Introduction

Abstract

"… institutions (UN and European Communities) would gradually take over the functions which the nation state has traditionally performed but is no longer able to perform today. If nation states acted in accord with the rational requirements of the age, they would strive, as it were, to make themselves superfluous." (p. 11) "According to Professor Mitrany, an international community must grow from the satisfaction of common needs shared by members of different nations. International agencies, serving peoples all over the world regardless of national boundaries, could create by the very fact of their existence and performance a community of interests, valuations, and actions. Ultimately, if such international agencies were numerous enough and served the most important wants of most peoples of the earth, the loyalties to these institutions and to the international community of which they would be the agencies would supersede the loyalties to the separate national societies and their institutions." (p. 11)