Robert Muller: [GMW #2489] Funding Peace & Cooperation More Than Wars

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

[GMW #2489] Funding Peace & Cooperation More Than Wars

Idea Dream - Robert Muller's Ideas 1001 to 1500

~ Idea 1088 ~
3 July 1997

Message to the Chairman and Members of the group of 77*

In view of the defensive position in which the United Nations finds itself at the end of this century, your meeting in Geneva takes on a very particular historic importance for the future of the world. Here are a few ideas from someone who has served the United Nations for forty years in various capacities, including as aide to three Secretaries General:

1. introduce a draft resolution in the General Assembly asking for the transfer of the main seat of the United Nations to a lower cost member country known for its staunch adherence, support and strengthening of the UN and offering the best financial conditions for such a transfer. Keeping the seat of the UN in the US will hamper progress of the world;

2. request the Secretary General of the UN to publish a report on the geographical distribution of all the seats of the UN and of its 32 specialized agencies and world programs, with figures of the incomes derived by the countries of location from the local expenses of these organizations, from the local representations of member countries, from conferences held at these seats, and other possible expenses;

3. solicit from the European Union a report on the structure, functioning and financing of that most recent innovative and progressive model of international cooperation, strikingly better than the United Nations;

4. request a yearly report from the UN Secretary General comparing funding for peace and international cooperation through the United Nations with yearly military and armaments expenses in the world;

5. replace in all UN debates and documents the word "reform" by "strengthening" of the United Nations;

6. undertake a study and consideration on the eve of a new century and millennium of models for world cooperation better than the United Nations, e.g.

- the creation of a federal Earth government;
- a World Union on the model of the European Union;
- the extension of the European Union to wider areas and its progressive transformation into a world union, as envisaged by its founder Robert Schuman, the first extension being to the Eastern European countries;
- the creation of five continental unions with a world superstructure;
- any other ideas and proposals for an urgent better management of our Earth and human affairs.

7. implement the recommendation of the European Union Parliament that the UN create urgently a UN Consultative Parliamentary Assembly made of representatives from all national parliaments to express their views, ideas and plans for the strengthening or new forms of world cooperation. It would play a role similar to that of the earlier European Consultative Parliamentary Assembly which played a fundamental role in the creation of the European Union;

8. request that on the occasion of the year 2000, all member governments of the United Nations should review the successes and failures of humanity in the last 100 years and formulate ideas and proposals to achieve a better world in the next century;

9. take note and keep being informed of the meetings and celebrations to be held in the city of The Hague in 1999 as the centennial anniversary of the first World Peoples' Peace Conference held in that city in 1899, followed by a second peace conference in 1907. Despite the 1914-1918 war which prevented a third conference in 1915, these efforts led to the creation of the International Court of Justice, of the International Labor Organization and of the League of Nations, the precursor of the United Nations.

I consider it providential that the Group of 77 should hold this meeting at such an opportune time. I congratulate you and wish you a resounding, historic success.

Robert Muller

* This is a group of member countries of the UN which during the cold war were called the Non-aligned Countries, i.e. non-aligned to the big powers.

Robert's The Miracle, Joy and Art of Living,
Volume II Chapter 13 - Of Speaking
During the last ten or fifteen years of my UN service I delivered on the average 180 speeches a year.
When I retired to the UN University for Peace, I thought that the number would diminish. On the contrary, after a year it reached over 200 in view of all the visitors we are receiving!

UN News Sources - UN Chronicle, United Nations News Service , UN Wire News Archive
References: Earth Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Rights of: Children, Women, Indigenous People
To Be Written: Rights of Nature, Birds, Animals, Fish, etc.

WORD FOR THE DAY
Let gratitude be the pillow
upon which you kneel
to say your nightly prayer.
-- Maya Angelou

Books recommended by Robert are here.
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