Federalism: a testimony

By John Roberts

We publish below an extract from a new pamphlet, "Federalism: a testimony", published by the One World Trust.

Read the whole pamphlet as a pdf.

Why federalism is a chief part of the Trust's efforts

The One World Trust has always had as its chief aim the simple but profound need for world unity. The logic of pursuing this need has led to federal solutions, for reasons that follow from the nature of the unity in diversity that we seek. As a political mechanism-cum-philosophy federalism arose, Phoenix-like, from the .re of the American Revolution and its untidy aftermath. Its proponents drew more from their own reading of history and the thinking of Europeans such as Locke and Montesquieu as from any schemes proffered or tried in the past. But the "Great Rehearsal' for the forging of a world federal government, as the making of the American constitution has been termed, has turned sour. The greatest political success of any historically recorded time, the federal constitution of the U.S.A., designed to turn thirteen fractious colonial states into a balanced and freedom-loving union that could offer an example to a warring world and lead it to peace, has nurtured a nationalism which, by reaction, now leads the world down the old road to hostility and war. Federalism, like other political ideologies and religions, has been ensnared by nationalism and can only be restored by association with a universalist theme. its research.

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The role of the Trust in the achievement of federalism

The growing interdependence of humans and our dependence on the ailing natural world require us to achieve a hitherto unwonted political unity of purpose and of action. Because the Trust believes that human unity is the urgent need of our time and that the most serious failure is of political unity, it concentrates its efforts in the direction of remedying that political failure. And, since the Trust is convinced that authoritarian unity will be neither acceptable, nor durable, it seeks federalist solutions to the creation of unity. This entails working with likeminded movements and offering help to federalist thinkers and activists.

Breadth of approach

It seeks to bring the lessons and principles of democratic federalism to bear on all routes to human unity: the need for reform of the economic system and the management of the world's physical environment. It appreciates of the value of working with civil society as a whole. Achieving the aim of the Trust will require cooperation, creative thinking and joint efforts by millions of people - world citizens in spirit if not in name - and the Trust is eager to play its part in helping these efforts to bear fruit.

John Roberts has been a Trustee of the One World Trust for many years, and was formerly Chairman of the Trust. The views expressed in this pamphlet are the views of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of Federal Union or the One World Trust. July 2005