OUR WORST CRIMES ARE LEGALIZED

No law in the world can protect us from unfairness.

The protean contradictions now tearing global society apart cannot be dismissed as post-modern ironies. The free market economy could ultimately become the most efficient mechanism ever devised for redistributing wealth and ensuring social equity, but it is far from that today. Instead, political and financial interests - to consolidate wealth and to wage class warfare on the poor - manipulate the market-place for personal gain and power.

These inequalities in material resources parallel the imbalanced distribution of power in world politics. A minority of the world's richest countries makes decisions for the entire world, whether through the G8, the UN Security Council, the IMF or the World Bank. This economic asymmetry is reinforced through the cultural dominance of the wealthier over the poorer and more vulnerable nations of the world.

The global climate and ecological crises are the result of similar human choices. Since these problems are manmade, they must also be solved through our global rules and institutions. But, like poverty and unequal power, environmental degradation is largely permitted and defended by our national legal systems. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the world community to transform the way we treat the global commons and integrate all these unjust 'externalities' - economic, political, social, cultural, and environmental - into the price of goods and the value of our currencies.

WE CAN CHANGE THE SYSTEM!