Chapter 20

Civil Society and Institutions

of Global Governance
Bill Graham

Throughout a long political career, the American congressman Tip O’Neill was
known for his maxim ‘All politics is local’. More recently, the American journalist
Thomas Friedman has pronounced that ‘all politics is global’. In a typically Canadian
spirit of conciliation and diplomacy, one can conclude that both of them are right.
Problems of global scope are being felt locally around the world. The political
burdens and challenges they create are local as well as global. Such conditions of
interdependence and complexity highlight the need for strong institutions of global
governance, which alone are capable of guiding and coordinating efforts to address
global crises. At all levels of governance, the support of civil society is vital for
ensuring the integrity and soundness of policy making. At the international level,
civil society plays a key role both in supporting institutions of global governance
and in fostering the climate of public opinion necessary for these institutions to
succeed.

The Interdependence of Local and Global Concerns

In an increasingly interdependent world it is amply clear that all politics is local and
global at the same time. On virtually every level of every public concern, problems
and opportunities of global scope intersect with local realities.
Take two prominent issues in the Canadian news: the proposed ratification of the
Kyoto Protocol and the treatment of Canadian residents at the U.S. border. In both
of these cases, issues facing people in their daily lives intersect with environmental,
economic, and security conditions of global scope. In fact, domestic political issues
today can seldom be addressed without considering the foreign context framing
them.
Conversely, it is also clear that problems on a global scale can be tackled only
by taking international strategies down to the national, regional, and local levels. If
one considers some of the most urgent crises now facing the world, one sees vast
environmental degradation, endemic poverty in Africa and elsewhere in contrast
with the great wealth in North America and Europe, health pandemics such as HIV/
AIDS, the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and organised crime
and terrorism on an international scale.
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The Need for Strong Global Governance Institutions

Such conditions of interdependence and complexity highlight the need for strong
institutions of global governance, which alone are capable of guiding and co-ordinating
efforts to address global crises. The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in
2001, and subsequent events in Bali, Moscow, the Middle East, Madrid, and London
have brought home a new awareness of the world’s interdependence.
All citizens have a new sense of their vulnerability to forces and events beyond
their borders and beyond their nation’s control. In this critical area of security, as well
as in others such as trade, health, and the environment, Canadians are committed to
a multilateral approach. They and their government believe that working through
global institutions is the best way to pursue a safer, healthier and more prosperous
world both for Canadians at home and for people everywhere.
On the security front, Canadians recognise that military and law enforcement
capacity must be multilateral in order to be effective. They also know that they must
work multilaterally to build institutions capable of addressing the social, political,
and economic instabilities that may fuel conflict and unrest. Canadians need to
explore ways to ensure their security with a long-term view – one that recognises
that where there is good governance, democracy, and respect for human rights, there
are stable, prosperous, and secure states.
On the economic front, the Canadian government sees the same need for effective
international rules and institutions in working to expand prosperity at home and
abroad. While there may be disagreement over how equitably growth is occurring in
the world today, it is clear to most that the benefits of an open, rules-based trading
system far outweigh the disadvantages. The Canadian government will continue to
approach international trade issues with Canadian values in mind. It will try to help
spread opportunities for growth so as to expand prosperity among Canada’s trading
partners, including those in the developing world.
Here too, one sees the benefits of multilateralism. Canada will continue to assign
top priority to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Doha Development
Agenda. If handled properly, the WTO can build relationships of trust so that
developing countries can fully participate in both the process and benefits of the
multilateral trading system. Canada sent a strong and appreciated signal to this effect
at the 2002 Kananaskis Summit, when Prime Minister Jean Chrétien announced
unilateral reductions in most tariff items for least-developed countries.
These tools and others will be needed as the international community begins to
address the interdependent nature of economic, environmental, and social issues.
In order to promote international trade and prosperity, it will have to deal with
issues such as governance, regulatory balance, competitiveness, and environmental
standards. Canada made a start in 2001 in Quebec City, when the Summit of the
Americas linked free trade to an agenda that also addressed broader concerns.
 Civil Society and Institutions of Global Governance 369
Civil Society and Global Governance Institutions

There is a key role for civil society both in supporting institutions of global governance
and in fostering the climate of public opinion necessary for these institutions to
succeed. At all levels of governance, the support of civil society is vital for ensuring
the integrity and soundness of policy making.
In the area of Canadian foreign policy, the government takes seriously its obligation
to seek out the best advice, information, and resources that Canadian citizens have
to offer. It looks to interested Canadians from all parts of the country – analysts,
scholars, and activists – to bring new insights on a range of crucial problems.
Several years ago, the Canadian government set up a new institution, the
Canadian Centre for Foreign Policy Development, to consult citizens about a range
of international issues. When the centre was created, its board decided not to limit its
clients to traditional foreign affairs stakeholders such as academics and think tanks.
Instead, using internet-based technology, the centre reached out to groups that had
not previously been much engaged in foreign affairs – youth, civic organisations,
minorities, indigenous peoples, and local officials, to name a few. The experience has
been useful in learning about the concerns of a range of citizens and in developing a
broader constituency for international relations. Prior to the Kananaskis Summit, the
centre held a nationwide series of public round tables on African issues in order to hear
from people interested in development, trade, multiculturalism, and foreign policy.
As the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, I met with several groups
organised by the centre to canvass them on topics such as Canadian-European
relations and relations with Muslim communities both in Canada and abroad. These
meetings tended to be with experts in the field, but I believed in searching for more
representative voices as well. Meetings in my constituency office gave me insights
into the concerns of individuals. I also met with groups organised according to a
shared focus. For example, I met with a group of Afghan Canadian women to
receive their report containing recommendations on how Canada can best serve the
interests of Afghan women and girls as Canada aids their country’s reconstruction.
Such meetings give me personal, concrete insights into far-away events that would
otherwise be abstract and remote.
Beyond the national level, it is also vital for civil society to be engaged in the
international institutions that have been so painstakingly constructed since World
War II. In this sphere in particular, one sees the truth of what John Kenneth Galbraith
said some decades ago: ‘The worst policy is one made in secrecy by the experts.’
Civil society groups have always embraced this view in acting as the conscience to
government, ensuring that its policies are decent, fair, and representative.
In recent decades, however, the role of civil society has greatly expanded into
more consultative and collaborative dimensions as well. As governments around
the world are coming to realise, policies made in secrecy by experts cannot be
370 Sustainability, Civil Society, and International Governance
substantively informed enough, or executed effectively enough, to succeed.
More bluntly, international institutions must move beyond secret meetings of
experts if they are to be recognised as legitimate and effective. The increasingly
vigorous protests at international meetings in recent years reflect a real need for
these institutions to become more responsive to and less remote from the people
whose interests they are supposed to serve. Current levels of popular disaffection
are not surprising, given the secrecy, isolation, and technocratic agendas that have
characterised such organisations in the past.
That is why the Canadian government has been committed to invigorating
institutions of global governance and making them more responsive to citizens’
concerns about issues such as labour, the environment, culture, and human rights.
The government has addressed what is referred to as the democratic deficit of
these institutions on two fronts. First, it has supported the increased involvement
of parliamentarians, who are the democratically elected representatives of
popular interests. Involving parliamentarians in existing forums, and creating new
parliamentary assemblies to complement them, can bring the concerns of ordinary
citizens to bear more directly on the agendas of international discussions.
Second, the Canadian government also strongly supports increasing the
participation of civil society and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in
the mechanisms of global governance. Their expertise and grassroots participation
are also indispensable for reform.
In this effort at reform, parliamentarians and members of civil society are natural
allies, who have no need for the turf wars that sometimes arise. Their respective
functions and expertise – elected legitimacy, on one hand, and specialised knowledge,
on the other – each contribute to the pursuit of goals they hold in common. As a
result, they, as often as not, work together.

Recent Advances in Civil Society Participation in Global Governance

Institutions

Some notable steps have recently taken in the direction of reform, often through the
efforts of parliamentarians and civil society groups acting in concert.
At the Quebec City Summit of the Americas in April 2001, I was pleased to act
as a parliamentarian in fostering communication between civil society groups and
the government leaders gathered for the summit. As then Chair of Canada’s House
of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade,
I arranged for that committee to hold public hearings before and after the summit, in
order to involve citizens and parliamentarians alike in the summit process.
In the lead-up to the summit, the government conducted extensive consultations
with civil society groups such as aboriginal peoples, youth, churches, and the
business community. These were not just Canadian groups, but were representative
voices from throughout the Americas. During the summit itself, there was a very
constructive meeting between 60 or so Canadian civil society organisations and
 Civil Society and Institutions of Global Governance 371
15 ministers from the Americas. The civil society groups offered views about the
summit’s agenda, and the government’s response at least partly addressed their fears
about leaders’ unresponsiveness to popular concerns. In the end, Prime Minister
Chrétien put a 8-centimetre-thick book of consultation reports on the summit table
of each minister in attendance.
The following year, at the 2002 G8 Summit in Kananaskis, international co-
operation minister Susan Whelan and I attended the G6B (Group of Six Billion)
People’s Summit in Calgary, an alternative gathering at which civil society activists
discussed issues they felt were not being adequately addressed by G8 leaders. After
meeting with the G6B representatives, I transmitted their thoughtful comments to
the prime minister at Kananaskis itself.
At the meetings for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), Canada
succeeded despite strong resistance from certain countries in having civil society
representatives consulted by the negotiating group. This was a clash between cultures
that view civil society with suspicion, as the opposition, and Canadian culture, which
recognises that NGO groups can be critical of government and yet be important in
forming policy. Canada’s perspective on these matters is gaining influence in Mexico
and other Latin American countries, where at first it was met with considerable
hostility.
A real engagement of civil society presumes that it has genuine access and
opportunity to participate. It is a triumph for the increasing transparency of this
organisation that it now publishes the negotiating texts of its agreements. This
practice that was initiated in Buenos Aires by Pierre Pettigrew as Canada’s Minister
for International Trade. At the Organization of American States (OAS), the creation
of the Inter-Parliamentary Forum of the Americas (FIPA) has made that institution
freshly relevant by engaging parliamentarians from member states in discussion of
popular concerns such as health, democracy, human rights, and the environment.
I was proud to be elected the first president of FIPA at its inaugural meeting
in Ottawa in 2001. I greatly appreciated the chance to share my constituents’
views with parliamentarians from throughout the hemisphere as we discussed
how to deal with the consequences of integrating the Americas. It was genuinely
exciting to be part of this process of articulating a collective political vision of the
hemisphere’s future. The Americas is about far more than free trade.
At the WTO, Canada has worked with civil society groups to try to create a
parliamentary assembly capable of ensuring that social, cultural, and environmental
issues are included on the WTO agenda. At the Doha ministerial in 2001, I worked
on this effort with colleagues from the European Parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary
Union, and interested NGOs. While the assembly still faces many challenges before
it can become a reality, Pettigrew insisted that the parliamentary assembly be placed
on the Doha ministerial agenda.
The initiative owes its genesis to Senator Bill Roth, who proposed it three years
ago at the WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle. At that time there was a meeting of
parliamentarians representing some 60 countries, all of which supported the idea.
But the idea, and the impetus for this initiative, first came from NGOs such as the
372 Sustainability, Civil Society, and International Governance
World Federalists and others, which started working on it some time ago. Indeed,
I attended a meeting to discuss this idea at the Geneva ministerial in 1998. Of the
60 or so people in the room only one or two of us were politicians. So NGOs and
parliamentarians do collaborate effectively on such issues.
Thus many small steps have been taken in the right direction. Canada will continue
to promote these changes in global governance, and will continue to encourage all
national governments to see parliamentarians and civil society groups as their allies
in the ongoing process of reform.

Civil Society and Global Issues

Moving from the global organisations to particular issues of global concern, many
civil society partnerships have also contributed to human security initiatives in
Canada’s foreign policy. Both parliamentarians and NGOs have been crucial on
issues such as landmines, the International Criminal Court, and the Kimberley
Process on conflict diamonds.
The International Committee of the Red Cross became an equal partner with
Canada in the process to eradicate landmines. We worked closely together in
the years leading to the establishment of the 1997 Ottawa Convention banning
antipersonnel mines. Since then, the Red Cross has played an invaluable role in
supporting initiatives such as community-based mine-awareness programmes and
medical assistance for mine victims. In turn, Canada has provided funding for mine
action programmes implemented by the Red Cross and other partners.
Another successful collaboration with civil society led to the creation of the
International Criminal Court. The court was itself a reaction by governments to
popular demand around the world for an end to impunity for war crimes. Canada
took a leading role in developing this crucial international instrument, and its
parliamentarians were immensely helpful in the effort, promoting the court with
their counterparts bilaterally and through forums such as the Inter-Parliamentary
Union and Parliamentarians for Global Action. Many of our partners in civil society
share in this landmark achievement. Canada is committed to promoting civil society
involvement in our ongoing campaign to ensure that the International Criminal Court
gains universal acceptance and that it functions fairly and effectively in delivering
truly impartial justice.
Canada has hosted a meeting of Parliamentarians for Global Action to consider
two items significant for the future of our global architecture: the International
Criminal Court and a recent report on humanitarian intervention titled ‘The
Responsibility to Protect’ (International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty 2001). It is pursuing a similar approach with regard to the Kimberley
Process, an intergovernmental effort led by South Africa and aimed at keeping conflict
diamonds out of legitimate markets. Canada hosted the 2002 plenary meeting, which
involved government representatives, the private sector, and NGOs. It also provided
support to a Canadian NGO, Partnership Africa Canada, which authored a major
 Civil Society and Institutions of Global Governance 373
study on conflict diamonds in Sierra Leone and undertook a project on ‘just mining’
practices.
The most important international organisation for global governance today is
the United Nations. It is there that much of our efforts to increase transparency,
accountability, and effectiveness are directed. It is truly vital to secure the effectiveness
of this institution. Like the other multilateral institutions noted above, the UN cannot
successfully undertake the reforms necessary to maintain its legitimacy and relevance
unless it has support from all levels of civil society.

Conclusion

Internationalism is a fragile thing. It depends on a foundation of cultural attitudes

that make it possible for peaceful and inclusive dialogue to happen. The Canadian
government believes that Canadians can make an important contribution on the
world stage through the model they provide of a culture in which, by and large,
internationalism works in a national context. As Janice Stein has remarked: ‘Canada
is a society of diversity whose members are internationalized through ties of kinship
and attachment to every society in the globe.’ As Canada becomes a microcosm of
the world, whether we can succeed in constructing a broad architecture of security
within Canada will become a litmus test for others.
Canada has something unique to offer the world: its experience in working and
living together in a vast multicultural country and, in so doing, promoting mutual
respect, understanding and tolerance. Canadians are often their own most vocal
critics. That is of fundamental importance in a free and democratic society. But it
is always striking to travel abroad and to realise that, by just about any standard,
Canadians are greatly admired as a truly vibrant and successful society.
When I travel abroad, I often tell the story of my own constituency in Toronto.
I represent an area that includes St. James Town, where some 12 000 people speak
57 different languages. We would not have peace, harmony, social justice, and
cooperation with one another in that intensely crowded space if we did not have
respect for one another and a willingness to work together to solve our problems.
Indeed, my own riding and the people I represent are an illustration of our history
as a country of immigration. Canada was originally populated by aboriginal
peoples. The first wave of immigration was largely European. Successive waves
of immigrants have come from all parts of the globe. In this respect, Canada is like
the United States, the country closest to Canada in values and culture. With each
wave of immigration, Canada has grown stronger. Today, its cultural diversity is the
hallmark of its national identity. It gives Canada strength in the world because, the
world is in Canada.
But in offering Canada as an exemplar of global possibilities, Canadians cannot
afford to be complacent about the condition of their own society. Having the world
within Canada’s borders means that when things get ugly abroad, Canadians see the
reverberations at home. When Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to speak at Concordia
374 Sustainability, Civil Society, and International Governance
University in the summer of 2002, the riots that broke out were an alarming sign of
how fragile a commitment to dialogue can be. They underline that Canadians must
all be vigilant to ensure that this type of conduct is not tolerated in Canada.
So not all elements or tendencies of civil society are ones to be encouraged.
As Canadians keep in mind the urgent global problems facing them, as they try to
strengthen and reform the multilateral institutions needed to address these problems,
as they foster the involvement of NGOs and parliamentarians in that process – in all
of this, they need to be mindful of the larger cultural context that will either promote
or oppose the values of pluralism, inclusiveness, civility, and mutual respect. In the
course of my mandate as foreign affairs minister and now as defence minister, it was
my experience that Canadian civil society representatives are generally motivated
to promote those quintessentially Canadian values. Our society is enriched by their
active participation and I, for one, will continue to urge government to take advantage
of this important resource.

References

International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001). ‘The Responsibility

to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty’.
<www.iciss.ca/report-en.asp> (November 2005).