The Problem

Although they have long existed, governance issues around the world continue to prove there are significant deficiencies in the processes and regulatory frameworks that would protect the integrity of national democracies. In the best cases, governments have depended on the ethical quality of politicians to abide by unwritten conventions and in the worst cases, despotic and corrupt leaders have counted on the weakness of national law to subvert the function of democracy for personal gain.

On the best of days we can expect good people to cooperate and build the best government they can, but we must also plan for the bad days, when we must rely on the strength of institutions and the regulations that govern them, to protect us from disaster.

There have always been bad people attracted to the power of government. We know how to write robust rules that stop abusive behaviours. We need to make sure those rules are present at every level of government, everywhere and we must ensure they are constantly updated to protect against new forms of abuse.

The real problem is, there has never been a trusted custodian for these rules, outside the reach of the corrupt politicians they are designed to constrain.

Preliminary Work

Public engagement about certified standards of democratic process has produced strong results. Our former social media presence (see images on the bottom of each page) attracted the top democracy advocates in over 30 countries, several progressive politicians from leading western nations and one head of state. To gauge grass roots support we travelled over 15,000 kilometres around Canada in 2015 to speak directly to citizens on the main streets of scores of towns. Our most important finding was that people understand the need and the importance of process protections. We were concerned that (particularly since this was prior to Trump) the subject would be too esoteric to garner broad support. In fact we found the opposite. People not only had an immediate grasp of the gravity of the concept, they also had excellent suggestions on how to broaden the scope of the standards.

Mission

The Global Council will work to maintain the most trusted position in the world, for the research, publication and advancement of the highest standards of fair democratic process and codification of human rights.

Structure