Continental union

A map of the currently existing supranational continental unions.

A continental union, often abbreviated to CU, is an inter-governmental, supra-national, or a federation of member states located in the same continent, or close to it^{[citation needed]}. Continental unions are a relatively new type of political entity in the history of human government. Through out most of human history political organization has been at the tribal, city state and in more recent centuries, the national level. However starting in the 1600s - 1800's with the advent of better transportation, weapons and communication there was for the first time the ability for a union of member states to organize at the continental level. The first of these continental unions was the "United States of America" which gradually expanded and evolved after its founding into a union of 50 member states covering a large part of the North American Continent. In the early 1900s with its growing independence from the United Kingdom The "Commonwealth of Australia" became the second continent of the world to be united under a central political entity. After the devastation of the first and second world wars in the middle of the 1900s Europe slowly evolved from its founding as the "Coal and Steel Community" to become a political union covering much of the European Continent (27 member states as of 2009).^[1][2][3] Seeking to follow in the economically successful foot steps of the European Union, in 2002 and 2008 the African Union and Union of South American Nations respectively, set down similar blueprints for integration into political and economic unions at the continental level.

Existing continental unions

• African Union (AU), includes all African countries except Morocco, which withdrew after the AU recognized the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.
• Commonwealth of Australia (Australia), includes the continental mainland (the world's smallest), the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
• European Union (EU), includes 26 European countries (out of around 40), 1 Asian country Cyprus and their integral dependent territories in South America and Africa; it includes the European Parliament, directly elected by the citizens.
• Union of South American Nations (UNSAN), includes all of continental South America except French Guiana (which is an overseas department of France and therefore part of the European Union). Panama is also not a member of the Union, though it holds observer status.
• United States of America (USA), includes 49 member states located on the North American continent, and Hawaii which is located in the Pacific Ocean.

African Union

The African Union at a size of 29,757,900 square kilometers and a population of 1 Billion is by far the largest of the existing continental unions in terms of both land mass and population.^[4]

The African Union (AU) was formed as a successor to the Organization of African Unity (OAU).^[5] The most important decisions of the AU are made by the Assembly of the African Union, a semi-annual meeting of the heads of state and government of its member states. The AU's secretariat, the African Union Commission, is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. During the February 2009 Union meeting headed by Libyan leader Gaddafi, it was resolved that the African Union Commission would become the African Union Authority.^[6]

The African Union is made up of both political and administrative bodies. The highest decision-making organ of the African Union is the Assembly, made up of all the heads of state or government of member states of the AU. The Assembly is currently chaired by Muammar al-Gaddafi, leader of Libya, elected at the tenth ordinary meeting of the Assembly in January 2009. The AU also has a representative body, the Pan African Parliament, which consists of 265 members elected by the national parliaments of the AU member states. The current president of the Pan African Parliament is Idriss Ndele Moussa. Other political institutions of the AU include the Executive Council, made up of foreign ministers, which prepares decisions for the Assembly; the Permanent Representatives Committee, made up of the ambassadors to Addis Ababa of AU member states; and the Economic, Social, and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), a civil society consultative body.

Commonwealth of Australia

Australia (pronounced /əˈstreɪljə/ ə-STRAYL-yə or /ɒˈstreɪljə/ o-STRAYL-yə,^[7] or more formally as /ɔːˈstreɪliə/ aw-STRAY-lee-ə), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland (the world's smallest),^[8][9] the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.^N4 Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea to the north, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia to the north-east, and New Zealand to the southeast.^[10]

Australia approved by referendums held over 1898 - 1900 "The Constitution of Australia" which united the people of the Australian Continent under a single political union separate from the United Kingdom. Further steps of independence were taken with the passage of the "Statute of Westminster" in 1931 and the "Australia Act" in 1986.

European Union

The European Union has the largest economy (GDP) of the existing continental unions, and serves as the model which the African Union and the Union of South American Nations seek to follow.^[11]

The European Union (EU) is an economic and political union^[12] of 27 member states, located primarily in Europe. Committed to regional integration, the EU was established by the Treaty of Maastricht on 1 November 1993 upon the foundations of the pre-existing European Economic Community.^[13] With almost 500 million citizens, the EU combined generates an estimated 30% share (US$18.4 trillion in 2008) of the nominal gross world product.^[14]

The EU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws which apply in all member states, ensuring the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital.^[15] It maintains common policies on trade,^[16] agriculture, fisheries^[17] and regional development.^[18] Sixteen member states have adopted a common currency, the euro, constituting the Eurozone. The EU has developed a limited role in foreign policy, having representation at the WTO, G8, G20 and at the UN. It enacts legislation in justice and home affairs, including the abolition of passport controls by an agreement between the member states which form the Schengen Area.^[19]

Union of South American Nations

The Union of South American Nations (Português: União de Nações Sul-Americanas - UNASUL, Español: Unión de Naciones Suramericanas - UNASUR, Dutch: Unie van Zuid-Amerikaanse Naties (help·info) - UZAN) is an intergovernmental union integrating two existing customs unions: Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations, as part of a continuing process of South American integration. It is modeled on the European Union.^[20]

The UnSAN Constitutive Treaty was signed on May 23, 2008, at the Third Summit of Heads of State, held in Brasília, Brazil. According to the Constitutive Treaty, the Union's headquarters will be located in Quito, Ecuador. The South American Parliament will be located in Cochabamba, Bolivia, while its bank, the Bank of the South (Portuguese: Banco do Sul, Spanish: Banco del Sur, Dutch: Bank van het Zuiden), will be located in Caracas, Venezuela. The Union's former designation, the South American Community of Nations (Portuguese: Comunidade Sul-Americana de Nações, and Spanish: Comunidad de Naciones Suramericanas, Dutch: Zuid-Amerikaanse Statengemeenschap), abbreviated as CSN, was dropped at the First South American Energy Summit on April 16, 2007.

Visits by South American citizens to any South American country of up to 90 days require only the presentation of an identity card issued by the respective authority of the travellers' country of origin. On 24 November 2006, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela waived visa requirements for tourism travel between nationals of said countries.

United States of America

The United States is the oldest of the existing continental unions having been founded and evolved primarily over the 1700 and 1800's as it expanded westward to include 50 member states by 1959.^{[21] [22]} The United States of America (commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) consists of fifty member states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to its east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific.

In the 1800s, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii providing it with territory covering much of the North American continent. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states' rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the union and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, the national economy was the world's largest. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a military power. It emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States as the sole superpower. The country accounts for two-fifths of global military spending and is a leading economic, political, and cultural force in the world.

Proposed continental unions

• Asia Cooperation Dialogue
• ASEAN
• Central American Integration System
• Central Asian Union
• North American Union
• Pacific Union
• Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States
• Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf

Certain regional international organisations have vocation, or are able to become continental unions, such as CARICOM in the Caribbean, ASEAN in Southeast Asia and SAARC in the Indian Subcontinent.

See also

• Continentalism
• International organisation
• North American Union
• Supranational union

References

External links

• African Union
• Commonwealth of Australia
• European Union
• Union of South American Nations
• United States of America
• Towards Unity