Let's build "regional" federations together!

Let's build "regional" federations together!

ABSTRACT: If the ultimate goal of all democrats is to form a United States of the World, the New Party has to campaign for the creation, or the democratization, of federal world sub-systems, on a "regional" level, today! Besides, the Radical Party's proposal of presenting and approving legislation can be put into action, and verified, at this level immediately.
(The Party New, n.3, August 1991)


The struggle to preserve and uphold peace, to help underdeveloped countries, and to protect the eco-system can only be undertaken successfully by a world government. Even if it is not possible to create such a government at the moment, we must nevertheless set up a series of world sub-systems at a "regional" level, based on a federal system.
A Federation is the only political system that, from an historical and juridical point of view, provides for a union of States that subordinate power to a centralized government. A democratic federalist government is the only one that guarantees each of the States - and also local government bodies - under its authority, maximum autonomy and powers of self-government, as they themselves only delegate certain powers and functions to the federal institutions, and maintain total control over all the others. The Federation only intervenes when its action will prove more useful than any taken by the single States.
However, a Federation has to be based on both a democratic and juridical relationship between the central government and member States, and on equality between the States. These States also have to have equal representation in the federal institutions.
This was not the case with the Soviet and Yugoslav Federations. In these countries, the federal system was not founded on equal rights. Instead, the central government wielded tremendous power over the individual States, a power deriving from the strength of the Communist Party which had prevented any kind of constitutional reform from taking place.
The New Party's principal objectives are: to help the European Community develop into a real Federation; to favour the transformation of de facto Federations either into legal Federations, or ones founded on a different structure - the new Union treaty in fact provides for this - and the creation of new Federations in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.
In closing, it would perhaps be opportune to remember that every "social contract", every institutional body, from the UN to the regional federation, and the three "subsidiary" areas of government -local, national, federal - has to function according to the fundamental laws of democracy, and the democratic rights of every person, every citizen, regardless of race, religion, language, or opinion. And these rights must be rigorously upheld in the social, economic and political order of every country.