Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1999 18:16:50 +0000
From: Paul Swann <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Citizens' Public Trust Treaty
CITIZENS' PUBLIC TRUST TREATY
A TREATY OF ETHICS, EQUITY AND ECOLOGY
A PROPOSED United Nations General Assembly Resolution,
to be circulated to governments by their citizens.
_____________________________
THE CALL:
We call upon the nations of the world to ensure the rights of present and
future generations to genuine peace, social justice and ecological integrity
by implementing the principles of this Citizens' Public Trust Treaty.
We urge you to support the Treaty by adding your name to the petition,
by passing it on, and by sending copies to heads of states and
legislators.
January 1st, 1999
_____________________________
WE, THE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD,
DETERMINED
* to create a world based on true participatory democracy within a
framework of public trust principles;
* to accept the inherent limits to the Earth's resources and to promote
the peaceful coexistence of all nations, races, and species;
* to develop a stable and peaceful international society founded on the
rule of law;
* to prevent the damaging consequences of unprincipled economic growth;
* to ensure that the economy conforms to the limitations of the ecosystem;
RECOGNIZING
the interdependence of Peace Building, Human Rights, Environmental
Protection, and Advocacy for Social Justice;
NOTING
that through more than 50 years of concerted effort, the member states
of the United Nations have created international Public Trust
obligations, commitments and expectations:
1. to Promote and fully guarantee respect for human rights including labour
rights, the right to adequate food, shelter and health care, and
social justice;
2. to Enable socially equitable and environmentally sound development;
3. to Achieve a state of peace, justice and security;
4. to Create a global structure that respects the rule of law; and
5. to Ensure the preservation and protection of the environment, respect
the inherent worth of nature beyond human purpose, reduce the ecological
footprint and move away from the current model of over-consumptive
development;
AFFIRMING
that the freedom from fear and want can be achieved only if conditions
are created whereby everyone is able to enjoy economic, social and
cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights
(Universal Declaration of Human Rights);
AWARE
that the rule of law and the good-faith implementation of international
legal principles are the foundation for peace, security, and
co-operation amongst States (Declaration on Principles of International
Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in
Accordance with the Charter of the UN [General Assembly Resolution
2625 (XXV)]);
RECALLING
the obligations of States under the Charter of the United Nations to
guarantee respect for human rights as set out in the International Bill
of Rights, and to "prevent the scourge of war";
* the expectations created through the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948), now accepted as part of customary
international law, to guarantee "the inherent dignity and the equal and
inalienable rights of all members of the human family";
* the obligation undertaken by States in various multilateral treaties on
human rights, that there must be no discrimination on the following
grounds:
- race, tribe, or culture;
- colour, ethnicity, national ethnic or social origin, or language;
- nationality, place of birth, or nature of residence (refugee or
- immigrant, migrant worker);
- gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or
- form of family;
- disability or age;
- religion or conviction, political or other opinion, or
- class, economic position, or other status;
(1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the
1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
among others);
* the obligations of States to ensure full employment and enjoyment of
just and favourable conditions of work (1966 Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights);
* the expectation, created by the adoption of the precautionary principle
as part of customary international law, that where there is a a threat
of serious environmental damage or of harm to human health, the lack of
full scientific certainty will not be used as a reason for postponing
measures to prevent that threat;
* the expectation, created by the adoption of the principle of
intergenerational equity, that the rights of future generations to an
ecological heritage will be respected (Convention on the Preservation of
Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972);
* that the potential irreversibility of environmental harm gives rise to
special responsibility to prevent such harm (1994 Draft Declaration of
Principles of Human Rights and the Environment);
* that respect for human rights, environmental integrity, socially
equitable and environmentally sound development, and peace are
interdependent and inseparable (1994 Draft Declaration of Principles
of Human Rights and the Environment);
* the commitment to prevent activities on the land of indigenous peoples
that would harm the environment or be culturally inappropriate
(Agenda 21, 1992);
* the commitment to eliminate the production of weapons of mass
destruction (UNCHE, 1972);
* the obligations of States to eliminate the indiscriminate use of certain
conventional weapons (1983 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on
the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be
Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects);
* the diverse obligations incurred through the Framework Convention on
Climate Change (1992), the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992),
the Basel Convention on the Transfer of Hazardous Waste, the Vienna
Convention on the Elimination of the Production and Consumption of Ozone
Depleting Substances (1985), and other relevant international
environmental agreements;
* the expectations created through diverse resolutions of the General
Assembly, commitments made in Conference Action plans, and obligations
incurred through Conventions:
- to guarantee "the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights
of all members of the human family",
- to "prevent the scourge of war",
- to recognize the "peoples' right to peace",
- to ensure that "the use of scientific technology should be in peace and
for the benefits of humanity",
- to "reduce the military budget and transfer the savings into promoting
social programs particularly in developing countries",
- to "ensure social justice and the equitable distribution of resources",
- to respect "the right to work for equal pay for work of equal value",
- to "ensure the rights of future generations", and
- to "respect the inherent worth of nature beyond human purpose";
CONCERNED
that trade organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and trade agreements such as
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the proposed
Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) undermine the UN's work of
over 50 years in creating obligations, commitments and expectations with
respect to the matters set out above;
DISMAYED
by the continued global urgency resulting from the failure of member
states of the United Nations to discharge their obligations arising from
conventions, treaties and covenants, to act on commitments made in
conference action plans, and to fulfill expectations arising from
General Assembly resolutions.
RECALLING
the commitment made by all the member states of the United Nations to
"ensure that corporations including transnational corporations comply
with national codes, social security laws, and international law,
including international environmental law" (Platform of Action at the UN
Conference on Women: Equality, Development and Peace, Beijing, 1995,
and also in the Habitat II Agenda, Istanbul, 1996);
NOTING
that December 10, 1998, was the 50th Anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, and that the year 1999 is the culmination
of the decade devoted to the furthering of international law;
WE CALL UPON THE MEMBER STATES OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO TAKE THE
FOLLOWING ACTIONS:
1. To discharge the obligations, act on the commitments, and fulfill the
expectations arising from international Public Trust agreements,
including:
a. signing and ratifying any existing international conventions,
treaties, and covenants that have not yet been signed and ratified;
b. enacting the domestic legislation necessary to implement them or to
fulfill the legitimate expectations created by General Assembly
resolutions and declarations; and
c. acting upon the commitments arising from conference action plans such as
Agenda21 and the Rio Declaration from the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (1992);
2. (1) To establish mandatory international standards and regulations
(MINS), based on international principles and on the highest and
strongest regulations of member states, harmonizing standards and
regulations continually upwards with respect to:
a. Promoting and fully guaranteeing respect for human rights including
labour rights, the right to adequate food, shelter and health care, and
social justice;
b. Enabling socially equitable and environmentally sound employment;
c. Achieving a state of peace, justice and security;
d. Creating a global structure that respects the rule of law; and
e. Ensuring the preservation and protection of the environment, reducing
the ecological footprint and moving away from the current model of
overconsumptive development.
2. (2) to require that all use of natural resources must be in
accordance with the principles set out in paragraph 2. (1), that all
users pay a fair rent to the community for the use of those resources,
and that all public subsidies to activities, individuals or companies
that do not conform to the principles set out in paragraph 2. (1) be
immediately discontinued.
3. To demand compensation and reparations from investors or
corporations, and from administrations that have permitted or assisted
investors or corporations to degrade the environment, violate
fundamental human rights, or cause harm to human health, especially
where those actions occurred in economically poor countries or on the
lands of indigenous peoples, or in the communities of marginalized
citizens in either developing or developed countries.
4. To revoke the licences and charters of corporations, including
transnational corporations, if those corporations have persistently:
a. violated human rights or denied or colluded in denying social justice,
b. caused unremediated environmental degradation or harm to human health,
c. disregarded labour rights,
d. contributed to conflict and war, or
e. failed to pay compensation for past environmental degradation or
non-compliance with international agreements.
5. To reduce military budgets by at least 50% and to use the savings:
a. to guarantee:
- the right to safe and adequate food, which has been not
genetically altered or irradiated, or grown with pesticides,
- the right to safe and affordable shelter,
- the right to universal health care,
- the right to safe drinking water,
- the right to a safe environment,
- the right to education, and
- the right to peace;
b. to fund socially equitable and environmentally
sound employment; and
c. to fund education and research free from corporate direction and
control.
6. To increase funding for United Nations agencies and for
international, national and regional educational institutions so that
their missions will not be undermined by corporate direction or control.
All funding to the United Nations should be dedicated to furthering the
objectives of international Public Trust law, not vested interest
economic agreements such as GATT, WTO, MAI, etc. Since
the Security Council is controlled by the nuclear armed states, the
Security Council should be disbanded, and a rotational council should
be selected from the membership of the General Assembly.
7. To develop the criteria for partnership with the United Nations that were
introduced at Habitat II so as to ensure:
i. the exclusion of corporations and
ii. that no partner has in any way, in any of its activities, violated
human rights, (including labour rights), caused environmental
degradation, contributed to war and conflict, or failed to promote
socially equitable and environmentally sound employment.
8. To distinguish "civil society" from the "market economy" by defining
civil society as those elements of society whose goals are to guarantee
human rights, foster justice, protect and conserve the environment,
prevent war and conflict, and provide for socially equitable and
environmentally sound employment; and to declare and affirm the
principle that civil society has a valid and important role to play,
distinct from the market economy.
9. To prevent the transfer to other states of substances and activities
that cause environmental degradation or that are harmful to human
health, as agreed in the Rio Declaration, UNCED, 1992. This prohibition
must cover activities such as those related to:
a. producing, importing or exporting toxic, hazardous, or (non-medical)
atomic substances and wastes,
b. producing or consumping ozone-depleting substances,
c. extracting resources by environmentally unsound methods,
d. producing or distributing genetically-engineered food substances and
genetically modified organisms,
e. producing or distributing genetically engineered crop/pesticide
systems, and
f. creating or increasing dependency on activities or processes which
contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
10. (1) To act upon the commitments made at recent United Nations
Conferences to move away from the over-consumptive model of development,
to replace the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an indicator of economic
well-being with the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), the Criteria of
Public Trust (CPT) or some other measure which reflects the general
quality of life rather than gross economic activity.
10. (2) To reduce the ecological footprint, to move away from
car/truck-dependency, and to reject the dogma that economic growth
assures well-being.
11. (1) To prohibit all trade zones that have the effect of circumventing
obligations and commitments intended to guarantee human rights,
including social justice and labour rights, or to protect, preserve and
conserve the environment.
11. (2) To phase out all socially inequitable and environmentally
unsound industries while implementing a fair transition program for
affected workers and communities.
12. To forgive all debt arising from loans by international bodies such as
the World Bank and the IMF, and to terminate all structural adjustment
programs (SAPs) which seek to ensure repayment of such debt at the
expense of ordinary people, including programs which mandate:
a. the indiscriminate privatization of state-owned enterprises,
b. the indiscriminate reduction of government expenditures,
c. the indiscriminate liberalization of trade regimes,
d. the indiscriminate opening of states to increased foreign investment,
especially where this entails the attraction of foreign capital by
deregulating markets, offering low wages, implementing high interest
rates, or providing little or no environmental protection,
e. the indiscriminate encouragement to produce goods for export at the
expense of crops, products or services which serve the needs of domestic
peoples, or
f. the creation or exacerbation of an imbalance between imports and
exports.
13. (1) To ensure that no state relaxes environmental, health, human
rights or labour standards in order to attract industry, and that no
corporation allows a branch or subsidiary to engage in manufacturing,
transferring substances, or other practices that are banned, restricted
or otherwise unacceptable in the controlling corporation's state of
origin.
13. (2) To ensure that fulfilling a state's obligations under
international Public Trust Law shall be an absolute defense against
legal action by any state, corporation, or investor.
13. (3) To expose the extent to which citizens have allowed their
pension and investment funds to support corporations that have violated
the public trust, and to urge citizens to invest in the promotion of the
public trust.
14. To ensure that no state shall engage in trade with a country that
violates human rights, including labour rights, on the grounds that such
trade will lead to a betterment of human rights, except where such trade
is conditional on eliminating human rights abuses.
15. To establish an International Court of Compliance to which citizens
can bring evidence of state and corporate non-compliance with
international Public Trust Law, including the duty to:
a. protect and advance human rights, including the right to adequate
food, shelter and health care, labour rights, and social justice,
b. protect and conserve the environment,
c. prevent war and conflict, and
d. enable socially equitable and environmentally sound employment.
16. To abolish the doctrine of "corporate personality" - the notion that
corporations are persons and have the rights of ordinary people - and
thus preventing corporations from invoking the rights proper to
individuals.
17. To ensure the right of citizens to sue corporate owners and
officers, in criminal and civil courts, for any violation of human
rights, including labour rights, for denying social justice, for causing
serious harm to the environment or to human health, and for contributing
to suffering and waste through the international arms trade.
_____________________________
We believe that the solution to the many problems which inspire the
creation of this treaty lie in a combination of:
i. adopting regulations which embody Public Trust principles;
ii. eliminating subsidies which encourage the misallocation of natural
resources or the violation of international Public Trust principles;
iii. clarifying the true social and ecological costs of the misallocation
of natural resources which is caused by the "externalization" of those
costs and the "internalization" of benefits which come from the
beneficence of nature and should therefore properly accrue to all
people;
iv. requiring that the true social and ecological costs be factored into
the prices of all products and services;
v. ceasing the waste, suffering and instability caused by the
international arms trade; and
vi. encouraging a conscious effort by all people, individually and
collectively, to reduce the ecological footprint.
_____________________________
RATIONALE
1999 is the culmination of the decade devoted to the furtherance of
international law. We have just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
When significant anniversaries of the United Nations are celebrated
there is usually a flurry of congratulatory activity before the
documents are put back on the shelf. Rights, however, are meaningless
unless they are actually implemented and enforced.
The Citizens' Public Trust Treaty calls upon member states of the United
Nations to implement both existing and new international obligations,
commitments and expectations to ensure the realization of the global
Public Trust. This treaty will provide an effective means of
counteracting the process of corporate globalization that threatens to
undermine over 50 years of international Public Trust agreements.
_____________________________
BACKGROUND
The purpose of this Treaty is to demand that governments (a) stop devolving
their power to corporations and (b) discharge the obligations, act on the
commitments and fulfill the expectations undertaken through United Nations
documents and through national and regional agreements. The intention is
to provide a framework of international law within which local democracy
can flourish.
Successive drafts of the Treaty have circulated widely for over a year
and a half. It has evolved with input from many participants via the
internet and has been translated into Spanish and French. The Treaty was
sent to each country's UN Mission in New York in 1997 and in 1998 on the
anniversaries of the United Nations (October 24) and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (December 10).
The proposed Treaty is supported by a body of international documents
and principles drawn from the commitments, obligations and expectations
created by the UN system. A full list of the international instruments
and other documents that have been reviewed for the drafting of this
Treaty is available on request. The principles embodied in the Treaty
are further supported by a "Charter of Obligations" prepared by the
Global Compliance Research Project which lists, in an easy to find
format, the text of many of the agreements undertaken by Nation States
over the years.
_____________________________
CONTACTS
Joan Russow (Ph.D.): Co-ordinator, Global Compliance Research Project
1230 St. Patrick St. Victoria, B.C. V8S 4Y4 Tel/Fax (250) 598-0071.
e-mail: •••@••.•••
Caspar Davis (LL.B): Advisor, Global Compliance Research Project.
e-mail: •••@••.•••
Paul Swann: Director, London Human Rights Forum.
e-mail: •••@••.•••
Pierre Johnson: French version. e-mail: •••@••.•••
Manuel Pérez Rocha: Spanish version. e-mail: •••@••.•••
_____________________________
PETITION
There are three ways to sign in support of this treaty:
* via the petition website http://www.gn.apc.org/negreens/cptt.htm
* via e-mail
To sign the petition by e-mail please send a BLANK message to
•••@••.•••
You will receive an e-mail petition form by return.
* via local petitions
To sign by local petition please print and copy the petition form at
http://www.gn.apc.org/negreens/cptt-pet.htm
or design your own with three columns for Name - Address - Signature
and the heading:
We, the undersigned, call upon the nations of the world to ensure
the rights of present and future generations to genuine peace, social
justice and ecological integrity by implementing the principles of the
Citizens' Public Trust Treaty.
Please send signatures to:
Paul Swann
14 Beacon Hill
LONDON
N7 9LY
UK
To view the electronic petition and signatories' comments go to:
http://www.restallnet.demon.co.uk/cptt
To download an .rtf version of the Treaty for hardcopy reproduction go to:
http://www.isis.aust.com/cptt/sign.htm
For French and Spanish versons go to:
http://www.coastnet.com/~jrussow/francis.htm
_____________________________
Copyright Global Compliance Research Project (1997, 1998, 1999).
This document may be freely copied and distributed in its entirety.
If you have a website please add a link to the proposed Treaty at
one of the following sites:
Northern Hemisphere:
http://www.gn.apc.org/negreens/cptt.htm
Southern Hemisphere:
http://www.isis.aust.com/cptt
_____________________________
To avoid broken lines and arrows when forwarding
this email, please copy & paste to a new message.
Thank you !
_____________________________
