Location: The Heritage Foundation's Lehrman Auditorium

Does America need the permission of the United Nations before it declares war? Must the United States adopt the Kyoto Treaty on greenhouse gases? Should the United States Supreme Court look to the legal precedents of other countries when it applies the Constitution? These are just some of the sovereignty questions that have become political battlegrounds in recent years. Hovering over all of them is one central question: Do the citizens of liberal democracies retain the unique right to determine their own laws and public policies or must they yield to the dictates of unelected transnational bureaucracies for the sake of the “greater good”?

The great promise of transnationalism is that all cultural distinctions will be leveled by the bureaucracies and rules of the elite. There would be no basis for any future conflict because conformity to a single set of ideas would be imposed. This would be a future of eternal peace, of perfect security – at only the cost of human freedom and the ability to hold governing entities responsible or accountable. Join us as our panelists examine these issues and provide a framework for understanding one of the most vital controversies of the day.