Global Citizenship: Transcending Nation-States

The world is more 'globalized' than it ever has been. The increase and cheapening of international communication and transportation has irreversibly shrunk the world. Westerners are watching anime and using chopsticks, and easterners are buying American debt and learning English. Needless to say, the nations of the world are more interconnected than ever before, by almost any standards. However, in the same breath, the world also faces new and different challenges than it has in the past. As a simple example, economic interdependence has reached unprecedented new levels - as evidenced by the recent financial crisis and corresponding global economic downturn. Not only economically has the world become interconnected, but also environmentally. Climate change threatens the whole world, and no nation individually can solve the problem (although, the U.S. could be doing an awful lot more to counteract global warming, but so too could Canada). Suffice to say, if we are to successfully tackle the global problems that have arisen, we will need global solutions. This is where the concept of Global Citizenship and Global Governance comes in, I think.

What is Global Citizenship? Well, I think it is a lot of things, both institutional and ideational. Institutionally, the concept of Global Citizenship entails that all people born on this planet are citizens of it, under its government. But they are not citizens under their individual nations, rather, they are citizens under the global governance structure not yet realized. But more on the global governance structure later. Ideationally, a Global Citizen embraces a common identity with all of humanity and acknowledges the urgent nature of a universal identification amongst all humanity. Why urgent? Well, I feel that the problems we currently face as a species are handled poorly when we are in-fighting and divided. Global Citizenship entails so much more, but that is for another time. The Citizenship concept is not as strong without a Global Governance framework, to which I will turn now.

Aforementioned, we, as humanity, currently face problems that transcend any one nation, or any one nation's capabilities to tackle effectively. Not only that, but there is currently very little regulation framework with which we can monitor the actions of powerful nations. The United States still does pretty much what it likes, when it likes. But, back to the point, while the United Nations and other international institutions do provide a somewhat useful and reasonably effective platform for voicing global concerns, I feel that a streamlined, far-reaching, and sovereign organization is required to confront the global challenges we currently face. An institution that is accountable to - and in trust of - all the worlds people is necessary to deal with issues that are of concern to all the worlds citizens - and which all the worlds citizens should be participants in working on, if they so choose. The concept of a World Government ties in nicely with the concept of Global Citizenship. All human beings are born as Global Citizens, and all have the right - and duty - to participate in the World Government.

This is all hypothetical, but I think the concept has strong merit. As I've explained earlier, there are problems that nation-states cannot currently tackle alone. In fact, there are problems that require the majority of the worlds participation in order to solve effectively - climate change being a prime example. Not only do we require a world governance structure, we also require a common sense of global identity. To break down religious, national, or ethnic divisions, I feel an over-arching identity would work well: Global Citizenship. Most people are already familiar with identifying as their Nationality, why not take that one step further?

More to come later...