The Earthlings Declaration of Self-Determination

This edition is the founding edition. The Earthlings people is constituted by the adoption of this text.

Until it is adopted, the text is open to proposals from any person. Joining, identity verification, and agreement with what is set out here are not required in order to submit a proposal. Every proposal is published together with the answer to it, including those rejected, with the reason for rejection stated.

Proposals and the answers to them are kept in an open registry: <https://github.com/earthlingsorg/earthlings-documents>. The registry is open to any person without registration and without permission; every change to the text is visible in it line by line and is linked to the proposal that led to it.

The text is adopted by a vote of people who have confirmed their identity, on the principle of "one person, one vote".

Proposals directed at abolishing or narrowing the principles established by Articles 8, 9 and 10 are not considered. Proposals to refine the wording of those principles, to add to those Articles, and to change any other provision are considered on the same footing as all others.

The deadlines, the procedure for submitting and considering proposals, the requirements for taking part in the vote, and the thresholds for adoption are established by the document "The Founding Period".

This section ceases to have effect upon adoption and is not reproduced in the adopted edition. Article 14 is completed on the day of adoption and remains in the text permanently.

We are people of different countries, cultures, languages and convictions.

What unites us is our bond with the planet Earth, our respect for human dignity, and our responsibility for a shared present and future.

Humanity has become a single organism, yet it is governed by instruments built for a divided world.

Armed escalation, the state of the biosphere, the development of technology, the fate of future generations - none of these affects individual countries alone any more. Important decisions are taken in particular offices, and the consequences fall on everyone. People have no direct voice in those decisions; states speak in their place.

Until now people have had no way of joining together across borders in order to decide such questions together.

The Charter of the United Nations opens with the words "We the peoples of the United Nations". Not "we the governments" and not "we the states": in those words the source of the new world order is named: people themselves, not the states that speak on their behalf. But in eight decades those words have not become a procedure for the peoples themselves: decisions in the Organization are taken by organs composed of representatives of states, and no mechanism through which peoples would act in their own name has appeared in its structure.

Hence the need for a new form of cooperation, one that operates across borders without abolishing what already exists.

For the first time in history, people can join together into a people without asking anyone's permission. It is that possibility we are acting upon.

By this Declaration we voluntarily constitute ourselves as a people and give it the name Earthlings. What unites us is neither territory nor descent, but choice.

Almost every human community is built on division: us and them, friends and enemies. This breeds separation, rivalry and enmity in society.

The Earthlings people is built otherwise. It abolishes no difference between people and rests on none. It rests on choice - and that choice is possible because people have something in common from the outset: everyone wants peace, health and well-being for themselves and for those close to them. We hold that this can be achieved through the unity of people, and not at the expense of others.

We constitute a people not in place of existing ethnic groups, states and citizenships, but in addition to them. We claim no land, no power, and no right to speak on behalf of all humanity. We speak in our own name - the name of those who have signed this Declaration.

Each person's vote equals that of every other; it cannot be bought, accumulated, or taken away. Anyone may leave at any time, without giving reasons.

This Declaration establishes the grounds on which the Earthlings people exists, its principles, the guarantees given to the person, the limits on the power of the people itself, and the order of its self-governance.

For almost all of history the person took no part in the decisions that shaped their life. The rules they lived by, the laws, the agreements, their rights and their duties were set for them by others.

There was no way for millions of people to deliberate on common questions and take decisions without intermediaries. There was no way to make the deliberation, the counting of votes and the result verifiable by every participant.

While this remained impossible, representation was the only way to take decisions in large communities. States came to speak on behalf of their peoples, and the international order was built on the representation of states.

That order was historically justified and did what it was created to do. It held the stability of international relations, established human rights, and secured cooperation between states. One thing it did not do: it created no way for peoples themselves to express a common will on questions that reach beyond individual states.

Today the constraint that justified that order has fallen away. A people can express its common will directly, and not only through the representatives of states.

It does not follow that representation was a mistake. It follows that it was the right answer under conditions that no longer hold.

Something further follows as well: people have the right to form a people of their own choosing, voluntarily, and to act in their own name.

Democracy means rule by the people, not one particular arrangement of it.

Throughout history people have taken common decisions in different ways: they elected representatives, drew lots, rotated offices, held open assemblies, sought general agreement. The forms differed, but each was regarded as a way of exercising the power of the people.

In time one of them took over the whole name. Representative democracy ceased to be one kind of rule by the people and came to be identified with democracy as such. The other forms survived as local practices, historical examples and isolated experiments.

This happened not because representation proved superior to other ways of self-governance. It was the only design that worked with large numbers, so long as the direct participation of millions was technically impossible.

Representation was a historical answer to the problem of scale. It allowed societies to grow while keeping the ability to take common decisions.

The nature of that design was never concealed: in handing the right to decide to elected representatives, citizens give up governing society directly. Representation was conceived not as a kind of direct rule by the people, but as its substitute where direct participation was impossible.

That is why, within a representative system, one can change the government, the parliament, the parties and the political course, but not the manner of governing itself.

Something else follows from the same transfer of powers. The right to decide exists here as a transferable power, and a transferable power gravitates to where the means of influence are. Election campaigns require money, lobbying structures obtain privileged access to the legislator, and a system that formally preserves the principle of "one person, one vote" operates on the principle of "one dollar, one vote". The concentration of power arises not from the failings of particular individuals but from the construction itself.

From the same source comes the asymmetry of accountability. Legal systems define exhaustively what a person owes the state and what follows if they fail to deliver. In the opposite direction the mechanism does not work: decisions whose consequences people carry for decades can be changed only through the same system that took them.

Two arguments are offered in defence of this arrangement.

The first: there is no alternative. Democracy is imperfect, but humanity has invented nothing better.

The second: people are incapable of self-organization without external compulsion and punishment.

Both arguments serve one purpose - to make criticism pointless. Why change what has no alternative? Why set free those who are incapable of freedom?

And both are refuted by practice. Other forms of rule by the people have always existed; representative democracy became predominant not because the others were disproved, but because it alone solved the problem of scale under the conditions of its time. And human communities have, over generations, created and maintained on their own durable rules for governing shared resources and a shared life.

The problem is not human nature. The problem is that any system separated from the direct participation of people sooner or later loses touch with reality.

These arguments are drawn from past experience. This Declaration speaks of what exists now.

If the direct, verifiable and equal participation of millions has become possible, representative democracy ceases to be the only form of rule by the people.

The question is no longer whether another form of democracy can exist. The question is what it should be.

What follows from the above is not a denial of the existing order, but the conditions under which people can express their common will themselves.

There are three such conditions.

First. Behind every vote stands one living person, and this is verifiable.

Without it there is no way to establish how many people are taking part in a decision. One person must not be able to vote twice, to create several identities, or to act on behalf of others.

Second. The right to take part in decisions is not sold, not bought, not accumulated, and not transferred irrevocably.

The moment the right to decide becomes alienable, it begins to concentrate. With concentration a centre of power returns, and rule by the people turns back into representation.

Third. Any participant can verify the result independently.

If the correctness of a decision is attested only by those who did the counting, that is not a decision of the people but a report of one.

None of the three conditions substitutes for another. Without the first, the actual will of the people is unknown. Without the second, the right to participate becomes an object of accumulation and exchange. Without the third, the result remains a matter of trust rather than of verification.

For all of history it was impossible to satisfy these conditions at once. The direct participation of millions remained out of reach not for want of desire but for want of means. Today that obstacle has ceased to be insurmountable.

This is not a claim about the perfection of technology, nor a promise on its behalf. It is a statement of precisely what has ceased to be an obstacle.

Technical means alone are not enough. For people to act not as a multitude of separate individuals but as a people, a legal form is needed, one that recognizes them as an autonomous subject of collective expression of will.

A legal form without verifiable participation remains a declaration. Verifiable participation without a legal form remains a technical protocol. Only their combination makes a new form of rule by the people possible, and for the first time in history that combination is achievable.

Constitution of the People

The Earthlings people is constituted by this Declaration.

It comes into being through the free expression of will by people who have decided to unite around shared values. It comes into being neither by descent, nor by territory, nor by the decision of any state.

Everyone who signs this Declaration constitutes the Earthlings people together with the others who have signed. The people exists for as long as there are people who have voluntarily confirmed their belonging to it.

This act requires no permission, approval or recognition from a state or an international organization. No people in history came into being by anyone's permission. Peoples exist because people themselves recognize one another as one people.

Why a People and Not an Association

Earthlings are a people, and not a civic organization, a union or an association.

An association is created for a particular purpose and exists as long as the task it was formed for exists.

A people exists otherwise. It unites people not for a particular purpose but as a durable form of collective belonging, with its own values, its own self-governance, its own rules and its own continuity.

Belonging to a people does not end because of disagreement with a particular decision of its participants or its institutions. What the people holds in common is wider than any single question.

A People and a Nation

A people, in the sense international law gives the word, is a durable community that holds the right freely to determine its status and to pursue economic, social and cultural development. It is a legal category, distinct both from a population and from a nation.

A nation is understood as an ethnic community - by descent, language, culture or historical territory. The concept of a nation does not coincide with the legal concept of a people.

The people of France took shape out of Bretons, Corsicans, Alsatians and the descendants of migrants from every continent. A people has never required a single origin.

The Name of the People

The name Earthlings expresses the most fundamental ground of our unity: all people are born on one planet, Earth.

What a common state territory, descent, language or historical fate does for many peoples is done for the Earthlings people by a shared bond with the Earth and by the voluntary choice to be one people.

What the Earthlings People Is

The Earthlings people is a voluntary, non-violent and non-territorial form of collective self-determination.

It does not replace existing states, citizenships and legal systems; it exists alongside them.

It differs from earlier forms of collective self-determination in that the three conditions named in Article 3 can, for the first time, be satisfied simultaneously on the scale of a people.

The Legal Basis

Freedom of association is a right every person holds today. It is established by Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and it is not made conditional on citizenship, on territory, or on anyone's permission.

Everything the Earthlings people does within itself - associating, governing itself, taking common decisions - is done in the exercise of that right.

The right to self-determination belongs to peoples as collective subjects: the Charter of the United Nations, Article 1(2), and common Article 1 of the 1966 Covenants.

The Earthlings people brings the exercise of these two rights together in a single construction: associating freely, people constitute themselves as a people - and, as a people, exercise the right that belongs to peoples.

An Open Question of International Law

International law has not yet developed a settled approach to voluntarily constituted non-territorial peoples. It contains no rule prohibiting their emergence. Nor does it contain a rule expressly confirming their status.

The most frequently cited doctrinal summary of the characteristics of a people is the report of the 1989 UNESCO meeting of experts. It lists a common historical tradition, ethnic identity, cultural homogeneity, linguistic unity, religious or ideological affinity, territorial connection and common economic life - and requires that a group possess some or all of them, not necessarily all at once. Territorial connection is named among the characteristics, but it is not mandatory. The one requirement stated there as mandatory is the will to be a people.

That summary is not a source of law: it was adopted by a meeting of experts and serves as a subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law. We cite it because it is the text most often turned to, not because it binds anyone.

There is no settled practice with respect to voluntarily constituted non-territorial peoples, and we do not fill the absence of practice with an interpretation in our own favour. Nor does that absence amount to a prohibition: every people that exists today once came into being for the first time.

Legal Consequences

The lawfulness of what the Earthlings people does rests on freedom of association, and therefore does not depend on how the question of its qualification as a people is resolved. What may be subject to legal development is the status of the people, not the right of persons to associate freely.

The Characteristics of the Earthlings People

This Declaration proceeds from the position that the decisive characteristic of a people is not the descent of its members but the existence of a durable community possessing a common identity, a common will and its own institutions of self-governance. This is our position, not a generally accepted legal test.

The Earthlings people possesses these characteristics. Its common identity is established by this Declaration. Its common will is expressed through voluntary accession and the equal participation of each. Its institutions of self-governance are constituted by this Declaration and operate in the manner it establishes.

Legal Cognizability

The existence of the Earthlings people is determined by the will of the people who belong to it. It is not created by the recognition of states and does not cease in the absence of such recognition.

The legal cognizability of its status accumulates through the practice of applying international law. International law provides for no organ empowered to recognize or to constitute peoples, and no register of peoples exists. Whether a people exists is assessed when a specific legal question arises.

This Declaration and the institutions of the Earthlings people are built so that the characteristics of a people can be verified at any time.

Relation to States

The Earthlings people does not exercise the right to self-determination by separating territory, altering state borders, or limiting the sovereignty of any state.

In exercising the right to self-determination, the Earthlings people sets itself against neither states nor existing international law; it creates an additional, voluntary and non-territorial form of collective belonging.

The absence of any territorial claim excludes all conflict between the existence of the Earthlings people and the principle of the territorial integrity of states.

Development Continues

The development of international law continues, and the range of questions that matter for humanity as a whole grows wider. This Declaration and the constitution of a new people create a precondition for such development: they add a procedure for the collective self-determination of people.

Widening the Circle of Rights-Holders

Law has steadily widened the circle of those it recognizes as holders of rights: first within particular communities, then within states, then with respect to the human being as such.

The Earthlings people offers a procedure that allows people to exercise already recognized rights jointly, where earlier procedures have ceased to be sufficient.

The Unfinished Step

Article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 proclaimed the right of everyone to a social and international order in which rights and freedoms can be fully realized.

With respect to questions of planetary significance, that task remains unfinished. Rights are recognized. The interests of humanity are recognized. Responsibility towards future generations is recognized. What is missing is a procedure by which people themselves would form, verify and express a common will on those questions. A recognized right that no one is able to assert remains a rule without application.

The Earthlings people is created in order that such a procedure should exist - for those who have entered the people.

Purpose

The purpose of the Earthlings people is to make possible the formation, verification and expression of the collective will of people, where until now this has been impossible.

The Earthlings people does not take decisions for humanity and does not act on its behalf.

Its purpose lies not in exercising power but in creating the conditions under which the collective will of people can be freely formed, verified and expressed - and confirmed as the will of people, and not of their representatives, organizations or states.

Subject Matter

The Earthlings people takes up questions that meet two criteria at once:

1. no state can resolve them on its own;
2. the consequences fall on people whether or not they took part in the decision.

The criteria are exhaustive; the list of questions is not: a list will go out of date, the criteria will not. The range of questions taken up is determined by the Earthlings Charter within these criteria.

Manner of Acting

The Earthlings people does not take decisions for states and does not exercise public authority.

It forms a verifiable collective position of its participants and conveys it to states, international organizations, civic institutions and the world community.

The force of that position is determined not by the powers of the people but by the free participation of persons, the transparency of the procedures, and the ability to verify the result.

How the People Becomes Cognizable

The Earthlings people does not wait to be recognized and does not ask permission to exist. Legal cognizability accumulates through what the people does.

It addresses states, international organizations and their organs; it takes part where participation is open to non-state actors; it proposes procedures through which people could speak directly; it works to make the voice of people heard where today only states are heard.

This work is carried on as cooperation and not as demand: the Earthlings people proposes to test a new procedure together, not to have it recognized in advance.

The Earthlings people undertakes to carry on this work continuously and openly, accounting for it to its participants. It does not undertake to achieve a result: recognition is not within its power, and the existence of the people does not depend on recognition.

Legal Role

International law already proceeds from the existence of the interests of humanity as a whole; those interests, however, are expressed predominantly through states.

The Earthlings people proposes to supplement the existing order with a procedure through which people themselves form and express a collective will.

The International Legal Prospect

International law knows subjects that exist without a territory of their own. We state the limit of those examples ourselves: such subjects held legal personality before losing territory, and what is at issue in them is the retention of a status, not its acquisition. They show that territory is not a necessary condition for holding legal personality.

Whether international legal personality can arise for a voluntarily constituted non-territorial people remains an open question. The Earthlings people regards its own existence as a practical test of that question by the means that existing international law provides.

The provisions of this Article form part of the unamendable core of the Earthlings people (Article 13).

How Belonging Arises

Belonging to the Earthlings people is voluntary: it arises and ends only by the decision of the person themselves, except in the cases named in this Article.

A person becomes an earthling by signing this Declaration. Belonging arises in no other way: not by birth, not by descent, not by inheritance, and no organ can appoint anyone.

Belonging arises no earlier than the age established by the Earthlings Charter. That age cannot be lower than 16 years, and no one has the power to lower it.

Anyone may sign the Declaration who has reached that age, agrees with what is set out here, and for whom it has been confirmed that they are one living person.

The procedure for confirming identity and age is established by the Earthlings Charter.

No other conditions are established, and none can be. Belonging does not depend on descent, citizenship, nationality, language, place of residence, sex, state of health, education, occupation, financial position, religion, political views, or any other personal circumstance.

There is no decision on admission: the people considers no applications, assesses no one, and refuses no one.

Confirming identity and issuing a passport cost money, and those costs are covered by a contribution on joining. The contribution covers cost only, buys no belonging, and creates no advantage of any kind. Inability to pay it oneself does not close entry into the people: the Earthlings Charter establishes the procedure under which the contribution for a person is paid by another person or out of the common treasury. The amount of the contribution is not established by this Declaration and cannot be increased otherwise than by a decision of the Assembly.

There Are No Insurmountable Requirements

No requirement for joining or for participating may be such that a person is unable to satisfy it for reasons beyond their control.

The absence of documents, lack of access to communications, state of health, remoteness of the place of residence and other such circumstances close neither entry into the people nor participation in its decisions. Inability to satisfy a requirement is not held against the person and is not a ground for refusal.

What the People Does Not Require

The Earthlings people requires of an earthling neither service nor agreement with the decisions of the majority.

It expects one thing: that one living person stands behind the signature, and that an earthling acknowledges for every other person the freedom they claim for themselves.

Belonging Adds, It Does Not Replace

Belonging to the Earthlings people is added to what a person already has. It requires giving up no other belonging and does not affect the person's rights and duties towards their state.

Equality of Participants

From the moment a person has signed the Declaration, they are equal to every other earthling.

Neither the date of signing, nor participation in constituting the people, nor length of participation, nor the size of voluntary donations, nor any mandate carried out creates any advantage, privilege or special position.

There is no class of founders in the Earthlings people.

Private Life

The Earthlings people does not intrude into a person's private life.

Faith, worldview, political views, family status, participation in other communities and way of life are not a condition of belonging, not a ground for any measure, and not a subject of the people's decisions.

Equality of Languages

No language, no region and no culture holds an advantage within the people. Not knowing any given language limits no one's rights.

The people provides for participation in different languages; the list of them and the order in which it is extended are established by the Earthlings Charter.

How Belonging Ends

A person ceases to be an earthling on one of two grounds only, and the list of them is closed:

1. they have so decided themselves - at any time, without giving reasons and without anyone's consent;
2. upon the person's death.

There is no expulsion from the people. The list of grounds on which belonging ends is exhaustive. It cannot be extended, supplemented by analogy or construed broadly, whether by the Earthlings Charter, by a decision, or by established practice.

Where Belonging Did Not Arise

The issuance of a passport is annulled in three cases, and the list of them is closed:

1. more than one valid passport has been issued to one person - in that case the issuance of all but the first is annulled, and the person's belonging is preserved;
2. identity verification was obtained using false information or another person's identity;
3. the passport was issued to a person below the age established by the Earthlings Charter.

Annulment is neither a measure of liability nor expulsion from the people. It means only that belonging did not lawfully arise. If the impediment has been removed, the person may undergo confirmation again on general terms.

Guarantees to the Person

Before belonging is found not to have arisen, or a person's participation in voting is restricted, everyone is guaranteed the right to be notified in good time, the right to submit objections, the right to have the matter considered by those who did not raise it, and the right of appeal.

The procedure for giving effect to these guarantees is established by the Earthlings Charter.

Withdrawal of Consent to Identity Verification

Withdrawing consent to the processing of data obtained during identity verification does not end belonging.

The procedure for deleting such data and the consequences of withdrawal for participation in voting are established by the Earthlings Charter.

The provisions of this Article form part of the unamendable core of the Earthlings people (Article 13).

The Earthlings people establishes its own limits by this Article. They apply in all circumstances and cannot be abolished, narrowed, suspended, altered or circumvented by any decision.

Renunciation of Violence

The Earthlings people renounces permanently the use of violence as a means of achieving its aims.

It does not create, constitute, finance or support armed, paramilitary, security or any other structures capable of applying violence - neither directly nor through third parties.

The Word Instead of Compulsion

The Earthlings people speaks, appeals and objects - and never compels.

Compulsion is any influence that deprives a person of freedom of decision: the use of force, the threat of force, bribery, blackmail, pressure through the means of subsistence, and other forms of open or concealed pressure.

An opinion expressed, an argument published, an address to state organs, civic institutions and international organizations, a proposal to change a rule in force - none of these is compulsion.

The Earthlings people does not renounce the right to speak. It renounces the right to compel.

Non-Interference in the Internal Affairs of States

The Earthlings people takes no part in the struggle for state power.

It does not support political parties, candidates or election campaigns, does not finance them, does not call for voting in any particular way, and does not call for the violent alteration of the constitutional order of any state.

All appeals by the Earthlings people are made openly, publicly and in its own name.

Limits of Powers and of Positions

The Earthlings people assumes only those powers that are necessary for the purpose defined by Article 7. Whatever lies beyond that purpose does not belong to the Earthlings people. Such powers and the order of exercising them are established by the Earthlings Charter.

On questions of the internal politics of a particular state, no collective position is taken on behalf of the whole people: the Earthlings people must not become an instrument in a domestic political struggle.

No collective position is taken with respect to an individual person. The Earthlings people speaks about phenomena, decisions and arrangements, not about people.

The Freedom of the Person

This Declaration does not limit human rights. How an earthling exercises them outside the people carries no consequences within the people.

Respect for the Law of the State

The Earthlings people has no power to require a person to breach the mandatory rules of the state of their citizenship or residence.

If a decision of the people comes into conflict with such law, the participant follows the law of their state and bears no liability whatsoever to the Earthlings people for doing so.

No One's Rights Are Diminished

This Declaration diminishes no one's rights - neither those of persons, nor of peoples, nor of states. It creates no new human rights, alters the content of none, and does not displace the international mechanisms for their protection.

No conclusion about the legal position of anyone other than the Earthlings people may be drawn from it.

Where interpretations conflict, the one that gives the person the higher protection prevails.

Responsibility Towards Those Who Did Not Take Part

No decision of the Earthlings people shifts its consequences onto those who had no opportunity to take part in making it, including future generations.

The Legal Interfaces of the People

The Earthlings people is not a legal entity. For dealings with states, courts, financial institutions and other organizations, legal entities may be established under the law of various states; their purpose is exclusively instrumental.

Such legal entities are not the bearers of the people, do not determine its existence, hold no power over it, and are not a source of its legitimacy. They may be established, replaced and wound up without consequence for the people, its composition or its continuity.

The registry of participants, the confirmation of their identity and the data connected with it are not the property of a legal entity, cannot be transferred, sold, pledged or otherwise disposed of, and under no circumstances follow a legal entity.

Through the same interfaces the Earthlings people answers lawful requests from state authorities.

Limits of the Binding Force of Decisions

Decisions of the Earthlings people are binding only on its participants and only on questions of the internal life of the people itself.

The provisions of this Article form part of the unamendable core of the Earthlings people (Article 13).

The Values of the People

Life

Human life is the highest value.

No aim, no decision of a majority, no emergency and no other circumstance justifies disregard for human life.

This care extends to life in all its forms.

This provision establishes no belief about the beginning, the end or the boundaries of life. These are questions of individual conscience, and the Earthlings people decides them for no one.

Freedom

Freedom, as the Earthlings people understands it, is the absence of domination: no one can accumulate power over a person - not by money, not by merit, not by position.

Freedom is not measured by the absence of rules. It is measured by whether anyone can come to stand above a person.

Dignity

Every person is born free and equal in dignity. Human dignity is inviolable.

No person may be turned into a means for another's power, exploitation or humiliation.

Planetary Solidarity

What affects everyone is decided with the participation of everyone.

A person belongs at once to their country, to their communities and to the whole of humanity. These forms of belonging complement one another and do not conflict.

Planetary Common Interests

The atmosphere, the world ocean, the climate and other conditions for the existence of life, belonging to no one in particular, are a common concern of humanity.

The Earthlings people claims no exclusive rights over them and supports no arrangement that permits their exclusive appropriation.

This provision does not extend to the results of human labour, to property, or to enterprise.

Care for the Planet

The preservation of the environment, of biological diversity and of the stability of ecosystems is a duty of the present generation towards those to come.

No human activity justifies the irreversible destruction of the conditions for the existence of life.

Transparency

Institutions are transparent; the person is not.

No verification procedure may require disclosure of how a person voted, what they believe, what they read, or what convictions they hold.

No Concentration of Power

Powers within the Earthlings people are at all times limited, distributed, revocable and verifiable.

No provision places a person, an institution or a group above the collective will of the people.

Technology

Any technology serves the person and serves life.

No technology may be used for the concealed manipulation of people, for limiting their freedom, for creating distinctions of caste, for digital subordination, or for suppressing human autonomy.

No algorithm, code or system of artificial intelligence may be the final source of a decision affecting the rights, the dignity or the position of a person.

Every person has the right to protection of their identity, their data and their autonomy. The requirements for infrastructure that secure these rights are established by Article 12.

Guarantees to the Person

What follows belongs to every participant from the moment of signing this Declaration. These guarantees are not granted by the Earthlings people and therefore cannot be abolished, narrowed or made conditional by it.

The Right to Belong

Belonging to the Earthlings people is inalienable. No one can be expelled.

It ends only on the grounds established by Article 8.

An Equal Vote

The vote of every participant is equal to that of every other. Its weight does not depend on length of participation, financial position, renown, merit, any mandate carried out, or any other circumstance.

The right to vote cannot be limited or suspended for a person's convictions, for the content of their vote, for disagreement with the majority, or for criticism of the Earthlings people.

Participation in voting is temporarily restricted only for proven deliberate acts against the voting mechanism itself - against the principle of "one person, one vote". There are no other grounds and there can be none.

The definitions of such acts and the duration of the restriction are established by the Earthlings Charter. A restriction is applied only if the guarantees established by Article 8 are observed, and it cannot be indefinite.

The Right to Take Part

Every participant has the right to take part in the discussion and the taking of decisions on any question relating to the life of the people, to submit proposals and to raise questions.

No one's prior approval is required for this.

The Right to Be Heard

No measure is applied to a person before they have been notified in good time of its grounds and have been given a real opportunity to submit explanations and objections.

The Right to Leave Freely

Everyone has the right to end their belonging to the Earthlings people at any time.

Leaving requires no reasons, no permission and no one's consent. No one has the power to prevent it.

This is the last guarantee of all the others: where one cannot leave, no promise of freedom is worth anything.

The Operation of the Unamendable Core

The provisions of this Article admit of no exception. They are not suspended in any circumstances - not in a crisis, not under a state of emergency, not under external pressure, not under technical attack, and not by a decision of the majority.

Any attempt to circumvent the provisions of this Article by another procedure, another wording or another legal mechanism is a breach of them, whatever the form of circumvention. A refinement of wording permitted by Article 13 is not a circumvention, provided it narrows no principle and lowers no guarantee.

Every participant has the right to invoke this Article in any procedure and at any stage of it. Such invocation constitutes no breach and cannot serve as a ground for any adverse consequence.

A decision that contradicts this Article is void from the moment it is taken. Neither the passage of time, nor the execution of the decision, nor the absence of objections cures it.

In any case of doubt, the provisions of this Article are construed in favour of the person and against any extension of the powers of any institution, mandate or procedure of the Earthlings people.

The unamendable core exists to protect the person from the power of the Earthlings people itself. Neither a majority, nor the Assembly, nor any institution of the people has the power to go beyond the limits it sets.

Power within the Earthlings people belongs to persons, not to institutions. Institutions and mandates exist only to carry out the decisions of the participants.

Decisions in the Earthlings people are taken by its participants directly.

The assembly of all participants - the Assembly - is the sole source of the people's decisions. No institution standing above the Assembly, or taking decisions in its place, exists or can be created.

Limits of Decisions

The Assembly takes decisions on questions of the life of the people, within the purpose defined by Article 7 and the limits established by Article 9.

The principles of the unamendable core are not a subject of voting. These are not questions of a raised threshold. These are questions that are not put to a vote at all.

The wording in which those principles are set out, and the other provisions of this Declaration, may be changed in the manner and subject to the limits established by Article 13.

Equality of the Vote

Every participant holds one vote.

No circumstance alters the equality of votes established by Article 10.

How Proposals Are Considered

Proposals are considered alike for everyone and do not depend on who the author is, what mandate they hold, or how long they have participated.

Openness

Discussion, the taking of decisions and the counting of votes are open to verification.

Secrecy of the ballot applies where openness of the expression of will exposes a person to risk or creates conditions for pressure upon them. It does not override the verifiability of the count. The cases and the procedure are established by the Earthlings Charter.

Delegation Instead of Representation

Representation has no place in the Earthlings people.

A participant may transfer the casting of their vote to another participant on a particular question or field. The delegate casts the transferred vote at their own discretion; the transfer creates no other rights.

The difference from representation lies not in how the delegate decides, but in what holds the transfer in place. It is made only by the will of the one transferring and is revoked by them, in whole or in part, at any time, without reasons and without the delegate's consent. The transfer is not given for a term and creates neither an office nor an organ.

Delegates are not chosen by vote: each person decides for themselves to whom to transfer their vote. No requirements are set for a delegate - experience, knowledge, reputation.

A Mandate Instead of an Office

Organizational, technical and protective functions, and the conduct of affairs with the outside world, are carried out exclusively under a mandate from the people.

A mandate is not an office. It creates no independent power, gives no exclusive right to act on behalf of the people, and does not place the person outside the decisions of the Assembly.

Whoever acts under a mandate accounts to the people: what was done, what was not done and why. The account is public. Failure to render an account is in itself a ground for revoking the mandate.

Who Decides Contested Matters

The Earthlings people decides a matter concerning a particular person in two cases only: when the issuance of a passport is annulled, and when participation in voting is temporarily restricted. The grounds for the first are established by Article 8 and for the second by Article 10, and in both cases the person is guaranteed the right to object and to appeal in the manner established by Article 8.

Such a matter is decided by the participants themselves - by those who did not raise it. Which of them, and in what order, is determined by the Earthlings Charter. A decision may be appealed to the Assembly.

The Earthlings Charter may provide that consideration is preceded by the opinion of an organ created by the people. Such an opinion is an opinion: it does not replace the decision of the participants, does not predetermine it, and does not bind them.

No standing organ deciding such matters in place of the participants is created. The Earthlings people has no court.

Changing Procedures

The order of discussion, of taking decisions, the requirements for participation, the time limits and other rules for organizing self-governance are established by the Earthlings Charter.

These rules cannot be changed by a simple majority. The threshold of a qualified majority is established by the Earthlings Charter.

The Continuity of the People

If the activity of the people is artificially brought to an end, if its governance is seized, or if participants lose the ability to exercise their rights for reasons beyond their control, the Earthlings people may be continued on a different basis in the manner provided by Article 13.

Technology within the Earthlings people is a means and only a means.

It does not create the people, is not a source of its powers, gives rise to no rights, and does not replace human decision.

Its purpose is to make the formation, verification and expression of the collective will of the people reliable, verifiable and resistant to forgery, compulsion and capture.

Cryptography here keeps the record; it does not rule.

Where Technology Is Necessary

Technical means are applied only where without them the conditions named in Article 3 of this Declaration cannot be satisfied.

Uniqueness of participation. Behind every participant stands one living person, and this is confirmed without disclosing who they are.

Inalienability of the vote. The right to participate belongs to the person themselves and technically cannot be bought, sold, appropriated or transferred irrevocably.

Verifiability of decisions. Anyone can satisfy themselves as to the correctness of the composition of the people, of the order of voting and of its result - regardless of who operates the infrastructure, and regardless of belonging to the Earthlings people. Reliability is confirmed by one's own verification, not by trust in an operator, an administrator or an owner of infrastructure.

What is subject to verification is the correctness of the procedure, not a person's life: verification is provided in such a way that it discloses neither information about participants nor the content of their votes.

Where a requirement can be met by ordinary means, ordinary means are used. Special technologies are applied only where there is no way around them.

Requirements for the Technology

Independence of the people. The existence of the Earthlings people does not depend on any platform, organization, technology supplier or operator.

The registry of participants is not under the control of a single operator. The composition of the people is preserved through changes of infrastructure, software and operators.

Openness. The code that determines belonging to the people and the inalienability of the passport is open for study, verification and reproduction. The registry of participants and the records of passports are public and verifiable by any person without anyone's permission.

What is public is the record that a passport exists and is valid, not information about the person. The registry contains no name, image, documents, biometric or other personal data of a participant, and does not allow a record to be linked to an identity.

Personal data obtained during identity verification is not placed in the registry, is stored separately from it, and is deleted at the person's request. Deleting such data do not affect the record in the registry: the record contains no personal data. Retention periods, the procedure for deletion, and the consequences of deletion for participation in voting are established by the Earthlings Charter.

Infrastructure that works with personal data are closed to copying but not to verification: its rules, thresholds and procedures are published in full, and it can be built anew from them. What can be neither read, nor verified, nor reproduced from its description is not a guarantee.

The key belongs to the person. Signing this Declaration, taking part in decisions and leaving the people are done with the participant's own key. Neither an operator, nor an organization, nor a technical system can perform these acts in place of the person or prevent their performance.

A signature relates to a text, not to the promise of a text: what is signed is the edition whose content is fixed in a verifiable way, and which cannot be substituted afterwards. The order of fixing and the form of signature are established by the Earthlings Charter.

Confirmation only with consent. Identity verification is carried out only with the person's consent, and they may withdraw it at any time. A refusal to confirm is not final: the person has the right to know its ground, to submit objections, to require consideration by a human being, and to appeal the decision. The number of repeat applications is not limited.

The Limits of Technology

The infrastructure of the Earthlings people has no power to:

• conduct surveillance of a person under the guise of identity verification;
• retain the ability to link a participant to the content of their vote after the voting has closed;
• create profiles of participants and rank them;
• determine covertly what information a person receives and in what order;
• collect data beyond what is necessary for an expressly stated purpose;
• turn a person's participation into a means of assessing them or into a condition of access to rights that belong to them.

Economic participation and participation in governance are separated architecturally, not by promise: property and units of account have no effect on the vote (Article 10).

Technological Neutrality

This Declaration deliberately names no particular technologies, software products, protocols or platforms.

Particular technical solutions are determined by the Earthlings Charter, and they change as technology develops.

The requirements of this Article are binding regardless of the means by which they are secured.

Technologies change. The guarantees to the person do not.

This Declaration is the founding document of the Earthlings people and holds the highest force within it.

The Unamendable Core

The unamendable core of the Earthlings people is formed by Articles 8, 9 and 10 of this Declaration.

What is unamendable are the principles those Articles establish. The list of principles is closed:

1. one person, one vote; a vote cannot be bought, sold, accumulated or transferred irrevocably;
2. power does not accumulate: powers are limited, revocable and verifiable, and a mandate does not become an office;
3. property is separated from the vote: neither contributions, nor input, nor wealth confer any advantage in governance;
4. leaving is free at any time and without giving reasons, and there is no expulsion from the people;
5. the people speaks but does not compel: violence is excluded without exception.

None of these principles can be abolished, narrowed, suspended or circumvented - not by a decision of the majority, not by the Earthlings Charter, not by interpretation, and not by a change of the technical basis.

The wording in which the principles are set out may change. A change of wording is permissible only if two conditions are satisfied at once: it neither abolishes nor narrows any of the principles, and it lowers no guarantee to the person. Where there is doubt whether a change lowers a guarantee, it is deemed to lower it and is not adopted.

The core may be added to with a new principle. An existing one may not be weakened or removed.

A decision that contradicts the core is void from the moment it is taken and is cured neither by time nor by execution. In any case of doubt the provisions of the core are construed in favour of the person.

An attempt to remove, narrow, replace, redefine or circumvent the principles of the unamendable core amounts to the creation of a different body, one that is not the Earthlings people - whatever its name, the composition of its participants, its software and the infrastructure it uses.

Changing the Other Provisions

The other provisions of this Declaration may be changed, supplemented or shortened by a decision of the Assembly.

The decision is taken by not less than two thirds of the votes cast, at a quorum established by the Earthlings Charter which cannot be lower than the quorum at which this Declaration was adopted.

A change cannot lower any guarantee to the person established by this Declaration, and cannot extend the powers of the people or of any of its institutions beyond the purpose defined by Article 7.

A change adopted in breach of these conditions is void from the moment it is taken.

Every edition of this Declaration is published in such a way that earlier editions and all differences between them remain available to any person. Replacing the text without preserving the previous one is not a change of the Declaration.

Why the amendable is separated from the unamendable. A text that cannot be corrected keeps its error permanently; a text that can be rewritten entirely protects nothing. What is unamendable are those provisions that protect the person from the power of the people itself. Everything else is a description of how the people is arranged and what it does, and that is refined over time.

Limits of Transformation

The Earthlings people cannot be transformed into a state or a state organ, a political party, a commercial corporation, a religious organization, or an armed or paramilitary formation.

A decision directed at such a transformation is void from the moment it is taken.

What Protects the Foundations

The protection of this Declaration is secured not by compulsion but by verifiability.

The text of this Declaration is published in a form that allows anyone to satisfy themselves of its authenticity and to trace every change made to it. The program code of the people's infrastructure is open. The registry of participants is maintained independently of any single operator (Article 12).

For that reason an attempt to rewrite the Declaration outside the established order does not change the Earthlings people. It creates a branch whose difference anyone can detect.

It should be said plainly what this protection is not. In many states an unamendable foundation is backed by a constitutional court with real powers. The Earthlings people has no constitutional court, and we do not pretend otherwise. Our protection is weaker than a court's in compulsion and stronger in verifiability; we consider that trade honest and do not present it as something else.

A high voting threshold is not a protection of the core: whoever commands the necessary majority legitimizes their acts by the threshold rather than being restrained by it. That is why a threshold is set for changing the other provisions, and is not applied to the principles of the core at all.

What protects is something else: the principles of the core are not voted on, and everyone has the right to leave at any time.

Lawful Continuation of the People

If, as a result of a seizure of governance, a shutdown of the infrastructure or other circumstances, the implementation of this Declaration becomes impossible, confirmed participants have the right to continue the existence of the Earthlings people on a different technical or organizational basis.

Such a continuation requires no consent from persons or structures obstructing the implementation of this Declaration.

A lawful continuation of the Earthlings people is only one in which three conditions are satisfied at once:

1. the principles of the unamendable core are preserved in full; whoever changes them creates, by definition, a different body;
2. the continuation rests on the free will of a majority of confirmed participants, expressed on the principle of "one person, one vote" and established from a registry not under the control of the obstructing party;
3. the transition is carried out openly and verifiably.

Neither possession of the infrastructure, nor ownership of the program code, nor control over legal entities amounts in itself to a continuation of the people.

Continuation is determined by the preservation of this Declaration and by the free will of the participants. The order of continuation is established by the Earthlings Charter.

Supremacy of the Declaration

The Earthlings Charter, internal regulations, decisions of the Assembly, mandates, technical rules and any other documents are adopted only in accordance with this Declaration.

Where this Declaration directs the Earthlings Charter to establish a procedure, the Earthlings Charter only sets that procedure out in detail. It does not in any circumstances lower the requirements established here, does not abolish or narrow the guarantees to the person, and does not make them conditional on anything.

A provision of a derivative document that contradicts this Declaration is void from the moment it is adopted and is not to be applied.

A contradiction discovered is removed by bringing the derivative document into accordance with this Declaration, and not by changing this Declaration. The right of the people to change the other provisions of this Declaration is not affected by this, but it is exercised by a decision of its own, and not in the course of removing a contradiction.

Languages and Interpretation

The term "people" is used in this Declaration in the meaning that international law gives to the holder of the right to self-determination: Charter of the United Nations, Article 1(2), and common Article 1 of the 1966 Covenants.

Translations of this Declaration reproduce that meaning, and not a literal correspondence of words. For languages in which official texts of the instruments named exist, the term is taken from those texts. For the remaining languages the term is taken from the official translation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in its absence, a term conveying the meaning stated, with an explanation on first use.

This Declaration is adopted in Russian and in English. Both texts are authentic.

Where they diverge, the interpretation that gives the person the higher protection applies. If that comparison does not resolve the divergence, the meaning of the Russian text applies: it is the language in which the Declaration was written and in which it was debated.

Translations into the remaining languages are official.

This provision does not affect the equality of languages established by Article 8: it concerns establishing the meaning of the text, not the rights of a participant.

This Declaration was adopted on __________ by a vote of people who had confirmed their identity, on the principle of "one person, one vote". The vote was held on the Russian and English texts, recognized as authentic.

______ votes were cast in favour of adoption out of ______ cast, with ______ confirmed participants as at the day proposals closed.

From that day the Earthlings people is constituted, and those who have signed this Declaration are earthlings.

The unamendability of the principles named in Article 13 rests on the decision of those whom they bind.

We, the signatories of this Declaration, accept its foundations, its undertakings and its limits, and attest that we belong to the Earthlings people by our own free choice.