I. Historical Roots: The Structural Limits of the Westphalian System and the Dilemma of the Rooseveltian Ideal

To understand the deepening dysfunction and paralysis of global governance today, one must first reexamine the historical limitations of the underlying operational structure of the modern international order — the Westphalian System (1648).

Since the Peace of Westphalia established this framework in 1648, it successfully brought an end to Europe’s prolonged religious wars and gradually gave rise to modern international law, territorial boundaries, and the sovereign-state order. In the evolution of modern civilization, its historical significance cannot be overlooked.

Yet the governance logic built upon the exclusivity of sovereignty has become increasingly incapable of addressing transboundary human affairs in an age marked by globalization, intelligent systems, and ecological crisis.

In essence, the Westphalian System institutionalized three foundational principles:

• sovereign states as the primary legitimate units of international affairs;

• territorial boundaries as exclusive spaces of governance;

• and an international condition of anarchy above which no higher public authority exists.

Within this structure, “national interest” naturally takes precedence over “the broader interests of humanity,” while international order relies upon fragile balances maintained through great-power equilibrium and deterrence.

As contemporary global challenges intensify, this system has gradually revealed profound paradoxes, rendering Roosevelt’s postwar idealistic attempt to establish a collective security order through the United Nations difficult to fully realize.

The Security Council’s veto mechanism under the “great-power unanimity principle” is itself a product of compromise between Westphalian sovereignty and power politics. Embedded within it are two enduring structural contradictions that remain fundamentally unresolved.

The first contradiction lies between the “club of sovereign states” and “global security governance.” The international community simultaneously seeks to preserve the independence and autonomy of sovereign states while also creating a global security mechanism with real enforcement capacity. Yet it has never resolved the fundamental questions:

Who enforces global order?
Who authorizes enforcement?
Who restrains the enforcers themselves?

The second contradiction lies between the “great-power unanimity principle” and “humanity’s common responsibility.” In practice, the veto mechanism confirms that power politics remains a foundational logic of international order, while the principle of “non-interference in internal affairs” often leaves the international community immobilized in the face of wars, humanitarian disasters, biological threats, and cross-border crises.

At the 1945 San Francisco Conference, Hu Shih participated as a member of the Chinese delegation in the founding process of the United Nations. The liberal jurisprudential spirit he represented was never satisfied with permanently confining world order within a balance of sovereign powers. Rather, it consistently affirmed:

Above states, there remains humanity.
Above power, there remains law.
Above sovereignty, there remains human life, freedom, and dignity.

Seen from today’s perspective, this spirit illuminates the deepest dilemma of the United Nations system itself: when sovereign privilege overwhelms humanity’s common responsibility, international organizations risk degenerating from platforms of public governance into arenas of geopolitical bargaining and national competition.

II. The Blind Spot of Reform: Beyond the Governance Structure of the Sovereign State as the Sole Unit

Over the past several decades, discussions regarding United Nations reform have largely remained confined within the existing framework — expanding permanent Security Council membership, adjusting regional representation, or optimizing voting mechanisms.

Yet as long as global governance continues to rest upon the assumption that sovereign states are the only legitimate governance subjects, it will remain difficult to escape the exclusivity, territorial fragmentation, and zero-sum dynamics inherited from the Westphalian structure.

Sovereign states are naturally obligated first to preserve their own internal order, security, and institutional stability. Consequently, they are structurally inclined to prioritize national interests and state security above broader human concerns.

Under such conditions, any international organization monopolized or infiltrated by particular sovereign powers risks degenerating once again into an extension of geopolitical rivalry, great-power alliances, and institutional confrontation.

Therefore, the essence of global symbiosism does not lie in determining which country, civilization, or geopolitical bloc should dominate the world. Rather, it lies in whether humanity can gradually transcend the monopolization of global governance by sovereign states and begin recognizing new forms of intersubjective actors that transcend national borders.

III. Foundational Basis: The Proposal of the Global Symbiosism Covenant Outline (Revised Edition)

In response to the structural failures of global governance and the growing crisis of global commons, the Intersubjective Symbiosis Foundation formally proposes a foundational constitutional framework:

The Global Symbiosism Covenant Outline (Revised Edition)

This covenant no longer treats “one state, one vote” or “great-power veto” as the sole logic of governance. Instead, it introduces for the first time a plural constitutional principle centered on the concept of the Inter-subjective.

Within this framework, legitimate actors of global governance would include not only sovereign states, but also:

• transnational scientific symbiotic communities,

• global civic networks,

• cross-regional ecological organizations,

• digital public infrastructure symbiotic entities,

• and other non-state intersubjective actors possessing real influence over humanity’s interconnected destiny.

This signifies a gradual transition from “sovereign international law” toward “intersubjective international law.”

Under the covenant’s foundational authorization, parts of the current United Nations structure would be empowered and upgraded. The existing Trusteeship Council and Human Rights Council would be integrated and reorganized into a new institution:

Global Symbiosis Council

The newly established Global Symbiosis Council would undertake fundamental reforms of the UN in terms of organizational units, modes of thought, deliberative procedures, and governance methods.

Its primary mandate would focus on addressing global issues that:

• transcend traditional national boundaries,

• cannot be solved independently by individual states,

• and should not be decided unilaterally by any single nation.

IV. The Four Core Governance Domains of the Global Symbiosism Covenant Outline (Revised Edition)

Under the covenant’s framework, the Global Symbiosis Council would focus on safeguarding humanity’s common survival baseline and the security of global commons across four principal domains.

(1) Fundamental Human Freedoms and Symbiotic Baselines

The covenant seeks to elevate certain fundamental human rights beyond their traditional dependence upon internal sovereign political structures, transforming them into universal civilizational baselines that transcend borders.

These include:

Freedom of Life

Protection from war, genocide, mass violence, and inhumane treatment.

Freedom of Property

Safeguarding the legitimate property and economic cooperation rights of individuals, communities, and lawful intersubjective entities.

Freedom of Health

Guaranteeing access to basic public health, ecological safety, and essential medical protection.

Freedom of Thought

Preserving rational space for diverse civilizations, cultures, and intellectual expression.

Digital Freedom

Protecting data sovereignty, informational autonomy, and digital personality boundaries in the fully digital age, while preventing algorithmic monopolies, data authoritarianism, and digital surveillance from eroding human subjectivity.

(2) World Peace and Networked Symbiosis of Interconnected Destiny

The accelerating trends of digitalization, intelligent systems, and Globalization 3.0 — characterized by the transcendence of sovereignty, civilization, and privilege — are continuously dissolving the spatial fragmentation inherent in the traditional Westphalian order.

Human society increasingly exhibits a deeply networked intersubjective structure in which “you are within me, I am within him, and he is within you.”

Supply chains, financial flows, data streams, energy systems, and cultural exchanges have already formed an intricately interwoven network of humanity’s interconnected destiny.

The covenant therefore advances a new understanding of peace.

Peace should no longer rely primarily upon great-power equilibrium, military deterrence, or nuclear terror balance. Instead, it should gradually emerge through:

• coordinated global supply chains,

• digital public networks,

• civilizational exchange mechanisms,

• and symbiotic funding systems,

ultimately forming a networked structure of peace in which “mutual dependence becomes mutual restraint.”

This would involve the creation of LIFE–AI–TRUST interactive infrastructures:

Amorsophia MindsField/Network (AM)

(愛之智慧孞態场/网)

Within such a structure, warfare would no longer merely damage others; it would also severely rebound upon the aggressor’s own economic, technological, digital, and ecological systems, thereby reducing the overall strategic profitability of war itself.

(3) Governance of Global Commons and Cross-Border Risks

To address the escalating crisis of global commons, the covenant authorizes the Global Symbiosis Council to function as a trust-based coordination platform for humanity’s common interests, focusing on five major categories of transnational risk.

Ecological and Climate Systems

Including global climate, atmospheric systems, ocean circulation, and critical ecological carbon sinks. Governance should be grounded in scientific assessment and ecological carrying capacity.

Cross-Border Pollution Governance

Establishing transnational coordination and accountability mechanisms regarding air pollution, marine pollution, water contamination, and hazardous waste flows.

Global Gene Bank Protection

Safeguarding biodiversity and critical genetic resources against monopolization, malicious destruction, or irreversible extinction.

Biosafety Defense

Creating international early-warning, information-sharing, and rapid-response systems to confront superviruses, genetic misuse, and potential biological catastrophes.

Digital Commons

Treating internet foundational protocols, public algorithmic standards, orbital resources, and portions of AI infrastructure as global public digital commons, preventing their fragmentation through state competition or technological monopolization.

(4) Risk Control over Weapons of Mass Destruction and Strategic Resources

Regarding weapons and resource weaponization capable of generating civilizational catastrophe, the covenant advocates the gradual establishment of supranational coordination and restraint mechanisms.

Weaponization of Nuclear, Biological, and Mass Destructive Technologies

Promoting global reduction, transparent oversight, and long-term de-escalation mechanisms to lower humanity’s collective extinction risk.

AI Weaponization

Restricting the development and deployment of autonomous lethal weapon systems. Any AI system involving autonomous lethal decision-making must retain:

• traceable chains of human responsibility,

• and final human intervention authority.

Resource Weaponization

Regarding rare earths, lithium, cobalt, superconductive materials, supermaterials, and other strategic resources vital to the global green transition and digital civilization, the covenant promotes:

• transnational coordination,

• transparent supply systems,

• and non-weaponization principles,

so that such resources do not become mere instruments of geopolitical conflict.

V. Operational Guarantee Mechanisms: Reconstructing Global Public Governance and the “World Police” Problem

One of the covenant’s most important institutional explorations lies in its attempt to rethink the long-standing dilemma of global enforcement authority and responsibility.

Historically, the international community has struggled to balance two competing necessities:

• the need for enforceable global governance,

• and the need to prevent hegemonic abuse of power.

Accordingly, the covenant does not advocate the creation of a traditional “world government.” Instead, it proposes a globally authorized public governance enforcement framework constrained by:

• strict authorization,

• limited jurisdiction,

• multilateral oversight,

• and appeal mechanisms.

This framework would apply AM reward/restraint/connective mechanisms to capable and willing state actors that undertake responsibilities resembling a “world police” role in safeguarding the four core domains of global governance.

Such mechanisms would ensure that these actors are neither:

• unfairly burdened and unappreciated,

• nor allowed to become arrogant or domineering.

To prevent global enforcers from degenerating into geopolitical instruments of individual states, personnel, financing, and governance authorization should gradually detach from dependence upon any single sovereign power.

Relevant public governance resources could instead derive partially from:

• digital commons circulation taxes,

• global public resource coordination funds,

• and cross-border risk governance mechanisms,

thereby reducing the long-standing imbalance in which a handful of countries disproportionately bear global governance costs.

At the same time, to prevent the Global Symbiosis Council itself from evolving into a new Leviathan, it must remain subject to strict institutional limitations, including:

• principles of public evidence,

• multilateral authorization,

• independent review,

• traceable accountability,

• global appeal and correction mechanisms,

• and final human supervisory authority over digital governance systems.

In specific domains such as digital commons, biosafety, and strategic resources, the Council may activate non-discriminatory symbiotic defense mechanisms based upon:

• transparent evidence,

• independent review,

• graded authorization,

• and emergency procedures.

Its objective is not to establish a hegemonic world police system, but rather to gradually cultivate a global public governance capacity accountable to humanity’s common symbiotic baseline.

VI. Conclusion: Toward an Age of Amorsophic Intersubjective Symbiosism

From the Westphalian System of 1648, which ended Europe’s religious wars, to the United Nations framework established in 1945 in pursuit of collective security, humanity has continuously struggled to balance sovereign order and common responsibility.

Today, under conditions of globalization, ecological crisis, digital civilization, and artificial intelligence, human society can no longer rely solely upon traditional sovereign structures to independently manage systemic risks that transcend borders.

The Global Symbiosism Covenant Outline (Revised Edition) does not seek the simplistic negation of the sovereign-state system, nor does it attempt to construct an unrealistic global utopia.

Rather, it seeks to explore for the twenty-first century a new intersubjective governance framework capable of reconciling:

• sovereignty,

• human rights,

• ecology,

• freedom,

• security,

• and responsibility for the global commons.

What it attempts to initiate is not merely reform of the United Nations, but a civilizational transition — from “sovereign international law” toward “intersubjective international law.”

In this process, humanity may gradually learn how to preserve civilizational diversity and national boundaries while steadfastly safeguarding the interconnected destiny of humanity that has already transcended those very boundaries:

Toward an Age of Amorsophic Intersubjective Symbiosism.

And perhaps this marks the true beginning of humanity’s journey from the crisis of sovereignty toward intersubjective symbiosism.

Contact

Email: hongguanworld@gmail.com

References

1. Archer Hong Qian, Global Symbiosism Covenant Outline (Revised Edition)

• Creaders Blog: Creaders Blog Version

• Symbiosism Network: Symbiosism Network Version

2. Archer Hong Qian, AM 2026: From a New Earth Civilization to an Interstellar Civilization — Toward an Age of Amorsophic Intersubjective Symbiosism

• Creaders Blog: Creaders Blog Version

• Symbiosism Network: Symbiosism Network Version

3. Archer Hong Qian, “Global Governance and United Nations Reform,” in SYMBIOSISM: The Mind Power to Agree on An Innovative Lifestyle, p.128, Onebook Press, 2021.

4. Archer Hong Qian (Editor-in-Chief), Global Symbiosism: Chinese School of Defusing Clashes and Rebuilding the World Order, Morning Star Publishing House, 2018.