The core tasks of the committee, which are derived from the Geneva Conventions and its own statutes, are the following:

• to monitor compliance of warring parties with the Geneva Conventions
• to organize nursing and care for those who are wounded on the battlefield
• to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war
• to help with the search for missing persons in an armed conflict (tracing service)
• to organize protection and care for civil populations
• to arbitrate between warring parties in an armed conflict

It has a worlwide scope

I think the only real barrier we face with this concept is in the articulation and marketing of it. The world has really been overwhelmed with transnational issues that we keep trying to solve nationally. The general mindset is that global government creates a layer of authority that doesn't exist, but it already does in practice.

I think we just need to work to marry the concept in peoples minds that no matter how hard we try the nature of national systems is that transnational issues will simply not be manageable. But that's all very logical.

How do we appeal to identity, how do we mark it as something to stand by rather than a logical organization? Nationalists feel the emotional and ideological connections to their 'brand' before their logical links, that's why so many people stand by a country even when it's clearly making significant errors. This concept needs to be something to believe in, not just argue in favour of. If we've learnt anything these past 10 years, it's that belief and feeling seem to have much more weight than anything else.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called for reforming the UN Security Council to “ensure fair representation for all regions of the world and to end the veto power of permanent members” in his address.

https://youtu.be/NnO8wuE9P6s?is=tX0wv3bTFEWSmFYp

A Vision of an Integrated Humanity

My political starting point is that humanity’s greatest source of capacity is humanity itself: billions of people possessing different knowledge, abilities, perspectives, resources, and goals.

Our collective potential depends not only on these individual capacities, but on our ability to combine and coordinate them.

Today, humanity remains politically fragmented into competing states, institutions, economic interests, religions, national identities, and other groups. This fragmentation does not merely make it harder to solve global problems. It consumes human capacity through conflict, strategic competition, duplicated effort, mistrust, incompatible systems, and failures of coordination.

My long-term goal is therefore a much more deeply integrated humanity.

Political Unity

World federalism would be an enormous step in the right direction, but I do not necessarily regard it as the final destination. A federation in which nations remain the primary political communities may preserve too much of the political fragmentation I ultimately want humanity to transcend.

I would like humanity itself to become our primary political community.

This does not require every decision to be made centrally. Local and regional institutions remain valuable wherever they possess better information, can experiment more effectively, or are better suited to implementation. Decentralization should be used where it improves outcomes, rather than because nations or regions possess an intrinsic claim to political separation.

The relevant question should always be: at what level can this function be performed most effectively in accordance with human wants?

Humanity Needs a Holistic Perspective

An individual human being possesses an enormous advantage: distributed information from throughout the body can be integrated into a common perspective.

I want humanity to develop something functionally analogous.

Humanity has billions of minds, but limited capacity to see and act as a whole.

Information, expertise, preferences, needs, and ideas should continue to originate throughout society. But common institutions should be capable of integrating this distributed information into a holistic understanding of humanity’s needs, capacities, priorities, and possibilities.

Information can be gathered locally, integrated globally, and acted upon at whichever level is most effective.

The purpose of centralization is therefore not to eliminate local intelligence. It is to allow humanity to make use of distributed intelligence collectively.

Centralization and Decentralization Are Complementary

I reject the assumption that centralization and decentralization must be opposing political values.

A capable system needs both.

Decentralization enables local knowledge, experimentation, adaptation, specialization, and efficient implementation.

Centralization enables overview, transparency, prioritization, coordination, and the allocation of capacities across the whole system.

The goal should therefore be neither maximum centralization nor maximum decentralization, but an architecture in which information and authority flow to whatever level can use them most effectively.

Democracy as a Means, Not an End

I value popular influence because political institutions ultimately exist to serve people and their wants.

But democracy is valuable to me primarily as a mechanism for achieving this, rather than as an unquestionable end in itself.

Direct popular control does not necessarily mean that people’s underlying wants are effectively realized. Public opinion can be shaped by misinformation, propaganda, social pressure, political campaigns, media structures, algorithms, and powerful private or political actors.

A system may therefore be formally democratic while doing a poor job of translating people’s actual interests, priorities, and preferences into outcomes.

The deeper objective should be to construct institutions that effectively channel human influence into political direction.

People should ultimately determine what society is for, while substantial authority over how those objectives are achieved can be delegated to experts, administrators, specialized institutions, and potentially advanced technological systems.

The central institutional challenge is to make such delegation competent without allowing delegated power to become independent of the people it is supposed to serve.

Bureaucracy and Expertise

I therefore do not regard bureaucracy, expertise, or delegation to elites as inherently undemocratic or undesirable.

Complex societies require specialization. Most people cannot personally evaluate every medical, scientific, economic, infrastructural, or technological decision.

A highly capable political system may consequently delegate enormous operational authority while preserving mechanisms through which human preferences determine its ultimate direction.

The important distinction is between delegating implementation and surrendering control over the purposes the system serves.

Culture and Human Integration

Political integration should also be accompanied by greater social and cultural integration.

I am skeptical of nationalism and of attempts to artificially preserve cultures as permanently separate entities.

This does not mean eliminating cultural diversity.

Quite the opposite: people should be free to preserve traditions they value, abandon those they do not, adopt practices from elsewhere, mix cultures, and create entirely new ones.

Cultural interaction can produce richer synthetic cultures rather than requiring humanity to remain divided into historically inherited cultural compartments.

Unity does not require uniformity.

The goal is a shared human civilization containing enormous internal diversity without requiring that cultural differences correspond to permanent political boundaries.

Expanding Human Capacity

The ultimate purpose of greater integration is not merely preventing war, climate change, dangerous AI, pandemics, or other global problems.

Those are important consequences, but the argument is broader.

Cooperation itself creates capacity.

Greater coordination allows humanity to specialize more effectively, share knowledge, reduce unnecessary duplication, allocate resources more intelligently, undertake projects beyond the capacity of individual states, stabilize struggling societies, internalize externalities, reduce security dilemmas, and redirect resources currently consumed by conflict toward human development.

Every person whose abilities are suppressed by poverty, instability, exclusion, or conflict represents potential human capacity that is not being realized.

Every scientific project unnecessarily duplicated, every resource consumed by geopolitical rivalry, and every relationship prevented by artificial political barriers represents another loss of collective potential.

Human unity is therefore not merely about reducing suffering.

It is about increasing what humanity is capable of becoming.

The Long-Term Goal

My goal is ultimately to transform humanity from a collection of competing political communities into an integrated civilization capable of understanding and coordinating itself as a whole.

That system should gather its direction from human beings themselves, gather information and expertise from wherever they exist, integrate them into a holistic perspective, and deploy humanity’s collective capacities as effectively as possible toward the fulfillment of human wants.

World federalism, international institutions, global AI governance, and other forms of cooperation are all valuable steps toward this goal.

The deeper objective is human integration:

billions of individual minds and lives retaining their individuality, while humanity develops the institutional equivalent of a shared capacity to see, think, coordinate, and act as a whole.

so Young World Federalists, are we fighting the same battle? Will you help me?

I found this at Studentenstadt Munich, Germany

Article 109 provides for a general conference to review the UN Charter. It has been in the text since 1945 and no such conference has ever been convened. The mechanism is still live. What has kept it unused is political, not legal.

Citizens for Global Solutions and World Federalist Movement-Canada are producing a special edition of Mondial asking contributors to write about what an upgraded Charter would deliver in their own area of expertise. The timing is deliberate. The Council opened straw polls last week, and whoever emerges takes office in January under rules nobody has meaningfully revisited in eight decades.

The editorial ask is narrower than most CFPs in this space. Identify a specific structural flaw in the Charter or the wider governance system, describe the state behavior and tensions that flow from it, then spend the bulk of the piece on the proposed fix. Most writing on UN reform trims itself down to fit the current veto math before it reaches the substance, which is exactly how the range of discussable options stays small.

Nine open tracks, and proposals outside them are welcome:

• Planetary boundaries and climate governance
• Existential risk, AI regulation, disarmament
• Historical injustice and reparations
• Peace, security, and Security Council reform
• Why Charter review serves P5 interests
• Equitable finance and development
• Global economic stabilization
• Global health and pandemic preparedness
• The post-2030 agenda after the SDGs expire

Practicalities: 700 to 2000 words, AP style, written for an informed general audience rather than a specialist journal. Expressions of interest due 15 October 2026, first drafts 30 October, publication March 2027. Editorial support is available for authors working in a second language.

Full call and submission details: https://globalsolutions.org/updates/blog/call-for-papers-mondial-un-charter-article-109/

We will be in the comments for questions about scope. We would also be interested to hear which structural flaw people here think is the most under-discussed. The track on why Charter review serves P5 interests is the one we expect to draw the fewest submissions and the one that would benefit most from a serious attempt.

THE PERSON'S CONSTITUTION

Article 1: What Is A Person [Articles 1+2 of The MCRDS] Every Person is a Federal State, and each Federal State is a sole Person in the eyes of international law. Every Person is Sovereign. Everyone has these four things: 1) A territory; The Body, 2) A permanent population of One; The Self, 3) A government; The Self is in charge of The Body, and 4) Ability to make friends with other Persons. Likewise, every Person is always within the territory and jurisdiction of their own individual Sovereign Federal State, anywhere and everywhere they go.

Article 2: Everyone Can Do Their Own Thing [Article 3 of The MCRDS + Articles 16+18 of The ICCPR] Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere and by everyone as a Person before the law. No matter what. In public and in private, alone or in community with other Persons, even if everyone else disagrees with the individual, every Person has the inherent right to: Protect itself, its integrity, and its independence; Define itself; Think for itself; Balancedly gather resources from the Ecosystem; Choose its own religion and beliefs; Act on its beliefs and conscience in its own way; Provide any product or service; Organize itself however it wants; Live, Travel, and nondisruptively Build wherever it desires; Manifest its religion or beliefs in worship, observance, practice and teaching; and Do whatever it wants to do as long as it does not violate any other Person's rights or freedoms as outlined in these Articles, or in any way damage the quality of the Soil, Water, Air, or Ecosystem, Food Chain, or general availability of Natural Resources.

Article 3: No Forcing Anyone [Articles 8+11 of The MCRDS + Article 18 of The ICCPR] No Person is allowed to interfere with another Person's internal or external affairs, movement, or expressions in any way. No one is allowed to be coerced or compelled in any way that would impair their freedom to have, to act on, or to adopt a religion or belief of their choice. No one is allowed to use weapons, compulsion, threats, or any tricks to infringe upon ANY of the freedoms of other Persons in any way whatsoever. Living Spaces, Ecosystems, Bodies, Objects, and Sacred Areas of all Persons are protected. They are not allowed to be interfered with, attacked, or taken by force, ever, not directly or indirectly. Not even for a little while.

Article 4: The Right to Live [Article 10 of The MCRDS + Article 6 of The ICCPR] Everyone has the inherent right to life. No one shall be deprived of their life, except in ONLY the most serious cases of self-defense where killing the attacker is absolutely necessary for immediate survival. The most important job of Persons is to keep peace. When Persons disagree, they should resolve it in peaceful ways.

Article 5: No Tyrany [Articles 7+8 of The ICCPR] No one is allowed to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. No one is allowed to do experiments on any Person or interfere with their health in any way unless explicit permission is given. No one is allowed to make anyone a slave. Slavery in any form is not allowed. No one can force anyone to work or serve in any way.

Article 6: Fair Laws and Fair Punishment [Articles 11+15 of The ICCPR] Persons can only get in trouble for violating one or more of these Articles. The punishment has to be fair. If the law changes to be nicer, the violator gets the nicer punishment. If someone has commited a crime when they agreed it was a crime, they can still get in trouble for it. No Person can go to jail just because they are unable to fulfill an agreement.

Article 7: Everyone is Equal [Articles 4+5 of The MCRDS + Article 4 of The ICCPR] Every Person is entitled by default to all of these rights and freedoms in full, and are permitted to act on them in any way they see fit. No Person's rights or freedoms can be taken or changed in any way, and MUST be upheld in full by everyone at all times, even during emergencies. All Persons are juridically equal, enjoy the same rights, and have equal capacity in their exercise as all other Sovereign Federal States. Your Sovereign Rights and Freedoms don't depend on your size, strength, knowledge, ability, age, identity, or any other factor, they depend on you being a PERSON.

*MCRDS=Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States (Customary) *ICCPR=International Covanent of Civil and Political Rights (Ratified Worldwide)

Reality is known by everyone, but by many different ideas: The Universe, God, The One, Y H V H, The All, Allah, Om, Elohim, The Deities, Theotes, Brahman, Consciousness, Nature, The Immortal Tao, Mind, The Logos, Abraxas, Pneuma, Wuji, I AM, The Great Spirit, Shunyata, Wahdat al-wujud, Infinity, NoThingness, Rod, The True Will, The Monad, Chaos, Akreoth, The Dreaming, Olodumare, Baphomet, The Pleroma, Azathoth, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Ishvara, Xwede, Chukwu, The Eternal NowHere, Zurvan, Anekantavada, and many more. No matter what you call it, Reality simply is. By True Natural Law and By True Divine Right, the Life of each Person issolely under the Authority of its own Self, Responsible only for its own Self. All Persons are Sovereign Federal States, NO Person is a Citizen of ANY Nation. The Religion of All Persons is Reality: The One True Religion. By Saving, Liking, Sharing, Screenshotting, or Commenting on this Image, I Declare that I AM a Person, a Sovereign Federal State, Equal to All Other Nations, My Religion is Reality.

Additionally, it may be a good idea to remove r/GenZLiberals from the sidebar, which paints this as a partisan issue to newcomers.

^{Also, obligatory ping to u/lucerined-VEX, hope you're happy to see this :3}

For anyone here thinking about entering this year's essay contest, we are running a free online workshop this Friday, June 19 at 12 PM EST.

The prompt this year is built around Article 109 of the UN Charter, the provision that lets member states convene a conference to review and update the Charter. The two questions are basically: where does the current UN system fall short, and if that review conference actually happened, what specific reform would you propose? The workshop walks through the theme, helps you find an angle if you are stuck, and covers the submission rules so a good essay does not get tossed on a technicality.

The contest is open to US students aged 18 to 30. Essays run up to 2,000 words. The winner gets a fully funded trip to the Ventotene International Seminar in Italy at the end of August and publication in our journal Mondial. Submission deadline is July 12.

Registration and full details are on the contest page. Happy to answer questions in the comments.

The 2026 New Voices 4 Global Solutions Essay Contest is now open!

If you’re a student aged 18-30 and based in the U.S., we want to hear your bold ideas on how to reform and strengthen the United Nations.

🎓 Top essays published in Mondial
✈️ Grand prize: A fully funded trip to Italy for the 2026 Ventotene International Seminar (Aug 30 - Sep 4)
📝 This year’s theme: “From Charter to Change: Reimagining Global Governance through Article 109”

📅 Essay submission deadline: July 12, 2026 at 11:59 PM (Pacific Time)
📧 Send your essay to: [outreach@globalsolutions.org](mailto:outreach@globalsolutions.org)

💻 Want help crafting your essay?
Join our free virtual workshop on June 19 at 12 PM EST – details on our contest page!