Empowered by our wisdoms and cultures, and having mobilized our capacity to launch multiple initiatives around the world to open the path towards the Great Transition, we note with apprehension, despite the remarkable achievement of COP21 which we celebrate, the insufficiency of the process of negotiations under the guidance of the United Nations from 1992 to 2015, to produce an agreement that would be as ambitious, courageous and binding as necessary to avert the most destructive consequences of climate disorder on Humankind and our Planet, long foreseen by scientists, and whose evidence is increasingly undeniable.
It is time to acknowledge that the system of citizens’ representation through nation-states only, and through multilateral organizations composed only of nation-states, and the de facto global power of an illegitimate corporate and financial oligarchy, is far from sufficient to preserve and manage the Earth’s borderless common goods, such as air, water, oceans, land and forests, upon which the well-being of humans and all forms of life depends.
We must create a new sphere of political action that acknowledges the diversity of peoples but also the People of the Earth as a unity. We must urgently build a global public sphere aimed at the middle- and long-term horizons, capable of taking into account the interests of future generations. In decision-making, we must take into account the planet’s scale and a minimum timeline of two generations, or even seven, according to the wisdom of the indigenous peoples of North America.
It is time, therefore, to take a further step in enabling our human family to ensure its common destiny, first by preventing the destruction of the planet that nourishes us. This means launching a constitutional process that, based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fulfills that declaration by recognizing the rights and responsibilities of each and every human being towards others and towards nature, not only as citizens of nation-states, but also as one People of the Earth whose destiny strictly depends on the health of this magnificent and fragile planet.
These rights of planetary citizenship cannot continue to be hostage to economic and political institutions that have proved incapable of resisting the power of dominant oligarchies, and that delay the implementation of urgent measures needed to avoid social and ecological disaster. We therefore propose the creation of a citizen’s power complementary to nation-states, which takes the responsibility for the future of humankind on Earth. And we commit ourselves to build this power together with all those who share in the urgency of taking sustainable action in the middle and long terms, free from the pressure of oligarchic lobbies.
We pledge to seek together the forms of organization and expression of this citizen’s power through further international gatherings of citizens. We will meet again in the Thematic World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, in January 2016, and in the World Social Forum, in Montreal, in August 2016, as well as in all the gatherings of the international network of “Dialogues en humanité” in different locations throughout the world, in order to focus on uniting all peoples in the defense of Life, beginning with our common humanity, and also on building bridges towards the official recognition of this citizen’s power by nation-states, the UN and international agencies in order to prevent the influence of lobbies contrary to the pursuit of the human journey on Earth.
Thus, we commit ourselves together, to fulfill this solemn oath:
by dedicating our capacities, creativity, competence and intellectual, emotional, artistic, immaterial and material resources to the immediate acceleration of the Great Transition towards renewable, non-polluting sources of energy, forsaking fossil fuels and destructive modes of production and consumption; and the establishment everywhere, and at all levels, of an equitable, socially just economy that respects life, health, the fostering of human potential, biodiversity, and all terrestrial and marine ecosystems, upon which the survival of humankind depends.
We take this oath, as we leave Paris, not to separate ourselves from each other in heart or spirit; to maintain our ties through all possible means of communication; to gather wherever possible as circumstances allow; to put pressure on all powerful institutions, public or private, corporate and financial, local, national and multilateral, to take responsibility for their actions and policies and their consequences for Life on Earth; to cooperate with networks of fellow citizens in implementing the vital and urgent goals mentioned above; and finally to reinforce our ties of friendship, sisterhood and brotherhood, solidarity and mutual support in order to extend this global network of citizens fully committed to this mission, actors in the emergence of a global civil society, parties to a Global Ecological and Social Contract, warrants of this oath and this commitment, in our name and for the protection of future generations.
Each and every citizen of the Earth confirms this solemn oath by signature, in Paris and throughout the world.
Paris, December 12, 2015