World Petition Directory
Global democracy, as it exists at this time, is about voting for ideas. It is not about voting for a world parliament – there is no world parliament. This site shows you where to find websites where you can, as a global citizen, self select ideas and issues, and aggregate your voice with others to move existing decision makers to do that which you consider is best.
The GD.org List
Sites where you as a global citizen can safely visit to vote on world issues:
- www.avaaz.org – global organization, global issues, 67 million users
- www.sumofus.org – Mainly global issues. 15 million
- www.globaldemocracy.com – global, about 14,000 users. Voice and vote on any global issue
- www.350.org – Climate change action site with some global petitions
- www.greenpeace.org – Environment site with some large global cause petitions on home page
- www.causes.com – Facebook related, USA focus, but global issues too
- www.change.org – global offices, but tending toward petitions on local issues
- www.thepetitionsite.com – Petition site useable by all global citizens. Global issues
- www.moveon.org – mainly USA issues
- www.gopetition – petition hosting website
- www.38degrees.org.uk – mainly UK issues, some global, 1.5 million users.
- www.campact.de – “damokratie in aktion” – German/ global issues, 1.5 million users
- www.getup.org.au – predominantly Australian issues, some global,
- www.leadnow.ca – Canadian campaign site, 100,000 users
- Amnesty International – Campaign pages allow you to join petitions to support human rights causes
Victories
The sites on the GD.org list, above, give many examples of ‘victories’. These relate successful campaigns on local, regional or global issues.
Here are some examples of victories on global issues:
- 2011 – 38degrees.org – A petition of 45,000 voters helped prompt the UK government to sign up to the European Directive on Human Trafficking.
- 2012 – Avaaz – A petition of over 2 million people worldwide helped stop the European Union supporting a bid by a group of countries and multinationals to control the internet.
- 2012 – Avaaz – A petition of over 2 million people worldwide helped pressure the government of Brazil to abandon a law that would have allowed wider scale logging and deforestation of the Amazon rain forest.
- 2013 – Moveon.org – More than 500,000 people signed a petition that successfully helped preserve the peace for whales in the Pacific Ocean by opposing US Navy plans to use southern California coast for explosives/sonar training.
- 2013 – Avaaz – A petition of 1.7 million helped pressure the government of Tanzania to reverse a decision to exploit native Massai homelands for United Arab Emirates owned hunting operation, preserving both native animals and traditional lifestyle of about 40,000 people.
- 2014 – thepetitionsite.com – a 2,000 person petition helped pressure Kellogs to announce they will buy palm oil only from plantations that have been checked for environmental sustainablilty, helping save habitat of Sumatra tigers and orangutans.
- 2014 – campact.de – a 200,000 person petition helped pressure the Deutsche Bank to pull out of environmentally controversial project to expand a coal port into the Great Barrier Reef.
- 2015 – Avaaz -1.2 million helped pressure EU and US administrators ensure internet does not become commercialised (paying sites easier to access). Petition above remains to keep pressure on.
- 2016 – Sumofus – 160,000 people backed up Peruvian farmer until mining giant backed down, sparing one community, five rivers and four lakes.