Revelations

Part 6 of this series

Reshaping the International Order Part 6

"To obtain an equitable international social and economic order efforts will to be made by everyone... every single member of the world's population." - RIO: Reshaping the International Order, 1976 (p100)

This article examines a variety of issues derived from a report to The Club of Rome entitled RIO: Reshaping the International Order. These issues include legal changes for a new social order, regional unions, global solidarity, the East-West dialectic, a standing United Nations Peace Force and the redefinition of rights and freedom.

The Club of Rome is a premiere think tank composed of approximately 100 members including leading scientists, philosophers, political advisors, former politicians and many other influential bureaucrats and technocrats. This series of articles describes the major conclusions of the 1976 book Rio: Reshaping the International Order: A Report to the Club of Rome coordinated by Nobel Laureate Jan Tinbergen. The RIO report "addresses the following question: what new international order should be recommended to the world's statesmen and social groups so as to meet, to the extent practically and realistically possible, the urgent needs of today's population and the probable needs of future generations?"

Part 1 of this series gives an overview of the proposed new international order described by the RIO report as "humanistic socialism". This includes: collective neighbourhood armies, a fully planned world economy, global free trade, public international enterprises, proposed changes in consumption patterns among other topics. Changes to the financial system including international taxation and the creation of a World Treasury, World Central Bank and World Currency are examined in part 2. Part 3 addresses the redefinition of sovereignty from "territorial sovereignty" to "functional sovereignty" as well as the use of the concept of the "common heritage of mankind" to gain international control of not just the oceans, atmosphere and outer space but also all material and non-material resources. Part 4 discusses the generation of public opinion and the use of white coated propagandists. The creation of a World Food Authority and its use for population control is examined in part 5.

Legal Foundation of the New Order

From RIO: Reshaping the International Order:

[Italicised text is original emphasis and bolded text is added by author.]

"The legal challenge posed by the new international order can be viewed as the transformation of a system of law based upon Western European culture into the law of the world community. ... The [legal] treaty would not represent an attempt to negotiate a new world order in 'one go'. ... In that it would lay down the 'rules of the international game', the framework treaty might resemble an international Treaty of Rome, although inevitably much less detailed. ... In addition to laying the legal basis for the creation of a new world order, the framework treaty, which could be negotiated within the U.N. system,..." -114

"The Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States already lays down the fundamental principles which should govern international economic relations. The transformation, over time, of the Charter into the proposed framework treaty would greatly facilitate the establishment of a new international order. If this is to be done, some more specific provisions, omitted from the Charter, should be considered for inclusion in the framework treaty. Such provisions could include:

(a) All States shall facilitate access to technology and scientific information;

(b) All States have the obligation to expand and liberalize international trade;

(c) Ocean space and the atmosphere beyond precise limits of national jurisdiction are the common heritage of all mankind: as such they shall be administered exclusively for peaceful purposes through international mechanisms with the participation of all States and their resources shall be exploited with particular regard to the interest of poor countries;

(d) Developed countries have the duty to ensure that net flows of real resources to poor countries shall not be less than the targets established by the U.N. General Assembly;...

(g) All States shall accept an international currency to be created by an international authority;

(h) All States shall accept the evolution of a world organization with the necessary power to plan, to make decisions and to enforce them." - 117

"[Expansion of] the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States... should not be envisage until major elements of the new order have been adopted by international agreement." - 123

Regional Unions in the New Order

"Regional Integration... should be encouraged as a way:... (iii) to exploit more fully the opportunities for closer integration - up to monetary, economic and political union - that will be possible, for a long time to come, only between countries whose close interdependence on one another can generate political support for, and acceptance of, the partial mergers of 'national sovereignty' indispensable for such beneficial integration of their policies and institutions." - 208

"Regional integration and harmonization can help to the extent that it widens markets and avoids wasteful competition for capital; that the manufacturing industries correspond to regionally planned priorities and are effectively controlled by the countries entering into the integration process." - 238

Global Solidarity in the New Order

"These changes call for massive innovations in and the redirection of systems of formal and informal education. A new world can only be built through solidarity of the world's people and the participation of large masses of people - hundreds of millions, not hundreds of thousands. The development of global awareness is a prerequisite to the peaceful creation of a new world order. It can even be said that the cultural and educational upgrading which global awareness implies, entails - or is equal to - the new order." - 77

"they [International Institutions] must be integrated into an all embracing approach aimed at facing the global challenge of the world of today. This approach should be guided by three fundamental objectives, i.e. greater democracy, greater efficiency and greater solidarity." - 43

"Since the rules of the game will have to be changed to create a new international order, a popularly-based desire for solidarity with developing countries must be established in the developed countries..." - 259

"Solidarity must also permeate society as a whole and engender the feeling of common interest and brotherhood... Without it, it will be impossible to mobilize the capacity for imagination and to achieve the real will required to share society's resources." - 62

"... environmental awareness means in reality the introduction of the long term, of the diachronic solidarity with future generations. To the extent to which the protection of the environment may entail costs, these should be looked at as an investment in the future, offset as always by a sacrifice in current consumption and in most cases justified on economic grounds by the reduced cost of preventive actions compared to the costs of remedial ones." - 162

"It is in the sphere of human environment that the interdependencies between nations are perhaps most clearly evident." - 32

East-West Dialectic

"As for joint industrial ventures, recent data show that the contracts signed with Western enterprises greatly outnumber the arrangements between the Eastern European partners themselves. According to a Soviet publication, thirty projects involving multilateral agreements have been concluded since 1971 among CMEA countries, whereas in 1974 and 1975 the Soviet Union alone signed an almost equal number of contracts of cooperation with large enterprises from West Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Finland, Japan and the United States, some of them running into billions of dollars... Over-all trade compulsions and competition in world markets in the present international system have grown to the point of making interdependence the law of the world. It is a factor so strong that it overpowers even ideological differences: joint ventures between centrally planned nations and large capitalist enterprises are emerging every day." - 80

The Standing Army of the New Order

"Ensuring World Security:... The planned and phased reduction in world defence spending, the reinforcement of the U.N. Peace Force together with a World Disarmament Agency..." - 122

"Very few countries have so far pledged their support of and contribution to a standing UN Peace Force. Every effort should be made to promote progress in establishing such a force as a means for peace keeping..." - 304

"Even 'sky spies', if operated by a world agency rather than a nation-state, have a clear potential for international peace-keeping." - 42

Rights and Freedom in the New Order

"The fundamental aim formulated above has its roots in the conviction that all human beings have an equal right to a life of dignity and to satisfaction in their threefold capacities as citizen, producer and consumer." - 61

"Freedom: History has shown that an increase in the freedom of one individual or of a nation can result in the reduction of another's freedom in the same and different realm. Freedom must thus be viewed as the maximum compatible with that of others." - 61

"As a counterpart to these rights, a number of duties must be accepted, especially the duty to use one's capacities in the interest of an adequate level of production..." - 63

[1] Quotes from Jan Tinbergen, RIO: Reshaping the International Order: A Report to the Club of Rome (1976). ISBN 0-525-04340-3

Brent Jessop
Knowledge Driven Revolution.com

Labels: A Glimpse into the New Order