THE UNITED NATIONS AND CONTEMPORARY GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Global Governance •refers to the various intersecting processes that create order

SOURCES OF GOVERNANCE

1. State sign treaties and form organizations, in the process legislating public international law

Public International law

• is the body of rules that is legally binding on States in their interactions with other States,
individuals, organizations and other entities.

• It covers a range of activities; such as, diplomatic relations, conduct of war, trade, human
rights and etc.

2. International non-governmental organizations (NGOs), though not having formal state

power, can lobby individual states to behave in a certain way

3. Powerful transnational corporations can likewise have tremendous effects on global labor
laws, environmental legislation, trade policy

International Organization

• refers to international intergovernmental organizations or groups that are primarily made up

of member-states

POWERS OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION

1. IOs have the power of classification

• IOs can invent and apply categories, they create powerful global standards.

• Example: UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

• An estimated 11 million Syrians have fled their homes since the outbreak of the civil war in
March 2011. Now, in the sixth year of war, 13.5 million are in need of humanitarian assistance
within the country. Among those escaping the conflict, the majority have sought refuge in
neighbouring countries or within Syria itself.

• According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 4.8 million have
fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, and 6.6 million are internally displaced within
Syria. Meanwhile about one million have requested asylum to Europe. Germany, with more
than 300,000 cumulated applications, and Sweden with 100,000, are EU’s top receiving
countries.

• Source:The Syrian refugee crisis and its repercussions for the EU

2. IOs have the power to fix meanings.

• States, organizations, and individuals view IOs as legitimate sources of information.

• “security” or “development”
• Example: United Nations has started to define security as not just safety from military
violence, but also safety from environmental harm.

3. IOs have the power to diffuse norms

• Norms are accepted codes of conduct that may not be strict law, nut nevertheless produce
regularity in behavior.

• IOs do not only classify and fix meanings; they also spread their ideas across the world,
thereby establishing global standards

•IOs members are the “missionaries” of our time.

• IOs can therefore create norms regarding the implementation and conceptualization of
development projects

International Organizations

• promote relevant norms

• sealed-off communities – One-size- fits –all approach

THE UNITED NATIONS

• 1. The General Assembly (GA)

• 2. The Security Council (SC)

• 3. The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

• 4. The International Court of Justice

• 5. “Secretary General and tens of thousands of international UN staff members

Internationalization- the deepening of interactions between state

The attributes of today’s global system

1. there are countries or state that are independent and govern themselves

2. these countries interact with each other through diplomacy

3. there are international organizations, like the United Nations, that facilitate these
interactions

4. beyond simply facilitating meetings between states, international organizations also take on
lives of their own.

Not all states are nation and not all nations are state

The United Kingdom explained

If there are states with multiple nations, there are single nations with multiple states

What is the difference of nation and state?

State- it refers to the country and its government, (the government of the Philippines)

Two types of sovereignty

Internal sovereignty- relationship between a sovereign power and its own object
(corporations, civil society)

External sovereignty- relationship between a sovereign power and other states (regulations,
rules, laws)

Nation- imagined community

Facilitates state formation

Fundamental principles of modern state politics

Interstate system

Peace of Westphalia 1648 – is said to have ended

World regions

Regionalism

• often seen as a political and economic

phenomenon

• can be examined in relation to identities,

ethics, religion, ecological sustainability and

health

Regionalism

• treated as an “emergent” socially

phenomenon

• Regions ARE NOT NATURAL OR GIVEN

•They are constructed and defined by

policymakers, economic actors, and even

social movements.

Regions

1. group of countries located in the same geographically specified area or are “an
amalgamation of 2 regions or a combination of more than 2 regions

2. Regionalization and regionalism should not be interchanged

• regionalization refers to regional concentration of economic flows

 • regionalism is a political process characterized by economic policy cooperation and
coordination among countries

Regional alliance

1. Military Defense
2. Countries form regional organizations to pool their resources, get better returns for
their exports, as well as expand their leverage against trading partners.

Non-Aligned Movement

•Presidents of Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia and Yugoslavia created it 1961

•To pursue peace and international cooperation, human rights, national sovereignty, racial
and national equality, non-intervention and peaceful conflict resolution

3. Economic crisis compels countries to come together.

Non-State Regionalism
Not only states agree to work together in the name of a single cause or causes.
• Communities also engage in regional organizing.

“New Regionalism”

•“tiny associations”
• focus on a single issue
•huge continental unions that address a multitude of common problems from
territorial defense to food security.
“new regionalism”
•rely on the power of individuals, non governmental organizations (NGOs) and
associations to link up with one another in pursuit of a particular goal (or goals)

“new regionalism”
•is identified with reformists who share the same values, norms, institutions, and
system that exist outside of the traditional, established mainstream institutions and
systems
Strategies and tactics vary:
•Organizations used this official declaration to pressure these governments to pass
laws and regulations that protect and promote human rights.
ASEA HUMAN RIGHTS DECLARATION (AHRD)
•Organizations primarily power lies in their moral standing and their ability to combine
lobbying with pressure politics.
What is the difference between state-to-state regionalism and non-state regionalism?
• Identifying problems
• Example: States treat poverty or environmental degradation as technical or
economic issues that can be resolved by refining existing programs of state agencies,
making minor changes in economic policies, and creating new offices that address
these issues.
•New regionalism advocates such as the NGO Global Forum see these issues as
reflections of flawed economic development and environmental models

Contemporary Challenges to Regionalism

ASEAN members continue to disagree over the extent to which member countries
should sacrifice their sovereignty for the sake of regional stability
-favoring diplomacy over confrontation
- dramatic increase of Chinese investment and economic aid of China to these
countries
•Western governments may see regional organizations not simply as economic
formations but also as instruments of political democratization.
•Non-Western and developing societies, however, may have a different view regarding
globalization, development and democracy.

• see democracy as an obstacle to the implementation and deepening of economic

globalization because constant public inquiry about economic projects and lengthy
debate slow down the implementation or lead to unclear outcomes