Family of nations

“ But it is well known that the conception of a Family of Nations did not arise in the mental horizon of the ancient world. Each nation had its own religion and gods, its own language, law, and morality. International interests of sufficient vigour to wind a band around all [Pg 46] the civilised States, bring them nearer to each other, and knit them together into a community of nations, did not spring up in antiquity. On the other hand, however, no nation could avoid coming into contact with other nations. ”

“ What has made the European family of nations an improving, instead of a stationary portion of mankind? Not any superior excellence in them, which, when it exists, exists as the effect, not as the cause; but their remarkable diversity of character and culture. Individuals, classes, nations, have been extremely unlike one another: they have struck out a great variety of paths, each leading to something valuable ”

“ Compare the nations of the world to the members of a family. A family is a nation in miniature. Simply enlarge the circle of the household and you have the nation. Enlarge the circle of nations and you have all humanity. The conditions surrounding the family surround the nation. The happenings in the family are the happenings in the life of the nation. Would it add to the progress and advancement of a family if dissensions should arise among its members, fighting, pillaging each other, jealous and revengeful of injury, seeking selfish advantage? ”

“ The mere fact that a State is a member of the Family of Nations shows that it has various intercourse with other States, for otherwise it would never have become a member of that family. Intercourse is therefore one of the characteristics of the position of the States within the Family of Nations, and it may be maintained that intercourse is a presupposition of the international Personality of every State. ”

“ We solemnly reaffirm, on this historic occasion, that the United Nations is the indispensable common house of the entire human family, through which we will seek to realize our universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and development. ”

“ It has been the object of International Lawyers to assist in determining the nature and the obligations of this 'human society'. Since its foundation, International Law has assumed the existence of a great community of peoples—'the Family of Nations', 'the Society of Nations', to which rights in common pertain, and on which obligations in common rest. ”

“ The fortunes of nations should not be left to the hazards of the unforeseen. Those who are responsible for guiding relations between States need a vast equipment in knowledge and in aptitude. They must know the resources, the constitution and manner of government, the treaty obligations, the character of the dominant personalities, the national temperament and national objects, both of their own State and of its connexions—sometimes unruly and suspicious connexions—in the Family of Nations. ”

“ The ancient union of France and England, and of Belgium and Germany with England, must have rendered those people near of kin; while each adjoining nation, mixing with its neighbours, must have blended the whole human race in one great family of remote common origin. This reasoning explains the cause of national physiognomy and character, the co-mixture of foreign nations being inconsiderable, and not sufficient to effect general characteristic changes; while each nation becomes, in the course of ages, one common and blended family, in physiognomy, character, and genius. ”

“ Whereas the family, the tribe, and the race are natural products, the nation as well as the State are products of historical development. All nations are blends of more or less different races, and all States were originally founded on force: strong rulers subjected neighbouring tribes and peoples to their sway and thus formed coherent nations. Most of the States in Europe are the product of the activity of strong dynasties which through war and conquest, and through marriage and purchase, united under one sovereign the lands which form the States and the peoples which form the nations. ”

“ When any person or family belonging to the Five Nations desires to abandon their birth nation and the territory of the Five Nations, they shall inform the Lords of their nation and the Confederate Council of the Five Nations shall take cognizance of it. ”

“ But it is equally wrong to maintain that they are absolutely outside the Family of Nations, and are for no part International Persons. Since they send and receive diplomatic envoys and conclude international treaties, the opinion is justified that such States are International Persons only in some respects—namely, those in which they have expressly or tacitly been received into the Family of Nations. ”

“ Outside Europe there are numerous States under the protectorate of European States, but all of them are non-Christian States of such a civilisation as would not admit them to full membership of the Family of Nations, apart from the protectorate under which they are now. ”

“ Accept this rounded figure, and we have perhaps 140 nations or potential nations on the planet. Some are long established and stable. Other nations are new-born, with small populations, few resources and minimal means of defense or offense. By and large this is the family of nations which might be coordinated into an effective world authority which would be responsible for order, decency and peace in a federally coordinated world. ”

“ ALL NATIONS AND TRIBES ONE GREAT FAMILY This is indeed the keynote to the elevation of the Colored Americans to the high plane sought to be reached by all the nations of the earth, and toward which they are surely drifting, in an unconscious fulfillment of the designs of God to gather all nations and tribes together into one great family. ”

“ As for the European nations of the Latin family, no one, I suppose, can have any doubts concerning our supremacy over them, or concerning our duties, both to them and to ourselves, in relation to them. We have been notoriously the head of the family since the time of Louis XIV., and we can neither shrink from the burdens, nor from the privileges of our situation. Our superiority is acknowledged by all its members, our protection has been accepted by all, whenever it has been offered without selfish views. ”

“ The nations of the earth, like the individuals in the different branches of a great family, stand in certain degrees of relationship towards each other; and as those degrees of consanguinity are more or less remote, so are the friendships and attachments of those nations for each other. ”

“ This confusion, now seeming strange to us, we shall understand better on remembering that, even in early stages of civilized nations, the family groups which formed the units of the national group were in large measure independent communities, standing to one another on terms much like those on which the nation stood to other nations ”

“ A pastoral family, neither so numerous, so warlike, nor so well instructed in the arts of civilized life as many others in the same quarter of the globe, gradually increased into a powerful community, became distinguished by a system of doctrines and usages different from those of all the surrounding tribes; retaining it, too, amid the numerous changes of fortune to which they were subjected, and finally impressing its leading principles upon the most enlightened nations of Asia and of Europe. ”

“ If the religion of the land of your fathers yet retains any influence over you, it will require but little reflection in the presence of Him "who divided to the nations their inheritance," to decide you in favour of a better policy, and induce you to set the example of peace and of good will to a people to whom ye are indebted for your adopted country—a country which ye intend to make your domicile and the inheritance of your children. ”

“ To ensure that family education includes a proper understanding of maternity as a social function and the recognition of the common responsibility of men and women in the upbringing and development of their children, it being understood that the interest of the children is the primordial consideration in all cases. ”

“ Persons living in extreme poverty have the right to form a family, to support their children, to take care of them, to raise them, and to enjoy the fundamental dignity inherent in every human being, guaranteeing respect for privacy and family life. ”

“ He meant by this the torture of the daily concern not to dissatisfy those who have power over you; the torture of slum housing which destroys all family harmony; the torture of silence which forces the poor to let their minds wander in circles and to destroy themselves ”

“ In the Proclamation of Teheran, adopted by the International Conference on Human Rights held in Iran in 1968, the Conference agreed that "the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states a common understanding of the peoples of the world concerning the inalienable and inviolable rights of all members of the human family and constitutes an obligation for the members of the international community". ”

“ The aggregate of families, which make up a nation, living in unity, like each of the families that constitute or compose it, the aggregate of nations will dwell together in the same spirit, and with the same results. ”

“ States should take action in every sphere to combat the feminization of poverty and ensure the participation of women in all their anti-poverty programmes. Every programme or piece of legislation aimed at eliminating extreme poverty should seek to take into account the different situations of women and men and to rectify inequalities between girls and boys and between women and men with regard to the use of resources, access to rights, the exercise of responsibilities and support for family life. ”

“ To promote physical and mental health and well-being, and to extend life expectancy for all, we must achieve universal health coverage and access to quality health care. No one must be left behind. We commit to accelerating the progress made to date in reducing newborn, child and maternal mortality by ending all such preventable deaths before 2030. We are committed to ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education. ”

“ Affirming that family farming and smallholder farming are an important basis for sustainable food production aimed at achieving food security,
Recognizing the important contribution that family farming and smallholder farming can play in providing food security and eradicating poverty in the attainment of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals,
1. Decides to declare 2014 the International Year of Family Farming ”

“ Subject to paragraphs 2 and 3, a newly independent State may, by a notification of succession, establish its status as a party to any multilateral treaty which at the date of the succession of States was in force in respect of the territory to which the succession of States relates. ”

“ Of mere clans, or loosely organized tribes, it can have little to say. History can go no farther than to explore their genealogy, and state what were their journeyings and habits. The nation is a form of society that rests on the same basis—a basis at once natural and part of a divine system—as the family. By a nation is meant a people dwelling in a definite territory, living under the same government, and bound together by such ties as a common language, a common religion, the same institutions and customs. ”

“ When I think of an Association of Nations I think, therefore, of a sort of club or brotherhood, not of every state in the world but of the peoples who speak English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese, as the big brotherhood of the world, with such states as Holland and Norway and Bohemia, and so forth, great in quality if not great in power and entirely sympathetic by training and tradition, associated with them in a great bond for two ends; for peace among themselves and for restraint and patience toward the rest of mankind. ”

“ The union between our Mother Country and these Colonies, and the energy of mild and just Government, produced benefits so remarkably important, and afforded such an assurance of their permanency and increase, that the wonder and envy of other nations were excited, while they beheld Great Britain rising to a power the most extraordinary the world had ever known. ”

“ Indeed, in negotiating with the Indians the terms 'nation,' 'tribe' and 'band' are used almost interchangeably. The word 'nation' as ordinarily used presupposes or implies an independence of any other sovereign power more or less absolute, an organized government, recognized officials, a system of laws, definite boundaries, and the power to enter into negotiations with other nations. ”

“ When a member of an alien nation comes to the territory of the Five Nations and seeks refuge and permanent residence, the Lords of the Nation to which he comes shall extend hospitality and make him a member of the nation. ”

“ To this ancient land, with its glorious past and splendid present, to this land of many memories and of eager hopes, I come from a young nation, which is by blood akin to, and yet different from, each of the great nations of Middle and Western Europe; which has inherited or acquired much from each, but is changing and developing every inheritance and acquisition into something new and strange. ”

“ Each tribe has its own customs and ways. And yet we [vi] shall call these various peoples of the brown race our cousins; for not only are they our kindred by the ties which unite all the races of men in this world; they have been adopted into the family of our own nation, the United States of America. ”