STWR - Share The World's Resources

1. To raise awareness of how and why the dominant international economic and political systems are incapable of ending poverty, creating a sustainable economy, or mitigating climate change

2. To propose an alternative sustainable economic framework based on international cooperation and the sharing of essential resources

3. To campaign for governments around the world to initiate global economic reform and to share essential resources in order to immediately secure basic human needs for all

1. To raise awareness of how and why the dominant international economic and political systems are incapable of ending poverty, creating a sustainable economy, or mitigating climate change.

In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human rights and called upon all member states to publicise and expound its principles. As agreed by all member states, the universal provision of adequate food, water, housing, healthcare, education, political participation and employment must be the primary directive of all governments on behalf of its citizens.

Almost 60 years on, the global community is far from creating an equitable political and economic system that can work towards the realisation of this essential goal. Currently over 800 million people are starving to death, with around 50,000 poverty-related deaths a day, over 85% of these under the age of five – simply due to a lack of food. Forty percent of the world's population currently survive on less than $2 a day.

Meanwhile transnational corporations report record profits, further exacerbating global inequality. Of the top 100 economically powerful entities, 52 are corporations and only 48 are countries.

Clearly an efficient global distribution of food, water and other essential resources is hindered, not encouraged, by the existing global economic architecture. Many UN agency reports and thousands of civil society organisations have identified the forces of globalisation, deregulation and liberalisation as key contributory factors to global inequality.

The global economy has been shaped by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) that were set up after the Second World War. These financial institutions (WTO, WB & IMF) are largely undemocratic and biased in favour of economically powerful nations, mainly due to their corporate influence and their adherence to the export-orientated, neo-liberal agenda.

The thrust of world economic policy is now inextricably linked with US-centric economic globalisation. Due to international pressure from IFIs and multinational corporations, developing nations are increasingly pressurised to follow these same economic regimes, despite ample evidence of their unsustainability and economic bias.

The democratic rights of citizens to govern the global economy continue to be transferred to corporations and the global bureaucracies of the IMF, World Bank and WTO. Valid democratic systems require full participation of local, national and global communities in the governance and distribution of essential common resources and services. 

Instead, the ever increasing and politically endorsed corporate mandates have allowed multinational companies to disregard the sovereign rights of nations to determine their own economic and social structures for the benefit of their citizens.

Blind adherence to unfettered market forces is inherently unsustainable and environmentally disastrous, ultimately serving only the needs of the minority rich nations that grow increasingly affluent at the expense of the majority world.

2. To propose an alternative sustainable economic framework based on international cooperation and the sharing of essential resources.

An emergency redistribution program:

According to the Institute for Food and Development Policy, enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day. That includes two and half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs.

However, due to the inefficiencies and bias of the global economy, one third of deaths - some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day - are due to poverty-related causes; 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 dollars a day; and over 800 million people are literally starving to death.

This constitutes a global emergency and requires the immediate redistribution of food, water, and medicine to ensure that this catastrophe is immediately halted.

The welfare and basic human rights of every person must be the priority of all democratic governments. The responsibility falls on the shoulders of economically powerful nations to cooperate internationally in prioritising and executing a global redistribution program with the full input of recipient nations.

Such a program will require the full participation of all sectors of society (including military personnel) to produce, mobilise and transport resources globally according to need. 

Sharing the world’s resources:

Once an emergency relief program has been implemented, priorities must shift to addressing global inequality and poverty more fundamentally. This can be achieved by creating more equitable global economic policies with the full democratic participation of all stakeholders.

Central to such a system is the establishment of agreed criteria for what constitutes an essential common resource. It is not our intention to set out such criteria, although it is clear that these will include natural resources that are essential for life such as energy supplies and the provision of utilities such as water, essential manufactures such as steel, essential agricultural produce required for food including wheat, rice and sugar, cotton for clothing, essential healthcare services and medication, essential knowledge and technology and resources for providing education.

These examples represent many of the earth’s natural resources as well as fundamental services that, through the relevant agency, the global public must claim universal rights over and commit to ensuring their international provision.

These agreed resources and services will necessarily fall outside the reach of corporate interests and existing trade regimes. Their exchange and distribution will be based instead on cooperative and mutually beneficial mechanisms, similar to systems of barter, within an international framework geared solely to ensuring essential human requirements for life are secured.

Once identified, the responsibility and stewardship over these global commons must be entrusted to the global public to administer democratically without corporate or political influence. This can be achieved by national governments working in cooperation with each other and under the guidance of the United Nations.

The universal provision of these resources can be achieved through the establishment of a new United Nations agency, specifically concerned with coordinating the redistribution of resources, and a Global Sharing Network (GSN) which would ensure that local resources are distributed according to regional and national need. Once essential national requirements have been secured, surpluses can be shared globally through the GSN.

Such a system will dramatically reduce our dependence on global commercial markets, leading to an alternative sustainable economy that is inherently democratic and cooperative. The ramifications are extensive: food security and human rights will be secured; social and political participation encouraged; energy, agriculture, manufacturing and transport systems will largely be owned and controlled by public interests rather than corporate interests; and a more appropriate hierarchy of values will determine our economic and political frameworks and therefore govern our lives.

Innovation through private enterprise can still be encouraged by the establishing of a community based and regulated corporate environment.

The creation of a more equitable economy where resources are shared is nothing new, with examples to be found in local communities all over the world.  An important historical illustration of an economically powerful nation generously sharing its resources with an entire region is the execution of the Marshall Plan at the end of the Second World War. Through this substantial transfer of resources from America to a Europe left ravaged by war, the devastated economy of the region was kick-started which ensured a rapid global economic regeneration.

On a larger and more contemporary scale, many countries in Latin America have rejected IMF/World Bank imposed privatisation and free market directives and continue to strengthen cooperative, publicly-accountable political and economic systems in the region

3. To campaign for governments around the world to initiate global economic reform and to share essential resources in order to immediately secure basic human needs for all.

Public pressure must first persuade governments to take immediate and decisive action to end extreme poverty.  International cooperation would then be essential to ensure a successful transition to a global economic system based on an equitable distribution of resources. Cooperation at the international level on economic issues must necessarily override the short term, competitive drive for economic growth that prevails within the existing global economy.

Such cooperation should be based on a commonly accepted agenda between nations and a reorientation of economic priorities to secure essential resources for all citizens.

Although global economic change represents a huge challenge for the international community, it must be recognised that existing structures have not only demonstrably exacerbated poverty and global inequality over the past half century, but also pose a grave threat to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the planet.  

The role of the United Nations:

The United Nations (UN), since its establishment in 1945, is the only truly international body that, through the General Assembly, has almost universal representation. The UN has a strong humanitarian bias and was originally concerned with overseeing and regulating the trade and financial architecture of the International Political Economy in order to safeguard human rights and foster international cooperation and peace. This mandate extended to overseeing the IMF, World Bank and WTO framework.

Over the past 20 years, however, the USA and other governments in the North have undermined UN agencies that do not fully support the free market model, primarily by withholding pre-agreed and essential funding. The funding and extension of mandates and powers has instead been granted to the largely undemocratic International Financial Institutions. The accumulated result of these actions is an under-funded and under-staffed UN system that is now consistently bypassed on global economic and security matters.

The UN system must be reformed, revitalised and provided with all the resources and powers necessary to fulfil its original mandate of supervising global economic affairs, strengthening international cooperation and promoting peace as stated in Article 55 of the UN Charter:

In order to create the necessary conditions of stability and security that will foster peaceful relations among nations, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination, the United Nations can promote: a) higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development;

b) solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems, alongside international cultural and educational cooperation;

c) universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.

Given its global representation and charter, a reformed UN system is clearly the only international body with the experience, resources and ability to address cooperative international economic reform.

A global system of sharing essential resources will create a more manageable international trade and finance framework.  Existing international financial institutions and global bureaucracies will be rendered broadly redundant and should be progressively dismantled. United Nations agencies must take over as the arbiters and overseers of the remaining international trade, finance and development structures.

Existing UN agencies, such as the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), are well equipped to undertake such reform.

Further resources on sharing

• Sharing in the Global Economy - An Introduction
  

• How to Share the World's Resources - A Proposal

• Sharing - A Natural Law of Economy

• The UN and the Principle of Sharing

• The Globalisation of Justice: Human Values Beyond Economic Theory

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