7th Generation Bill of Rights
I wrote the following to help shape the paradigm for the New Civilization to emerge. I hope it will become a petition for: global citizens to sign; the UN to adopt; and individual countries to incorporate.
The assumption of this document is that these rights are the self evident and inalienable rights of ALL life on this planet: it is the hope and intention that these rights will serve and protect life at least seven generations into the future.
Mission Statement
7th Generation Bill of Rights seeks to:
• Define and protect the rights of life on earth, including ecological, biological and human.
• Help empower a global understanding of these rights;
• Assist those responsible for upholding such rights.
Environment
1. Global citizens have the right to use and enjoy clean air; clean water, renewable resources and functioning ecosystems designated as common property and not impair their availability for the use of present or future generations.
2. The natural environment has inherent value and the right to protection, conservation and restoration to be achieved in an effective, timely, open and fair manner for the benefit of present and future generations.
3. Earth and life on it has the right to be protected from scientific or technological advancements that significantly disrupt or damage homeostatic balance or cause gross violations of other essential rights.
Animals
1. Wild animals have an inalienable right to exist and live a life free and consistent with the environmental factors present in their natural habitats.
2. Livestock and domesticated animals have a right to: freedom from hunger & thirst; relief from pain, injury, disease, or undue distress; access to shelter, food, water & medical care; sufficient space to move freely.
Human Beings
Women and men have equal rights regardless of sex, culture, race, age, sexual orientation, religion, marital or financial status including:
1. Right to the basic necessities required to sustain life: shelter, food, water, clothes, air, space and mobility
2. Right to freedom of speech
3. Right to access a high standard of health and medical care.
4. Right to freely choose a religion, philosophy or value system to live by.
5. Right to privacy and safety within the home including one’s belongings.
6. Right to be protected by law against unreasonable search and seizure.
7. Right to a fair trail and, if incarcerated, fair and humane treatment.
8. Right to an education consistent with one’s talents, interests and capabilities including, but not limited to academic, creative, vocational, artistic, technical or any other area of education/training appropriate to one’s abilities.
9. Right to access communication media, including digital, printed and audio, information unimpeded from governmental censure or control.
10. Right to a life free of torture, slavery, sex trafficking, domestic violence, unlawful arrest or deprivation of liberty.
11. Right to a life free of practices and attitudes that promote gendercide and infanticide including:
Practices or policies that seek to interfere with a woman’s right to choose and exercise control over her reproductive system; cultural, religious, political or economic policies that restrict, interfere or eliminate pregnancies by coercion, or encourage abandoning and/or killing of newborns.
12. Right to peaceably assemble and petition government to correct wrongs.
13. Right to pursue financial independence, ownership of property and inheritance
14. Right to marry and divorce
15. Right to vote.
Children
Children are afforded all of Rights #1-11 listed above.
Children, by reason of their physical and mental immaturity, need special safeguards and care that include:
1. Every child has a right to live with his or her parent unless it is against the child’s best interest.
2. Special protection shall be given to the rights of refugees, the gifted, orphans, and the disabled.
3. Children under the age of 16 shall not be recruited into the military or be required to marry for monetary gain.
4. No child shall be bought, sold or traded for any purpose including work as a domestic or factory worker or in any aspect of the sex industry regardless of the cultural norm or religious belief system currently or historically observed.