Newsletter February 2003

 

Historic Joint Meeting: AUD, WFA, and UNA

 

For the first time in history the Association to Unite the Democracies (AUD),  the World Federalists Association (WFA) and the United Nations Association-USA, Colorado Div. (UNA-USA, CO Div.), all three Charitable and Educational 501-c-3 non-governmental organizations, held a joint meeting from October 24, 2002 through October 27, 2002 at the Marriot S.E. Hotel in Denver, CO. The theme of the meeting was:             
"Our World - Achieving Safe and Sustainable Governance".

 

 


The keynote speech was delivered by Dr. Ved Nanda who nominated the Association to Unite the Democracies for the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize and is the Vice-Provost of the University of Denver. His address was aimed at getting the three organizations to join in their efforts to bring about world peace through democratization. David Harwood from the Better World Fund also spoke, making a powerful statement about the necessity for World Peace.

 

The next day Ambassador David Scheffer, the head of the US delegation to the International Criminal Court Rome Treaty, spoke. He signed the treaty for the US while Clinton was in office, only to have George Bush unsign the treaty.  The Ambassador outlined the absolute necessity for the US to ratify the treaty, for over 75 nations have now ratified it and put it into action.  The US has no input into the new court and cannot propose any American to be a judge on the court.  This Court can indict individuals such as Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden for crimes against humanity and bring them before the court for trial.  The Court is different from the International Court of Justice which can only try nations.  This new Court tries individuals so that the world does not have to go to war against an entire nation to get rid of tyrannical rule.  Ambassador Scheffer brought us up to date in regard to this International Criminal Court. 


The Association to Unite the Democracies had arranged for a video conference for the televising of the Ambassador's speech.  We were linked with the students and faculty of the Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia.  It was as if we were all sitting in the same room and able to ask questions of each other.  This was the second video conference arranged by the Association to Unite the Democracies.  The first was the successful Moscow, Kiev, Philadelphia, Washington link in the spring of 2002.  AUD plans to make much use of the technology of video conferencing to spread the concepts of Clarence Streit throughout the world.

 

On Friday night the Association to Unite the Democracies held its first ever membership meeting (see below, AUD Members Gather in a Convention).


The Saturday noon speakers were Dr. Hunter Lovins of Aspen, Colorado and Marshall Kaplan, Administrator of the Tim Wirth Chair at the University of Colorado.  They had been to the recent Environmental Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Hunter Lovins was very disappointed in the fact that so little was accomplished there.  She had attended the Rio Environmental Conference in the early '90's and was pleased with the Agenda 21 adopted there by the nations.  Not all of the points covered in that treaty have been accomplished but there has been advancement.  The Johannesburg meeting added little to control the growing worldwide pollution of land, sea, and air.

Saturday night, the Executive Director of the World Federalist Movement Bill Pace spoke on advances of this movement.  Bill had been responsible for organizing the Peace Meeting in the Hague, Netherlands in 1999 where 10,000 participants from all over the world attended.

 

There were workshops between speeches.  President Bob Frantz and Piotr Kaznacheev conducted one on the principles of Clarence Streit, and Menko Rose and Tom Hudgens conducted one on the Community of Democracies.  Both were well attended and received.

 

WFA held a Board Meeting on Sunday morning at which Menko Rose succeeded in getting WFA to pass a resolution to support the Coalition of the Community of Democracies. Subsequently WFA and AUD together sent a representative to the Seoul Korea meeting of 107 Democracies and over 200 non-governmental organizations.  This was the second meeting of the Community of Democracies, originally organized by Madeleine Albright to strengthen current democracies and to help emerging democracies.  


The joint meeting was a huge success for AUD, WFA, and UNA working together.

 

- Tom Hudgens