the myth of losing national sovereignity

By John O. Sutter
President, Democratic World Federalists

Many readily acknowledge that global problems can be solved best by a democratic federal system of governing the world ("D.W.F."). Still, they often are concerned about others' fear of losing what they call "national sovereignty." Democratically-inclined dissident subjects of authoritarian states, who would benefit from a D.W.F., have no such fear. What they fear -- and seek to rid themselves of -- is the tyrant who claims that his regime and the state which he rules are "sovereign" and therefore "free from interference in its internal affairs."

Just where lies the authority to govern a country and its people? Since the Reformation and the Enlightenment, when the people learned to question the absolute power of the Clergy and the Monarchy, we have come realize that sovereignty lies with the people, who associate together and delegate powers to governments of ever larger political entities (cf. 1998 statement by a W.F.M. committee).

In June 1776 the Declaration of Rights of the Common-wealth of Virginia (largely drafted by George Mason) declared: "That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that [office-holders] are their trustees and servants and at all times [accountable] to them. And that, when any government shall be found inadequate [for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people], a majority of the community has an...inalienable...right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal."

Weeks later the U.S. Declaration of Independence (largely drafted by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia) announced:"[T]o secure [the rights of men], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, [W]henver any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government..."

Confirming the concept that the people are sovereign, not the government, the leading Framers of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison of Virginia, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, et al. insisted that the document drafted in Philadelphia in 1787 be ratified not by legislatures (the people's agents), but by the people themselves in conventions called for that purpose. Moreover, the Preamble (partly drafted by Wilson) declares: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, [etc.], do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

As Representative in the 1st Congress in 1789, Madison had the task of drafting its first amendments. After collating texts from the bills of rights of individual states as well as recommendations of state ratifying conventions, not surprisingly he selected as his first choice, "That there be prefixed to the Constitution a declaration, -That all power is originally vested in, and consequently derived from the people. That Government is instituted and ought to be exercised for the benefit of the people...That the people have an...unalienable...right to reform or change their Government, whenever it be found adverse or inadequate to the purposes of its institution." (However, then, as now, some Senators blocked these sentiments as too radical.)

That same year the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaimed, inter alia:
"VI. The law is an expression of the will of the community. All citizens have a right to play a role, either personally, or by their representatives, in its formation..."

Two centuries ago the ability of the people to form and change their governments -- the essence of sovereignty -- began to be recognized. Unfortunately, since then, wars between "sovereign" nation-states, and the shadow of the dictatorships of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, many apparently had trouble understanding that when citizens of independent states elect to join a larger union, they are acquiring sovereignty, not losing it.

At the end of World War II, Emery Reves wrote in The Anatomy of Peace that if citizens of municipalities, provinces, and countries had previously been able to form governments to look after their interests in communities at those levels, they could exercise and acquire sovereignty by delegating powers to a world federal government to look after their interests in solving global problems, especially war and violation of human rights.

In 1998 W.F.A. approved an updated definition of sovereignty as the authority to form and change the government of a state or other political units. Whereas in authoritarian realms -- no longer acceptable in most places -- it may have been the power of rulers over their subjects, in democracies it is the legitimate authority of the citizens, who may exercise their powers to govern directly or indirectly in accord with a constitution, while in democratic federal systems, the citizens delegate powers among governments of the union and member units.

It's time to disabuse people of the myth that if citizens support a larger democratic union, such as the emerging European Federation and ultimately the World Federation, some sovereignty is being lost. We gain sovereignty by participating actively in such larger democratic unions.

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