Dr. Glen Theron Martin has had a long career as an academic, an author, and a peace activist with a focus on global governance and democratic world law. His work generally develops based on the moral and philosophical principles of world citizenship.
Over the course of years, he has participated in the scholarly debate and international advocacy on the subject of the Earth Constitution, a document advocated by the World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA) of which he is President.
Martin was born in Rochester, NY, and studied philosophy from a global and holistic point of view. He was a graduate of the University of Buffalo, where he got his Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, and was invited to become a member of Phi Beta Kappa (the most respected honor society in the United States).
His graduate work was at Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he graduated with a Master of Arts. He completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy with distinction in the ‘history of philosophy’ at CUNY Graduate Center in 1985.
Martin became a professor at Radford University that same year, where he taught courses in metaphysics, ethics, world systems theory, the history of philosophy, and philosophy of religion. He also established the Peace Studies Program at the university in 1992, which is an interdisciplinary program that studies conflict management, human rights, and world peace systems. He joined International Philosophers for Peace and the Prevention of Nuclear Omnicide (IPPNO) in 1986, and later became its President, holding regular conferences in the USA and internationally for many years.
Until his retirement in 2021, he was the chair of the program. On his retirement, he continued his academic affiliation through the Radford University Research Faculty. He retired as Professor Emeritus, with the institution acknowledging his 36-year educational contribution.
Other than education, Martin has been at the forefront of various organizations that focus on global governance and world constitutionalism. He has been a pro bono Board of Trustee of the Graduate School of World Problems since 1999, the Earth Constitution Institute (ECI) since 2003, and World Parliament University (WPU) since 2021.
His experience as President of the WCPA and ECI covers several years of leadership in an attempt to popularize and ratify the Constitution for the Federation of Earth, a document that provides a detailed framework for democratic world government.
For the past 20 years, working under the authority of the Earth Constitution, Martin recently served in the position of President of the Provisional World Parliament (PWP) (under Article 19). He has directed the creation of the past ten sessions and presided over the last five. These meetings, taking place in locations around the world, are deliberative forums that establish model world legislation.
He again served as President at the 16th session that was held in Pondicherry, India, in December 2025. This session included discussions on world law, nonviolence, and planetary citizenship, ending war, and global consciousness. These topics reflect his leadership of these sessions of the Provisional World Parliament.
Martin has also helped in organizing international peace, global governance, and systemic change conferences. He presided over four WCPA International World Transformation Conferences in India and was a chief organizer for three Building the New World conferences in the United States. Through these meetings, scholars, activists, and practitioners come together to deliberate on alternative global futures and the institutional problems of our endangered planet.
Martin, as an author, has published many pieces on political philosophy, cosmology, world order, and the philosophical foundations of global government. He has been the author or editor of 15 books, most of them exploring the Earth Constitution, the dynamics of world crises, the ethical foundations of system-transformation, and ways of achieving democratic world law.
His titles include Millennium Dawn (2005), Ascent to Freedom (2008), Triumph of Civilization (2010), The Anatomy of a Sustainable World (2013), One World Renaissance (2016), Global Democracy and Human Self-Transcendence (2018), The Earth Constitution Solution (2021), and Human Dignity and World Order (2024).
A collection of his essays will be published as Our Human Quest for Unity and Freedom in 2026 by Cambridge Scholars Press in London. These are works about human dignity, ethics on a global scale, the evolution of human consciousness, and the transformation of the system with both philosophical commentary and normative suggestions.
The works of Martin have been showcased in a number of international and academic settings. He was awarded the GUSI International Peace Prize in the Philippines in 2013. In 2019, he was a Founding Member of the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation and appeared in the U.S. Peace Registry.
In 2020, Radford University awarded him the Distinguished Scholar Award in the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences. His academic activity was also highlighted when he was selected as a Focus Author by The Great Transition Network in September 2021.
His public activities have also involved keynote speaking and invitations to speak at conferences in places like Government Law College, Mumbai, and the Palacio de Justicia in Lima, Peru. In 2021, he took part in an online special presentation at VoiceAmerica, sponsored by Evolutionary Leaders Circle, where he spoke on issues concerning planetary governance and conscious social transformation.
The WCPA experienced internal difficulties in 2023 as internal conflict in the leadership of the WCPA also saw one side aiming to take control and disregard the current Board of Trustees and the leadership status of Martin. The case indicated that there were tensions in some activist organizations that stretched beyond national borders, organizations that were heavily governed by volunteers.
Throughout his life, Martin has been a scholar, a leader of institutions, and an activist in the cause of global democracy and world-system transformation. At present, he continues this work as a member of the Presidium of the Permanent Secretariat of the Provisional World Parliament, headquartered in India.
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