Peter Singer ends his book One World with the following paragraph:

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are celebrated for the voyages of discovery that proved that the
world is round. The eighteenth century saw the first proclamations of universal human rights. The
twentieth century’s conquest of space made it possible for a human being to look at our planet from a
point not on it, an so to see it, literally, as one world. Now the twenty-first century faces the task of
developing a suitable form of government for that single world. It is a daunting moral and intellectual
challenge, but one we cannot refuse to take up. The future of the world depends on how well we meet
it.

And so I would like to help set about meeting this challenge. The only suitable form
of government it seems prima facie would have to be one that is self-determined.
The people in it need to represent the interests of those that have voted them into
the position of power.

The concept of sovereignty established at the Peace of Westphalia and widely

followed in Western civilization has been replaced. We could call it global
sovereignty, for it is really what we mean. We mean that for the state, the
sovereignty is recognized by other states (preferably with constraints issued on who
exactly would qualify for the condition of being a sovereign). This has meant in
practical terms however a great reduction in the rights of sovereigns over the last
five hundred years.

We also mean by global sovereignty the sovereignty of some future group of

peoples or constitutions that will be the next transition from the Hobbesian state of
nature that the global situation has been in since the peace of Westphalia. It is
unclear at present who this new sovereign will be, or what it will be like, or even if it
will be. I do not think the third question is actually a serious question because I see
no practical alternative plan to a global sovereign with the ability to enforce certain
laws (perhaps laws against genocide, laws against terrorism). It is assumed that
the Hobbesian global individuals (as groups of people as represented in some polis
that is sufficiently self-determined) on the global state of nature would find it
rational to seek peace but be prepared for war and to see that his fellow global
individuals are similar in nature to him, seeking their interest first. For many
hundreds of years, perhaps thousands of years, this is what the legitimate
sovereign did, he traded security for obedience. It made sense for those in the
continuous state of war to hand over their right to do whatever they pleased so long
as they got some protection. This was motivated in part by even the largest among
them understanding that the weakest can still kill him, he has to rest at some point.
We have reached this stage globally, between global individuals. We now
understand that even the strongest among our global individuals can be severely
damaged by the weakest among us.

No, I think it all but clear there will be a global sovereign in place with the moral,
legal and practical authority to act under certain circumstances, i.e. great
humanitarian disasters, genocide, sexual slavery, terrorism. But what should this
global sovereign be? What should its goals be? World peace? At what cost? Justice?
By whose standards? Singer argues persuasively that for world justice to even
approach the realm of the possible, world poverty must be eradicated. If the richest
900 million people in the worlds richest nations each gave one percent of their
income to legitimate aid agencies, then world hunger would disappear in fifteen
years. So do the developed nations owe the lesser fortunate nations anything,
especially if the luckier of the nations is simply that, lucky. They happen to live in a
geographic region that supports life easily, like the American breadbasket across
the United States.

The new sovereignty is really the age old sovereign desire to rule over oneself. This
desire to rule over oneself is discussed by Socrates in his exhortation to ‘Know
Thyself’ and by By creating a world of self-determined individuals we can achieve
world peace. How to get self-determined? Use time zones. We could call it the
United Time Zones of the Earth or UTZE. The idea is that each time zone is full of
different peoples from different hemispheres and certainly different countries and
communities within the Time Zone. The UTZE should look like the US Congress: a
House for the proportionate representation for a given Time Zones population and a
Senate where perhaps six or so members from each Time Zone are elected. That
this plan would of course cause radical change is significant to the idea. It would
cause a radical redirection for the human species to start thinking of themselves as
individuals of the planet, not as citizens of any particular state, but as humans on
the planet voting for a direct representative voice at the UTZE. I do not propose
this organization handle all or even most disputes between states or groups of
people however they may be formed. This organizations main goal should be the
security of the members of each of the Time Zones. And it would be this
organization’s job to raise a military that could intervene in any of the groups of
people on the planet if deemed necessary by a two thirds majority of the UTZE.
These would be acts so grievous that they shock the moral conscience of mankind.
Most political problems can and should be handled locally, or as the lowest level of
government necessary to solve the problem. Traffic violations don’t need the
President’s attention. But certain things, have and do.

The United Nations has proved that part of this model can work. The basic problem
of the United Nations is that it is conceptually flawed. The world is not made up of
nations and certainly not nation-states. This is clearly a Western political term
foisted onto other groups of people around the world through colonialization and it’s
after effects. This is how of course we end up with a situation like Iraq. It is three
separate ethnic groups that want to be together and should be allowed to do so.
They are not being allowed self-determination. At some point they will have to be,
and the UTZE is a good way to propose an alternate start to global sovereignty.

I do not shy away from the term global sovereign. I do not envisage a monster as
some would have us believe. We can design a constitution that secures our rights
as individuals of the global community which is the situation we now find ourselves
in, not in relation to other individuals, but in relation to states.
As we increasingly see ourselves as citizens of the world, which international travel
and the internet are going to provide the human race with another Tower of Babel,
then we need a manner to express that as individuals, not with our states acting as
our proxies.

No State Proxies: The UTZE and the humans last chance for freedom

The classical Westphalian concept of sovereignty only helps wealthy individuals and
powerful individuals who have over taken the state in their service. The individual
who sees himself as a citizen of the world must cease to see himself obviously of
this or that nation, but of this or that district. And the district must deal with its
problems, from North to South. State boundaries would mean little, as state
sovereignty will have needed to erode so badly by then that persons won’t mind
funds going from their part of the hemisphere to another part of the hemisphere
that needs it more. This would of course be a giant redistribution of wealth scheme.
But it doesn’t have to be. It could also eventually lead to a conflict between Time
Zones and within districts. It seems though the rivalries may be different, the
problems may remain the same.

But here’s the thing. Self-determination. I can’t seem to get away from it. Many
global problem I see, from environmental to terrorist, to the distribution of goods,
comes down to self-determination . But it has to be a specific type of self-
determination. It has to be a self-determination of the individual to live where he is
living, working the job that he wants to work (for economic necessity or for other
reasons), raise his family where he wants to raise them and pray (or not) the way
he wants to pray. This self-determination of the individual though cannot directly
harm other individuals, for example a parent could not use female genital mutilation
on an adolescent daughter. But it is this self-determination that every human
seeks. If he cannot get it at work, he will look for it at home. If not there, then in
religion perhaps. But it is the individual’s right, as the privilege of being an adult
human being, to live one’s life as one sees fit.

Obviously this would mean a major shift in global politics. The only way to make
the global shift from the emphasis on the state to the emphasis on the individual
would be to somehow make the individuals of the globe members of some
representative organization not based on anything racial, or class or resources, just
proximity. This could force that major shift of the states away from themselves and
of the individual back to himself. Man Is a self seeking, self serving dominator and
exploiter of his environment. But it Is clear to all but the simple minded that in truly
seeking to serve himself, man wants to act in his enlightened self-interest, not his
immediate gratification. And it is clearly in man’s enlightened self-interest that he
be self-determined.

Russia’s stranglehold over Checnya that the United States tolerates in exchange for
Russia’s tolerance of Iraq is another all too common example of the failure of self-
determination. The Chechnyans have been separate from Russia before, have
wanted to be for a long time and have tried to be repeatedly. They share little
national characteristics. The Chechnyans have a separate religion, language and
ethnic heritage than the Russians but unfortunately possess one thing the Russians
really do want, a port on the Black Sea. So after the fall of the Soviet Union when
many former satellite states were being allowed to go their own way, Chechnya
tried, but failed, it was held in a death grip by the dying Soviet Union and the United
States let them go, because we had our own strangleholds for our own political
purposes going on. But self-determination has been denied the Chechnyans. The
Kurds in Turkey, the Basques in Spain, groups all over the believe they want to be
independent of whoever their ruler happens to be. It has been denied in Africa
where global corporations take the resources of the continent while leaving most of
its people in poverty. It has been denied in Central and South America for much of
the same reasons. The states need to protect itself.

Well, states, especially legitimate states, may have a right to protect themselves
from those that would overthrow them. They may even have a right to protect
themselves from those that would threaten them by their lawlessness. But under
the new definition of sovereignty, one that dictates the state care for the welfare of
its people, should (and how could) the coming modern state protect itself from the
anarchists, for there will be resistors, as there are now. But the anarchists won’t be
the only threats. We would eventually have to deal with corruption at the highest
levels.

The state system will fail. The UTZE is a good system to replace it. If begun now, it
could be operational at a humanitarian and crisis level soon and by the time the
coming battle between the states, as the Time Zones are jostling amongst
themselves, there would then be plainly seen the need for a global sovereign,
someone to settle disputes, enforce laws. And then the people of the world will have
given their self-determination over to a rational system that should ensure their
safety and minimal security. Until then, the people of the world have little
confidence in the present system. It is old. It is European. It is time for a different
manner of approaching global organization. Perhaps the UTZE is not the perfect
answer to this problem, but I do believe fulfillment of self-determination is the
problem and most individuals need to experience it. And that it is clearly lacking in
our current relationship to the United Nations. My guess would be that most people
reading this paper would no more think they have a voice at the United Nations
then that they have a voice at the World Trade Organization. Of course some
people have a voice at the UN. Actually, many thousands of people have voices at
the UN. But that is not the point. The point is the average citizen of the world does
not feel connected to the UN the way they might feel about being connected to
their community rulers. They may not feel connected to them either, but there is
an avenue to get their attention through legitimate channels if one needs the
attention of one’s senator for example. The average citizen of the world cannot ask
to speak to someone at the UN. Who represents him? If he goes to his delegation,
unless he is a wealthy or powerful man they do not want to hear what his thoughts
are. Thus the disconnect. This is what makes most of us uncomfortable about the
idea of a global government—how will they answer to me? And who will they answer
to ? And the bogeyman in the closet, what if it turns out to be a tyranny? What if
they get too much control? A serious question indeed. It is probably this fear that
keep more political theorists from working on it. How do we build it so that it is not a
tyranny, and cannot turn into one? Or is there some other safeguard we could
make.

As stated above, the UTZE would start off as a sovereign emergency aid response
unit. Over time, it could be made into more. Emergency could be reinterpreted to
mean something that we would view as a trivial threat. This slippery slope needs to
be acknowledged, but does it have no stopping point? Is there no where we can
point to that would say the line of argument needs to stop here. Perhaps by
defining emergency carefully. Immediate physical threats and such. But even then,
provisions could and more than likely would get added over the years. How would
we make so that no tyranny could take place. By keeping it self-determined.
Tyranny is not in anyone’s enlightened self-interest. But how do we insure persons
act out of enlightened self-interest? This may be the most difficult part of the
struggle. It may in fact not even be possible.

But if it is not possible, then what does this say about our global sovereignty? Is the
certain belief that some humans at some point in the future will not use their
enlightened self-interest and will do things that will harm groups of people, or do we
forget all about the possibility because there would be a legitimate chance at a
tyranny coming about at some point. Or at least a tyrannical individuals or groups
of individuals. But these groups are relatively small to the world as a whole, and if
that difference in population can keep those with tyrannical tendencies in check,
there might still be something that could be worked out here. Perhaps the globe, as
in vibrant open societies now, could withstand some fringe elements. As for the
point that if the checks don’t work at this level, it’s too high of a risk, well, I would
have to agree with that. But I think the checks would work. And I certainly think
they’d work better at solving problems for individuals than organizations like the
United Nations whose primary concern is the protection of the de facto state. The
globe is made up of individuals and groups of peoples. Most of which don’t properly
fall under the term state, unless we simply mean someone with the authority to use
force to get them to obey. And then yes, most of the globe is living under this sort
of political arrangement.

The global sovereign seems an historical near certainty. We need to usher it in with
intelligence and frame it so that it carefully protects human rights as it evolves.
The task at hand is one like the Continental Conventions in early American history
where the framers had to get together through the hot Philadelphia summers in
order to get something together that would be acceptable to most and that would
work. These should be our criteria as well.

This is about the change in sovereignty since Westphalia and the decline of the nation state
thus rendering the United Nations, and other global organizations obsolete. To express self
determination in the future we will need a different organization than one that represents
states. I suggest a globally elected representative body much like Congress, based on time
zones (because they are random vis a vis human prejudice). The United Time Zones of the
Earth then (Or UTZE) should be formed so that there is a global body that has a claim to
sovereignty because it is self-determined and thus has a claim to override the current state
system. It is a conceptual framework for us to use as we work our way out of the state
system into a global system. And I love all the problems associated with it (the fighting that
would be caused by corporations and governments scrambling).