Participants: James T. Ranney, Dr. Terence P. Amerasingh, Lord Reinhart, Dr. Glen Martin, Eugenia Almand, Fernando Ortiz Monasterio, Jose Luis Gutierrez Lozano, Luan Perez Quijada, Carolina Latorre, Yellow Horn, Peter Bentley, Rob Wheeler

1.     GLOBAL CONSTITUTION FORUM
2.     WORLD FEDERALISM

A political system is the end practical expression of a philosophical system of thought.

Well, yes and no. That's easier to believe if you're American, with the back-referenced myth of 'a country formed on ideas', but for most countries, a political system is an ongoing dialogue (and compromise) between evolving and competing systems of thought.

It's amusing, though, to see the amount of ignorance refracted through prejudice on display here. Apart from boltman, who deserves a pat on the back.

The EU constitutional project is an attempt to re-cast the multilateral framework of treaty obligations and conventions in terms of positive rights for citizens. Much of it is already encoded, but in a form that doesn't explicitly stipulate the entitlements of citizens.

While 'negative rights' constitutions have a certain elegance, they also throw up all sorts of scraps, particularly if those constitutions are awarded the status of holy writ; think, for instance, of the tortuous way in which the US Supreme Court finally acknowledged an 'implicit right to privacy'. Canada, for instance, has saved itself much of this -- the judicial equivalent of discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin -- by being unafraid to codify positive rights in its constitution.

You can find lots and lots of different constitutions online these days for comparison. Some of them aren't even dull. At least, many are less dull, for instance, than the Constitution of Alabama; or those other US state constitutions, which Americans, if they were to look a little closer, might have to accept as the long-winded, excessively detailed consequences of having a federal constitution that regards the business of regulating government as some kind of filthy task.

Back to top of page

Yellow Horn
Ed.D. (ABD)
Native American Risk and Resiliency
Charles Sturt University Australia
Sessional Lecturer, Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary
mosquitopoint2004@hotmail.com
web site: www.mosquitopoint.com

See Yellow Horn file for Papers and participation in several issues.

Back to top of page

Peter Bentley
Director, Environmental Protection - IAEW
Australia
senseadventures@yahoo.com.au
Mt. Warning Bed & Breakfast Retreat "Maya"
http://www.bigvolcano.com.au/custom/mtwarnbb/
Member of:
Northern NSW Ecotourism Association (NNETA), and
Wildlife Tourism Australia (WTA)
See Peter Bentley file for Papers and participation in several issues.

Back to top of page

Rob Wheeler
Coordinator, Coalition for a World Parliament and Global Democracy
What issue(s)? Creating a Participatory Model of Global Governance and including a much more active role for organized civil society
Means of establishing the World Parliament and of gaining mass support
Scaling back the discussions to a manageable level of content until hundreds of thousands or millions of people begin to support the initiative
Phone: 1-
Robineagle@worldcitizen.org
www.world-democracy.org
See Rob Wheeler file for Papers and participation in several issues.

 

[ Home ]

Back to top of page

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

Copyright © 2005 Global Community WebNet Ltd.