Press Press Releases World Democracy 2010

Global Coalition World Democracy 2010

Press Release
Hague Appeal for Peace
14 May 1999

On May 14, 1999, at the Hague Appeal for Peace, a new major cross-sectoral coalition was launched called Global Coalition World Democracy 2010.  Invitations to join were extended to governments, non-governmental organizations, businesses, local authorities, individuals and United Nations agencies alike.  Coalition 2010 has been a year in the making and has elicited support from well-known non-governmental organizations such as the World Federalists Association, one of the principal organizers of the Hague Appeal for Peace.

Organizations participating in the launch showed an overwhelming consensus that now is the time to start the public debate about World Democracy.  Participants and members agreed that global problems demand global solutions and also supported the basic principles of the Coalition 2010.  The basic ideal of the Coalition 2010 are that individuals are sovereign and that this sovereignty must be expressed through direct or representative democracy which therefore fundamentally drive the rule of law is the premise of the Common Statement.  They called for new democratic institutions that are transparent, to sustain trust among the world's peoples.

The launch included speeches of representatives from United Towns Organization, CIVICUS, Millennium People's Assembly Network, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, Women's Development and Environment Organization, International Lesbian and Gay Rights Association, World Citizen Foundation, International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, Transparency International, World March of Women 2000, Foundation Charles Leopold Mayer, and Business Association for World Social Summit.

Broad based support for Coalition 2010 is evident by not only by the statements made by the participants and members but by the number of individuals that have endorsed the Global Coalition World Democracy 2010 goal. 

Here are some testimonials from a few of the speakers at the launch on 14 May 1999:

Lucy Webster representing the World Federalist Association , USA, stated that, "This Coalition will build a critical mass,"

Jeremy Pope from Transparency International remarked, "The task is to turn our enemies into friends,"

Michel Bescond of the United Towns Organizations said "Peace cannot be the affair of governments or parliaments alone".  And, "The locus of tensions, the towns, must be the school of democracy,"

Kumi Naidoo, representing CIVICUS, World Alliance for Citizen Participation, called for the need to "reinsert the citizen in public space.", and

Fatima Ahemed Ibrahim, the first women in the Parliament of Sudan, during the question and answer period, implored that the United Nations kick out Islamic military dictatorship.

The message that the time for democratic global institutions has come is being voiced by the Global Coalition World Democracy 2010 and it is being heard.

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