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Global Ethics
   How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?  [Challenge 15]

-- Suggested Actions --

The 1998-1999 Global Lookout Panel identified and rated ethical issues involved in decisionmaking.  The results are in the 1999 State of the Future.  Many of these ethical issues are discussed throughout the other 14 challenges. For example, waste is addressed in Challenges 1 on sustainable development, 2 on water supply, and 13 on energy; economic inequities are addressed in Challenge 7 on how to reduce the rich-poor gap; and so forth. The remaining issues and actions not as directly discussed in the previous challenges are listed below.

15.1 Counter corruption in government; corruption of political leaders, policy makers, corporate leaders.
Declare information warfare on money laundering and build on the new Palermo Treaty a global prosecution network... Monitor where government leaders hire or launder income from corruption… Strengthen anti-corruption laws, judicial and law enforcement systems.... Guarantee freedom of the judiciary …Provide adequate pay and retirement for police and public officials.

Expose and increase punishment and enforce very high financial penalties.... Introduce parliamentary codes of ethics that promote transparent government.... Revitalize civil service.
 

15.2 Reduce greed and self-centeredness.
Encourage role modeling by parents, teachers, stars, and politicians.... Search for and endorse common values.... Use the media, advertising, and entertainment to educate the public regarding morals and ethics…. Promote stories that describe altruism, love, cooperation and self-discipline.
 

15.3 Control undue pressures from lobbying groups.
Tighten lobbying laws.... Encourage courageous media scrutiny of lobbying activities.... Initiate limits on spending in political campaigns and contributions.... Limit terms political service and have new elections.... Use public Internet polling.
 

15.4 Encourage honor and honesty.
Teach love, integrity and dignity to humankind.... Endorse frank discussions from the classrooms to the boardrooms on the role and nature of honor…. Inculcate the idea that leadership must demonstrate complete integrity.... Require media norms in terms of violence and what is depicted as acceptable behavior.... The issue is imbedded in the spirit of a society; promote an attitude - through education, public programs, and media - that shows society need not passively accept immoral and unethical behavior.... Enforce equal penalties under the law.
 

15.5 Encourage the will to act.
Non-action is the most severe corruption. Honor in leadership is to assume responsibility.... Require, to the extent possible, public accountability and transparency.... Introduce morals and ethics in education.
 

15.6 Create common agreements about ethics and morals.
It changes with advancing knowledge and socio-economic conditions.... Research into the common and shared values of all cultures.... Strengthen religious and other moral/ethical values through interdenominational discussions.... Place an emphasis on moral and ethical issues in religious education.... Develop critical approaches in education and mass media.... Research, study and diffuse a universal scientific culture. Wider circulation of already ratified UN conventions on human rights and labor.
 

15.7 Reduce the barriers to the freedom of inquiry
Develop means for participatory democracy such as Internet town meetings. Encourage greater freedom of the judiciary.... Strengthening the courts to challenge political shields. Create legal control over the authority of political parties.... Collect and disseminate good and bad examples from around the world.... Implement freedom of information laws.
 

15.8 Encourage respect for authority
Elect and appoint politicians and decisionmakers who command and deserve respect.... Place educational emphasis on reasonable norms starting in the lowest grades.... Educate judges on moral/ethical values.... Support people who are authors of something good, and then give them visibility: create heroes.
 

15.9 Support the identification and success of the influence of role models
More emphasis on parenting and continuing education in leadership, morals, ethics and decision-making skills.... Identify, publicize and honor men and women heroes.... Emphasize in media what is good in human nature, interesting about the human experience, and people who have done something extraordinary.
 

ADDITIONAL ACTIONS
Encourage socially responsible investing.  Money invested in the USA according to “socially-responsible” criteria climbed from $59 billion in 1984 to $2.16 trillion in 1999, which is $1 out of every $8 under professional management in the USA, according to Worldwatch Institute’s  “Vital Signs 2001”.

Support UNESCO’s Universal Ethics Project to make an inventory of ethical values and principles from intergovernmental documents, commissions, declarations, protocols, treaties, and conventions, as well as NGOs and individuals.

Global ethics should not be a list of moral precepts, but a set of ideas, values, and attitudes that would be adequate to deal with the actual problems we face.... In the 1980s Third World Debt was bought by those wishing to create environmental programs referred to as “Debt for Nature Swaps.” Why not Debt for Education on Ethics Swaps?

Rewards or incentives for adhering to company standards would reinforce ethics programs, says a study by KPMG in NY.

• Brief overview
• Indicators
• Regional views
• Detailed discussion on this challenge is in the CD-ROM accompanying the State of the Future reports