The construction of a united states of the world, of an international community of states, is not primarily about diminishing the sovereignty of states but it is about diminishing that sovereignty when its power is used to deny its citizens universal human rights due to anyone anywhere. For example, the supreme court of the state of Massachusetts ruled in 1994 that the state did not have the right to deny marriage to any two people of any sex. It diminished a state’s sovereignty justly and since then many states in the US and the world have followed the court’s lead because there are certain things that states should not have the right to do. States can still be sovereign without being fully sovereign if they give up functions that can be best done in common with other states like war and defense, like the regulation of interstate commerce, like the dispensation of universal justice by a supreme court based on universal human rights, and so forth. As a matter of fact, no state anywhere is now totally independent and as the world economy develops globally states need to renounce powers they do not need and that are better exercised by a central democratic government of a worldwide union of states.
Multinational corporations have been for years seeking special rights for their activities in states. They are all fundamentally against the sovereign powers of the foreign states where they operate. They have a legitimate right to limit state sovereignty but they should not be the only element in society that benefits by gaining rights against states. Every citizen rich and poor should benefit. Multinational corporations have acquired the right to enter any state and operate anywhere. Every citizen everywhere in the world is entitled to the same right and it should be granted them by states joining together in a universal union of states so that all people can live and work and have full political rights in any state whatsoever simply by taking up residence in it.
An extreme example of an unjust usurpation of rights against states is now before us. In the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty, TPP, among 12 Pacific Rim states, included in the agreement is a radical diminishing of sovereign power. Under the Investor-State Dispute Settlement, ISDS, multinational corporations can challenge the policies and regulations of host-country governments. Foreign companies can appeal to a three-person tribunal that is not bound by laws of the host-country. There is no appeal from the tribunal’s decision and only foreign companies can use ISDS! States should not make laws that violate universal human rights but in this treaty multinational corporations are demanding that they give up the right to regulate them which is an unjust usurpation of state sovereignty. Such treaties have nothing to do with the global rights and interests of individuals and everything to do with the global rights and profits of corporations. President Obama is trying to force the treaty through the lame-duck session of the American Congress in November after the presidential election. The limitation of state sovereignty is an ongoing process. We should stand behind and encourage the process for the universal good of humanity and not simply for more rights and excessive profits for multinational corporations.
Daniel McNeill
Daniel McNeill’s books are shown at his author’s page.
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