Democratic World Federalists
Encyclopedia
Democratic World Federalists, a civil society organization based in San Francisco with supporters worldwide, advocates a democratic federal system of world government in order to end war and crimes against humanity and to promote “a just world community and the preservation of a livable and healthful global environment” through the development of enforceable world law. It is affiliated with the Coalition for Democratic World Government, the Community of World Citizens, and the World Federalist Movement
.
Far from world federation being a phenomenon of the 20th Century, among intellectuals around the world Dante, Penn, Paine, Kant, and K’ang emphasized the necessity of unity and peace of humankind.
Democracy, as the principle for legitimizing the government of the people, began to flourish in ancient Athens. It developed further in the city-states of the Swiss confederation and the town meetings in colonial New England. By the 1780s a democratic federation was created in the United States following the American Revolution, with Tom Paine, Thomas Jefferson
, James Madison
, and James Wilson
as leading proponents through the Declaration of Independence
and the Federal Constitution
. Soon afterwards, the French Revolution produced the French Republic and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
, as it, too, attempted to end rule by monarchy, landed aristocracy, and clergy but unified competing interests into a unitary state.
During the 1930s and 1940s numerous attempts were made locally, nationally, and regionally by courageous pioneers to prevent the outbreak and spread of war and to mobilize initiatives and forces favoring a World Federation. In 1938—1939 Federal Union was launched in the United Kingdom and the U.S.A.
In April 1942 high-school student Harris Wofford Jr.
, formed the Student Federalists
. It rapidly grew into a national organization with thousands of members from secondary and university students, later including young veterans returning from World War-II. (Several were among the founders of Democratic World Federalists sixty years later.)
In 1945-46 a Hungarian news agency head, Emery Reves
, published the seminal The Anatomy of Peace
, which declared that sovereignty lay with the citizens, who could delegate powers to governments at all levels, including the global level. This turned on thousands to the idea of a world federation.
In February 1947 a number of world federalist and world government representatives met in Asheville, North Carolina, and formed the United World Federalists.
In 1946-47 representatives of early world federalist groups met first in Luxembourg, then in Montreux, Switzerland, formed the World Movement for World Federal Government, and issued the Montreux Declaration, which declared the need for world federal government if wars were ever to be ended.
and its Executive Director Robert Walker convinced the State Legislature to pass the California Resolution, the first of several post-war state resolutions calling for the United States to participate in a world constitutional convention.
In 1965, during the 20th anniversary of the drafting of the U.N. Charter in San Francisco, the World Congress of the World Association of World Federalists (successor to W.M.W.F.G.) was held in San Francisco.
In 1983 the World Federalist Association was organized from the chapters and members of the old United World Federalists, and the Northern California region became active again with a staffed office first in Oakland, then in San Francisco.
In 1989 and throughout the 1990s activists in Northern California supported Philadelphia-II and its sister organization, One World, a movement for direct democracy leading to a world constitutional convention through the citizens’ initiative.
Since 1992 D.W.F. has published the quarterly Toward Democratic World Federation, which provides articles from leading world federalist scholars, activist citizens and like-minded organizations on World Government and related current topics. (To access T.D.W.F. articles in D.W.F.’s e-archives click here.)
In 1993 when the World Federalist Association was promoting United Nations Reform, its Northern California branch played a major role in organizing a hearing in San Francisco of Congressman Jim Leach’s U.S. Commission on Improving the Effectiveness of the United Nations. This took place in the Green Room of the War Memorial Building, where the Charter of the U.N. had been negotiated in 1945.
In 1995 W.F.A.’s Northern California branch hosted the XXIInd World Congress of the World Federalist Movement (successor to WAWF), and organized an all-day forum on “Restructuring the United Nations: Achieving Democratic Global Governance for the 21st Century” with speakers from fourteen countries.
During the 1990s a committee of W.F.M. Councillors from 11 countries on four continents headed by one from Northern California produced a pamphlet of democratic world federalist principles, which D.W.F. published as Federalism and the Right of People to Self-Government.
In 2004-05 activists of the former W.F.A./N.Ca. incorporated as a civil society educational body (coming under Section 501(c)(3) of the I.R.S. code) and, with citizens from a dozen countries active in its office and/or governance, it took the name Democratic World Federalists, as it attracted supporters of world federation from throughout the United States and on five continents.
In 2005 D.W.F. helped promote the launching of One World Democracy, written by two of its supporters.
Today, over sixty years after its foundation, D.W.F. promotes a democratic world federation and addresses contemporary global problems by e-mail, a quarterly publication, and outreach to media, politicians, educational institutions and libraries, and other civil society organizations.
Rather than using force to solve international conflicts, political and judicial structures and procedures would be used. Although democratically-elected national governments would still be in charge of domestic affairs at the country level, world courts with enforceable judgments would be able to try perpetrators of international and world-level crimes.
Since its beginning, D.W.F. has been promoting a better understanding of good government at all levels, up to the global level in the form of a democratic world federation.
World Federalist Movement
The World Federalist Movement is a global citizens movement with member and associate organizations around the world. The WFM International Secretariat is based in New York City across from the United Nations headquarters...
.
Antecedents of a democratic, federal system of world government
Although the organization was incorporated as an independent public-benefit educational organization in California on 28 January 2004, its origins go back in history.Far from world federation being a phenomenon of the 20th Century, among intellectuals around the world Dante, Penn, Paine, Kant, and K’ang emphasized the necessity of unity and peace of humankind.
Democracy, as the principle for legitimizing the government of the people, began to flourish in ancient Athens. It developed further in the city-states of the Swiss confederation and the town meetings in colonial New England. By the 1780s a democratic federation was created in the United States following the American Revolution, with Tom Paine, Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
, and James Wilson
James Wilson
James Wilson was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Wilson was elected twice to the Continental Congress, and was a major force in drafting the United States Constitution...
as leading proponents through the Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
and the Federal Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
. Soon afterwards, the French Revolution produced the French Republic and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is a fundamental document of the French Revolution, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid...
, as it, too, attempted to end rule by monarchy, landed aristocracy, and clergy but unified competing interests into a unitary state.
During the 1930s and 1940s numerous attempts were made locally, nationally, and regionally by courageous pioneers to prevent the outbreak and spread of war and to mobilize initiatives and forces favoring a World Federation. In 1938—1939 Federal Union was launched in the United Kingdom and the U.S.A.
In April 1942 high-school student Harris Wofford Jr.
Harris Wofford
Harris Llewellyn Wofford served as a Democratic U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania from 1991 to 1995 and as the fifth president of Bryn Mawr College, and is a noted advocate of national service and volunteering...
, formed the Student Federalists
Student Federalists
The Student Federalists was an organization that existed in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s to promote U.S. support for federal world government amongst students and youth...
. It rapidly grew into a national organization with thousands of members from secondary and university students, later including young veterans returning from World War-II. (Several were among the founders of Democratic World Federalists sixty years later.)
In 1945-46 a Hungarian news agency head, Emery Reves
Emery Reves
Emery Reves was a writer, publisher, literary agent and advocate of world federalism.-Youth:Reves was born in Bácsföldvár, Hungary, and educated in Berlin, Zurich and Paris.-Publishing career and Winston Churchill:...
, published the seminal The Anatomy of Peace
The Anatomy of Peace
The Anatomy of Peace was a book by Emery Reves, first published in 1946, which expressed the world federalist sentiments shared by Albert Einstein and many others in the late 1940s, in the period immediately following World War II...
, which declared that sovereignty lay with the citizens, who could delegate powers to governments at all levels, including the global level. This turned on thousands to the idea of a world federation.
In February 1947 a number of world federalist and world government representatives met in Asheville, North Carolina, and formed the United World Federalists.
In 1946-47 representatives of early world federalist groups met first in Luxembourg, then in Montreux, Switzerland, formed the World Movement for World Federal Government, and issued the Montreux Declaration, which declared the need for world federal government if wars were ever to be ended.
Activism by Northern California World Federalists and Democratic World Federalists
In 1949, a team including the President of the United World Federalists of California Alan CranstonAlan Cranston
Alan MacGregor Cranston was an American journalist and Democratic Senator from California.-Education:Cranston earned his high school diploma from the old Mountain View High School, where among other things, he was a track star...
and its Executive Director Robert Walker convinced the State Legislature to pass the California Resolution, the first of several post-war state resolutions calling for the United States to participate in a world constitutional convention.
In 1965, during the 20th anniversary of the drafting of the U.N. Charter in San Francisco, the World Congress of the World Association of World Federalists (successor to W.M.W.F.G.) was held in San Francisco.
In 1983 the World Federalist Association was organized from the chapters and members of the old United World Federalists, and the Northern California region became active again with a staffed office first in Oakland, then in San Francisco.
In 1989 and throughout the 1990s activists in Northern California supported Philadelphia-II and its sister organization, One World, a movement for direct democracy leading to a world constitutional convention through the citizens’ initiative.
Since 1992 D.W.F. has published the quarterly Toward Democratic World Federation, which provides articles from leading world federalist scholars, activist citizens and like-minded organizations on World Government and related current topics. (To access T.D.W.F. articles in D.W.F.’s e-archives click here.)
In 1993 when the World Federalist Association was promoting United Nations Reform, its Northern California branch played a major role in organizing a hearing in San Francisco of Congressman Jim Leach’s U.S. Commission on Improving the Effectiveness of the United Nations. This took place in the Green Room of the War Memorial Building, where the Charter of the U.N. had been negotiated in 1945.
In 1995 W.F.A.’s Northern California branch hosted the XXIInd World Congress of the World Federalist Movement (successor to WAWF), and organized an all-day forum on “Restructuring the United Nations: Achieving Democratic Global Governance for the 21st Century” with speakers from fourteen countries.
During the 1990s a committee of W.F.M. Councillors from 11 countries on four continents headed by one from Northern California produced a pamphlet of democratic world federalist principles, which D.W.F. published as Federalism and the Right of People to Self-Government.
In 2004-05 activists of the former W.F.A./N.Ca. incorporated as a civil society educational body (coming under Section 501(c)(3) of the I.R.S. code) and, with citizens from a dozen countries active in its office and/or governance, it took the name Democratic World Federalists, as it attracted supporters of world federation from throughout the United States and on five continents.
In 2005 D.W.F. helped promote the launching of One World Democracy, written by two of its supporters.
Today, over sixty years after its foundation, D.W.F. promotes a democratic world federation and addresses contemporary global problems by e-mail, a quarterly publication, and outreach to media, politicians, educational institutions and libraries, and other civil society organizations.
Principles & Objectives
The goal of D.W.F. is to end war and maintain peace, guarantee human rights, promote a just world community, and cope with environmental degradation and the squandering of natural resources. This can best be achieved through establishing a democratic federal world government. (For D.W.F.’s purposes and objectives, click here.)Rather than using force to solve international conflicts, political and judicial structures and procedures would be used. Although democratically-elected national governments would still be in charge of domestic affairs at the country level, world courts with enforceable judgments would be able to try perpetrators of international and world-level crimes.
Since its beginning, D.W.F. has been promoting a better understanding of good government at all levels, up to the global level in the form of a democratic world federation.