International organizations started forming in the late 19th century, among the earliest being the
International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863, the
Telegraphic Union in 1865 and the
Universal Postal Union in 1874. The increase in international trade at the turn of the 20th century accelerated the formation of international organizations, and, by the start of
World War I in 1914, there were approximately 450 of them. Some notable philosophers and political leaders were also promoting the value of world government during the post-industrial, pre-World War era.
Ulysses S. Grant, US president, was convinced that rapid advances in technology and industry would result in greater unity and eventually "one nation, so that armies and navies are no longer necessary." In China, political reformer
Kang Youwei viewed human political organization growing into fewer, larger units, eventually into "one world".
Bahá'u'lláh founded the
Baháʼí Faith teaching that the establishment of world unity and a global federation of nations was a
key principle of the religion. Author
H. G. Wells was a strong proponent of the creation of a world state, arguing that such a state would ensure world peace and justice.
Karl Marx, the traditional founder of communism, predicted a socialist epoch in which the working class throughout the world will unite to render nationalism meaningless. Anti-Communists believed world government was a goal of
World Communism. Support for the idea of establishing international law grew during this period as well. The
Institute of International Law was formed in 1873 by Belgian jurist
Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns, leading to the creation of concrete legal drafts, for example by the Swiss Johaan Bluntschli in 1866. In 1883,
James Lorimer published "The Institutes of the Law of Nations" in which he explored the idea of a world government establishing the global rule of law. The first embryonic world
parliament, called the
Inter-Parliamentary Union, was organized in 1886 by Cremer and Passy, composed of legislators from many countries. In 1904 the Union formally proposed "an international congress which should meet periodically to discuss international questions".
Theodore Roosevelt As early as his 1905 statement to Congress, U.S. president
Theodore Roosevelt highlighted the need for "an organization of the civilized nations" and cited the international arbitration tribunal at The Hague as a role model to be advanced further. During his acceptance speech for the
1906 Nobel Peace Prize, Roosevelt described a world federation as a "master stroke" and advocated for some form of international police power to maintain peace. Historian
William Roscoe Thayer observed that the speech "foreshadowed many of the terms which have since been preached by the advocates of a League of Nations", which would not be established for another 14 years.
Hamilton Holt of
The Independent lauded Roosevelt's plan for a "Federation of the World", writing that not since the "Great Design" of Henry IV has "so comprehensive a plan" for universal peace been proposed. Although Roosevelt supported global government conceptually, he was critical of specific proposals and of leaders of organizations promoting the cause of international governance. According to historian
John Milton Cooper, Roosevelt praised the plan of his presidential successor,
William Howard Taft, for "a league under existing conditions and with such wisdom in refusing to let adherence to the principle be clouded by insistence upon improper or unimportant methods of enforcement that we can speak of the league as a practical matter." In a 1907 letter to
Andrew Carnegie, Roosevelt expressed his hope "to see The Hague Court greatly increased in power and permanency", and in one of his very last public speeches he said: "Let us support any reasonable plan whether in the form of a League of Nations or in any other shape, which bids fair to lessen the probable number of future wars and to limit their scope."
Founding of the League of Nations The
League of Nations (LoN) was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the
Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its largest size from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The League's goals included upholding the
Rights of Man, such as the rights of non-whites, women, and soldiers;
disarmament, preventing war through
collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation,
diplomacy, and improving global
quality of life. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on the
Great Powers to enforce its resolutions and economic sanctions and provide an army, when needed. However, these powers proved reluctant to do so. Lacking many of the key elements necessary to maintain world peace, the League failed to prevent World War II.
Adolf Hitler withdrew
Germany from the League of Nations once he planned to take over Europe. The rest of the
Axis Powers soon followed him. Having failed its primary goal, the League of Nations fell apart. The League of Nations consisted of the Assembly, the council, and the Permanent Secretariat. Below these were many agencies. The Assembly was where delegates from all member states conferred. Each country was allowed three representatives and one vote.
Competing visions during World War II The
Nazi Party of Germany envisaged the establishment of a world government under the complete
hegemony of the
Third Reich. In its move to overthrow the post-
World War I Treaty of Versailles, Germany had already withdrawn itself from the
League of Nations, and it did not intend to join a similar
internationalist organization ever again. In his stated political aim of expanding the living space (
Lebensraum) of the
Germanic people by destroying or driving out "lesser-deserving races" in and from other territories, dictator
Adolf Hitler devised an ideological system of self-perpetuating
expansionism, in which the growth of a state's population would require the conquest of more territory which would, in turn, lead to a further growth in population which would then require even more conquests.'s edited copy of the final draft of the
Atlantic Charter The
Atlantic Charter was a published statement agreed between the
United Kingdom and the
United States. It was intended as the blueprint for the postwar world after
World War II, and turned out to be the foundation for many of the international agreements that currently shape the world. The
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the
post-war independence of British and French possessions, and much more are derived from the Atlantic Charter. The Atlantic charter was made to show the goals of the allied powers during World War II. It first started with the United States and Great Britain, and later all the allies would follow the charter. Some goals include access to raw materials, reduction of trade restrictions, and freedom from fear and wants. The name, The Atlantic Charter, came from a newspaper that coined the title. However,
Winston Churchill would use it, and from then on the Atlantic Charter was the official name. In retaliation, the Axis powers would raise their morale and try to work their way into Great Britain. The Atlantic Charter was a stepping stone into the creation of the United Nations. On June 5, 1948, at the dedication of the
War Memorial in
Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. President
Harry S. Truman remarked, "We must make the United Nations continue to work, and to be a going concern, to see that difficulties between nations may be settled just as we settle difficulties between
States here in the United States. When
Kansas and
Colorado fall out over the waters in the
Arkansas River, they don't go to war over it; they go to the
Supreme Court of the United States, and the matter is settled in a just and honorable way. There is not a difficulty in the whole world that cannot be settled in exactly the same way in a world court". The cultural moment of the late 1940s was the peak of
World Federalism among Americans.
Founding of the United Nations World War II (1939–1945) resulted in an unprecedented scale of destruction of lives (over 60 million dead, most of them civilians), and the use of
weapons of mass destruction. Some of the acts committed against civilians during the war were on such a massive scale of savagery, they came to be widely considered as
crimes against humanity itself. As the war's conclusion drew near, many shocked voices called for the establishment of institutions able to permanently prevent deadly international conflicts. This led to the founding of the
United Nations (UN) in 1945, which adopted the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Many, however, felt that the UN, essentially a forum for discussion and coordination between
sovereign governments, was insufficiently empowered for the task. A number of prominent persons, such as
Albert Einstein,
Winston Churchill,
Bertrand Russell,
Mahatma Gandhi and
Jawaharlal Nehru, called on governments to proceed further by taking gradual steps towards forming an effectual federal world government. The United Nations main goal is to work on international law, international security, economic development, human rights, social progress, and eventually world peace. The United Nations replaced the League of Nations in 1945, after World War II. Almost every internationally recognized country is in the U.N.; as it contains 193 member states out of the 196 total nations of the world. The United Nations gather regularly in order to solve big problems throughout the world. There are six official languages:
Arabic,
Chinese,
English,
French,
Russian and
Spanish. The United Nations is also financed by some of the wealthiest nations. The flag shows the Earth from a map that shows all of the populated continents.
United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) A
United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) is a proposed addition to the
United Nations System that would allow for participation of member nations' legislators and, eventually,
direct election of UN parliament members by citizens worldwide. The idea of a world parliament was raised at the founding of the
League of Nations in the 1920s and again following the end of World War II in 1945, but remained dormant throughout the
Cold War. In the 1990s and 2000s, the rise of global trade and the power of world organizations that govern it led to calls for a
parliamentary assembly to scrutinize their activity. The
Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly was formed in 2007 by
Democracy Without Borders to coordinate pro-UNPA efforts, which as of January 2019 has received the support of over 1,500
Members of Parliament from over 100 countries worldwide, in addition to numerous non-governmental organizations,
Nobel and
Right Livelihood laureates and heads or former heads of state or government and foreign ministers.
Garry Davis In France, 1948,
Garry Davis began an unauthorized speech calling for a world government from the balcony of the
UN General Assembly, until he was dragged away by the guards. Davis
renounced his American citizenship and started a
Registry of World Citizens. On September 4, 1953, Davis announced from the city hall of
Ellsworth, Maine, the formation of the "World Government of World Citizens" based on three "World Laws": One God (or Absolute Value), One World, and One Humanity. Following this declaration, he formed the United World Service Authority in
New York City as the administrative agency of the new government. Davis claimed this agency was mandated by Article 21, Section 3 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Its first task was to design and begin selling "World Passports", which the organisation argues is legitimatized by on Article 13, Section 2 of the UDHR.
Atomic impact The world government movement reached its peak of popularity following the
atomic bombing of Japan, especially in the West and Japan. Particularly evident among American scientists, occurred what the editor of the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
Eugene Rabinowitch, called "the conspiracy to preserve our civilization by scaring men into rationality." The editor of "
World Constitution,"
Robert Maynard Hutchins, saw the atomic bomb as heralding the “good news of damnation” that would frighten people into world state. “Splitting the atom means uniting the world,” begins a 1946 review of literature which came to light following the “bomb’s early light.” People around the world and within the United States shared this sentiment. Written in June 1945 with "Postscript" added after the atomic attacks,
The Anatomy of Peace stayed on America's best-seller lists for the next six months. A mordant account of the pathology of nations, it becoming the bible of the world government movement. By 1950, it had appeared in 20 languages and in 24 countries. Drafted on the day of the Hiroshima attack and soon developed into a book,
Modern Man Is Obsolete by one of the prominent
World Federalists,
Norman Cousins, went through fourteen editions, appeared in seven languages, and had an estimated circulation in the United States of seven million. In late 1945,
Manhattan Project scientists founded the
Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and published the first volume of
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Few months later, they published a book, titled
One World or None. It sold more than 100,000 copies. FAS had reached a peak of 3,000 members in 1946. A substantial number of them, including Einstein, thought the answer lay in world government. The next year, their Bulletin introduced its famous
Doomsday Clock. Between 1946, when it was founded, and 1950, the
World Movement for World Federal Government grew into a global network with some 156,000 members. By January 1950, Garry Davis's World Citizens registry, with signers from 78 countries all over the globe, neared the half-million mark. Drafted by Hutchins and his team at the University of Chicago, "World Constitution" was translated into numerous languages and by 1949 reached a worldwide circulation of 200,000 copies. By 1949,
United World Federalists had 46,775 members. The same year, World Government Week was officially proclaimed by the governors of nine states and by the mayors of approximately 50 cities. By 1950, the British Crusade for World Government had registered some 15,000 supporters and the French "Front Humain des Citoyens du Monde" 18,000. The contemporary polls in the United States and Australia ranged from 42 to 63% supporting world government. The motto "One World or None!” was endorsed by the president of the Australian Aborigines. Symbolized by the most popular slogan, “One World or None” and by the Doomsday Clock on the front of the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the fear of a nuclear holocaust had played a key part in the world government movement. But, judging from numerous barometers of public sentiment, this fear could not hold. The mood passed. Paradoxically coinciding with the
H-bomb and the Soviet atomic bomb, the terror subsided. In the fall of 1950, when Americans were asked if there was anything in the national or international realm that disturbed them, only 1% spontaneously raised the issue of the atomic bomb. A British civil defense survey in 1951 found that Britons displayed remarkably little knowledge of the atomic bomb or desire to face the issues it raised. A quarter of the women surveyed in the latter poll claimed that they did not know it had been used in Japan. By the early 1950s, world state movements went out of fashion. Gary Davis returned to the United States and applied for restoration of his American citizenship. Despite massive efforts to frighten humanity into world state, the 1949 World Peace Day celebration in Hiroshima was strangely lighthearted by fireworks, confetti, and the appearance on stage of a “Miss Hiroshima."
World Federalist Movement The years between the end of World War II and the start of the
Korean War—which roughly marked the entrenchment of
Cold War polarity—saw a flourishing of the nascent world federalist movement.
Wendell Willkie's 1943 book
One World sold over 2 million copies, laying out many of the argument and principles that would inspire global federalism. A contemporaneous work,
Emery Reves'
The Anatomy of Peace (1945), argued for replacing the UN with a federal world government. The world Federalist movement in the U.S., led by diverse figures such as
Lola Maverick Lloyd,
Grenville Clark,
Norman Cousins, and
Alan Cranston, grew larger and more prominent: in 1947, several grassroots organizations merged to form the
United World Federalists—later renamed the World Federalist Association, then
Citizens for Global Solutions—claiming 47,000 members by 1949. Similar movements concurrently formed in many other countries, culminating in a 1947 meeting in
Montreux, Switzerland that formed a global coalition called the
World Federalist Movement (WFM). By 1950, the movement claimed 56 member groups in 22 countries, with some 156,000 members.
Convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution In 1949, six U.S. states—California, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, New Jersey, and North Carolina—applied for an
Article V convention to propose an amendment "to enable the participation of the United States in a world federal government". Multiple other state legislatures introduced or debated the same proposal. These resolutions were part of this effort. During the
81st United States Congress (1949–1951), multiple resolutions were introduced favoring a world federation.
Chicago World Constitution draft A committee of academics and intellectuals formed by
Robert Maynard Hutchins of the
University of Chicago published a
Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution and from 1947 to 1951 published a magazine edited by the daughter of
Thomas Mann,
Elisabeth Mann Borgese, which was devoted to world government; its title was
Common Cause.
Albert Einstein and World Constitution Einstein grew increasingly convinced that the world was veering off course. He arrived at the conclusion that the gravity of the situation demanded more profound actions and the establishment of a "world government" was the only logical solution. In his "Open Letter to the General Assembly of the United Nations" of October 1947, Einstein emphasized the urgent need for international cooperation and the establishment of a world government. In the year 1948, Einstein invited
United World Federalists, Inc. (UWF) president
Cord Meyer to a meeting of the
Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists (ECAS) and joined UWF as a member of the advisory board. Einstein and ECAS assisted UWF in fundraising Einstein described
United World Federalists as: "the group nearest to our aspirations". Einstein and other prominent figures sponsored the
Peoples' World Convention (PWC), which took place in 1950–51 and later continued in the form of
world constituent assemblies in 1968, 1977, 1978–79, and 1991. This effort was successful in creating a
world constitution and a
Provisional World Government. and finalized in 1991, is a framework of a world federalist government. A Provisional World Government consisting of a
Provisional World Parliament (PWP), a transitional international legislative body, operates under the framework of this world constitution. This parliament convenes to work on global issues, gathering delegates from different countries. ==Cold War==