Four representatives of the International Ethical, Scientific and Political Collegium, a high-level international group of intellectuals - comprising scientists, philosophers and former statesmen and women - visited Geneva (March 6, 2012) to launch an Appeal for a world governance based on global solidarity and responsibility. The call is a plea to reject political renunciation in the face of the “poly-crisis” threatening humanity and to regain the pioneer spirit of the Charter of the United Nations.

While the authors of the text recognize that nation-states and inter-governmentalism are no more relevant to the twenty-first century world governance because of the systemic nature of the new threats to international security, they reject the universalistic idea of a world government, deemed “neither possible, nor desirable” because of the hegemonic threat it entails. They call instead for re-empowering international institutions “sacrificed in the 1980s under the pressure of neoliberal economic theories”, and for rethinking international legal principles (sovereignty, territoriality and security) according to the idea of “planetary inter-solidarity”.

In addition to three urgent measures aimed at mitigating the repetition of the economic and financial crisis, the Appeal calls for the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the “Universal Declaration of Interdependence”. During the conference, the members of the Collegium expressed their wish to return to the fundamental notion of collective security - the founding principle of the United Nations - and to extend it to include international environmental, economic and social security. Commending the emergence of a global responsibility to protect populations, they advocated the broadening of the idea to the protection of future generations.

The Appeal calls for the creation of a political forum to define the “superior interests of humanity” in which a pluralistic form of global governance, a “topic of absolute non-topicality and non-operability”, as Michel Rocard, former French Prime Minister and representative of the International Collegium expressed it, would become a concrete reality. To support this vision, the civil campaigns that led to the creation of the International Penal Court and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention were flagged as evidence that a responsible and participatory form of global governance is possible.