In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the most destructive war in human history, a mass movement developed among people in the United States and other lands who were determined to create the kind of united world that could avert future human catastrophe. Among their leaders were the acclaimed physicist Albert Einstein, Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz, presidential advisor Grenville Clark, and feminist Rosika Schwimmer.
In February 1947, during the final hours of one of the greatest snowstorms on the East Coast, 327 delegates representing several world federalist organizations from across the country gathered in Asheville, North Carolina, to launch one of the most significant peace efforts of the 20th century. Among those present were Norman Cousins, later World Federalist Association president and editor of the Saturday Review; Thomas K. Finletter, later President Truman’s secretary of the Air Force; Florence Harriman, former U.S. ambassador to Norway; Cord Meyer, Jr., later United World Federalist president and CIA official; and Harris Wofford, civil rights activist and later U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.
Each of the organizations was created by individuals who recognized that the growing horror and destruction of modern warfare could only be halted by a world organization with the power to deal with aggressors and the buildup of armaments. The urgency was intensified by the dropping of the atomic bomb, and thousands responded in recognition of the need to prevent future devastation.
Our current system of 195 sovereign nations, each pursuing its own self-interest while bound together in a confederation through the United Nations, has demonstrated its inability to solve the greatest problems of our time.
Their declaration of purpose, adopted on November 2, 1947, stated that peace “is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of justice, of law, of order — insured, of the government and the institutions of government; that world peace can be created and maintained only under a world federal government, universal and strong enough to prevent armed conflict between nations, and having direct jurisdiction over the individual in those matters within its authority.”
They concluded that “while endorsing the efforts of the United Nations to bring about a world community favorable to peace, we will work to create a world federal government with authority to enact, interpret and enforce world law adequate to maintain peace.”
With those words, the United World Federalists was born. In the 75 years that followed, the organization changed its name several times (it is now Citizens for Global Solutions) and served as the main U.S. branch of a global body, the World Federalist Movement. It worked on such campaigns as the Partial Test Ban treaty which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons except those conducted underground (1963), the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (1968), the anti-ballistic missile treaty (1972), the establishment of the International Criminal Court (1998), and the acceptance by all UN member nations of the Responsibility to Protect (2005) — a commitment to protect all populations from mass atrocities and human rights violations.
Although these were steps in the right direction, today’s crises necessitate further action toward global governance. The lethality of warfare has become unimaginable, dwarfing the destructiveness of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution are now an existential threat, as we move toward irreversible planetary tipping points; and we are two years into a pandemic that has claimed over five million lives worldwide and nearly one million in the United States.
Our current system of 195 sovereign nations, each pursuing its own self-interest while bound together in a confederation through the United Nations, has demonstrated its inability to solve the greatest problems of our time. As our organization’s founders clearly stated 75 years ago, humanity needs a democratically elected, global federal government with enforceable world law. More of the same just won’t do. Through our outreach efforts and public education programs, Citizens for Global Solutions continues to work toward this goal. At the same time, we advocate for our more immediate objectives of strengthening and democratizing the United Nations, global institutions, and our current system of international law.