Two Radical NGO Documents Percolate Toward UN General Assembly

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) In the coming year the UN General Assembly will be asked to consider two documents that many see as taking away national sovereignty and advancing an extreme environmental agenda. The "Earth Charter," a project of among others Mikhail Gorbachev and Steven Rockefeller, and something called "Charter 99: A Charter for Global Democracy," have been completed and are circling the globe gathering support from left-wing NGOs and Parliamentarians.

     Once called by its framers a "new Ten Commandments," the Earth Charter has long been steeped in controversy. Concerned chiefly with environmental matters, in its original form the Charter was considered by critics to have drifted far into ideas related to paganism and the "New Age" movement. The final draft presents sixteen central principles and more than 60 rules. Alexander Likhotal, who works with Mikhail Gorbachev, explained that the Earth Charter "is a vehicle for changing the mentality of generations to come."
 
      Henry Lamb, editor of the environmental magazine Eco-Logic, said the final version "is a slick misrepresentation of the international environmental agenda because it describes fundamental principles of socialism in a language that is sold as sustainable development and sustainable communities. Instead of protecting the earth for future generations the Earth Charter protects resources from human use."

       Proponents hope for UN ratification of the Earth Charter by 2002. It is thought that the Earth Charter would be enforced by the UN Trusteeship Council, the nearly moribund UN "charter body" once entrusted to help "trust territories" to independence. This idea was first considered by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who said two years ago that the Trusteeship Council should govern "the global commons" which are the air, the water and the land.

       Another document making its way toward the UN General Assembly is "Charter 99" which voices the complaints of mostly left-wing NGOs that the UN is not the center of world government. Rather, Charter 99 claims world government resides around the Group of 8, the Bank of International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. Proponents refer to it as a "call for international accountability, equality, justice, sustainable development and democracy."

       Charter 99 calls for the opening of "international institutions to democratic scrutiny and participation," "monitor and regulate international corporations and financial nstitutions," "create equal world citizenship," and "create an international environmental court."

       Charter 99 proponents compare it to the "Chartists' demand for democracy in Britain during the 19th century," Charter 77 which led the Czech people to freedom in recent years, and the South African Freedom Charter launched in Soweto in 1955.

       Charter 99 signers include Oxfam, Christian Aid, Save the Children, Friends of Earth, Earth Action, and the Overseas Development Institute. Supporters also claim support from 61 members of the British Parliament.

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