“The International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) is a growing association of citizens worldwide who use their votes in a coordinated, effective way to drive all nations to co-operate in solving our planetary crisis. ISPO goes beyond merely demanding greater political accountability by offering citizens a new way of restoring genuine democracy lawfully and peacefully, one vote at a time.”

Global governance is vital. The ISPO is based on the interesting idea that to achieve anything on a global level; simultaneous local and national initiatives have to be taken in a maximum number of countries:

Maura O’Connor writes:

“Created by British businessman John M. Bunzl. Bunzl has been inspired by his readings of integral philosophy and is using its principles to create a system that he believes could “transform the international economy such that it operates in harmony with the global natural environment.” Bunzl’s ambitious model hinges on the theory that if international leaders implement policies at the same exact time, fears of putting their respective countries at a competitive disadvantage will dissipate and nations could begin to cooperate with one another as a genuine community. Bunzl’s proposed policy changes for the first year of SP implementation would include increasing the regulation of international financial markets, canceling Third-World debt, banning and dismantling all nuclear weapons, and halting genetic engineering and its application in agriculture, industry, and medicine. Bunzl himself recognizes that “persuading all countries to adopt SP sounds like an incredibly tall order, and indeed it is.”

What is the Simultaneous Policy Strategy?

“The key is for citizens to adopt SP. By adopting SP, we pledge to vote in future elections not for a particular politician or party, but for any political party or candidate, within reason, who has signed the pledge to implement SP. Alternatively, if we still have a preference for a particular party, our adoption signifies our desire for our party to sign the SP pledge. Adopting SP is no risk for anyone because the implementation of SP only proceeds when all or sufficient nations have signed the Pledge. By transcending party politics, SP gives global citizens a powerful tool to drive politicians to replace destructive global competition with fruitful international co-operation.

So, instead of voting for the largely indistinguishable and redundant policies of political parties, by adopting SP we’re taking global policy out of the their hands and instead creating our own policy. AND we’re turning the tables on ALL politicians, presenting them with a compelling ‘carrot and stick’ proposition:

THE CARROT: Since SP is only to be implemented by virtually all nations simultaneously, there’s absolutely no political risk to politicians who sign the Pledge because they need not fear any economic competitive disadvantage. Indeed, they can support SP while continuing to pursue their existing policy programmes until such time as all nations have signed the Pledge and implementation proceeds. And by signing the Pledge, politicians can also benefit from the much needed bloc of electoral support that SP-adopting citizens represent.

THE STICK: On the other hand, failure to sign the SP Pledge could cost politicians something more precious to them than anything else. With more and more citizens adopting SP, and with parliamentary and congressional seats and even entire elections increasingly being won or lost by small margins, they face defeat by rivals who have signed the SP Pledge to attract the growing SP voting bloc. Even if relatively small, that bloc could make the life-and-death difference between winning and losing for individual politicians, parties, and whole governments.

So by adopting SP, we citizens around the world, whether we have a party-political preference or not, can now use our votes in a new and effective way to drive our politicians to cooperate in implementing simultaneous solutions to mounting global problems.

SP is also a no-risk proposition even for corporations, many of which would submit to responsible environmental and social legislation if they knew all of their competitors, no matter where in the global marketplace, would be subject to the same laws and regulations.

So by adopting SP we’re creating a powerful support system for all people and institutions who want to do the right thing. SP becomes the rallying point and strategy for the emerging “superpower of peace and justice” to achieve its aims. It provides a safe, sensible, democratic and lawful way for all people of good will – from citizens to CEOs, from anti-globalists to compassionate conservatives – to take back the world for the good of our planet and for the fundamental social values that bind us.”