International Ethical, Scientific and Political Collegium, also called Collegium International is a high-level group created in 2002.

Origin

The International Ethical, Political and Scientific Collegium is committed, according to its founders "to respond intelligently and forcefully to the decisive challenges facing humankind". An appeal calling for the Collegium's establishment was made public in February 2002 in New York and its membership was officially presented on 2 April 2003 in Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 before the European Parliament

European Parliament

The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...

.

Collegium members and associate members, signatories of the Appeal, are scientists, philosophers and present and former Heads of State and Government.

Composition

Co-chaired by Michel Rocard

Michel Rocard

Michel Rocard is a French politician, member of the Socialist Party . He served as Prime Minister under François Mitterrand from 1988 to 1991, during which he created the Revenu minimum d'insertion , a social minimum welfare program for indigents, and led the Matignon Accords regarding the status...

, former Prime Minister of France, and Milan Kucan

Milan Kucan

Milan Kučan is a Slovenian politician and statesman. He was the first President of Slovenia.-Early life and political beginnings:...

, who at the time of the Collegium's founding was President of the Republic of Slovenia, the group's members include: former Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Fernando Henrique Cardoso

Fernando Henrique Cardoso – also known by his initials FHC – was the 34th President of the Federative Republic of Brazil for two terms from January 1, 1995 to December 31, 2002. He is an accomplished sociologist, professor and politician...

 of Brazil and Alpha Oumar Konaré

Alpha Oumar Konaré

Alpha Oumar Konaré was the President of Mali for two five-year terms , and was Chairperson of the African Union Commission from 2003 to 2008.-Scholarly career:...

 of Mali; Ruth Dreifuss

Ruth Dreifuss

Ruth Dreifuss is a Swiss politician affiliated with the Social Democratic Party. She was a member of the Swiss Federal Council from 1993 to 2002, representing the Canton of Geneva)....

, former Federal Counsellor of Switzerland; philosophers Edgar Morin

Edgar Morin

Edgar Morin is a French philosopher and sociologist born Edgar Nahoum in Paris on July 8, 1921. He is of Judeo-Spanish origin. He is known for the transdisciplinarity of his works.- Biography :...

, Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...

 and Jean-Pierre Dupuy; international law professor Mireille Delmas-Marty; Mary Robinson

Mary Robinson

Mary Therese Winifred Robinson served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate...

, former President of Ireland and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen

Amartya Sen, CH is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members...

; as well as former Ambassador of France to the United Nations Stéphane Hessel

Stéphane Hessel

Stéphane Frédéric Hessel is a diplomat, ambassador, writer, concentration camp survivor, former French Resistance fighter and BCRA agent. Born German, he became a naturalised French citizen in 1939...

, who was also present at the creation of the United Nations itself, former ambassador of the USA William vanden Heuvel

William vanden Heuvel

William Jacobus vanden Heuvel is an attorney, businessman and author, as well as a former diplomat.He is the father of Katrina vanden Heuvel, longtime editor of The Nation magazine, and Wendy vanden Heuvel, children from his marriage to author/editor Jean Stein, the well-to-do daughter of Jules C...

.

Its Secretary General is Sacha Goldman, film producer.

Open letters, public meetings, conferences, etc.

• September 2004: Open letter to the candidates of the United States presidential election, 2004
  United States presidential election, 2004
  The United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...
  
  , President George W. Bush
  George W. Bush
  George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
  
   and Senator John Kerry
  John Kerry
  John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
  
  , published in The Nation
  The Nation
  The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
  
  , US-based weekly magazine
• March 2007: Roundtable in Geneva on the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights
• September 2007: Roundtable in Paris about Science and Politics

Declaration of Interdependence

The Collegium states its concerns in the Preamble to the Declaration of Interdependence:

Alerted by the dangers that threaten the equilibrium of the world and the future of humanity, the members of the International Ethical, Political and Scientific Collegium have identified four principal reasons as the origin of these dangers.

The first is a lack of orientation, vision or ethical practices in the exercise of political, economic, media, and technological power by those who hold it. Neither States nor multinational corporations nor other holders of effective power appear to express this vision. The United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

identified the objectives to be achieved in order to respond to the major challenges of the new century; however, its normative function is weakened by the fragmentation of competences, between the various international organizations, and by the absence of an integrated mechanism, such as a world human rights jurisdiction, which would control the effective and indivisible application of all fundamental rights, whether civil, political, economic, cultural and/or social.

This ethical weakness is all the more serious given that there is an increasing deficit of responsibility: as globalization occurs, power is concentrated, but responsibility becomes diluted. Today, effective power is disseminated between economic, political, media, social, cultural, intellectual and religious players, without clearly predetermining the conditions and means of their responsibility with regard to the peoples and citizens concerned.

The second is the growing impact on human beings and the ecosystems, of the physical, biological, and atmospheric degradation of our world, with consequences manifested in a sporadic manner through droughts (and consequent desertification), floods, cyclones, climatic changes and the threats of irreversible pollution. The programs advocated at the world Conferences of Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and Johannesburg in 2002 for dealing with such threats, already insufficient solutions in relation to the risks, are afterwards ignored or misinterpreted.

The third reason for alarm is the widening gulf between rich and poor, exemplified by the fact that more than two-thirds of the world's population today are deprived of their political, economic and cultural human rights, in contradiction with the promises that have been formulated by the international community since the adoption of the legal instruments drafted by the United Nations. Our primary indicators, which are principally monetary, are leading us towards a market society guided by pure economics. Globalization thus works to the detriment of the majority of humanity by destroying its ecological backbone. The informational mutation is failing to attain the promises that it has been holding. The weight accorded to true riches — those of intelligence and life — should however lead us to take the only possible route: a renaissance of ethical, ecological and anthropological fundamentals.

The fourth reason resides in the growing risks of war and terrorism, and in the absence of ways to curb rising violence and barbarity, which indicate that humanity today is principally threatened by its own inhumanity. However, the possibility of humanity's self-destruction makes it its own victim, while being in charge of its own history. The stakes of an ethical and spiritual responsibility are thus becoming major political issues that must be treated within the framework of a genuine dialogue between civilizations.

In order to come forward with a pertinent response to these risks and challenges — replacing science, economics and technology in the realm of means and not of ends - the construction of world civility requires an entity, which is not subject to the constraints of particular interests, to media obsession, or to short-term pressure. This established fact is now the driving force behind the creation of an International Ethical, Political and Scientific Collegium that has a quadruple function:

To be vigilant and alert regarding the principal risks faced by humanity;
To apply discernment, in particular ethical, as to the nature of these risks and the quality of the means which are necessary for dealing with them, without such means becoming themselves counter-productive;
To deliberate in the event of major conflicts, which call for an ethical framework;
To give advice to governments and international institutions (primarily the United Nations) in order to clarify their decision-making procedures.

An appeal for an acute awareness of world interdependence, an idea that was predominant during the drafting of the United Nations Charter, appears necessary. This appeal reflects the joint responsibilities of Statesmen and -women as well as of men and women relevant in the different fields that affect the life of the planet and the thinking of its people. These voices must also make themselves heard through the world network of civil society that has taken shape during the last decade.

As a follow-up to the Preamble of the Declaration of Rio which, for the first time, proclaimed that "the Earth, home of humanity, constitutes a whole denoted by interdependence", this appeal takes the form of a general Declaration, recalling that if interdependence has become a reality, it is also time to formulate it as a project.

External links

• Collegium International Official Website
• An Ethical Think-link By Sacha Goldman United Nations UN Chronicle 2004
• It's a Small Word After All by Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation, Sept.16, 2004
• Plenary Meeting of the International Ethical, Scientific and Political Collegium (13-14 October 2006)