In This Issue

“The Role of Academies” is a brief history of the Academies and one of the most concise and insightful commentaries on the role of Academies in the march of civilization and progress. It is concise, densely packed, and loaded with challenging historical insights. Ivo Šlaus’ overview of Global Academies is brief, but rich in insight. Šlaus has been a world leader in seeking not only to advance the agenda of the World Academy of Art and Science, but in reaching out to all sister Academies, world-wide, in seeking to forge a global web of connections to confront the great problems and challenges of our times.

“The Struggle for Justice in the Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery” is re-printed from an article that the author has published in the Faulkner Law Review. It was based on a key-note address he gave to commemorate the Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, a march that highlighted the civil rights quest for social justice. In this article, Winston Nagan locates the dynamics of the claim for justice by the civil rights marches in the Magna Carta and the evolution of the rule of law idea in the common law system of justice. The article highlights the fact that the Magna Carta, although written for a community steeped in futile values, nonetheless contained concepts and ideas critical to the notion of justice that continued to endure over 1,000 years after the Magna Carta was imposed upon the English Sovereign. From the perspective of the World Academy the central message of the Magna Carta was its repudiation of Sovereign Absolutism. In various forms this remains a great challenge for a new paradigm of global governors. The article highlights the importance of judges who were professionally skilled, independent and competent in permitting the endurance of the rule of law as a challenge to sovereign absolutism. The march from Selma to Montgomery was a celebration of the idea of protest by non-violent strategies of action. In this regard, change came about from the top, from the middle and from the bottom. A crucial element in the change was a brave federal judge Frank Johnson ruled that the marchers had a right to march and petition for a redress of grievances. The article draws attention to the inspiration given by religious values and draws on the insights of physicist David Bohm. Bohm addresses that meaning is also being human.

John Scales Avery has provided us with a useful, short and punchy overview of the multitude of serious crises that confront humanity and contain the seeds of a possible extinction of human species in his article, “Institutional and Cultural Inertia”. He attributes global failure to adequately respond to these crises and sees the lack of response as rooted in a form of institutional inertia. He also hints at the reasons for inertia which are partly related to sovereign absolutism and the growth of a global plutocracy. This suggests that enlightened thinkers such as those in the World Academy of Art and Science must be more realistic in their responses to the dangers of institutional inertia. Avery also suggests, that religious conservatism conspires to strengthen an inertia resistant to change and he also draws attention to the Santa Claus culture of high consumption which does not enhance more reflective human expectations about the crises we face. Avery’s focus on factors that strengthen inertia is an important arena for further and informed discourse.

Donato Kiniger-Passigli & Anna Biondi have written an important paper about the role of human responsibility collectively, as humanity approaches the looming crisis that could promise a disastrous extinction of life as we know it. In their article, “A People-centered, Preventive Approach to Disaster Risk,” they particularly look at the importance of more collaborative relationships between workers and employers and review the toolkit within the International Labor Organization (ILO) process to facilitate an inclusive person-centered cooperative approach to human intervention to save the planet from itself.

“Priming Political Leaders for Fateful Choices” is a short piece, but its fundamental message cuts to the heart of the reason for being in the World Academy of Art and Science. What drives Yehezkel Dror is that the impact of science on our environment will soon be giving us unprecedented challenges, huge opportunities and even catastrophic dangers. And here, the World Academy with its commitment to exploring the policy implications and social consequences of all forms of knowledge is challenged. What Dror wishes to explore is how knowledge and scientific advances with their promises and threats may be brought to the attention of political leaders and highly-placed civil servants. This remains a challenge because the political culture still seems to be insulated from the intellectual and scientific culture and its important knowledge base.