Sheree's Essay

Challenges For The Future: Global Governance

Governance of the world is both the means to solving challenges for the future and a challenge for the future in itself. The structure of the world governance system is the world’s ultimate challenge for the future because it determines how effectively global issues such as the environment, disease, peace and prosperity will be dealt with. The current anarchical sovereign state system is becoming outdated and ineffective for dealing with global problems which transcend state boundaries. Global solutions require global cooperation, and whether the current states system is preventing progression is a question the world must soon answer.

European countries established the state system in the 1648 Peace of Westphalia agreement. Despite institutionalising states’ independence and sovereignty, states soon realised that they must work together to realise common goals. Today, states are even more interdependent. Global challenges such as HIV/AIDS and terrorism do not respect state borders, so no state is immune to their effects. In a response to global challenges, intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) were born to facilitate cooperation. Regional organisations such as the European Union and ASEAN, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), multinational corporations and individuals in civil societies also play an integral part in dealing with global challenges. The United Nations is currently the central IGO base for global governance. Regrettably, its effectiveness is waning as excessive bureaucracy, lack of authority, veto powers and its reliance on state support prevent it from fixing global problems now and preventing more in the future.

States are not the only actors in global governance but any decisive, effective action to address global challenges must stem from their individual desire for change. States’ ad hoc, disorganised and sometimes conflicting approaches to solving problems is contributing to global issues instead of solving them. States need to realise their sovereignty is preventing cooperation and then revise the system of world order. This task poses a major challenge because a world without state sovereignty is difficult to imagine.

The challenge of global governance permeates through all cultures and nationalities to every individual. The biggest challenge will be agreeing on the best way to provide one unified entity of cooperation while still recognising and preserving each distinct culture. Cultural variation enriches the world by providing alternate views on life. Increasing each individual’s knowledge of and interaction with other cultures will create a liberal attitude towards change, testing new opinions and courting new impressions, so that the best possible responses to global challenges can be developed.

My locality is an agricultural community in rural South Australia. Environmental degradation seriously affects our farm and puts its future in jeopardy. The complex causes of the environmental degradation in our area can be attributed to human activities and pollution. Managing global warming and adopting environmentally sustainable practices is a global challenge and therefore requires a global solution. Despite efforts by the UN, NGOs, civil societies and individuals, it is clearly individual states’ narrow-minded approaches - such as Australia and other states’ reluctance to follow the Kyoto Protocol - that are preventing a healthier environment. Every global challenge faces similar problems; for example, managing the issue of poverty and the Third World requires global thinking. It requires all states to not be blinded by their domestic issues but to address global issues as if the sustainability of all human life depends on it, because it does. States need to think globally and act globally because in the current system only they have the power to find and carry out solutions. If they continue to block progress, society needs to consider an alternate world structure which possibly diminishes or abolishes state sovereignty.

States have procrastinated reforming the UN for a number of years but the issue will not disappear. The UN can not remain as it is because it is already viewed as ineffective and states continue to disregard its limited authority. The most integral global challenge of the future is whether or not to reform the UN, how to reform it, and then the process of actually reforming, abolishing or replacing it. Because states are interdependent, there is without question a need for better global governance if global challenges of the future are to be managed.

As the world faces many challenges for the future, as well as the overriding challenge of how to govern the world and facilitate the effective solutions to these challenges, it is easy to become overwhelmed. But when each individual contributes and does their best to act in the best interests of humanity, everyone will benefit. State leaders and individuals need to view the world as a whole, and view humanity as one. Combining forward, altruistic thinking with immediate, cooperative action is the world’s best hope of preventing global challenges from getting out of control and maintaining hope for a sustainable, peaceful future.