Expansion . November 2002. By Guy Mettan

Guy Mettan, Executive Director of the Swiss Press Club. Article published in the Expansion in November 2002.

At 72 years old, the former French prime minister has lost none of his gossip and his activist passion. He is continuing his mandate as MEP. But above all, alongside Slovenian President Milan Kucan, he took the lead in the fight for good global governance. Objective: to create an international college of ethics, politics and science to find solutions to the three major challenges facing humanity today.

The initial idea stems from a simple observation: the global nature of the problems requires global solutions which include the establishment of global responsibility. So what are the major challenges that humanity must face today?

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Beyond terrorism, which is only the tree that hides the forest, these challenges are threefold: - ecological threats: climate warming, natural disasters, water pollution, depletion of natural resources, poisoning of soils, expansion of pandemics such as AIDS, we now know that the biosphere is fragile. But the answers remain timid. The Kyoto treaty has not been ratified by the world's biggest polluter, the United States, or by the champion of per capita pollution, Australia. And the environmental summit which was held last September in Johannesburg did not advance anything ...

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Economic and financial disturbances. It is less the globalization of the economy as such that is in question than the increase in inequalities between rich and poor countries. In 1900, there was one rich for six poor, against one rich for eighty poor today, ie 13 times more. The wealth of the richest 300 people is equal to the income of two and a half billion humans. There is therefore an urgent need to create a globalization with a human face and to undertake a new project of civilization.

Crisis of meaning and thought

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Humanity's capacity to self-destruct, the materialistic obsession, the fascination with violence, the explosion of terrorism and religious fundamentalism, the exacerbated cult of the ego are all signs of a spiritually routed humanity. . To ward off internal barbarism, social transformation must therefore be accompanied by a personal transformation of our behavior and an education in autonomy and complexity.

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To face these dangers, Michel Rocard and his friends consider it necessary to work in two directions: the emergence of a global citizenship and democracy, the only ones capable of regulating excesses, and the establishment of a global ethos able to frame this democratic project, since we know that democracy is not enough, on its own, to prevent exploitation, corruption and inequalities. This ethical framework must be based on shared values ​​such as the inviolability of life, respect for human dignity and the golden rule of reciprocity towards our contemporaries (do not do to others what you would not like to see). he will do you) and responsibility towards future generations.

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In this perspective, the personalities brought together by the Slovenian president have proposed the creation of an international ethics college which would be responsible for monitoring and alerting to the main risks that humanity runs, and to ethically assess the nature of its risks and responses to them and to advise governments and international organizations in order to facilitate their decisions. In addition to its two initiators, around thirty international personalities, intellectuals, scientists and politicians, from Henri Atlan to Fidel Ramos, from Bernard Kouchner to Alpha Konaré via the Swiss Alain Modoux and Franz Muheim, have already signed this appeal, including the coordination is ensured in Paris by Sacha Goldman, secretary general of the Association for the Collegium.

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Exporter of moral criteria

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A vast and ambitious program, which in no way frightens Michel Rocard, who was in Geneva recently to present it. “We are in a plot that we enjoy leading. It's a bet. But we are convinced that global regulation will not progress by hard law, by binding treaties, but rather by "soft" law, by open initiatives like this one. "

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To do this, the deputy Rocard is not afraid to break the right-thinking taboos: “The West mainly provides aid to the Third World in the form of exporting standards and moral criteria. Our claim to speak of law and morality is doubtful. Take the case of corruption. For centuries all our ministers have been great concussiators, but we would like Africa to solve this problem in thirty years. And we persist in creating expensive lifestyles that force the ruling classes in poor countries to get rich in order to maintain their rank. I believe that corruption should be limited to 5% of the gross national product. Below, it is a necessity, above it is theft that must be punished. ”

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“In a global ethical project, we must be wary of definitions that are too simple and which only benefit those who have established them, we must change the vocabulary, set aside narrow morals. And tackle the big fish. ” This is the deep meaning of what is now agreed on sustainable development. This concept, established by the Brundtland Commission on the initiative of the former Secretary General of the United Nations Perez de Cuellar, took twenty years to establish itself in the vocabulary. Michel Rocard and his friends intend to implement it quickly.