GG: Global Governance Flashcards
What is global governance?
Global gov refers to the ways in which global affairs affecting the whole world are managed.
- The Commission on Global Gov define it as the “sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their global affairs.”
•The key “actors” include nation-states, TNCs and international and regional organisations such as the EU.
•As the world becomes increasingly interdependent, global gov is needed to manage sustainable development across all nations and so the term is also used to name the process of designating laws, rules or regulations for managing global systems.
What are norms?
Norms are the values, traditions and customs that govern individuals’ behaviour in any particular society – some may be unspoken and never written down, but they’re widely understood – “It’s the done thing”. Norms often become enshrined in laws that reflect the acceptable standards associated with a specific cultural background.
What are laws?
Laws are legally binding and obligatory and normally protect the rights and interests of all who live under them.
- Human rights, gender inequality, animal rights
What are institutions?
Institutions are political and legal organisations. They exist to pass and enforce laws, decide whether a law has been broken or act as a forum for different groups to discuss issues and sort out their differences. This includes the United Nations, WTO and the International Criminal Court.
What are some of the international development agencies?
The United Nations (UN) was set up in 1945 to promote international peace and co-operation. It has 193 member states.
- Many of the organisations which take responsibility for promoting growth, stability and development are connected to the UN. The UN has a mainly advisory role; its purpose is to foster co-operation between state govs, rather than exerting authority over them.
- International organisations like the WTO and WHO exist to take responsibility for managing specific areas
- There are also a number of different non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with varying objectives but generally either to ensure justice and equality for people or to campaign for environmental sustainability
What are the principal organs for the UN?
- The General Assembly (main assembly)
- The Security Council for maintain peace and security
- The Economic and Social Council for promoting economic and social co-operation and development
- The Secretariat for providing studies, info and facilities needed by the UN
- The International Court of Justice – the primary judicial organ located in the Hague
Subsidiary organisations include the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the WHO, UNESCO and UNICEF
What are the variety of scales global governance can work at?
Global governance works on a variety of scales, from local to global. In short, decisions made by global institutions affect all scales:
- Trade agreements set by the WTO (a global institution) affects how trading happens internationally, for example in the EU (an international institution).
- In turn, the Department for International Trade (a national institution) decides what products the UK imports from where.
- A regional institution, such as a warehouse, receives the international products and distributes them.
- A local shop buys the international products from the warehouse.
The effects of global governance on a variety of scales occurs in different respects, such as the environment. Nations sign global agreements, which affects, for example, how much CO2 localities can emit.
How does the UN promote growth and stability?
- growth - the Millennium Development goals have helped reduce the number of people living in poverty, increased number of children in primary schools and reduced child and maternal mortality rates. In 2015, they set new goals for 2030 - sustainable development.
- stability - the UN peacekeeping initiative, the number of people dying in conflicts has declined rapidly since 1945 - worldwide, fewer people died in conflict the first decade of the 21st century than any decade of the 20th
What’s some other successes of the UN?
- Ending Famine - numbers have fallen from the 20th cent, when more than 70 million died from famine. Intervention by the UNs World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organisation and UN-sponsored emergency aid management can take some of the credit.
- Ending nuclear weapon research programmes in countries like South Africa, Kazakhstan, etc, and submit to inspections by the UN international Atomic Energy Agency.
- the Siberian and Serbian leaders were both prosecuted for war crimes by tribunals set up by the UN
- Protecting the Galápagos Islands and 1000 other world heritage sites. Since the islands became one of 12 initial sites named by the UN cultural organisation UNESCO in 1978 its listings have become the international benchmarkfor protection of the world’s most important natural and historic places.
What are some of the inequalities and injustices from the UN?
- inequalities - developed countries hold the most power over decisions taken at the UN - many of the issues tackled affect African countries the most, e.g. refugee crisis, but no African country has a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, which makes the final decisions.
- injustices - at times the UN has been ineffective e.g. in 1995, UN peacekeepers failed to protect 8000 people in Srebrenica in SE Europe, when they were massacred by Bosnian Serbs.
What are some of the other failures?
- UN peacekeepers were accused of paying women and young girls, they were supposed to be protecting, for sex and sometimes raping them, in the Democratic Republic of Congo in early 2005
- the UN had an ‘Assistance Mission’ for Rwanda in 1994, which knew about the impending genocide, but its peacekeepers failed to stop the majority Hutus going on a murderous rampage and killing almost a million members of the Tutsi minority.
- Genome testing showed that the most likely source of the worlds worst recent outbreak of cholera, which swept through Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, was a Nepali peacekeeping force. More that 700,000 were infected and 8000 died.
What are the inequalities and injustices in the global governance?
There are a number of problems impeding progress in the global economy, security, development and the environment. For example:
1. Environmental governance involving so many agencies and agreements means that reaching agreements is difficult (Trump pulled the US out of climate change deal because he said it didn’t suit American business)
2. There is a gap between international cooperation and the motivation needed to undertake it
3. There is a greater need for more collaboration between the IMF, G20 and OECD to improve regulation of finance.
4. It is difficult to get agreements between so many countries
5. There is no agency tasked to think about new and emerging trends in agriculture and food security
6. There is a need for better co-ordination to deal with epidemics and vaccine stockpiling
7. There are no “rules of the game” existing to deal with the unsustainable debt burdens of some countries
8. There is little in the way of cybersecurity and there is a huge challenge in knowing how best to deal with hacking, fake news, cyber aggression etc
What is the UNEP (United Nation Environmental Programme)?
Responsible for supporting a coherent structure of international environmental governance since 1972.
•Its mission statement is “to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations”
•UNEP’s work is now part of the Sustainable Development Goals
Is the UNEP a success or failure?
- Though the UNEP can claim to have some success, it is a failure more than a success. It is proved by the UNEP report that shows us despite having several environmental laws since the year of 1972, it totally failed in case of implementation and enforcement to mitigate the climate change reducing pollution and to prevent the extinction of species and widespread habitat loss.
- The report also shows that between 2002 to 2013, almost 908 people were killed in 35 countries who were responsible to protect the environment which includes forest rangers gov inspectors, and local activists. Almost 197 environmental defenders were murdered only in the year of 2017.
What is Agenda 21?
Earth Summit, Rio di Janeiro, 1992
- Agenda 21 was adopted by the international community to focus on sustainable development.
- The agenda action plans are intended to be passed down via national government and local authorities to individuals to encourage more sustainable lifestyles and behaviours. The UK’s recycling scheme is an outcome of Agenda 21.
- A ‘top down’ approach trying to encourage a ‘bottom up’ response.
- Agenda 21 shows the difficulty in imposing a strategy for all countries to follow and has provoked much controversy especially in the USA where many groups strongly opposed the idea, they saw it as an attack
