Radical Party Secretary

ABSTRACT: Opening article of a brochure on the RP, with an account of the campaign for the creation of an international jurisdiction.

[The texts of the brochure (Italian/English) are contained in the attached file (Macintosh, XPress files, compressed with Disk Doubler)]

We live in an era in which the divorce between conscience and knowledge is extremely dangerous, the harbinger of great risks for humanity: in the last thirty years, humanity has accumulated more scientific and technological knowledge than in its entire history, but it is unable to direct this immense patrimony towards objectives of common interest and growth; at times, in fact, it seems to turn the new discoveries and knowledge against itself. The transmission of values, beliefs and civil co-existence is increasingly precarious, with the result that men and women all over the world, especially the younger generations, tend to counter the uncertainties of the present by choosing violence, defending personal interests to the extent of rejecting those who are different, who thus become adversaries (and not only in the former Yugoslavia): never before, perhaps, has the respect for rights and the law fallen so low.

And yet there are many Treaties and Conventions which formally bind the member countries of the United Nations to provisions and laws that should ensure that every human being can enjoy precise, fundamental and inviolable rights. Everyone declares that these laws should be respected, but the universally expressed intentions are not matched by the facts: violence, egoism, and the desire for power on the part of individuals, ethnic groups, and also States seem to be stronger than any law or provision.

On the occasion of the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, the UN Security Council decided in May 1993 to set up an international Tribunal to try the war crimes committed in that country. The Tribunal took office on 17 November 1993. The implications of this step could be enormous: it is, in fact, the first effective initiative towards an international legislative and juridical system capable of limiting the sovereignty of individual countries and of punishing those who commit serious crimes against humanity and its values.

This initiative must not be abandoned; it must become the pivot of new forms of intervention at world level, founded on universally recognized and proclaimed laws aimed at countering the threats to democracy and security (and also the environment, for the three things must go together). This task must obviously be entrusted to the United Nations. But at present the United Nations, the entire United Nations system, partly due to a lack of democratic credibility, is not able to ensure the respect of the rights that are universally proclaimed, punishing those who violate these rights and protecting those who are deprived of them through violence. It is widely admitted that the United Nations needs to be provided with new credibility, adequate jurisdictional instruments and the strength to ensure the respect of these instruments. Everyone says that this is what they want, but nobody organizes initiatives for this end.

The Radical Party fully approved the message sent by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros Ghali, to the Assembly of Parliamentarians held in Sofia in July 1993, underlining in particular the statement that "the requirement for peace must be inscribed above all in the conscience of individuals; the requirement for development is by now felt to be a right of man; democracy is the new requirement which we set ourselves". In the same spirit the Radical Party also upholds the Declaration approved by the Security Council of the United Nations in the meeting of heads of state and government on 31 January 1992, the Rio de Janeiro Declaration and Agenda 21 for the environment and sustainable development, which warn that the great threats to peace and security no longer come only from military sources but also, perhaps above all, from causes of instability which develop day by day in the humanitarian and ecological fields.

In order to ensure that the message from the UN Secretary General and the policy documents drawn up at supernational level become political objectives to be pursued and realized, we must immediately, and with great determination, promote initiatives capable of involving individuals and peoples. In order to do this, there is a need for a political body organized directly and exclusively at transnational level, capable therefore of working in support of the UN and the international institutions. The objective, the daily commitment, and the ambition of the Radical Party is precisely this: to become a force for transnational initiatives and pressure in support of the development of the United Nations; a sort of Fabian Society for democracy, peace, and human and civil rights, no longer at the level of a single country, but addressed to the citizens of the world.

A task and an ambition which are difficult, perhaps impossible, without the help, the support and the efforts of many people, in Europe and around the world.

INDEX

THE RADICAL PARTY

The transnational and transdivisional Radical Party

Why Gandhi?

Why radical?

The party organs

The members of the General Council

From the Americas to the Caucasus

The party offices around the world

MARCO PANNELLA

Thirty years as a radical leader

"Radical" nonviolence

THE TRANSNATIONAL INITIATIVES

New transnational laws to defend the rights of the individual and democracy

Restriction of national sovereignty

Aids: a UN convention and a special mandate for the WHO

Ecologically sustainable development

Safeguard of the right to language

Drugs: three conventions to be scrapped

The failure of prohibitionism

The Radical Anti-prohibitionist Committee (CORA)

The International Anti-prohibitionist League (ILA)

"Hands off Cain"

Citizens and parlamentarians campaign for the abolition

of the death penalty worldwide by 2000

Radical Africa

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION

Agorę: the telematic square

How to join

Membership fees

DOCUMENTS

The Sofia motion

The statute