WHAT IS GLOBAL GOVERNANCE?

Global governance is a purposeful order that emerges from institutions, processes, norms,
formal agreements, and informal mechanisms that regulate action for a common good. Global
governance encompasses activity at the international, transnational, and regional levels, and
refers to activities in the public and private sectors that transcend national boundaries. In this
conception of global governance, cooperative action is based on rights and rules that are
enforced through a combination of financial and moral incentives. In the absence of a single
authoritative institution or world government structure, global governance is comprised of
elements and methods from both the public and private sectors. These basic elements include
agreed upon standards, evolving norms based on shared values, and directives issued and
enforced by states. Methods of global governance include harmonization of laws among states,
international regimes, global policy issue networks, and hybrid institutions that combine
functions of state agencies and private sector organizations. The concept of global governance
raises two sets of, as yet, unresolved issues. One has to do with claims of the legitimate exercise
of authority, the other with democratic values. In contrast to theories of governance at local and
national levels, a social contract between citizens and institutions of global governance has not
been developed sufficiently to constitute a sufficient basis for legitimacy. In its current
conception, global governance implies democratic governance. However, the reliance on
scientific and professional bodies to set standards, rules, and procedures, on bureaucratic
agencies of the state to implement policies, and on voluntary organizations to monitor
compliance, none of which are based on democratic principles of representation or equal
participation, raises questions about the compatibility of democratic values and the concept of
global governance.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION

An international organization is one that includes members from more than one nation.
Some international organizations are very large, such as business corporations. Others are small
and dedicated to a specific purpose, such as conservation of a species.

Many international organizations are intergovernmental. Intergovernmental organizations

form as multiple governments form an international organization. There are more than
300 intergovernmental organizations around the world.

The United Nations (UN) is the largest and most familiar intergovernmental organization.
In 1945, at the end of World War II, governments wanted to avoid future wars. They
formed the UN.

The UNs main goal is to keep peace. A UN peacekeeping mission is when the UN sends
representatives to countries or regions in conflict. The UN currently has peacekeeping
missions all over the world. In the nations of Sudan, Chad, and the Central African
Republic, UN peacekeepers monitor the conflict in the area known as Darfur. On the
Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, UN peacekeepers supervise the buffer zone in
the dispute between Greek and Turkish claims to the island.

The UN has several specialized subgroups, such as the World Health

Organization (WHO) and the World Bank. WHO is responsible for giving direction on
international health issues, setting standards, and providing information for governments
to make decisions. For example, WHO took the lead during the swine flu outbreak in
2009. It tracked the spread of the flu, offered recommendations about who should get
vaccines, and told people how to avoid becoming sick.

The World Bank is a bank for nations, not people. The World Bank has two separate
groups. One group, the International Development Association, provides loans to the
world's poorest countries. The other group, the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, gives loans to developing countries.

The UN also has groups focused on culture (the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)), justice and law (the International Court of Justice
(ICJ)), and immigration (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)),
among others. Each of the subgroups has headquarters in a different place. The main UN
offices are in New York City, New York. The World Health Organization has its
headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The World Bank is based in Washington, D.C. The
International Court of Justice is in The Hague, Netherlands. Most countries of the world
belong to the UN and its subgroups.

Many countries form regional multi-country organizations with military, economic, or

political purposes. For example, the United States, Canada, many European countries,
and Turkey belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). NATO is a
defense organization, meaning these nations have promised to support each other during
times of conflict.

Other intergovernmental organizations are based on trade. The Organization of Petroleum

Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a group of 12 nations that export large amounts of oil.
OPEC includes many members in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, the worlds
largest exporter of oil. However, African nations such as Nigeria, and South American
nations such as Venezuela, are also members of OPEC. OPEC members meet regularly to
address issues concerning oil use and prices.

Corporations

Some international groups exist for profit. Toyota, the world's largest automaker, is an
international corporation, often called a multinational corporation. It is headquartered in
Tokyo, Japan. Toyota has factories around the world, including in the United States,
China, and South Africa. Although the chief executive officer (CEO) of Toyota is
responsible for the work of the entire company, Toyota employs managers and workers
from the region in which the factory is located.
Toyota sells, as well as manufactures, cars in different countries around the world. The
company must advertise in dozens of languages. Multinational corporations like Toyota
must consider local culture and traditions when establishing a factory or selling a product.
For instance, an advertisement with models in bikinis may appeal to customers in the
United States, but would probably not appeal to customers in Saudi Arabia, a much more
conservative culture.

Other large multinational corporations are Coca-Cola (based in Atlanta, Georgia), the de
Beers diamond company (based in Johannesburg, South Africa) and Adidas (based in
Herzogenaurach, Germany.)

Nonprofits

Several well-known nonprofit organizations are international. Nonprofit means these

groups do not seek to make money from their efforts. Nonprofits usually have a focus or
shared interest, such as the environment, humanitarian aid, or entertainment.

The National Geographic Society is a nonprofit organization. It was formed in 1888, and
has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and
educational institutions in the world. National Geographic is primarily focused
on exploration, geography, archaeology, and natural science. It also promotes
environmental and historical conservation, with its logo, "Inspiring people to care about
the planet."

The National Geographic Society also supports international research and exploration. It
has sponsored or assisted with more than 9,000 projects. Some of the most
famous expeditions associated with the National Geographic Society include the
expedition to the South Pole by Robert Peary and Matthew Henson in 1905; exploration
of the ancient Incan city of Machu Picchu, Peru, in 1913; discovery of the final resting
place of the Titanic by Robert Ballard in 1985; and the National Geographic Bee, an
annual geography contest for American students.

Other international organizations share a more specific interest. The International

Olympic Committee (IOC) is an international nonprofit based in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The IOC organizes and regulates the summer and winter Olympics. The IOC includes
administrators, sports officials, and former athletes from all over the world.

The Red Cross provides food and other aid to people and areas in distress. The
International Red Cross has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The organization is
officially called the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The Red
Crescent honors members from primarily Muslim countries. The Red Crystal, a diamond
shape, honors Israeli members of the organization.

The Red Cross is probably the most recognizable aid organization in the world. It helps
survivors of hurricanes, such as Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast of the United
States in 2005. The Red Cross helped provide shelter for victims of Hurricane Katrina
 whose homes were destroyed, for instance. The Red Cross also helped survivors of
the earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010. It worked to provide medical care for those
injured in the quake and helped organize sites so survivors could find missing family
members.

Other International Organizations

Some international organizations combine parts of all three types of organizations. There
are parts of the National Geographic Society that are run as a corporation, for instance.
They create revenue, or profit, to support themselves.

Perhaps the most familiar type of international organization that does not fit neatly into
the three categories is organized religion. Sometimes, a religion directly influences
government. The government of Israel, for instance, supports Jews and Judaism around
the world. Jews from other nations have a legal law of return to Israel, meaning they
can emigrate there and establish citizenship. Jews from countries as diverse as Russia,
Ethiopia, and Mexico have settled in Israel.

Organized religion can indirectly influence governments, too. Priests and bishops of
the Catholic Church, for instance, do not usually run for political office. But their
influence on their congregations can be enormous. Catholics are led by the pope, with
headquarters in Vatican City in Rome, Italy. In many ways, the Catholic Church is run
like an international corporation. There is a similar structure for religious ceremonies
(such as Mass) and organization (such as the way dioceses are divided) for Catholics all
over the world. Local priests, nuns, and bishops work with their congregations to make
life better for their communities. This is similar to the way an international corporation
organizes its workers in other countries.

HISTORY OF THE UNITED NATIONS

The predecessor entity to the UN was the League of Nations. The League of Nations was
established during WWI in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles (one of the peace treaties adopted at
the end of WWI). The League of Nations' goal was to encourage cooperation between countries
and keep international peace and security. Unfortunately, the League of Nations failed to prevent
WWII and, therefore, was seen as a failure.

The phrase 'United Nations' was first used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1942
Declaration by United Nations to describe the group of countries signing such declaration.
The Declaration by United Nations was a pledge by twenty-six nations to fight together as the
Allied Powers against the Axis Powers during WWII. The Axis Powers was a coalition of
countries in WWII headed by Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Two months after WWII ended, the representatives of the Allied Powers and twenty-four other
countries met in San Francisco for the United Nations Conference on International Organization.
The conference's sole purpose was to draft the UN Charter. On June 26, 1945, the United
Nations Charter was signed by 51 countries, including Poland, which did not attend the
conference but signed later. Shortly after the UN formation, other countries began joining. After
the ratification of the UN Charter, the remaining members of the League of Nations met and
unanimously voted to transfer all of its assets to the United Nations and formally dissolve the
League of Nations.

Definition and Purpose of the United Nations

Imagine how the world might look if no opportunities were available for countries to
discuss international matters. Would there be cooperation among countries? Would there be
consensus on international matters? Would any international problems be resolved?

Countries generally enter into treaties in order to resolve matters between each other.
However, on more complex worldwide matters, such as world peace and promoting social justice
for humanity, a forum is needed to foster discussion and decision. The United Nations is one
such organization.

The United Nations (UN) is an international organization created in 1945, shortly after
the end of WWII. The UN was formed by 51 countries in order to encourage resolution of
international conflicts without war and to form policies on international issues. Like most
organizations, the UN was formed in order to meet certain goals and purposes. Article I of the
Charter of United Nations specifies the purposes of the UN. The Charter of United Nations (UN
Charter) is the UN's governing document, much like the Constitution of the United States of
America.

The UN Charter sets out four main purposes:

o Maintaining worldwide peace and security

o Developing relations among nations
o Fostering cooperation between nations in order to solve economic, social,
cultural, or humanitarian international problems
o Providing a forum for bringing countries together to meet the UN's purposes and
goals

FIVE CHALLENGES THE UN’S ‘SUSTAINING PEACE’ AGENDA NEEDS TO

ADDRESS

As the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres releases his

new Peacebuilding and sustaining peace report, Larry Attree argues that the UN must boldly
address five big challenges constraining its peace efforts.
 In recent years, the United Nations (UN) has engaged in a series of processes to
strengthen its ability to perform its core function – to save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war.

Beyond the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its ground-breaking goal
on peaceful, just and inclusive societies, the peacebuilding architecture review, the women,
peace and security agenda, and the focus on youth and peacebuilding, Secretary General Antonio
Guterres’s focus on prevention and the recent birth of the ‘sustaining peace’ agenda have brought
about deep reflection on the UN’s role in the modern era.

UN peace efforts face five big challenges today:

Geopolitical aggression and intransigence: Conflicts are becoming protracted by intense

rivalries between global powers and regional powers as they support proxies to wage war
overseas. The wars in Syria and Yemen are prime examples.

The practice of relabeling conflicts as counter-terror struggles: This tendency leads to the
neglect of the factors and actors driving conflict and the erosion of space needed to build peace.
We’ve seen this occur in high-profile cases like Syria, but also in Egypt, Turkey and elsewhere.
When leaders use the pretext of counter-terror to crush dissent and political opposition, it
escalates violent conflict rather than reducing it.

Legacies of military intervention and regime change: Framed as interventions to counter

terror, save civilians or remove rogue regimes, in case after case military intervention and regime
change have failed to bring lasting stability or to defeat fundamentalist groups. On the one hand
this has brought deep distrust of interventionism – but at the same time there are huge risks in
simply giving up on supporting constructive, peaceful change in the face of repression.

Panic over forced displacement: As desperate people flee conflict zones, the impact of
forced displacement is hitting neighboring countries hardest and they are coping as best they can.
Meanwhile, Western governments are making hasty deals to support border and security forces
in transit countries to close their borders and shut the problem out. But this train, equip and
ignore approach – as in the EU’s Khartoum Process – fails to address the root causes of the
problem.

Struggling humanitarianism: Undoubtedly humanitarians have a tough job. The UN and

others are making enormous efforts, with inadequate resources, to assist the victims of conflict.
But they are not yet good enough at defending humanitarian values, working for prevention
during crisis or empowering those affected by humanitarian crises to take the initiative. And if
UN Security Council members – either directly or through allies they support – continue to bomb
hospitals or attack humanitarian convoys, we are unlikely to see this change.

How can ‘sustaining peace’ work in the face of these challenges?

 In the face of these challenges we need to ask not only ‘what are the right structures and
mandates for the UN?’, but also ‘how can we work for conflict resolution and peaceful change in
an era of renewed geopolitical division’? Here are six suggestions:

Apply peacebuilding tools to the geopolitical level of conflict and rivalry. We need new
ideas and initiatives on how to mediate conflict, not only in the case of Yemen or Syria but also
in terms of fixing the relationships between the parties that stand behind those who are fighting.

At a time when political consensus for peace is hard to build, it will be critical to use the
vision and the mandate of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This consensus was
developed through a uniquely consultative process. Then as now, the concerns that came out
around sovereignty were sincere and grounded in real examples. As happened during the
process, reassurance should be offered that prevention is actually a recipe for less intervention,
not more. SDG16 – and the peaceful, just and inclusive society’s agenda as a whole - was not
imposed by the global north. It was supported by the African Union, the nations of the Pacific,
the g7+ and many others. Civil society organizations unanimously demanded it and so did people
in every region of the world. Peace is not a global north conspiracy but in fact something we
must now demand of the most powerful nations in our own interest.

‘Sustaining peace’ should also be a moment to reclaim the policy space. Policy panic is
setting in – framing conflicts as ‘terror’ threats and as a ‘migration’ crisis is exacerbating the
problem. Prevention and peacemaking tools are the answer to these problems, and we must
safeguard the special mandate of the UN to provide options for mediation and peacemaking
rather than gearing it up to fight rebels and terrorists in the name of peace – as it has begun to do
in places like Mali and the Congo, with dangerous consequences. Since the UN is taking sides in
today’s wars, where will the world look for the mediators and peacemakers it will need in the
coming years?

However scarce political will to sustain peace may be, the UN must not settle for an inert,
technocratic approach focused only on building capacity of state institutions. At the heart of the
SDGs is a drive for transformative change with more peaceful, just and inclusive societies
helping to shape stronger and more inclusive institutions. If sustaining peace merely means
reinforcing the very institutions that are at the heart of the problem – such as predatory militaries
or corrupt bureaucracies – then we will fail to live up to the ambition of the 2030 Agenda.

Remaining true to an agenda that will transform people’s lives requires supporting those
who work for peaceful change – in and out of government, including women and youth. This
requires a willingness to step out of national capitals, to talk to a wider range of people, to build
up understanding of conflicts rooted in people’s priorities, and to work in solidarity with people
to help them:

 Call for peaceful change;

 Survive during conflict and maintain cohesion across conflict divides;
  Rebuild their lives and their institutions after the guns fall silent;
 Get involved fully and meaningfully in peace and reconciliation processes so that they
can influence and live with the peace settlements that emerge.

This is the work Saferworld is doing in places like Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. This is
what peacebuilding organizations around the world will continue to do. But peacebuilding that
works with, and through, society for constructive change needs a massive increase in support –
perhaps achievable by scaling back the record-level investments being made in fighting war –
and looking instead to increasing efforts to support peace.

People around the world want peace and prosperity – they want leaders to champion
peacebuilding, to work to prevent conflicts – to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies. At a
time when many states are undermining international norms and standards aimed at promoting
and protecting peace and human security, we need new champions to ensure the ‘sustaining
peace’ agenda achieves tangible, transformative results for all those living in the shadow of
violent conflict.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B0080430767044995

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-the-united-nations-definition-history-members-
purpose.html

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/international-organization/

https://www.saferworld.org.uk/resources/news-and-analysis/post/755-five-challenges-the-unas-
asustaining-peacea-agenda-needs-to-address
Quiz

1. It refers to the various intersecting processes that create order (Global Governance)

2. UN's fourth active organ who’s task is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal
disputes submitted to it by states and to give advisory opinions referred to it by authorized UN
organs and specialized agencies (International Court of Justice)

3. This term is commonly used to refer to international intergovernmental organizations that are
primarily made up of member-states. (International Organizations)

4-8.What are those 5 countries who belong to P5?

9. In this power, various terms like security and development are needed to be well-defined.
(Power to fix meanings)

10. In this power, states are required to accept refugees entering their borders and they have
power to establish identity which has concrete effects (Power of classification)

11. In this power, IOs are staffed with independent bureaucracies, who are considered experts in
various fields. (Power to diffuse norms)

12. UN's third active organ which is the principal body for coordination, policy review, policy
dialogue, and recommendations on social and environmental issues. (Economic and Social
Council)

14-15. Challenges of the United Nations