World Federalist Movement

The World Federalist Movement is an organization promoting global peace through global government based on law. Founded in 1947 in the Swiss city of Montreux, the World Federalist Movement moved to New York in the 1960s to open its offices close to the seat of the United Nations where it still resides. Originally, the organization that met in Montreux was a movement to connect a variety of federalist movements that was active since the late 1930s and was called the World Movement for World Federal Government. In 1956, the organization changed its name to the World Association of World Federalists. Only in 1994 did the movement adopt the name it still carries today: World Federalist Movement (WFM).

The World Federalist Movement is relevant for global studies because it represents a very active organization which consciously advocates a worldwide federation. Its members and supporters are part of a global network of activism for a federal world order. Throughout its history, it has connected with relevant individuals and organizations and continued to actively reflect on questions of global governance, government, law, and citizenship. It is connected to many other federalist movements both past and present: For example, the organizations Citizens for Global Solutions and the Union of European Federalists, founded at the same time as the WFM, are associate members. Further, the WFM is an active player and advocate of global governance and, in 1983, founded a research institute on global issues, the Institute for Global Policy. In 2006, the WFM and the Institute for Global Policy launched a global civil society initiative called Together for a Better Peace, which aims at supporting and monitoring the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission. The WFM continues to act as a platform and think tank for global issues, producing expert reports as well as active policy advice.

Originating in the United States, where a group around the University of Chicago professor of law, Robert M. Hutchins, supported by Albert Einstein and masterminded by the writer and philosopher Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, initiated a draft for a world constitution in 1945, federalist movements met in Montreux and published their common declaration on August 23, 1947. Only a year later, the Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution was published, and the movement gained strong momentum against the backdrop of the war experience and the looming nuclear threat of the late 1940s. The WFM gained in popularity and [Page 1808]influence in the late 1940s. In 1949, Lord Boyd Orr, director-general of the Food and Agricultural Organization, who was associated with the world federalists, won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The world federalists embrace the long tradition of philosophical thought envisioning a peaceful world order. The organization consciously includes all visions of world federation or world government as its heritage, from Immanuel Kant to the European peace movements of the 19th century, for example, the League of Peace and Freedom founded in Geneva in 1867, to the interwar organizations, such as the Pan-European Union, as well as the Union of European Federalists, founded immediately after 1945. After World War II, world federalism emerged as a strong normative ideal, promoting the rule of law and the abolition of nation-state sovereignty that was understood as the root of all destruction. In the years directly following World War II and before the final crystallization of the Cold War setting, world federalists hoped for a success in the wake of the establishment of the United Nations. The WFM believes that the world should live in peace and, in order to reach an eternal peace on Earth, there must be the installation of a world federation ruled by law and the rule of law had to be implemented by global government. World peace can be achieved only through world law. This was and still is the logic of world federalists. By 1950, the WFM peaked with roughly 150,000 members all over the world, consisting of 73 organizations in 22 countries.

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