Encyclopedia Of World Constitutions Pdf

[Roxanna Bornemann]

Aworld constitution is a proposed framework or document aimed at establishing a system of global governance. It seeks to provide a set of principles, structures, and laws to govern the relationships between states and address global issues.[1] The concept of a world constitution reflects the aspiration for greater international cooperation, peace, and the resolution of global challenges.[1]

A world constitution serves as a blueprint for organizing and governing global affairs. It typically outlines the powers, functions, and responsibilities of global institutions and establishes mechanisms for decision-making, conflict resolution, and the protection of human rights. The aim is to create a framework that promotes unity, justice, and sustainability on a global scale.[1]

Efforts to formulate world constitutions have been present throughout history, often arising in response to global crises or conflicts. These initiatives have sought to address the limitations of the existing international order and propose more comprehensive systems of global governance.[2][3][4]

The University of Chicago drafted a preliminary document, Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution, outlining a potential world constitution in 1948. Led by Robert Maynard Hutchins, the proposal aimed to stimulate discussions on global governance and provide a basis for further deliberations. The members of the Committee at the time of the publication of the Draft were Robert Hutchins, Elisabeth Mann Borgese, Mortimer J. Adler, Stringfellow Barr, Albert Lon Gurard, Harold Innis, Erich Kahler, Wilber G. Katz, Charles Howard McIlwain, Robert Redfield, and Rexford Tugwell.[5]

Albert Einstein grew increasingly convinced that the world was veering off course. He arrived at the conclusion that the gravity of the situation demanded more profound actions and the establishment of a "world government" was the only logical solution.[6][7] In his "Open Letter to the General Assembly of the United Nations" of October 1947, Einstein emphasized the urgent need for international cooperation and the establishment of a world government.[8] In the year 1948, Einstein invited United World Federalists (UWF) president Cord Meyer to a meeting of ECAS[9][10] and joined UWF as a member of the Advisory Board.[11][12] Einstein and ECAS assisted UEF in fundraising[12] and provided supporting material.[13] [14] Einstein described United World Federalists as: "the group nearest to our aspirations".[15]

This Earth Constitution is a framework of a world federalist government.[4] A Provisional World Parliament (PWP), a transitional international legislative body, operates today under the framework of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.[25] It convenes to work on global issues, gathering delegates from different countries.[26]

The international impact of the U.S. Constitution is an ongoing reality: most of the world's constitutions have been written in the last forty years, and constitutions are rewritten and revised all the time. The Constitution of the United States continues to be the guiding pattern, and a wellspring of inspiration and innovation. The fundamental idea behind the U.S. Constitution was the belief that the people of a nation comprise the constituent power. The founders of this country, conceiving of the people as the sovereign, asserted that the people themselves could formulate and promulgate a constitution. The idea of a constitutional convention was the natural expression of this concept, for it literally embodied the sovereignty of the people.

Australia, Canada, West Germany, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, and, most recently, Nigeria boast of adherence to American concepts in the creation of their own federal structure and so to a lesser extent do Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela.

The United States was the first nation to have an elected head of state called a president. It was a constitutionally created president, described by harold j. laski as "both more and less than a king; both more and less than a prime minister." Today more than half the world's nations have presidents as their chief executives, some with even more constitutional power than the American president (France, South Africa), many with only nominal ceremonial powers (India, Zimbabwe).

The American Constitution formalized the concepts required to make such a system work: the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. The result balances leadership and minimizes abuse, encourages stability and obviates tyranny.

The sheer longevity of America's constitutional experiment illuminates with each passing year a great, yet hidden strength of the U.S. Constitution: It is a device for assuring national dialogue and conflict resolution. The legislative branch, the executive, and especially the judiciary are more than divisions of government. They are America's ongoing constitutional convention. And as much as anything, this aspect of their identities explains why the American constitutional model remains so attractive and thought-provoking at its bicentennial.

Any study of the international influence of the U.S. Constitution must take into account the fact that this influence is both historic and ongoing. And it should consider how American guidelines, practices, and innovations have been improved on by other nations. But more would be accomplished than just a study of the past. A new understanding would be achieved, of what is fundamental to the American Constitution and what is ephemeral, of what is exportable, and even universally applicable.

So pervasive has been the influence of the Constitution of the United States that most nations have followed its lead by adopting one-document constitutions of their own. Beginning in 1791 with Poland and France, the American concept of a constitution to create government speedily became the norm.

Although some nations are under martial rule or have a transitional government with their constitutions in suspension, all but the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Israel are committed to the concept and principle of the one-document constitution and all have such a document in some stage of preparation or have one in place. Significantly, the act of constitutional suspension has become the most extreme political act of modern government. What makes this American-influenced constitutional universality so historically significant is its short duration on the world stage.

The written constitution is an American innovation. Its genesis can be traced to thomas hooker ' sfundamental orders of connecticut (1639) which was the first to create a state or governmental entity. This prefigured the state constitutions of Virginia and Pennsylvania, which in turn influenced the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. The U.S. Constitution, however, was the document that influenced and continues to influence foreign constitution-makers. For since that date nationhood was to be achieved via a constitution.

Just by being the first, the U.S. Constitution inevitably influenced constitutions abroad. It was the only available national model for the 1791 constitution-makers of Poland who copied its preamble and its impeachment provisions, and in their famous Article V provided Europe's first statement of popular sovereignty.

Another reason for the widespread influence of the United States Constitution abroad is that constitutions are largely written by lawyers, and lawyering normally involves the search for source and precedent. Lawyers have dominated the constituent assemblies and constitutional conventions abroad. The lawyer constitutionalists of America were also proselytizers. They shared the gospel so often proclaimed by thomas jefferson."We feel," he wrote, "that we are acting under obligations not confined to the limits of our own society. It is impossible not to be sensible that we are acting for all mankind."

This message has been well received, starting with France and the men who made the French Revolution. The fact that the constitution consisted of lawyers' ideas contributed to their ready transmittal. Lawyers were popular; the Dantons and Robespierres had sided with the people in their revolt against authority. Jacques Vincent de la Croix, a lawyer, offered a course on the Constitution of the United States at the Lyce de Paris, an institution of free higher education established in 1787. This pattern has continued. The lawyer has been the commoner charged with teaching constitutionalism and translating the needs and aspirations of the people into a legal document. Every constitutional lawyer in the world knows about the U.S. Constitution.

The lawyers who wrote the American constitutions also wrote about them. john adams, author of the massachusetts constitution and prime "inventor" of the concept of a constitutional convention, could not be in Philadelphia in 1787 as he was then envoy to England. But his Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America was one of the most influential works on constitutionalism, at home and abroad.

Even more influential was the federalist, almost immediately translated into French, German, and Spanish to provide constitutional guidelines for a dozen or more nations in Europe and Latin America. Now translated into more than twenty languages, The Federalist is still taught in constitutional law classes abroad and new translations are still being published.

The records of the 1848 German constitutional assembly at Frankfurt contain references not only to the U.S. Constitution and The Federalist but also to the constitutional commentaries of Justice joseph story and Chancellor james kent. Modern examples abound, with copious references in India's 1947 Constituent Assembly Debates, and, more recently, in the commentaries on the Nigerian Constitution of 1979.

The tradition of the American participant, counsel, or consultant in foreign constitution-making dates from the service of thomas paine as a member of the 1791 French constitutional assembly. Lawrence Ward Beer wrote of the American role in constitution-making in Asia: "A basic context for American influence has been the consultation of American experts on constitutionalism and law during the process of drawing up, applying, interpreting, or amending a national constitution. Concretely, the views of individual American judges and legal scholars have been solicited during visits by Asian constitutionalists to America; American legal literature (including judicial precedent) has been studied, and many Americans have been directly involved in Asian constitution-making."

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