The Contemporary Global Governance
The Contemporary Global Governance
The Contemporary Global Governance
• It tends to involve institutionalization, and these institutions – the United Nations, the
International Criminal Court, the World Bank, etc. – tend to have limited or demarcated
power to enforce compliance.
• It is concerned with issues that have become too complex for a single state to address
alone. Humanitarian crises, military conflicts between and within states, climate change
and economic volatility pose serious threats to human security in all societies; therefore,
a variety of actors and expertise is necessary to properly frame threats, devise pertinent
policy, implement effectively and evaluate results accurately to alleviate such threats.
• Global governance can be thus understood as the sum of laws, norms, policies, and
institutions that define, constitute, and mediate trans-border relations between states,
cultures, citizens, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the
market.
▪ Universal membership: United Nations (UN), Bretton Woods Institutions and World
Trade Organization (WTO)
▪ Limited membership: European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO)
• The United Nations was established after World War II with the aim of preventing future
wars, succeeding the ineffective League of Nations (LON).
• The Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries.
Poland, which was not represented at the Conference, signed it later and became one of
the original 51 Member States.
• There are 193 UN member states with the addition of South Sudan in July 14, 2011.
• Philippines joined UN on October 24, 1945, under the administration of Sergio Osmeña.
• Purpose:
• Main Organs:
▪ Secretariat
▪ Comprises the Secretary-General (incumbent: Antonio Guterres) and tens of
thousands of international UN staff members
▪ The Secretary-General is chief administrative officer of the Organization, appointed
by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council for a five-
year, renewable term
▪ Trusteeship Council
▪ The Trusteeship Council was established in 1945 by the UN Charter, to provide
international supervision for Trust Territories that had been placed under the
administration of Member States, and ensure that adequate steps were taken to
prepare the Territories for self-government and independence.
• Domestic politics creates tight constraints on international cooperation and reduces the
scope for cooperation.
▪ Within states, the first trajectory or path is the depoliticization (To remove something
from political influence) which can be observed in the form of delegating decisions to
independent regulators and experts, central banks, or judiciaries
▪ A second trajectory is the rescaling of economic and social relations well beyond the
territorial boundaries of nation states, facilitated by transnational legal arrangements
that have their roots in national law.
• The role of the nation-state in a global world is largely a regulatory one as the chief factor
in global interdependence.
• In setting international trade policies, isolated states are forced to engage to one another,
while nation-state’s domestic role is unchanged. Roles of some states were diminished
while others have exalted roles due to interactions of various economic imbalances.
• Problems afflicting the world today which are increasingly transnational in nature, those
that cannot be solved at the national level or State to State negotiations:
1. Poverty
2. Environmental pollution
3. Economic crisis
4. Organized crime and terrorism
• The State has the roles in operating the intricate web of multi-lateral arrangements and
inter-governmental regimes, enter into agreements with other States, make policies
which shape national and global activities.
• This indicates political leverage of some States in shaping the international agenda while
developing countries have fewer active roles.
• Though State is required by globalization to improve its capacity to deal with greater
openness, it must remain central to the well-being of its citizens and to the proper
management of social and economic development
• The following can be guaranteed only by the States through independent courts: