The Need for Global Leadership

The UN needs to be a Leader and Champion for all civil society

1. to promote the well-being and prosperity of civil society everywhere, inclusive of all genders, races, and cultures.

2. to promote and facilitate International Agreements necessary for achieving our needed Global Goals, because international cooperation is needed to solve our globally shared problems.

3. to coordinate the implementation of international agreements already made, including the UN Charter itself.

4. be an outspoken and bold Global Proponent for a healthy and sustainable global environment, global peace and security, human rights, health, education, and economic assistance for poorer communities.

Encourage civil society participation

1. Responsibility: Encourage all citizens of the world to realize their personal responsibility, and all organizations to accept their responsibility, for building a globally cooperative, fair and just world.

2. Diversity: Increase the diversity of citizen representation in global decision-making and governance, by creating a civil society focal-point at the UN to bring citizen ideas and recommendations into the work of the UN. For example, create a UN Parliamentary Assembly, proportionally representative of humanity's diversity, to serve as a citizens' advisory body to the General Assembly.

3. Social Initiatives: Initiate and support a Global Petition mechanism, such as a 'World Citizens Initiative', so that a critical mass of civil society leaders and organizations can influence the UN and Member States on global issues of citizen concern.

4. Youth Participation: Encourage and empower a UN Youth Council to participate, engage, and advise in critical discussions, submit issue statements, and help guide the UN into the future.

Standards for the United Nations and its institutions

1. Inclusive: Discussions and decision-making at the global level must be inclusive of all civil society and stakeholders, and represent the diversity of humanity.

2. Fair: Global institutions must reflect the universality of human rights, fairness, equality, and democracy.

3. Transparent: Global institutions must be transparent and accountable to all civil society.

4. Merit-based: Global institutions need to be led by merit-based, non-partisan, independent-thinking, service-bold individuals, who represent the diversity of humanity.

5. Value-aligned: All actions and policies of the UN towards its sustainability goals should be based on long-range thinking and be aligned with the values and purposes of the UN.

6. Integrative: Global institutions need to apply a coordinated, integrative and whole-systems approach for the solving of global problems and the making of global polices. For example, integrate the issues of environmental protection, climate change, health, food, water, economic and human security.

7. Internationally funded: The United Nations, including its structure of Programmes and Agencies, need reliable and adequate funding - proportional to the financial wealth of each Member State. The UN is only as effective as its funding and its ability to make loans via the World Bank.

8. Yearly assessed: Establish an independent Advisory Review Agency to yearly assess the global challenges and the global responses to these, and identify needed improvements in global governing institutions to make them more effective for achieving the 2030 Goals.

Socially-Responsible Development

1. Accountability – international economic and financial systems need to be accountable and in some cases revised, in order to be cooperative toward the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda.

2. Social and economic development – GDP and monetary wealth are insufficient measurements of economic development. Development Goals must also include social prosperity, individual well-being, economic fairness, civil rights, and environmental protection. Development cannot be measured just by the total productivity or monetary gain of a nation.

3. Economic security – help develop a sustainable and regionally-reliant economic security for all people, with a decent standard of living; including food, water, shelter, health security, and education.

4. Poverty reduction – help nations reduce poverty with sustainable agriculture, rural development, urban rehabilitation, good water and good health, and continue the needed research into the causes of economic inequalities and its possible solutions.

5. Economic productivity – help develop economic productivity with local jobs, businesses, and human services. But overall productivity must also include equal economic rights and opportunities for everyone, with equal access to job-skills, employment and small-business opportunities.

6. Community-scale industries – help communities develop industries that are community-scale, decentralized, locally-autonomous, socially and environmentally responsible, worker-friendly and safe, and useful for the whole community.

7. Useful technologies – help communities obtain useful technologies that are eco-friendly, non-polluting, energy-efficient, community-scale, decentralized, locally-autonomous, socially-responsible, worker-friendly and safe to use.

8. Fair trade – help develop and secure fair-trade, for all levels of market-power, in the global capitalistic markets, which can be enhanced by fair trade coops that can represent a larger and more competitive portion of the market sector.

9. Investment loans – provide World Bank loans to community banks, which will give loans to independently-owned, cooperatively-owned, community-owned, and employee-owned businesses, on the condition that they are socially and environmentally responsible.

Environmentally-Responsible Development

1. Eco-friendly economies – help community economic systems protect their local environment and maintain a long-range stewardship of their local land and water ecosystems, as well as cooperate with the global goals of climate protection.

2. Economic incentives – reward-incentivize environmentally-sustainable and socially-responsible production and consumption. Provide economic incentives for communities, industries and small businesses to be clean-green, eco-friendly, non-polluting, energy-efficient, and waste-recycling.

3. Economic penalties – penalize-tax ecological and community harmful businesses, including industries that pollute the environment with toxins or carbon emissions.

Citizen Participation in public decision-making

1. Representation – promote proportional gender, racial, and cultural participation and representation in all levels of governance, decision-making, policy and planning.

2. Voting – ensure that everyone has equal access to voting and other types of participation in governing decisions, and encourage the youth to politically participate and vote.

3. Respect – respect the cultural views and choices of diverse communities, respect their choice of social and economic structures, and respect how each community defines prosperity.

The Basic Needs of Sustainable Development

1. Environmentally sustainable economies – wherein the essential needs of all people are secured, while maintaining the natural environment, resources, and ecology.

2. Clean economies – wherein communities approach a clean, green, non-polluting, carbon-circular economy and development.

3. Food and Water – sustainable and reliable food and water; ensuring an end to world hunger, malnutrition, and unsafe drinking water.

4. Health – adequate health-care, health-protection and decease-prevention for all people.

5. Sanitation – adequate sanitation and hygienic conditions, with facilities for hand-washing and the safe disposal of human waste, garbage, industrial and hazardous waste.

6. Education – accessible education for everyone, without gender or racial discrimination, including skills-training for current and future job opportunities.

7. Technology – knowledge of how to obtain useful, small-scale, eco-friendly technologies, and the skills needed to make use of these.

8. Information – improved access to practical technical information and communication technologies.

Important Aspects of Economic Assistance

1. Emergency assistance – the UN needs to strengthen its structures and response-capacities for providing emergency humanitarian assistance (including financial, technical, and manpower assistance) to communities or regions in dire need - due to armed conflicts, extreme weather, droughts, famines, toxic spills, or other disasters affecting adequate food, water, shelter, and human safety.

2. Development assistance – developing sustainable systems of food and water, sanitation and health, ecological and clean development, technology and information, education and skills-training.

3. Self-reliance – an international coordinated effort to help poorer nations develop economically and become successfully self-reliant in energy, resources, and the technical skills required for economic development.

4. Community success – the ultimate aim of global economic development and economic assistance is the success, well-being, and greater prosperity of each community in whole world.

5. Self-determination – respect the sovereign independence and all nations to govern their own economic policies, without foreign interference nor political-economic oppression by stronger economic powers or militaries.

6. Financial loans – the World Bank needs to provide more financial loans and technical assistance to poorer nations and needy communities; and in order to accomplish this, the World Bank needs more capital input from the international banking systems.

7. Debt forgiveness – at least some of the international debt of poorer nations needs to be forgiven, since they already lack adequate necessities.

International UN Agreement on Human Rights

1. Human Rights must include the right to security & safety, food & water, health & education, freedom & justice, democratic inclusiveness & economic opportunities to improve one's life.

2. Governing must honor individual dignity and freedom, including freedom of speech, creative expression and lifestyle, which demands a minimizing of government restrictions on personal and social freedoms, while also maintaining civil peace, nonviolence, and respect for personal and community property.

3. Increase international support, funding, and legitimacy for world human rights institutions, such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

4. Ensure that all nations honor the UN Declaration of Human Rights

   (also see Stand Up for Human Rights)

Fundamental Human Rights

1. Security – ensure human security and safety for everyone, free from threats of violence and forced enslavement.

2. Survival – ensure healthy food, clean water, and adequate shelter for everyone.

3. Health – ensure health care and health safety for everyone.

4. Education – ensure the availability of a basic education and life-skills for everyone.

5. Freedom – ensure freedom of speech, religion, and lifestyle; as long as this is not harmful to other people or to a sustainable natural environment.

6. Justice – ensure equal justice and fair civil laws for everyone, without systemic prejudice, racism, sexism, and without economic or social oppression.

7. Economic Opportunities – ensure non-discriminating economic opportunities for everyone – for securing personal and family survival, along with increased opportunities for economic advancement.

8. Democratic Participation – ensure equal opportunity to participate in national and community decisions, with equal access to voting and minority-inclusive representation.

9. Communication – ensure freedom in social communication, media, press, and information-access; while also responding to the issues of media violence and media disinformation.

10. Special Protections – ensure the safety and equal rights of physically and economically vulnerable persons, such as:
    women & children, elderly & disabled, homeless & poor,
    farmers & laborers, minorities & indigenous, migrants & refugees, imprisoned & politically detained.

The UN Declaration of Human Rights

This is an abridged rendition of the full - UN Declaration of Human Rights

1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

2. Everyone is entitled to equal human rights and freedoms, without any discrimination.

3. Everyone has the right to life, safety and freedom.

4. No one shall be held in slavery or enforced servitude.

5. No one shall be tortured or treated with cruel punishment.

6. Laws should recognize the equal rights of everyone, and give everyone access to fair courts of law.

7. All are equal before the law and entitled by law to equal protection.

8. Everyone has the right to a fair restorative justice.

9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detainment, imprisonment, or exile.

10. Everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing by an impartial jury, to determine the validity of any criminal charge against them.

11. Everyone should be presumed legally innocent until proved guilty by the institutions of law.

12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, without a trial by law.

13. Everyone has the right to residence in one 's native region, along with the right to leave and go elsewhere.

14. Everyone has the right to seek international asylum from political arrest or persecution, except in cases of civil crimes that are contrary to the principles of the United Nations.

15. Everyone has the right to a nationality and cannot be arbitrarily deprived of their nationality, nor denied the right to change their nationality.

16. All men and women of legal age have the right to marry and to form a family of their own choice, without racial, religions, or sexual bias, yet marriage must have the full consent of both spouses.

17. Everyone has the right to own things or to share them. Everyone has the right to individually own property or in shared association with others, and nobody can take away someone's property without a just reason.

18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and culture, including its unique expressions and group activities.

19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media.

20. Everyone has the right of peaceful assembly and association, and no one should be compelled to belong to any group or assembly.

21. Everyone has the right to take part in the governing of their country, directly or through chosen representatives. The will of the people shall be the basis of any government, ensured by periodic elections held by secret and free voting.

22. Everyone has the right to an adequate social security, in accordance with the resources of each State, along with the right to affordable housing, medicine, education, and work opportunities.

23. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, and to safe and fair conditions of work. All workers have the right to fair compensation, and everyone has the right to equal pay for equal work, without any discrimination. Everyone also has the right to form or join a 'trade union', which is a group of workers who negotiate for fairer wages or improved working conditions.

24. Everyone has the right to have rest and leisure, including a reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays.

25. Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living, for oneself and one's family; including food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, and other necessities. Motherhood, childhood and the elderly are entitled to special assistance, protection and care.

26. Everyone has the right to education, which should include knowledge of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and learning how to be understanding, tolerant, and peaceful among other nationalities, races or religions. Higher education and skills training should be available on the basis of merit.

27. Everyone has the right to participate in community activities and to share in scientific advancements. The authors of any scientific, literary or artistic production are entitled to personal recognition and fair reward.

28. Everyone is entitled to all of these global rights and freedoms.

29. Each person's rights and freedoms should only be limited for the purpose of securing the rights and freedoms of others, or for public order, morality, or the general welfare of everyone in society.

30. No State, group, or person has the right to engage in any activity contrary to any of the human rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Major Goals

• Environmental Protection and Climate Stability

• Protecting our Global Natural Resources of air, water, forests and other terrestrial ecosystems.

• Protecting living ecosystems, biodiversity, endangered wildlife and habitats.

• Protections against global environmental degradation by economic exploitation.

• Conservation of:

  1. Freshwater and ocean ecosystems

  2. Biodiversity of plants, crops and seeds

  3. Wildlife, natural habitats, and nature reserves

  4. Rare and useful mineral resources

Complete the Paris Climate Agreement

1. Finalize full international agreement on the Paris Climate Agreement. There is a global urgency to mitigate the global causes of climate-change.

2. Adopt a whole-system approach by linking climate governance to other environmental agreements, protocols, and conventions.

3. Address the climate crisis with coordinated global action and legally binding frameworks.

4. Facilitate an international agreement on financial penalties for violations, payed into a globally supervised Environmental Fund – which will distribute loans to climate-friendly businesses, clean renewable energies, and innovative global solutions to climate-change and pollution; all on a scale without historic precedent.

Environmental accountability

The UN needs to study all aspects and effects of climate change, including its monitoring, its causes, its solutions, and the best alternatives to nonrenewable, carbon-producing energy production and the newest technologies for mitigating climate change.

Also, in order to truly solve the problem of climate change, we need to make some changes in the economics that got us all here in this problem. This does not entail a total dismantling of free market capitalism, nor of economic nationalism, but it does entail an environmental factor in the equations and accounting of capitalistic businesses which will successfully bring to light the true costs of any energy, production, or technology.

This necessary environmental factor is the public or community cost, on our common shared resources, of any specific kind of energy production or manufactured product; or in other words, what is the environmental cost involved in this production or this use of natural planetary resources?

These costs need to be accounted for and paid for by the business' causing them, and the payment can sometimes be accounted for by a public tax on those costs, or also known as a public-goods penalty.

Reversely, 'economic incentives' can be given to businesses that:

• use environmentally-sustainable energies and production processes.

• help to heal the environmental harm already incurred on air, waters, or land.

• recycle domestic or industrial waste, or transform environmentally harmful substances into usable energy or products.

Financial accountability for environmental violations -

1. Financial penalties – The global environment, the global commons, including the global air, waters, and the biodiversity of plants and animals, can be protected by laws, but financial penalties are needed to enforce these laws.

2. Accounting for costs – Environmental Sustainability requires accounting for the costs of remedying environmental degradation, mitigating human harm on natural environments, staying within planetary-sustainability boundaries, managing our common global resources and bio-systems, and considering the impact on future generations when making global policies.

3. Taxable accountability – Nations and businesses should be taxably accountable for violations of scientifically decided standards for a globally sustainable environment and ecological biodiversity. This should include accountability for industrial and consumer waste and pollution entering the global environment and for any negative effects on community health, as well as accountability for harming threatened wildlife and habitats.

4. Global carbon-tax – Implement a global carbon tax on carbon-producing industries, collected by states and transferred to a UN Global Environmental Fund which will provide economic incentives and loans for clean-green industries and small businesses.

5. Economic incentives and loans – Provide economic incentives and loans to industries, small businesses and community-enterprises that are clean, green, eco-friendly, non-polluting, recycling and energy-efficient.

Environmental Monitoring and Protections

1. monitor all types of global natural resources.

2. monitor all types of animal and plant biodiversity.

3. advise on effective protections for natural resources and biodiversity.

4. seek international agreements for environmental protections, economic penalties and incentives, and global penalties for violations.

Monitor and protect the Global Atmosphere

Problems to monitor and mitigate:

1. climate change and extreme weather

2. sources of carbon emissions

3. regional air quality and health impacts

4. sources of chemical toxins entering the air

5. ozone depletion and ozone sources

6. radiation energies from emerging technologies

Monitor and protect Global Water Resources

(a) monitor: international rivers and other fresh waters, with attention to water quality, water pollution, types of pollution, sources of pollution, and toxic leakages.

(b) advise on: laws and enforcement for global water protection, freshwater management and conservation, wastewater management, and accessible drinking water for everyone.

(c) seek international agreements for protecting freshwaters, and impose global penalties for violations.

Monitor and protect Global Oceans

(a) monitor: ocean-warming and acidification, ocean pollution, micro-plastics, overfishing, harmful fishing practices, and degradation of ocean ecosystems.

(b) advise on: protecting ocean ecosystems, marine management, and guidelines for sustainable fishing.

(c) seek international agreements for protecting the oceans and ocean-life, and impose global penalties for violations.

Monitor and protect Terrestrial Ecosystems

(a) monitor: terrestrial ecosystems and the global biodiversity of soils, plants and seeds, forests and other bio-regions, endangered wildlife and natural habitats.

(b) advise on: soil, plant and seed conservation, sustainable forest management and reforestation, wildlife and bird conservation, the protection of endangered species and their natural habitats, and the conservation and rehabilitation of regional ecosystems and biodiversity.

(c) seek international agreements and impose penalties for harms to major global ecosystems, biodiversity, forests, endangered wildlife, and natural habitats.

Human Security is a Human Right

There are multiple reasons for achieving Global Peace and Security, but the most important reason is the protection of human life. The protection of human life must be regarded as a Human Right; and thus, Global Peace and Security should essentially be based on Human Rights – as a necessary precondition for sustainable peace. These rights are promoted in the UN Charter and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Global Security requires multiple strategies for resolving conflicts and achieving sustainable peace. Peace and Security is not simply the absence of military conflict, for Sustainable Peace requires: disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons, peace agreements, and peacebuilding to achieve cooperative international relations.

Sustainable Peace and Security are also enhanced by inter-national economic cooperation, common projects, and human rights agreements.

Ensuring Human Security and Protections

1. Establish International Peace – through dialogue, negotiation, agreements, and consensus-building.

2. Establish Peace Agreements and International Laws – that will ensure an end to all tribal, racial, and inter-national aggression.

3. Establish reliable security and protections – for women, children, the elderly, disabled, displaced, refugees and immigrants.

4. Establish equal participation in security decisions – with proportional gender and race representation in all security and human rights decision-making.

5. Establish norms and best-practices – for conflict prevention, crisis management, peaceful settlement of disputes, and post-conflict peace-building.

6. Reduce the circulation of harmful weapons – by eliminating the illicit production and trafficking of large weapons, light weapons, and small arms.

Improve the UN structures for Global Security

1. A Security Council that functions effectively

   If the Security Council cannot function in a cooperative and collaborative way, in the way that the original UN intended, then the UN must revise it to be more successful at fulfilling is intended function.
   

2. A stronger Peacebuilding Commission

   The Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), representing all genders and races, needs a more prominent role in all conflict-resolution work.

3. People-centered peacekeeping

   Place local people, proportionally represented in gender and race, at the centre of peace operations, which will give them a rightful participation in their own peace process and also make them accountable for its success.

4. An international prohibition of barbaric and mass-destructive weapons

   There needs to be an end to all forms of warfare and weapons that society deems too barbaric, inhuman, or a cruel violation of human rights, including nuclear and chemical weapons, cluster munitions and killer robots.

5. A international abolishment of all nuclear weapons

   There needs to be an end to the threat of nuclear weapons, because these weapons of mass destruction pose an unacceptable threat to life on Earth, they serve no useful purpose, and they can never be used without committing a barbaric human atrocity.

Revise the UN Peace and Security architecture

1. Revise the Security Council's reliance on consensus and improve the relationship between the UN, Member States, and regional organizations.

2. Upgrade the Peacebuilding Commission into a 'UN Peacebuilding Council' and entrust it with a mandate of both conflict-prevention and reconciliation/transitional justice. The new Council would gain enhanced powers and responsibilities, and be mandated to lead on policy development, coordination, resource mobilization, conflict prevention, and peacebuilding efforts, not being addressed directly by the Security Council.

3. Finalize international agreements to abolish all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and all other weapons of mass destruction.

4. Monitor and seek solutions to the problems of inter-domestic armed conflicts, terrorist groups, and lethal autonomous weapons.

5. Monitor and seek solutions to the problems of organized crime, cyber-crime and cyber-warfare.

Begin UN Negotiations for Eliminating Nuclear Weapons

Each year the UN General Assembly calls for a Nuclear Weapons Convention for negotiating a Global Treaty, which would prohibit the threat or use of nuclear weapons and establish a phased program for their complete elimination under strict and effective international control.

However, this Convention is never implemented. Why?

1. It is not supported by major nuclear-armed countries (France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States) and countries under extended nuclear deterrence relationships (NATO members, Australia, Japan and South Korea);

2. The Conference on Disarmament, which is used to negotiate multilateral non-proliferation and disarmament treaties, operates by consensus.

Therefore, in order to move forward on these multilateral nuclear-negotiations:

(a) the rule on consensus needs to be revised.

(b) citizens of those non-supportive countries need to pressure their governments to implement this Convention for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

Practical Steps to achieve Global Peace Security

1. Respond immediately to instances of violent aggression – with dialogue and de-escalation, without threats or force.

2. Prepare for all types of international response, including military if necessary, to protect civilians, women, children, or the displaced.

3. Buildup more UN standing capacities, such as permanent civilian, police and peacekeeping personnel, along with UN reserve capacities available on short notice.

4. Create peace-teams for achieving a nonviolent resolution of conflicts between nations or tribes, and establish agreements for a permanent end to inter-state, tribal or racial aggression.

5. Invest time and resources in negotiating peace, interim peacekeeping, post-conflict peacebuilding, and building a culture of peace.

6. Involve more women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, and in peace-building and peace-culture activities.

7. Help nations maintain peace, build prosperity, and protect against terrorism, espionage, organized crime, and cybercrime.

Post-conflict Peacebuilding

1. Rebuilding peace, justice, solidarity and cooperation, with social tolerance, respect for differences, and based on equal human rights.

2. Rehabilitation of community and national economics, with equal rights and fairness for all citizens.

3. Reparations for incurred harms or injustices to people and property.

4. Reintegration of soldiers and displaced people into the economic and social fabric.

5. Restoration of justice through a process of engaged dialogue between victims and offenders, in order to re-build trust and cooperation.

6. Reconciliation between conflicting groups, or between victims and offenders, through a 'ground-up' process of dialogue that seeks to heal both the trauma and anger from inflicted violence, so to not pass on inter-generational resentments and mistrust that may cause future recurrences of violence.

Post-conflict Rehabilitation

1. Humanitarian relief and development

   Delivering aid (food, water, healthcare and reconstruction of infrastructure) to communities that have suffered conflict needs to be carefully managed to avoid deepening divisions between groups by apparent favoritism.

2. Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of combatants

   Transforming ex-combatants into peaceful and productive members of society is a critical but challenging task. Removing weapons, returning ex-combatants to their homes and supporting a return to civilian life are all vitally necessary.

3. Refugees and displaced people

   People returning home after the conflict may find their property has been destroyed, littered with unexploded landmines, or occupied by others. Mechanisms are needed for resettling people and helping them return to a safe and productive life and preventing future conflict.

4. Economic development

   Assisting communities to become self-supporting after so much has been destroyed is vital. It can be done through small loans, training, and food for work programs. Rebuilding infrastructure supports these developments through making access to markets and contact with other communities easier.

5. Protecting Women

   Armed conflict affects women and men differently. Women bear the brunt of sexual assault as a tool of war. If they suffer the loss of partners and sons, women may experience a change in their role to the breadwinner and head of the family. Their specific needs may be overlooked, as they are not as obvious as the resettlement needs of ex-combatants.

6. Protecting Children

   Children’s lives may have been disrupted severely during the conflict. They may have been forced to flee their homes, gone without food, education and healthcare and even witnessed extreme violence or been recruited or conscripted to be active combatants. Rebuilding their lives entails assisting with social rehabilitation, trauma counseling and peace education.

7. Reconciliation

   All wars are brutal and particularly so when there has been the mass killing of civilians. Developing trust and cooperation within communities of people who have been enemies is a long and difficult process. It involves balancing the competing demands for justice and accountability for perpetrators of violence with the need to reconcile differences and move forward. Timing is crucial as too few compromises may threaten peace in the short run but too many compromises may undermine lasting peace. Reconciliation activities have included public confession, granting amnesty, community involvement to discuss appropriate punishment or acts of reconciliation, community building activities and peace education.

Principles of Peace-building

1. Develop reliable and trustworthy systems of Human Security, whereby people no longer fear violence or personal abuse.

2. Address both the causes and impacts of specific conflicts or acts of violence.

3. Apply conflict-resolution techniques, such as dialogue about common ground, common values and common human rights.

4. Create social structures and laws for non-violent resolutions of conflict.

5. Transform fear-based dynamics into trust-based dynamics, in social and political relations.

6. Build a Culture of Peace, which highly values peace and endeavors to build peace in all aspects of the society and ways of life.

7. Utilize worldwide news outlets, social media and education to communicate the values, practices, and multi-various examples of practical peacebuilding and peace-culture activities.

Peace Education

from the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference 1999: Global Campaign for Peace Education

"A Culture of Peace will be achieved when citizens of the world understand global problems, have the skills to resolve conflicts and struggle for justice non-violently, live by international standards of human rights and equity, appreciate cultural diversity, and respect the Earth and each other. Such learning can only be achieved with systematic education for peace."

from the UN Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, article 9:

– Ensure that children, from an early age, benefit from education on the values, attitudes, modes of behaviour and ways of life to enable them to resolve any dispute peacefully and in a spirit of respect for human dignity and of tolerance and non-discrimination.

– Involve children in activities designed to instill in them the values and goals of a culture of peace.

– Ensure equality of access to education for women, especially girls.

– from Maria Montessori, 'Education for a New World':

But humanity is not yet ready for the evolution that it desires so ardently, the construction of a peaceful and harmonious society that shall eliminate war. Men are not sufficiently educated to control events, so become their victims. Noble ideas, great sentiments have always found utterance, but wars have not ceased! If education were to continue along the lines of mere transmission of knowledge, the problem would be insoluble and there would be no hope for the world… we have before us in the child a psychic entity, a social group of immense size, a veritable world-power if rightly used. If salvation and help are to come, it is from the child, for the child is the constructor of man, and so of society. The child is endowed with an inner power which can guide us to a more luminous future. Education should no longer be mostly about the imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.

3 Principles for a Culture of Peace

1. Respect for human rights

• Being safe from violence, war, and oppression is a human right.

• Personal, cultural, and religious freedom is a human right.

• Freedom of speech, opinion, and lifestyle is a human right.

• Food, water, and sufficient economic opportunities is a human right.

• Democratic participation in governing decisions, through voting and diversity-proportional representation.

• A sustainable Culture of Peace can only be developed when there is gender, race, and cultural equality in all aspects of the society and in all arenas of public decision-making.

2. Peaceful conflict-resolution

• Apply dialogue, negotiation and compromise, with mutual respect.

• Agreements and cooperation are built upon common values and needs, along with a will to approach consensus, while respecting differences and diversity.

• Transcend prejudices and enemy-preconceptions about other cultures, races, or nations.

• Maintain a positive and proactive approach to peace-making, peacebuilding, and sustainable peace. A positive approach is to continually persevere with a positive attitude and to build trust and cooperation.

3. Teaching peace

• Teach children and all society about the value of peace, non-violence, human rights, democracy, non-discrimination, social justice, cultural diversity and inter-cultural understanding.

• Teach children and students to practice conflict-resolution and peace-building in practical situations.
  

  For Educators:

  • What is a Culture of Peace?

  • see this Peacebuilding Toolkit

  • here is an impressive and comprehensive free book on
    Peace Education with a Holistic Understanding

  • here are some Peace Lesson Plans for elementary grades:
    Educating for Peace

  • here is a Semester Curriculum for secondary grades:
    HS Peace Education

  • here are Curricular Materials for various grades:
    Peace Literacy

  • also see this lesson plan on
    Wilson's 14 Points for World Peace

  • Creative Teaching Ideas from Teach Peace Now

United Nations Declaration on a Culture of Peace

Article 1

A culture of peace is a set of values, attitudes, traditions and modes of behaviour and ways of life based on:

(a) Respect for life, ending of violence and promotion and practice of non-violence through education, dialogue and cooperation;

(b) Full respect for the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of States and non-intervention in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and international law;

(c) Full respect for and promotion of all human rights and fundamental freedoms;

(d) Commitment to peaceful settlement of conflicts;

(e) Efforts to meet the developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations;

(f) Respect for and promotion of the right to development;

(g) Respect for and promotion of equal rights and opportunities for women and men;

(h) Respect for and promotion of the right of everyone to freedom of expression, opinion and information;

(i) Adherence to the principles of freedom, justice, democracy, tolerance, solidarity, cooperation, pluralism, cultural diversity, dialogue and understanding at all levels of society and among nations; and fostered by an enabling national and international environment conducive to peace.

Article 5

Governments have an essential role in promoting and strengthening a culture of peace.

Article 6

Civil society needs to be fully engaged in fuller development of a culture of peace.

Article 7

The educative and informative role of the media contributes to the promotion of a culture of peace.

Article 8

A key role in the promotion of a culture of peace belongs to parents, teachers, politicians, journalists, religious bodies and groups, intellectuals, those engaged in scientific, philosophical and creative and artistic activities, health and humanitarian workers, social workers, managers at various levels as well as to non-governmental organizations.

Article 9

The United Nations should continue to play a critical role in the promotion and strengthening of a culture of peace worldwide.

click here for the complete UN Declaration on a Culture of Peace

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