World Federalism Is The Way Forward!

The global democratic deficit discussed above means that humanity itself does not have a platform upon which to take democratic decisions on issues that are of enormous significance to the lives of everyone. Global issues such as climate change, financial crises, inequality and threats of violence are not, and cannot be, adequately addressed by the existing framework of international institutions. The current inter-governmental institutions are terribly undemocratic. The UN gives each government one vote regardless of the size of their populations, and regardless of whether these governments are actually accountable to their governed populations or not. And in any case, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (USA, Russia, UK, France and China) have a veto power over any decision taken, thus massively limiting any democracy that might exist within the UN system. Other inter-governmental institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO, are even less democratic, with the richer countries systematically having more influence than the poorer countries.

World Federalists believe that to build a truly democratic global polity all states should cede some of their powers and sovereignty to a democratically elected supra-national global authority.  The powers of this world government will be limited, and there will be numerous checks and balances by the member states and by the citizens of the world. As in other federal systems, a fundamental principle for the structure of the global federation will be subsidiarity, which means that any decision should be taken at the lowest adequate level. Thus, for example, while local states and municipalities should have the power to decide on local matters, larger issues which influence people across state boundaries or which have global significance should be decided in the relevant regional or global forum. The addition of a global level of democratic decision-making is what can truly change our world for the better.