David Martin MEP
Member of the European Parliament for Scotland
and Vice-President of the European Parliament

The world is too small and delicate, the threats too great and imminent for any serious politician not to be contemplating global governance – simply in terms of peace, poverty prevention and protecting the environment. We need a comity of peoples and nations to end war and poverty and to protect our precious environment.

There are two competing concepts of globalisation. One encompasses a community of citizens, as dreamed of by Victor Hugo and others, and worked for by environmentalists who talk in terms of "thinking global and acting local". The other is of an unregulated free market where capital is king and the poor are being ripped off by de-regulation, privatisation and the plundering by rapacious global corporations and corrupt politicians.

I know which caricature I prefer. I also know that the European Economic Community, earlier known as the common market, learned some developmental lessons in its metamorphosis, which campaigners could adapt to a progressive response to globalisation. We in the EU cannot, must not, sit by whilst so-called free-markets and deregulation is imposed – either overtly or covertly- on the poor people and nations of the world. That is not the way we are building the European Community. It is not the way Europeans should act in the world community – consensus should rule. Consensus is slow, painfully slow at times, but peaceful.

Peace and prosperity are the greatest achievements of the European Union in the past half-century. Peace and prosperity should be our exports. Progress will be slow, painstakingly slow but careful, industrious and thorough – and above all peaceful. That is how we should help to build a world community.

As to the specifics, three key reforms I would suggest are: the democratisation of the World Trade Organisation; the establishment and implementation of a Charter and World Court of Human and Environmental Rights; and thirdly to have the EU represent the people of the European Union in the United Nations.

I would choose these particular reforms because they involve government of the people by the people for the people. As Jean Jacques Rousseau argued in 1762, all people are born equal only some are treated as less equal. We have fought long and hard to try and increase the democratic accountability of the EU through the European Parliament but are now seeing popular legislation, on areas such as animal welfare, being neutered by the un-elected WTO. Its democratisation is crucial.

I would like to see a Charter and World Court of Human and Environmental Rights because every single human is as important as the next and we can only survive in a secure environment. We must globalise human rights and environmental protocols.

In allowing the peoples and nations of the European Union to be represented by the EU at the United Nations we would be sending a clear message to poorer nations that the richer nations have learned, are in transition and can be altruistic.

The main strategy and tactic I would use is 'people power' through a World Convention of representatives from civil society, because I have been involved in and witnessed the effectiveness of the Scottish Constitutional Convention and the European Convention in bringing about increased democratic representation.

I would also try harnessing the power of communication through the World Wide Web. I saw how effective the posting of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) by the US NGO Public Citizens was in heading off that possible Treaty. Incidentally we might be about to see a repeat performance with the posting of the European Commissions WTO negotiating positions by Corporate Europe Observatory on the Guardian website. This shows that certain forces in the EU do not share the Parliament's democratic vision and wish to impose their free-market one on the developing peoples and nations of the world.

However, the peoples of the world united could be a tremendous power for good.

Placed on Fabian Global Forum, May 2002