John Roberts died on 27th February, 2010

The following death notice appeared in The Guardian on 13th March:

ROBERTS John Charles de Villamar, world citizen, teacher, husband, father, grandfather and friend who died at home on 27 February 2010. Funeral at Worthing Crematorium (Findon), 2.20pm, 26 March, followed by gathering at Friends Meeting House, Littlehampton. No flowers. Donations: Institute for Law and Peace, 67 Summerheath Rd, Hailsham, Sussex BN27 3DR or One World Trust, 3 Whitehall Court, London SW1A 2EL.

English history and the European Union: an extended essay

[This essay was written by John Roberts shortly before he died.]

What follows is an attempt to explain the more or less unique British attitude to the European Union and to some extent to many other foreign countries and alliances. It also offers an insight into the difficult relationships that have occurred in the course of the negotiations and the treaty-making that has continued before and since Britain signed the accession treaties. It is a complex matter and needs lengthy explanation.

Democracy: definition and implications

WCL 621 — A society is democratic to the extent that decisions of government are determined by those who are affected by them. [Note particularly that our society is now global.]

Without vision

WCL 620 — As the Bible so rightly put it: “without vision, the people perish”, and reading an article by Timothy Garton Ash about Europe and the future reminded me forcibly of that comment.

Are suicidal acts becoming fashionable?

Christmas is a busy time for many people, but news is scarcer in the busier developed world, where holidays take over for days at a time and entertainment replaces much of the toil.

What can one do?

WCL 620 — This question is quite often asked when would-be reformers are faced with the immensity of problems in a world going badly wrong.  One can only really reply with an account of one’s own attempts.

Why world citizenship?

WCL 619 — This World Citizen Letter is so simple and obvious that it should be unnecessary to write it or even to state it, but one still regularly hears the questions what is a world citizen, why is it necessary to be one?

Subversive computers

DIARY — An interesting account from the NY Herald Tribune explains how the move of computer component manufacture from America to the East is worrying the Pentagon.

David Cameron the federalist

DIARY — The leader of the Conservative Party in Britain seems to have become a federalist – or on the way – without noticing it. He is demanding, it appears, that the central authority in the European Union should not go beyond the powers allocated to it in the Lisbon Treaty

Guy and Renee Marchand

DIARY — In the years of Guy and Renee Marchand, two of the central activists in France for 50 years from 1945, I had been closely in touch with the citoyens du monde there.