Home -> Overview
Overview of the Human Union Movement
The Human Union Movement supports the establishment of a Human Union based on principles that are consistent with the human legitimacy principle: In essence this principle holds that a political system becomes more legitimate the more it acts in a manner consistent with all of humanity having an equal opportunity to have access to the basic political benefits necessary for human development such as freedom of conscience and expression, democracy, access to education and knowledge, economic development, and political equality.
We believe the human legitimacy principle provides a fundamental guide both to political justice and how to build a political system. Policies which violate the human legitimacy principle by only allowing a sub section of humanity to enjoy a class of benefits have always led to conflict in the past and have always failed.
For instance slavery violated the human legitimacy principle by denying slaves an equal opportunity to develop with other human beings. Discrimination based on race and religion likewise violate the human legitimacy principle. Whenever the human legitimacy principle is violated conflict eventually occurs because it is unjust that some people are excluded. Solutions to such conflict can only succeed if they respect the human legitimacy principle by treating people equally, e.g. by abolishing slavery, rejecting racial and religious discrimination and so on.
Today the greatest violation of the human legitimacy principle occurs when national governments try to limit benefits to a sub group of humanity, their own citizens. Like all previous violations of the human legitimacy principle this leads to conflict; thus we see refugees and illegal immigrants as borders are blocked, economic inequality as national economies compete with each other, starvation in some areas while rich countries only try to get richer, environmental degradation as national wealth is put ahead of human concerns, and so on in so many areas of human endeavor.
We cannot solve these problems by allowing the world to continue as it is. The solution to these and so many other problems today can only be found by building a new political system; one which respects the human legitimacy principle and deals with global problems globally. We call this better system a Human Union.
To achieve such a Human Union, we advocate a process which learns from, but does not merely copy, the European Union. The new Human Union would have voluntary membership, could be started by as few as one Country declaring it was willing to negotiate with others to form a Human Union, and would develop its internal rules based on democratic consultation with its members. Such a Human Union could start as a very small organization, as the EU started, and slowly expand. Members of the Human Union Movement will urge the governments of their home countries to make a Human Union Declaration and start the process of building a Human Union.
Although we recommend this Human Union path we do not believe it is the only possible path towards developing policies which respect the human legitimacy principle. It is possible to envision the creation of new global governance structures such a as a world parliament or a federal world government, or the gradual development of new forms of governance such as democratic global governance networks. The Human Union Movement will support all efforts to bring our world closer to a legitimate world governance system, whether such efforts are initiated by the Human Union Movement or other globalist political groups.
The Human Union Movement also respectfully acknowledges that many thinkers and activists within the environmentalist, human rights, and global justice movements have developed an internationalist perspective and offers to both support and work with them to develop a better international political system.
The Human Union Movement happily acknowledges its indebtedness to a long tradition of thinkers that have advocated the cause of cosmopolitanism, and invites current cosmopolitan academicians and authors to join the Human Union Movement, and help develop better arguments and proposals that can help bring about a Human Union.
The Human Union Movement website is trying to build a global community of supporters and activists with the aim of facilitating mutual support and exchange of ideas as we try to move the world closer to acknowledging the human legitimacy principle. We provides a range of social networking resources to achieve this, such as this wiki site, discussion groups and forums, personal pages, blogs, messaging systems, etc. We are not a political party or corporation and have no formal structure or membership system, we are simply a movement of people, and we hope to attract more people and make this a bigger movement.
We plan to work together with all people of goodwill to develop a global political system which respects rather than thwarts our common humanity.
Join us in building a Human Union for the 21st century.