THE OVERWHELMING news about American international espionage has gone around the world. And it could not be less. That there was secret research, hidden surveillance, stealthy investigation, research clandestine investigation by the most powerful countries, there was not the slightest doubt. But perhaps many did not imagine, we did not imagine, the magnitude and scope of American espionage. Once again, the rule that anything that can happen has been fulfilled to the letter. If anyone's phone can be tapped, why not tap the cell phone of Merkel, Maduro or even Obama himself? It is a technical, political question, where ethics seems to play no role.

That the end does not justify the means, i.e., that concrete behaviors must be noble in themselves regardless of the intention, is a moral rule that has never been taken seriously in politics in times of uncertainty and collective suffering. Now, however, when the means are so sophisticated and produce such efficient results, it is more necessary than ever to apply the principle to the letter. No, you cannot, you must not torture to obtain information, even if such information is of the highest value for the achievement of a legitimate goal such as the security of a country. No, you cannot, you should not resort to espionage, ignoring the most elementary right to privacy of individuals in order to fight against international terrorism. By resorting to these illicit means, information is obtained, objectives are achieved, yes, but the human condition itself is perverted, debased and degraded. The dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan served to settle the Second World War - the end was good - but left humanity morally burdened, mortally wounded, with such a warlike action.
The American leadership was undisputed, born precisely from the ashes of the Second World War, and legitimized by the international community through deeds. It was a question of what is technically called a legitimacy of exercise. Power is held by those who exercise it, and if the international community does not question it, legitimacy is imposed as a taken-for-granted fact. It is difficult to understand the history of the last 70 years without the international protagonism of the United States. Many lives, much energy and many dollars have been spent in that country for the world to enjoy the security that exists today. Insufficient by all accounts, but real. I believe that no one questions this. It seems to me, however, that the time has come to take a step forward in history and turn the page. Much has happened in the world since the Second World War, and the international order that resulted from it is already in decline. It would therefore be a mistake to consider it an irreversible starting point.

The U.S. is a respected country, but it can no longer be the great peacemaker in the global community.

The democracy instituted in the United States, from which we have learned so much in all the countries of the world, must also be institutionalized in the global human community. There is no other way. Democracy is the best way to fight against the concentration of power, against the real danger of the domination of humanity by dark, cryptocratic forces capable of controlling the planet as one can control any limited space. The United States must teach the world a lesson of magnanimity by freely submitting to the rules of a new global law, the fruit of the democratization of the global community. It will lose effective power, but will gain moral authority.

Naturally, I am not talking about turning the world into a kind of Superstate, which would be the end of politics as such, in the famous words of Hannah Arendt, but rather about providing humanity with a totally unique legal system that would make it possible to protect global goods and solve the problems that affect all humans, including security. We are still far from the desired integration and necessary solidarity that must reign in the community of nations in order to achieve this much-desired goal . Tons of political will are still lacking, especially in Washington. But we must persevere in the attempt to achieve it.

In 1950, Alf Ross used a comparison that, slightly adapted, can still serve us. The international community is like a dense forest area dotted with wooden houses and therefore with a high predisposition to large fires. Each little house, palace, ranch or living space would be one of the 200 states of the global community. At first, the owners of the houses of the forest area were not able to reach a agreement to create an efficient fire department, equipped with the necessary tools to fight fires and even with the permission to enter all subject properties, whether public or private, in order to abort the fire. Self-interest prevailed, the principle that every man for himself, every state should put out its own fire. When the first fire broke out, the experience was disastrous and devastating. So the owners of the houses (the states) got together to create some common institutions to help solve the problem (think United Nations, World Bank, etc.). But these new institutions, with few competences and often managed by spurious and unsupportive interests, did not manage the second fire effectively either. Faced with the new failure, the house with more resources (think of the United States), decided to create its own fire department with the firm purpose to put out the fire, not only on its own land, but in any corner of the forest area . And there were many houses that requested their financial aid when new fires broke out. That is, submitting to the rules made in the USA. In that status, we were a handful of years ago. Now, however, a large part of the international community thinks that we are still too dependent on the interests of the United States and that the time has come to have a global, autonomous fire department that serves the interests of the global human community. Period.
THE UNITED STATES is ceasing to be the powerful international actor whose voice and decision inexorably imposes itself on the global community without finding a real civil service examination . The United States is no longer the undisputed great power to whom all international actors owe allegiance. The United States is a respected, loved and admired country, but it cannot set itself up as the permanent arbiter of international conflicts, the great peacemaker of the global community, the great defender of democracy in the world. The United States occupies a place of honor in the global community, but it no longer holds the exclusive position. Therefore, this is a particularly propitious moment to reorder the international human community, to create a new global paradigm that definitively opens the doors to multilateralism, to institutional harmony that is interdependent and not dependent on the United States. Unilateralism has succumbed as a policy. Unilateralism is dead as a strategy.

The world needs to refound, reform and reorient its global institutions, making them much more autonomous, solid, efficient and flexible, and providing them with the best means to solve global problems, but not under the watchwords of the United States, but subject to a global legal system agreed upon by the community of nations. It is a matter of creating, at final, a system of institutional solidarity that is not dependent on the dominant interests of the countries that finance the institutions themselves, but only pending the fulfillment of the noble purposes for which they were created. These institutions should be at contact permanently, not only with the states, but also with the other actors of the international community, promoting an open and fruitful dialogue. It is a question, at final, of making a leap forward in the reorganization of the global community, of making a major effort to improve our international community until it becomes a sui generis legal community with its own legal system. This long road must be traveled with the generous and unconditional support of the United States, but not at the pace and under the conditions imposed by that great nation.