Global Governance in the 21st Century: The Future at Risk (Augusto Lopez Claros)

Geneva - 17th to 20th May 2018
ebbf’s 28th international learning event
ethical business building the future,
rethinking the governance  
of your organization
#ebbfgovernance
proceedings
Keynote
Augusto Lopez-Claros 
Global Governance in the 21st Century:
The Future at Risk

May 19, 2018
Augusto Lopez-Claros
Senior Fellow
EBBF Annual Meeting,
Geneva
Global Governance in the 21st Century:
The Future at Risk

The UN Charter endorsed in 1945 by 51 nations sought to lay a framework for a
new world order:
“To save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war,…and to reaffirm faith in
fundamental human rights…in the equal rights of
men and women…to establish conditions under
which justice and respect for…international law
can be maintained, and to promote social
progress and better standards of life…and to
employ international machinery for the promotion
of the economic and social advancement of all
peoples:
WE THE PEOPLES have resolved to establish
an international organization to be known as the
United Nations.”
Calls for a new world order
!3

Calls for a new world order or for a rearrangement of our systems of governance go
back a long way:
!4
In 1311 Dante Alighieri wrote a political
tract under the title of De Monarchia, which
was translated into English and published
in 1949 as On World Government. Dante
wrote: “it is evident that mankind, too, is
most free and easy to carry on its work
when it enjoys the quiet and tranquility of
peace. To achieve this state of universal
well-being a single world government is
necessary.”

!5
In “An Essay towards the Present and
Future Peace of Europe” (1693), William
Penn made the case for a federal
European state to keep the peace. This
state would govern relations between its
members within a common legal
framework, including a supranational
parliament. Penn’s essay is an excellent
example of the extent to which poverty and
the prevalence of violence and war among
states prompted leading thinkers to make
proposals aimed at securing a more solid
foundation for peace and prosperity.

!6
Twenty years later the French cleric Charles
Castel de Saint Pierre (1658-1743) in his “Plan
for the Perpetual Peace in Europe” called for
the creation of an European Confederation.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau lamented Europe’s
“perpetual dissensions, brigandage,
usurpations, rebellions, wars and murders” and
called for the creation of un gouvernement
confederative where “all its members must be
placed in such a mutual state of dependence
that not one of them alone may be in a position
to resist all of the others.” One of the earliest
calls for the establishment of a system of
collective security.

!7
O n e o f t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t
experiments in international
cooperation came in late 18th
century America. Alexander
Hamilton had said: that “if men were
angels, no government would be
necessary,” that people must be
brought under the “mild and salutary
coercion” of the law, if they are to
avoid the “destructive coercion of
the sword.” What emerged was a
system that sought to balance the
interests of states with the need to
have a strong central government
that would operate under the rule of
law and with clearly identified
limitations on its powers.

!8
Benjamin Franklin, America’s
first ambassador to the French
Court wrote in 1787, the
following to a friend back in
France: “If the Constitution
succeeds, I do not see why you
might not form… a Federal
U n i o n a n d O n e G r a n d
Republick of all its different
States and Kingdoms by
means of a like Convention.”

The American experience points to the benefits
of federalism under the rule of law. Vast
advantages for the US as a result of the
creation of an integrated single economic
space: By the early part of the 20th century the
US was already emerging as the world’s largest
and most dynamic economy, something that in
turn was reflected in growing political power.
!9

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) said that the problem
of international order, was ‘the most difficult and
the last to be solved by the human race.’ Men
formed states to constrain their passions, but each
state sought to preserve its absolute freedom,
even at the cost of ‘a lawless state of savagery.’
But the ‘devastations, upheaval and even
complete inner exhaustion of their powers’ arising
from interstate clashes would in time oblige men
to contemplate an alternative. Humanity faced
either the peace of ‘the vast graveyard of the
human race’ or peace by reasoned design.”
!10

Kant’s proposal for this “peace by reasoned design” was a voluntary federation of
nations within a framework of respect for agreed rules of conduct, and where
citizens would no longer wish to face the rigors and consequences of armed
conflicts. Kant’s “league of peace” would evolve into a peaceful world order and “a
perfect civil union of mankind.”
!11

The next big initiative to put in place a new vision of global order came against the
background of the first world war and the efforts by President Woodrow Wilson to
create a permanent international organization made up of the leading powers of the
day and with the specific aim of preventing war.
In a speech delivered to the US Senate on January 22, 1917 President Wilson said:
“There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized
rivalries, but an organized, common peace.” Kissinger (2014) notes that Wilson’s
concept of “community of power” would in time reemerge as the principle of
“collective security.” “The League of Nations…would be founded on a moral
principle, the universal opposition to military aggression as such, whatever its
source, its target, or its proclaimed justification.”
The League of Nations
!12

There is a streak of idealism that runs
through Wilson’s many interventions in
support of the League. One senses the
heavy burden of responsibility weighing
on him because of the United States’
participation in the war. In a speech in
1919 he noted: “My clients are the
children; my clients are the next
generation. They do not know what
promises and bonds I undertook when I
ordered the armies of the United States
to the soil of France, but I know, and I
intend to redeem my pledges to the
children; they shall not be sent upon a
similar errand.”
!13

The League Covenant contained many
innovations: Article 8 established
provisions for disarmament. Several
other articles provided for peaceful
settlement of disputes and arbitration
and conciliation (e.g. Articles 12, 13
and 15). Wilson believed that nations
would not so easily go to war if they
could consult and discuss their
grievances and openly explore ways to
resolve them in peaceful ways. The
“cooling off” periods embedded in the
Covenant were intended to avoid a
repetition of the events of 1914, when
Europe mindlessly stumbled upon the
bloodiest war ever undertaken.
!14

But the League foundered when the US
Senate voted against it. Some thought
that the application of the principle of
collective security would translate
quickly into war, not peace, negating
the very purpose of the League. The
burden of interventions might
overwhelmingly fall on the United
States, Great Britain, France, and
Japan, something that would put the
United States in the role of world
policeman or, worse, dictator, and
damage the “soul of democracy”. And,
there were senator Henry Cabot
Lodge’s 14 “killer” reservations, which
were rejected by President Wilson.
!15

Regrettably, ratification of the Covenant turned
quickly into a partisan political issue within the US,
made worse by President Wilson suffering a massive
stroke in October of 1919. Weakened physically, he
was not able to take the leadership role that would
have been necessary to ensure victory on the
Senate floor. On the 19th of March of 1920 the
Covenant was voted down by a margin of 7 votes.
The significance of the League may well lie in the
fact that it was a first attempt to pool national
sovereignties together to deal with the problem of
armed conflicts and aggression. It was a distinctive
milestone, a tenuous first step in a long process
intended to strengthen and improve the effectiveness
of mechanisms of international cooperation.
!16

Abdu’l-Baha’s 1919 letter to the Central Organization for a Durable Peace at The
Hague is of historical significance as it conveys the views of the head of a world
faith to a gathering of prominent civil society leaders:
The Tablet to The Hague
!17
“There is not one soul whose conscience
does not testify that in this day there is no
more important matter in the world than that
of universal peace.”

The letter says that efforts for peace must be supplemented by other measures that
go beyond issues of conflict and security. That other principles must underpin the
search for peace. He states that “religion must be the cause of fellowship and love.
If it becomes the cause of estrangement then it is not needed, for religion is like a
remedy; if it aggravates the disease then it becomes unnecessary.”
!18
Properly understood, religion “trains man,
educates morals, compels the adoption of
virtues and is the all-inclusive power which
guarantees the felicity of the world of
mankind.”

He condemned misguided nationalisms, saying that “God has set up no frontier
between France and Germany” and warns that “if this conception of patriotism
remains… it will be the primary cause of the world’s destruction.” He refers to
weapons as “the malignant fruits of material civilization” and that had humanity
been more inclined to the divine in us “these fiery weapons would never have been
invented” and “human energy would have been wholly devoted to useful inventions
and… praiseworthy discoveries.” He speaks about the importance of education to
immunize humanity against the destructive forces of ignorance.
!19
And, most importantly, in the letter he calls for
the establishment of a Supreme Tribunal
made up of members of the world’s
parliaments to be at the basis of a new global
order based on the rule of law.

Following the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, efforts were set in motion for the
creation of a new organization that might provide a more secure basis for peace
and prosperity. The organization that emerged at the San Francisco conference in
1945 was the United Nations, but the work program leading to this outcome had
begun several years before and was the result of long and delicate negotiations.
The United Nations and the UN Charter
!20

On January 1 of 1942 the United States, Great Britain, the
Soviet Union and China plus 22 nations then involved in
the war effort against the Axis powers setup an alliance in
which members pledged to fight until victory, and to work
for the establishment of an effective system of
international security. The name adopted for this alliance
was United Nations, suggested by President Roosevelt
himself. By 1945 it included 51 nation states as members.
!21
It is noteworthy that up to October of 1943 much of the focus centered on the
future establishment of some type of international entity founded on federalist
principles, not unlike the model adopted by the United States during its
Constitutional Convention in 1787. This would have implied the creation of a
legislative body with substantial powers to enact laws that would be binding on
member states.

There were discussions on Rights to guarantee
basic freedoms and protections for citizens, such
as freedom of speech and worship and freedom
from want and fear which President Roosevelt said
would “secure to every nation a healthy peacetime
life for its inhabitants” and also meant “a world-
wide reduction of armaments… that no nation will
be in a position to commit an act of physical
aggression against any neighbor.” Indeed, the final
version of the UN Charter contains what is perhaps
the first explicit commitment on the part of the
international community to promote economic and
social development (Article 55a).
!22

These visions of world order were
confronted with a strong dose of reality
in October of 1943 at a conference in
Moscow to discuss the architecture
then being embedded in the draft UN
Charter. The Soviet authorities, more
concerned with the war effort, said they
would not object to some form of
collective security mechanism, provided
it was based on great power unanimity
through the veto. As long as the UN
was founded on the principle of
“sovereign equality of states” and was,
thus, rendered into a largely harmless
organization, the Soviets would not
object.
!23

The Moscow conference forced a shift in the focus of the discussion away from
what might be desirable to what might be politically feasible. President Roosevelt
wanted to avoid the fate of President Wilson, whose failure to ensure Senate
ratification doomed the League.
!24

An effort was made to address some of the
League’s weaknesses. The UN Charter would
give the veto power to the 4 great powers only,
not to every member as had been the case with
the League. The Charter would introduce
human rights protections, in a way that the
League had not. The final version of the Charter
contained a number of protections that were
substantial in scope and character (Article 55c
and 56).
These undertakings would result in the
adoption, in 1966, of the International
Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of
which significantly strengthened the legal
underpinnings of the Charter in this key area.
!25

Key issues present in the deliberations
around the design of the UN concerned
the voting mechanisms and the distribution
of power within the organization. Grenville
Clark had argued for a system of weighted
voting, with voting power linked to some
objective criteria, to accommodate the
huge dispersion in the size and economic
heft of the membership. But the General
Assembly was established on the basis of
the principle of one-country-one-vote.
Weighted voting, however, was adopted at
the IMF and World Bank—the two
organizations that were created at the
United Nations Monetary and Financial
Conference held in July of 1944 in Bretton
Woods, New Hampshire.
!26

One concern with the establishment of a Security Council in which the 5 major
powers (France was included as a permanent member of the Council in 1945) had
veto power was the perception of the creation of an imperialistic organization in
which the permanent members of the Council would, de facto, be running the world.
To start with, the veto itself was seen by many as undermining the democratic
legitimacy of the organization; as a practice that could not be defended on the basis
of any principle of just governance.
!27

Non-permanent members of the Security Council accepted to be bound by the
limitations of a two-thirds majority whereas the permanent members accepted no
such constraints. The veto would prevent the UN from dealing with problems and/or
conflicts between the major powers or between a major power and a smaller
country. Since many important security problems in the future were likely to involve
directly or indirectly one of the major powers the UN would be largely useless to do
what it was set out to do, namely, “to maintain international peace and security.”
!28

These concerns were amply justified by the experience in the decades that followed
the adoption of the UN Charter. In particular, tens of millions of fatalities associated
to more than 200 armed conflicts, with the predictable consequences for delayed
economic and social development. The Korean war in 1950 and Iraq’s invasion of
Kuwait in 1990 remain the sole examples of interventions supported by the
collective security mechanisms put in place when the organization was created.
!29

The above notwithstanding, there were strong strains of thought within the United
States establishment arguing for a broader vision of world order that would go
beyond the principle of the sovereign equality of states.
!30
Representative William Fulbright,
for instance, had given a speech in
New York in September of 1943 in
which he hinted that sovereignty
may be largely illusory. He argued
for “the delegation of limited power
to an agency designed to prevent
war, to establish law and order, in
which we participate fully and
equally with others. How can this
be called a sacrifice, a giving up of
anything?” he asked.

Grenville Clark argued that “to be
effective in the maintenance of
peace the ‘general international
organization’ must have some
definite and substantial powers
to make decisions binding upon
the member countries in matters
of war and peace.” He thought
that if member countries could
not agree “upon well-defined
powers of an effective nature that
they are willing to yield…it
seems clear that no world
authority really adequate to
maintain peace, will arise in our
time.”
!31

Grenville Clark proposed majority voting within this world legislature to guard
against the “fatal defect” of the veto which the League had granted to its members.
To ensure fairness, Clark put forward a detailed proposal for a system of weighted
voting which, updated with today’s data would look like this:
!32
Table 1. Proposed number of UN General Assembly representatives¹
Country grouping Number of representatives Total
The three largest countries² 40 120
The next 5 largest countries³ 20 100
The next 11 largest countries⁴ 10 110
The next 15 largest countries 5 75
The smallest 40 countries 1 40
Total in General Assembly 758
¹ 193 UN member states.
² China, India and the United States.
³ Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
⁴ Russia, Japan, Mexico, Philippines, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Egypt, DR Congo,
Germany, Iran, and Turkey.

Clark said that the combination
of a powerless Assembly and a
Security Council hampered by
the veto would “be a weak reed
to support the peace of the
world.” He then proposed to
give the Assembly adequate
but narrowly defined powers to
“matters directly and plainly
concerned with the forestalling
or suppression of aggression.”
!33

Clark would come back to these ideas and
principles in World Peace Through World
Law in 1958 and focus instead on reforming
the UN Charter adopted in San Francisco.
The big powers were not ready to give the
UN binding enforcement powers over its
member states, in which nationals would
become citizens of a world state, in which
the legislature would presumably have the
authority to coerce individuals through the
power of international law as national
governments were already doing so within
the boundaries of the nation-state, a vision
that would most likely necessitate the
creation of a world police and some form of
world military force.
!34

Cord Meyer (1945), who was an important member of the US delegation to the
San Francisco Conference claims that the delegates had fairly narrow margins
of freedom, not only because of the need to ensure US Senate ratification but
also because the broad outlines of the UN had been agreed by Churchill,
Roosevelt and Stalin during their meeting in Yalta in February of that year.
!35

Cord Meyer’s account in The
Atlantic Monthly argued that
given the large number of
sovereign players, the growing
d e g r e e o f i n t e r n a t i o n a l
interdependence and the
increased destructive power of
available weapons, the system
that was created in San
Francisco was not only unstable
but would be characterized by
chaos and anarchy.
!36

Meyer, on the veto, pointed out: (1)
“a major power can violate every
principle and purpose set forth in the
Charter and yet remain a member of
the Organization by the lawful use of
the veto power expressly granted to
it”; (2) amendments to the Charter
required ratification by the five veto-
wielding powers, a feature that gave
them the power to permanently
prevent any change or reform
whatsoever; (3) if one of the Big
Five was not a party to a dispute, it
c o u l d “ p r e v e n t e v e n t h e
investigation of the case by the
Security Council.”
!37

This is a vast subject and I want to focus my remarks on four areas where reforms
to our current global governance architecture centered on the United Nations would
go a long way to improve the system, enhance its effectiveness and empower it to
help us find sensible solutions to major global challenges. In particular:
•The General Assembly: voting power and functions
•The creation of a Second Chamber or a World Parliamentary Assembly
•The need for an International Security Force
•A new funding mechanism for the UN
The Future of Global Governance
!38

The General Assembly
One key problem is that the GA operates under the principle of one-country-one
vote. A body organized on the basis of a principle that equates the voting power of
China with a population of close to 1.4 billion people with that of Nauru with a
population of about 13,000 (or over 106,000 times less) was doomed to become
ineffective and this distortion manifested itself in a number of ways.
!39
Korea
Switzerland
Netherlands
Cumulative 129 lowest assesed member sharesCumulative 129 low
Netherlands
Switzerland
Korea
Switzerland’s contribution to
the budget (1.140 percent)
exceeds the cumulative
contributions of the 120
countries with the smallest
assessed shares.

!40
Table 2. Updated General Assembly voting shares under Schwartzberg
proposal
Country Assessed Share1 Population in %2 : P Budget contribution %3 C
Membership
share4 % : M W Share in % 5
Top 12 Contributors
USA 22.000 4.418 24.284 0.5181 9.740
Japan 9.680 1.735 6.372 0.5181 2.875
China 7.921 18.896 15.047 0.5181 11.487
Germany 6.389 1.127 4.795 0.5181 2.147
France 4.859 0.883 3.426 0.5181 1.609
United Kingdom 4.463 0.897 3.676 0.5181 1.697
Brazil 3.823 2.816 2.429 0.5181 1.921
Italy 3.748 0.829 2.544 0.5181 1.297
Russian Federation 3.088 1.960 1.886 0.5181 1.455
Canada 2.921 0.495 2.096 0.5181 1.036
Spain 2.443 0.634 1.696 0.5181 0.949
Australia 2.337 0.333 1.737 0.5181 0.863
Other Countries
India 0.737 17.763 2.927 0.5181 7.069
Liberia 0.001 0.060 0.002 0.5181 0.194
1. For the period 2016-18 as determined by the General Assembly
2. P is each country’s population share in the total population of all 193 UN members
3. C is each country’s GNI share in the aggregate GNI for all 193 UN members
4. M is current voting power in the General Assembly (1/193), in percent
5. W = (P+C+M)/3

A Second Chamber or World Parliamentary Assembly
The idea has been around since the organization’s inception. Purpose: to
enhance the democratic character of the UN by establishing a firmer
linkage between the organization and the peoples it was meant to serve.
The preamble to the UN Charter starts with “We the peoples” but the men
and women who serve on the General Assembly are diplomats
representing the executive branches of their respective governments and
there is no meaningful, direct linkage between them and the people they
are supposed to represent. In fact, in many countries, there is no linkage
between the governments themselves and the people they rule over
because they are not democracies.
!41

In his open letter to the General
Assembly of October, 1947 Albert
Einstein stated: “the method of
representation at the United Nations
should be considerably modified.
The present method of selection by
government appointment does not
leave any real freedom to the
appointee… The moral authority of
the United Nations would be
considerable enhanced if the
delegates were elected directly by
the people. Were they responsible to
an electorate, they would have much
more freedom to follow their
consciences.
!42

In time, because changing voting weights in the General Assembly would require
amendments to the UN Charter proposals emerged for the creation of a second
chamber, a World Parliamentary Assembly (WPA), complementary to the General
Assembly. Let me present and explain one such proposal:
!43
Table 3. UN member state representation in a WPA: Schwartzberg/Heinrich proposal
Seats per nation*
Number of
nations %
Number of
Seats %
Population in
millions %
Average population
per seat
1 111 57.5 111 19.2 463.54 6.3 4.2
2-3 55 28.5 137 23.7 1380.64 18.9 10.1
4-9 19 9.8 108 18.7 1727.73 23.6 16.0
10-20 5 2.6 60 10.4 739.91 10.1 12.3
21-66 3 1.6 163 28.2 3005.81 41.1 18.4
Total 193 100 579 100 7317.63 100 12.6
* Seats per nation determined by relative population and GNI shares, as well as UN membership factor.

The need for an International Security Force
The ISF would derive its ultimate authority from the
General Assembly. Countries could still have national
forces to maintain order within national territories, but
the UN would have “effective means for the
prevention and removal of threats to the peace, for
the suppression of acts of aggression or other
breaches of the peace, and for ensuring compliance
with the revised Charter.”
Adequate resources would be voted annually by the
General Assembly budget to provide for pay and
compensation and to ensure that the Force would
have access to the latest weapons, equipment, and
supplies to ensure effective action.
!44

The creation of a United Nations ISF, firmly anchored in the notion that force may at
times be necessary to deliver justice and the rule of law, would address one of the
main flaws of our current UN system, namely, the absence of a reliable international
mechanism to enforce certain decisions made by the Security Council.
!45
The ISF would enhance the credibility of the UN to
prevent conflicts and maintain peace and security in
the world. It would create a mechanism of collective
security which would significantly reduce the pressure
on countries to maintain extensive and expensive
military establishments. Reductions in military
spending at the national level could be re-allocated to
other ends, including education, public health,
infrastructure and other productivity-enhancing areas,
thereby giving rise to a real “peace dividend.”

Total world military spending in 2016 was about US$1.7 trillion. A Standing Force of
some 800,000 might cost some US$70 billion on an annual basis. According to the
Institute for Economics and Peace the total economic impact of violence to the
world economy in 2015 was $13.6 trillion, equivalent to about 18 per cent of world
GDP or $1,876 per person per year. Clearly, the ISF could have vast security and
economic ramifications, releasing substantial resources to promote economic and
social development.
!46
US$ per person per year
0
500
1000
1500
2000
Total Military Spending 800,000 force Impact of Violence

!47
A new funding mechanism for the UN
The UN has a so-called regular budget which funds the
UN Secretariat and its multiple activities, a peace-
keeping budget, and a budget that finances the activities
of its specialized agencies. These budgets are financed
by assessed contributions from members. In addition,
there is a separate budget that is funded by voluntary
earmarked contributions from some of its wealthier
members in support of particular agencies, projects and
programs.

!48
The diagram below shows that contributions to the UN budget are heavily
asymmetric. The top 10 contributors account for 70 percent of the budget; the top
20 for 84 percent of the budget:

!49
The table below provides an overview of the UN budget:
Table 4. Total revenue of the UN system by UN agency and by financing instrument, 2015
Agency Assessed contribution Voluntary Untied Voluntary Earmarked Other fees
UN Secretariat 2771 0 2094 683
UN Peacekeeping 8504 0 195 72
Specialized
Organizations 3244 4557 23114 2745
Of which:
FAO 497 0 744 10
WHO 467 112 1857 39
IAEA 377 0 236 5
UNICEF 0 1067 3836 106
Total 14519 4557 25403 3500
Source: Financing the UN Development System, Pathways to Reposition for Agenda 2030, 2017

!50
Contributions to the UN budget by source, 2015 (in percent)
7 %
53 %
10 %
30 %
Assessed contributions
Voluntary untied
Voluntary earmarked
Other revenue/fees

!51
Several proposals for a better funding mechanism:
I. A fixed proportion of GNI
The UN would simply assess member contributions at a fixed percent of their
respective GNIs. Total world GNI at market prices in 2016 was US$ 75.6 trillion. A
0.1 percent of GDP contribution to the UN budget would generate US$ 75.6 billion,
a sizable sum to start with. The main advantage of this system is simplicity and
transparency. Every country gets assessed at the same rate; the criteria for burden
sharing is crystal clear. Contributions are linked to economic size—as in the current
system—but without the need for carveouts, exceptions, floors and ceilings,
discounts and the need to develop “formulas.”

!52
II. The Clark/Sohn proposal
In World Peace Through World
Law, Clark and Sohn have a
proposal of their own which
merits examination. It assumes
that each nation would contribute
a fixed percentage of its GDP to
the UN but low-income countries
get a discount.
Table 5. U.N. funding proposal by Clark and Sohn
UN member
Current
assessment
Adjusted
assessment
Bangladesh 0.010 0.248
Brazil 3.823 2.379
China 7.921 14.820
France 4.859 3.350
Germany 6.389 4.729
India 0.737 2.578
Japan 9.680 6.706
Malawi 0.002 0.000052
Nigeria 0.209 0.481
Norway 0.849 0.505
Sweden 0.956 0.695
Russia 3.088 1.699
United Kingdom 4.463 3.572
United States 22.000 25.362
World 100.000 100.000
Memo items:
Average income per capita
for 10 poorest countries ($) 418.1
Note: Current assessments correspond to the 2016-2018 period.

III. The EU funding model
Another model is the EU, where member states collect and allocate automatically to
the EU budget a share of all VAT collections. Collecting taxes remains the
responsibility of individual states. This system has served the EU extremely well. It
has provided a reliable source of funding which is independent of domestic political
considerations. Member countries do not get to withhold contributions whenever
they disagree with the orientation of particular policies, or whenever other domestic
priorities emerge. The system provides a level of automaticity in funding that has
eliminated discretion at the level of individual member states.
!53

IV. A Tobin-like tax
Another possibility is the tax proposed by James Tobin on spot currency
transactions or its successor, a tax on financial transactions. Tobin made his initial
proposals in 1973 and its primary motivation was to dampen speculation that was
contributing to heightened exchange rate volatility in the foreign exchange markets.
Tobin’s proposals have generated over the years considerable debate, controversy
and confusion.
Supporters of the Tobin tax have noted that with more than US$5 trillion traded daily
on the currency markets by 2013, a 0.05 percent tax could generate some US$2.5
billion per day in revenue (US$600 billion on an annual basis) which could then be
directed to multiple ends, from climate change mitigation to worthy projects aimed
at poverty alleviation, inclusive economic growth, global public goods, and so on,
including, of course UN funding.
!54

I would like to close by posing a list of challenges we need to address in the next
several years to be able to provide a foundation of stability on which we can build a
peaceful and prosperous future.
!55
1. Our present order is not on a sustainable path.
Shoghi Effendi’s diagnosis that “the world, to whichever
continent we turn our gaze, to however remote a region
our survey may extend, is everywhere assailed by forces
it can neither explain nor control” remains fundamentally
valid today.
2. And his statement that “the fundamental cause of this
world unrest is our failure to adjust our system of
economic and political institutions to the imperative
needs of a rapidly evolving age” has only become truer
today than in 1931, when he put it to paper.

3. I do not wish to disregard the progress that we have made in a number of areas:
the spread of democracy (with all its limitations) and the accountability that comes
with it, the improvement in a number of social and economic indicators over the
past century, including substantial reductions in the incidence of extreme poverty,
scientific and technological developments which have eased for many the burdens
of disease, poverty, and empowered people everywhere in multiple ways, greater
recognition of our interdependence and the importance of international cooperation.
In a spirit of fairness, it would be wrong to dismiss the depth and the scope of
human progress over the past century.
!56

4. But out progress has been uneven and chaotic, it has left many behind, its fruits
have been unevenly distributed and, in some areas, such as our global politics and
the essential nature of our world order, we are pretty much where we were in 1945:
a system based on the unchallengeable sovereignty of 193 independent nations.
!57

6. We also see it in the emergence of authoritarian regimes and corrupt autocrats
in various corners of the world, in the willingness of peoples to place their bets as
voters on ignorant demagogues, in the inability of our financial watchdogs to
adequately supervise our fiendishly complex global financial system, in the
persistence of gender disparities, in the existence of 800 million illiterate brothers
and sisters, 800 million people living on less than $1.90 a day and 800 million
malnourished children, amidst the highest levels of global income and productive
capacity in our entire, millennial economic history.
!58

7. And, of course, we see it in the presence of over 9000 nuclear weapons in the
arsenals of 9 nuclear powers, possibly the most malignant sign—in the words of
Abdu’l Baha—of material civilization.
!59

8. The problem is not a lack of creative solutions. We live in the age of knowledge
and expertise. To take an example: we have multiple practical pathways to address
the problem of global income inequality and some countries have been successful
in addressing the problem at the national level. Our problem is, instead, a failure of
will. A lack of imagination and an undeveloped sense of solidarity.
!60

9. For the benefits of globalization to be realized we need to acquire a sense of
solidarity that extends to the whole human family, not just the members of our own
particular tribe. The English mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell spoke
of the need to “expand our mental universe” to match the increasingly global vision
provided by scientific advancement and discovery. He said that our sense of
collective well-being would have to extend to the whole of humanity as it was
evident that human society was increasingly behaving as a single organic entity.
!61

10. So, we need to act on two levels. At the personal level, we need to internalize
what we have already learned about the human family: there is only one race—the
human race, as the famous American scientist Craig Venter once said, not so long
ago, on the completion of the mapping of the human genome project.
!62

11. And, of course, we need to heed the good advice and wise counsel of the likes
of Grenville Clark, Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, William Fulbright, Woodrow
Wilson and many others and rethink our structures of global governance. Again:
the issue is not lack of knowledge or a dearth of alternatives or options. The
challenge is to recognize that in the absence of action, the present system’s
vulnerabilities will intensify in coming years and the fissures I have alluded to will
become gaping cracks and they will bring with them unprecedented human
suffering.
!63

12. The choices are ours and they will soon be upon us.
!64

Global Governance in the 21st Century: The Future at Risk (Augusto Lopez Claros)

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Tendances

Tendances (20)

Similaire à Global Governance in the 21st Century: The Future at Risk (Augusto Lopez Claros)

Similaire à Global Governance in the 21st Century: The Future at Risk (Augusto Lopez Claros) (8)

Plus de ebbf - mindful people, meaningful work

Plus de ebbf - mindful people, meaningful work (20)

Dernier

Dernier (20)

Global Governance in the 21st Century: The Future at Risk (Augusto Lopez Claros)