Writing a World Constitution

Abstract

This chapter examines perceptions of federal world order by focusing on a group of American and European émigré intellectuals in the United States who formed the Chicago Committee to Frame a World Constitution Draft (1945–1948). The Chicago Committee, led by Robert M. Hutchins, Richard McKeon, and Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, united leading intellectuals and scholars concerned with the crisis of world order after the atomic bomb. Theirs was a sustained intellectual attempt to delineate the theoretical foundations for a world federation and global government, and cement them in a constitutional document. The chapter considers the committee’s contribution to mid-century conceptualizations of legal, political, and moral universalism. It also explores issues relating to pluralism and human rights in the committee’s discussions.