FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: November 12, 2026
CONTACT: info@cordova2028.com | cordova2028.com
Independent presidential candidate Vincent Cordova today released The One Species Compact, an open draft of a voluntary global declaration designed to stop mass atrocities before they are carried out. The full text is published at cordova2028.com/world-goals/one-species-compact and is open to amendment by the public, beginning with survivors.
The Compact rests on one premise: humanity is one species of equal worth, and no race, faith, nation or party stands above another. It argues that mass atrocity is built in a repeatable sequence that can be seen in advance, from the narrowing of who counts as “us” to the denial that follows the violence, and that each step is a point where the world can act.
“The world promised ‘never again’ in 1948, and then came Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Darfur and the Rohingya. We never lacked the law or the evidence. We lacked the will to apply one rule to everyone, including our friends and including ourselves. This Compact is my attempt to write that rule down.” — Vincent Cordova
The Cost of Doing Nothing
The Compact includes a section titled “If the world does not act,” which sets out what the record of the last century shows will follow if the problem is left unaddressed on the global stage.
- It happens again. Each of the atrocities since 1948 came after the world had promised to prevent the next one.
- Every exemption becomes a precedent. When a powerful nation shields an ally, other governments learn that the rules apply only to the weak.
- The tools get faster and cheaper. Surveillance, automated targeting and online incitement let a government do in weeks what once took years.
- No group stays safe. Machinery built to target one people remains in place when power changes hands.
- Displacement keeps growing. More than 100 million people are already forcibly displaced worldwide.
- Children inherit it. A generation raised inside hatred or loss carries it into the next conflict.
- Law stops meaning anything. When treaties are ignored without cost, nations stop trusting them and arm instead.
“Doing nothing is also a decision, and the world has made it many times. Human beings paid for it with their lives. The group that is protected today can be the group that is named tomorrow, and that should concern everyone who holds power.” — Vincent Cordova
What the Compact Does
- One standard. The same rules apply to allies and adversaries, and to governments and armed groups alike.
- Early warning. An independent office would track the warning signs inside a country, such as officials describing a people as animals or vermin, and attacks that go unprosecuted.
- Collusion between governments. A government that knowingly arms, funds or shields another government's atrocity shares responsibility. The draft lists the signals to watch for, including weapons that keep flowing after credible findings and identical denials issued the same day.
- Access as the test. A government that refuses independent investigators without adequate justification, despite corroborated evidence, faces a rebuttable presumption of concealment. No one is treated as guilty without a court.
- Acts over labels. Groups are judged by what they do, not by what a government calls them. Terrorism is defined by the act, the deliberate targeting of civilians, and the definition applies to states as well as armed groups.
- Freedom of expression. The Compact gives no government any power over individual speech. It commits governments to repeal laws that criminalize criticism of the state.
- Education. Children are taught that they are human first, alongside their own heritage.
- The United States first. The draft includes a section on America's own record and holds the United States to the same public scorecard as every other participant.
What It Is Not
The document opens with a section stating what it must never be used for. It is not a world government and cannot make law for any nation. It removes no right from any person, creates no database of people, contains no secret provisions, and authorizes no use of force. It begins as a voluntary declaration. Any binding treaty would be negotiated separately, with each nation's express consent.
“I know what people fear when they hear the words ‘global framework,’ so I answered it on the first page. This restrains governments. It does not govern people. Every person has the right to speak, create, live and dream, as long as it does not hurt another, and nothing in this document touches that.” — Vincent Cordova
Unfinished on Purpose
The campaign describes the Compact as a first draft and says so on the page. Its legal references are pending review by international-law specialists. The document also sets out its own limits, including that the most powerful governments may decline to take part and that an agreement which rules out force cannot compel compliance.
Under the amendment process written into the draft, survivors of atrocity and their descendants are invited first, from every conflict and every side. Each version will be published with what changed, who proposed it and why. Four commitments may be strengthened but not weakened: one species of equal worth, acts over labels, one standard for all, and freedom of expression.
“I should not be the one to finish this, and neither should any campaign or any single nation. The people who lived through what this document is written to stop have to write themselves into it. Millions of our species have died while the world debated the wording. We cannot hand that to another generation.” — Vincent Cordova
How to Take Part
The full text of The One Species Compact is available at cordova2028.com/world-goals/one-species-compact.
Amendments, corrections and testimony can be sent to onespecies@vincentcordova.com. Testimony is not published or shared without the sender's permission.
About Vincent Cordova
Vincent Cordova is a 2028 presidential candidate based in Manteca, California. The Cordova 2028 campaign, Moving Forward Together, is built on the conviction that the systems governing people's lives were designed by people and can be redesigned by people, and that America's greatest opportunity is to lead through the moral authority of demonstrating something worth following.
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Cordova 2028 Presidential Campaign
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