Transition to a Nonmilitary Earth Federation through the World Disarmament Agency

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 13 Oct 2025

Glen T. Martin, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service

8 Oct 2025 – The Constitution for the Federation of Earth ensures democratically legislated civil law for the entire Earth.  Civil law has certain key characteristics that require enforcement by civilian police who are both accountable to the principles of good government and who are trained in the protection of human rights and dignity. The first of these principles is that individuals are accountable to the law, not collectivities (like nation-states) that can be attacked in toto.  Even when the law governs some group (like corporations), sanctions and enforcement under the Earth Constitution hold individuals accountable.

For example, there will be no more impunity for CEOs or corporate executives who are responsible for the policies and actions of a corporation but who hide behind the corporate identity as a “legal person.”  The same will be true for nation-states.  It will no longer be the case that some president for prime minister who orders the military to attack a perceived enemy is immune from personal accountability.  The very essence of genuine legitimate law is the premise of individual accountability of each person for his or her actions.

The purpose of a military organization is entirely different from the purpose of civil policing.  The mission of the police officer is conflict de-escalation, application of the laws with the least use of force only as necessary, and the avoidance of the use of lethal force whenever possible.  There are dozens of sanctions that can help enforce the laws that do not require the use of physical force.  Good policing uses non-violent sanctions as well as conflict resolution to maximum effect.

That is why the Earth Constitution includes “conflict resolution” within the duties of is world police system (Article 10.2.8.5).  Military force, on the other hand, involves the systematic destruction of some designated enemy, both that enemy’s lives and life-support systems, with an eye to forcing capitulation to the dictates of the victorious side in the conflict. Hence, no military can ever be used in civilian law enforcement because this would destroy the very nature of civil enforcement, turning the population or some portion of it into a designated enemy of the government itself to be killed or dominated with impunity.

For this reason, no democratic federation for the Earth could ever maintain a military, since there would be no external groupings to be designated as an enemy requiring that they be attacked indiscriminately. And even during the transitional stages, when all the planet is not yet part of the federation, it would be self-contradictory for the Federation to establish any military. The Earth Constitution therefore affirms that (1) the people of Earth are sovereign and the only legitimate government is one that embodies the whole of “the people.”  (2)  That policing applies to individuals only and that the police shall only possess weapons necessary to apprehend individuals (not military weapons designed to kill or destroy indiscriminately). And (3) that all military weapons designed to kill or destroy indiscriminately are counterproductive and contradictory to genuine law and legitimate governmental authority.

The history of humanity, going back to Plato and even beyond to ancient civilizations, has been characterized by a mixture of authentic governing according to the rule of law and the arbitrary use of force both within and without societies for purposes of conquest, destruction, and domination.  The issue of how to convert governing from this mixture of arbitrary violence and the legitimate uses of force in the name of law has a long history in human thought.

In a world characterized by militarized power centers capable of lethal violence independently of the lawful use of force, any nation or power center that renounces its capacity for arbitrary lethal destruction appears to be left vulnerable to attack and foreign domination.  The Earth Constitution envisages a world in which there exists not a multiplicity of lawless militarized fragments but one in which the sovereignty of humankind legislates laws enforceable by civilian police, thereby instituting for humankind a nonviolent civilization that has ended all war and institutionalized a planetary peace system, i.e., a system of democratic law enforceable over all individual persons.

All this appears well and good.  However, great problems arise when we consider the transitional period from the current fragmented system of militarized sovereign nation-states to an Earth Federation ensuring the equable rule of law for all. The issue involves how to convert governing from this fragmented world system predicated on some 193 systems of legitimate law within a lawless militarized global framework (that undercuts the very meaning of lawfulness) with the possibility of arbitrary militarized lethal destruction and violence.

The world system comprised of territorially fragmented legal systems in the context of the potential for lawless military violence has always perpetuated itself even into the nuclear age when this contradiction could well mean nuclear holocaust destructive of all humanity because no militarized entity is willing to disarm itself for fear that other lawless militarized entities will take advantage by attacking. So how is the world going to transform to the legitimate rule of law that undergirds all civilized living when all such efforts at transformation are paralyzed by this self-contradictory situation?

It is true that civilized living under the rule of law has been extended in scope as smaller entities have been conquered or united to form larger law-governed territories.  But this option of conquest, when considered for today’s world, faces the threat of nuclear war wiping out everyone and hence conquest can no longer be considered an option for uniting fragments under a larger rule of law. The only alternative is to promote the rule of law in ways that allow the militarized fragments to transition to the rule of legitimate law without resorting to war or violence. This is the problem dealt with in Articles 17 and 19 of the Earth Constitution.

The greatest challenge of the movement to Earth Federation is the problem of transition.  The Earth Federation is and must remain non-military because the existence of a military, as noted above, contradicts the legitimate rule of law that is the fundamental premise of the Earth Federation. In the stage of Provisional World Government as articulated by Article 19, a number of Commissions are formed whose job it is to work together to articulate and promote this transition.  A key Commission in this process is the World Disarmament Commission (Article 19.1.2.4) that will develop a “World Disarmament Agency” dedicated to the conversion from a militarized world of lethal lawlessness to the civilized world of planetary lawfulness. As described in Article 17.5, all militaries and weapons of war will be entirely dismantled by the time of the final operative stage of the Earth Federation and all existing militaries that wish to do so may convert to “the nonmilitary World Service Corps.”

The scenario envisioned by the framers of the Constitution appears something like the following.  (1) During the Provisional World Government stage, the World Disarmament Agency will promote the idea of disarmament worldwide while developing specific plans for a “transitional process” in which nations can progressively disarm without feeling insecure or unduly vulnerable in the process.  One key factor here has already been attempted through the UN when a treaty was reached during the 1980s in which there was a reduction of nuclear weapons and diminishment of the nuclear weapons arms race, a treaty that included inspections, relative transparency, and mutual compliance in conformity with its terms.

The world disarmament agency will similarly make public worldwide, one, or perhaps several, scenarios of transition that will include maintenance of the feeling of mutual security, measured and confirmable reductions in specified weapons systems (perhaps beginning with offensive weapons while maintaining so-called “defensive” weapons), and intergovernmental coordination of the process (i.e., governments working together to make progress in the process of disarming).

Under Article 17.3, once the transition is made from Provisional World Government to the First Operative Stage of ratified World Government, nations joining the nascent Earth Federation are required to turn over their weapons of mass destruction to the World Disarmament Agency for dismantling. They are not, however, required to disarm their conventional forces.  They simply pledge to never use any military weapons against other members of the Earth Federation.  Hence, threats of non-federation nations will be easily countered (as they are under the current world system) by countervailing military forces in Federation nations. Even more, the Federation nations will have the capacity to coordinate their forces in case of an external threat, much the same way the current UN Security Council can call upon nations to coordinate their forces because of some threat to peace.

At the same time during this period the World Disarmament Agency will not simply exist as a passive agent for the dismantling of nuclear weapons. It will actively continue the development of transitional plans for disarmament, and it will continue communicating to the non-federation world these plans along with the vision of a demilitarized world and all the economic and security benefits such a world will clearly involve. I expect that this message will attract nations widely to join the Federation.

When the Second Operative Stage of the Earth Federation arrives, therefore, with 50% of all nations united, the understanding and carefully defined processes of security disarmament will be well publicized and widely comprehended.  As the Earth Federation nations begin the process of disarmament (publicly for the world to see), so even non-federation nations will be invited to join the process. Undoubtedly, an agreement can be made by the World Parliament with non-federation nations that offers them the security of being linked with the Earth Federation to aid in their process of disarmament. Meanwhile, this very process of cooperation will help attract them toward joining the Federation.

The  number of nations belonging to the Earth Federation will, therefore, grow rapidly as the world comes to see for itself the vast economic, security, and environmental benefits of belonging to the Earth Federation. The World Disarmament Agency and the World Parliament will have informed the entire planet of the vast benefits of the federation, not the least of which will be the survival of humanity now free of the threat of nuclear holocaust and the corresponding survival of humanity in the face of climate collapse (for a united humanity is the only effective way to deal with planetary climate collapse).

This scenario implicit in the Earth Constitution appears to the present writer to be deeply insightful and the wisest possible scenario possible in dealing with the problems of transition from the fragmented world system of militarized lethal violence to the civilized unity of humankind within a nonviolent world system. Clearly, there is no possible scenario that does not involve risk, and there is no possible scenario that does not necessarily rely on the good common sense of humanity when confronted with its own endangered future.  The World Disarmament Agency and its mandate (that runs all the way from Provisional World Government to the full operative stage of final World Government) is the ingenious key to this success.

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Dr. Glen T. Martin:
– Member, TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment
– Professor of Philosophy Emeritus
– Founder/Chairperson Emeritus, Program in Peace Studies, Radford University
– President, World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA);
– President, Earth Constitution Institute (ECI)
– Author of twelve books and hundreds of articles concerning global issues, human spirituality, and democratic world government; a recipient of many peace awards.
www.earthconstitution.world – Email: gmartin@radford.edu

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 13 Oct 2025.

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