensure that Earth Government expenditure develops in an orderly manner and within the own resources limits. It shall determine the amounts of the annual ceilings for commitment appropriations by category of expenditure in accordance with the provisions of Article 1, Chapter 14.6.1.
2.     A global law of the Earth Executive Council shall lay down the multiannual financial framework. The Earth Executive Council shall act after obtaining the consent of Global Parliament , which shall be given by a majority of its component members.
3.     The annual budget of Earth Government shall comply with the multiannual financial framework.
4.     The Earth Executive Council shall act unanimously when adopting the first multiannual financial framework following the entry into force of the Constitution.
Article 4:    Earth Government's budget
The Global Parliament and the Earth Executive Council shall, on a proposal from the Global Judiciary and in accordance with the arrangements laid down in Article 2, Chapter 14.6.2, adopt the global law determining Earth Government's annual budget.

Article 5:    Green Tax Shift Policy Approach
Earth Government proposes a Green Tax Shift Policy Approach to financing local-to-global public goods. There is a troublesome and painful contradiction in the lives of many of us who are working for peace, justice, poverty eradication, debt cancellation and sustainable development. While our hearts and minds focus on building a better world for everyone, each day we hand over fistfuls of dollars to build weapons of mass destruction, fuel dangerous, dirty and polluting technologies, and subsidize huge conglomerates which concentrate the wealth of the world in the control of the few. But together we can end tax tyranny and align our visions and values with how we finance our governments.

Taxation not only raises money to fund government services, it also reflects the overall value system of a society. The goal of green tax policy is to create a system of public finance which strengthens and maximize incentives for:

*     Fair distribution of wealth
*     Environmental protection
*     Basic needs production
*     Provision of adequate government services
*     Peaceful resolution of territorial conflicts

Green tax reform makes a clear distinction between private property and common property. Private property is that which is created by labor. Common property is that which is provided by nature. Green tax policy removes taxes from wages and other private property and increases taxes and user fees on common property. Reducing taxes on labor increases purchasing capacity, reducing taxes on capital encourages efficiency. Shifting taxes to land and resources curbs speculation and private profiteering in our common property and is a practical way to conserve and fairly share the Earth.

Captured in brief soundbites, tax waste, not work; tax bads, not goods; pay for what you take, not what you make; and polluter pays become tax shift principles readily translated into voter friendly policy recommendations with broadbased political support.

Green tax policy CUTS taxes on:

*     Wages and earned income
*     Productive and sustainable capital
*     Sales, especially for basic necessities
*     Homes and other buildings

Green tax policy INCREASES taxes and fees on:

*     Land sites according to land value
*     Lands used for timber, grazing, mining
*     Emissions into air, water, or soil
*     Ocean and freshwater resources
*     Electromagnetic spectrum
*     Satellite orbital zones
*     Oil and minerals

Green tax policy seeks to ELIMINATE subsidies environmentally or socially harmful, unnecessary, or inequitable. Slated for drastic reduction or complete removal are subsidies for:

*     Energy production
*     Resource extraction
*     Commerce and industry
*     Agriculture and forestry
*     Weapons of mass destruction

Article 6:    A specific type of tobin tax

Earth Government is in favour of the introduction of a specific type of tobin tax as a powerful instrument of the promotion of sustainable development, both directly as well as indirectly. Indirectly, it can discourage financial speculation and currency crises with their devastating effects on countries; directly, as a tax, the proceeds of it can be used as an alternative source of sustainable development finance in order to promote the establishment of international public goods. The original Tobin tax proposal can be made into a feasible instrument by engineering it as a two-tier tax (the so-called Spahn version of the Tobin tax), with tax collection through the international settlements system.

Article 7:    Providing debt-free technical assistance to non-industrial and developing countries
The Global Community was looking for 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, but there it was all along right on our eyes. The Earth Court of Justice will be asked to decide on the debt be changed into an actual tax to be paid by the rich nations to the poor nations, and to decide on the amount of tax to be paid. Developing nations will then be able to start rebuilding their communities as per the Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Global Constitution. They will not have to satisfy the economic needs and wishes of the rich nations. The Earth Court of Justice will also be asked to rule illegal the activities of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO unless they become a part of a greater whole such as the Earth Ministry of Financial Institutions, a part of Earth Government. These institutions will be controlled by the greater whole.

Article 8:    Good global governance
The quality of Earth governance is reflected in each local community worldwide. Earth Government shall show leadership by creating a global civil ethic within our ways of life. The Global Constitution describes all values needed for good global governance: mutual respect, tolerance, respect for life, justice for all everywhere, integrity, and caring. The Scale of Human and Earth Rights has become an inner truth and the benchmark of the millennium in how everyone sees all values.

Governance of the Earth will make the rule of arbitrary power--economic (WTO, FTAA, EU, world financial institutions), political, or military (NATO)-- subjected to the rule of law within the global civil society, the human family. Justice is for everyone and is everywhere, a universal constant. Justice is without borders.

Proper Earth governance requires to reform the United Nations, World Trade Organization, World Bank, IMF, E.U., NAFTA, FTAA, all world financial institutions, and to centralize them under Earth Government, and these organizations will be asked to pay a global tax to be administered by Earth Government.

Article 9:    A tobin tax as a powerful instrument of the promotion of sustainable development
Earth Government is making a strong case in favour of the introduction of a specific type of tobin tax as a powerful instrument of the promotion of sustainable development, both directly as well as indirectly. Indirectly, it can discourage financial speculation and currency crises with their devastating effects on countries; directly, as a tax, the proceeds of it can be used as an alternative source of sustainable development finance in order to promote the establishment of international public goods. The original Tobin tax proposal can be made into a feasible instrument by engineering it as a two-tier tax (the so-called Spahn version of the Tobin tax), with tax collection through the international settlements system.

The global economy can be affected by the deregulation in the movement of capital and thus by speculation. Money is made off tiny fluctuations in the relative prices of currencies. Speculation makes it possible for huge amounts of money to be transferred half-way around the world in a matter of seconds. Whereas world trade associated with actual goods and services is estimated at 7 trillion dollars (US) a year, speculation is estimated at 1.5 trillion dollar a day. If a country's economy starts to slow, billions of dollars can be transferred out of the country instantaneously, which can significantly affect its economy and the people. This has been the case in 1997 of a number of East Asia countries. They were bankrupted by speculation. The people were enormously affected for the worst. Speculation can exert tremendous pressure on the internal politics of a country. It can bankrupt a country's economy.

Article 10:    The debt of developing countries was really a global tax developed countries had to pay to developing countries
The Earth Court of Justice is required to rule that the debt of the poor nations or 'developing nations' to the rich nations was in actuality a form of global tax and therefore the poor or 'developing' nations dont have to pay it back. In fact poor nations should expect way more money as tax by the rich nations and not as loans.

The state of the world today is the result of a specific set of interlocking institutions: the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. These institutions are designed to generate massive wealth for the few and poverty for the rest. The same people who make the decisions in government and corporation make the profit. They create a tight concentration of power. Together they are a form of anti-government whose only goal is profit. The IMF, through Structural Adjustment Programs, now directly runs the economies of over 70 countries. That means that about 1000 economists and bureaucrats control the economic policies for 1.4 billion people in these countries. That is a form of anti-government. The people that profit most from the global economy are white people. The people who are most oppressed by the global economy are people of colour. Racism and sexism have become the norm. The entire planet is in a state of low intensity civil war. The ruling elite profit off of the exploitation of the rest of the world.

 








Home

 

Back to top of page


Send mail to GlobalConstitution@telus.net with questions or comments about the Global Constitution. Your mail
Send comments about website to webmaster at gdufour@globalcommunitywebnet.com Webmaster

Copyright © 2005 Global Community WebNet Ltd.Global Community WebNet Ltd