December 10th is Human Rights Day and the United Nations are celebrating the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was through the transforming power of social media that people were able to show their strength and fight for their rights. This is why Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, will be hosting a global conversation streamed live on Facebook, Twitter and Weibo.
In addition, the UN is collecting wishes from everybody on the “celebrate human rights” Facebook page.
This magazine, that draws awareness to current problems of freedom of movement and discrimination on grounds of nationality, has wished for the adoption of a World Passport.
The current system of national passports divides the world into people who are able to travel freely and others who don’t – and this just on grounds of their nationality.
That means, just because you are lucky enough to have a e.g. Danish, Japanese or German passport means that you won’t be subject to fill in forms asking demeaning questions and very often you won’t have to pay for your visa, unlike citizens e. g. from Iraq, Thailand or Egypt.
This is highly discriminating.
Furthermore, the current system of national passports drives people to rob passports, to forge identities or to to lose them on purpose so they can enter a country as refugees. Many people without a passport are seen as “stateless”.
Konrad Adenauer, one of the fathers of the European Union, said in 1957: “Progress demands bigger spaces, other wise we can’t develop ourselves, and furthermore, our times also demand political progress.” This view of the late 50’s couldn’t be more up-to-date.
Adenauer’s “bigger spaces” means we need to think global. We need a supra-national authority to issue World Passports, allocated in one of the United Nations specialized agencies.
Garry Davis is the self-proclaimed first world citizen. He renounced his US-citizenship in 1948. His US-based “World Service Authority” currently issues World Passports. Unfortunately these are accepted in only four countries: Ecuador, Mauritania, Tanzania and Togo. This shows that we need a respected, established supra-national authority such as the United Nations to issue World Passports to make this endeavour realistic.
The World Passport should be given by birth. Everybody would have the right to hold a World Passport and it should be the only valid travel document. National identity cards would of course still be available and valid in each country.
A World Passport accepted by the international community will hopefully be possible in the future, enabling all people to travel freely, visit relatives, or just get to know other countries of their world. This is “The MaG”’s wish for Human Rights Day 2011.
The Editor in Chief
Josephine Landertinger Forero
Find out more about the UN’s global live human rights conversation here.
December 8, 2011
Freedom of Movement, Opinion, Politics & Global Affairs