GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND THE REFORM OF THE MULTILATERAL SYSTEM Jean Asselborn Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Luxembourg Wilton Park Conference , Luxembourg, 17 June 2011. Ladies and gentlemen, Let me start by expressing a few words of thanks for the organisers of this Conference, in particular the staff of Wilton Park, the Institut Pierre Werner and the Luxembourg Ministry for foreign Affairs who have all put in a considerable effort to make it happen. This opportunity to debate the state of global governance is particularly welcome at a time where the international community faces unprecedented challenges. According to some, this calls for unprecedented responses. Put bluntly, the issue is whether the structures built around the UN and the Bretton Woods Institutions are still fit for purpose or should we be exploring other avenues? What is at stak e is, ultimately, the international community’s ability to overcome the various crises it faces. So the debate is far from being theoretical and, as minister for foreign affairs, I am pleased to have the opportunity to add a few political thoughts to the work you have been doing for the last two days. Let me first say a few words about the situation facing the international community today.
The world is still in the process of overcoming the global financial crisis and much remains to be done. Economic recovery is perceptible in most parts of the world but is still weak. Indebtedness, public or private, remains very high in various countries, I need not say more on this subject. But worst of all, the social consequences of the crisis are still with us. Unemployment has risen in many parts of the world and is receding only slowly, if at all. Rising food and energy prices threaten the livelihood of many, particularly among the poorest. To a degree, these developments are likely to be cyclical. But structural flaws are appearing ever more clearly. We are facing unsustainable rates of resource consumption, be it energy, land, water, minerals or other commodities. The recent nuclear disaster in Japan has prompted calls for a fundamental rethink of the world’s energy provision and thus of its model of economic development. The symptoms of environmental degradation are becoming increasingly clear for all to see: erosion, deforestation, loss of biodiversity are all on the global agenda, while climate change still needs to be addressed. Faced with such an array of challenges, the international community has reacted by agreeing the Millennium Development Goals in the year 2000. They cover the whole range of interlinked problems: poverty, health, education, gender equality, the environment and so on. They thus provide a crucial tool for a comprehensive and integrated approach.
While it is already clear that not all countries will reach all goals, there is significant progress to report. However, in some cases that progress is under threat from rising food prices and the economic and financial crisis. A lot of work still needs to be done, as evidenced by the UNDP’s latest figures : there are still 1,2 billion individuals suffering from hunger in the world and, tellingly, 70 % of them are women or girls. A similar number has no secure access to clean water. The security outlook is equally challenging. Not only is world peace still threatened by traditional conflicts between states, we are also witnessing increasingly complex armed conflicts within states or regions, opposing both state and non-state actors. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, human trafficking and organised crime are also emerging as major threats. Most of these problems are global in nature and hence can only be solved by collective action. All parts of the world are affected by them, even if it is to varying degrees. On top of that, due to the ever greater interconnections between economies and communities, driven by technological change, an event in one part of the world can have many unpredictable consequences in other parts of the planet and at different levels. These problems also tend to be interrelated : for instance, environmental degradation can undermine agricultural production, and thus lead to food shortages and ultimately violence and radicalisation. Tackling such vicious circles demands a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach.
There is however a paradox here. The continuous progress of communication technologies and the increased movements of goods and people amplified the convergence of cultures and economies. Yet, at the same time, as the number of independent states keeps rising, new borders keep appearing. Moreover, while peoples and cultures interact more than ever before, frictions between ways of life are appearing. So the globalised world with its global problems is coexisting with a reverse trend of fragmentation and mutual rejection. The scale of the challenges the international community faces is daunting. Without adequate global governance, humanity will not be able to solve, or at least alleviate, these problems. In that sense, the international community can be compared to the nation States that are its constituent elements : a State that does not have the structures required to reach an adequate standard of governance will be in danger of failing and its population will suffer. The same applies to the international community. Some will argue that the multilateral system we have inherited from the immediate post-war years does not stand a chance. Lets us hear their case. They will claim that the multilateral system has been unable to deal with old challenges and will point to the numerous instances where the Security Council has failed in its mandate to safeguard the peace. They will cast doubt on whether the UN has done much to spread democracy and human rights.
They will question its record in the fight against hunger, poverty and diseases. They will see the picture I have just sketched as an indictment of the existing structures. They will have no difficulty in pointing out that some of the problems I have mentioned barely existed in 1945, except perhaps in the minds of science-fiction writ ers… And finally, they will take pleasure in underlining how much the international community has changed since the inception of the UN, that the world no longer revolves around two rival superpowers, embodying two opposing economic social and political systems and that power in the world order is shifting. Of course we all know that. Does it follow that the UN system has reached the end of its useful life and that solutions should be sought outside it ? This is not something I can accept. The fact that an institutional system was designed in an era with different problems, different actors and a different balance of power does not as such mean that it has become redundant. Quite to the contrary. I believe that the arguments in favour of the multilateral system, with the UN at its core, remain every bit as relevant today as they have ever been. Of course, coming from a small country, I have a natural bias in favour of multilateral structures, such a the EU and the UN, as I am bound to fare better in such organisations than in a bilateral context where the more powerful actors inevitably tend to prevail at the expense of the smaller ones.
Even so, I strongly believe that there are objective arguments to support the view that a rules-based multilateral system is the best solution to serve the needs of the entire international community, including both its larger and smaller members. The UN system provides the only global framework where States can act together to tackle the challenges faced by the whole of mankind, while enjoying the full protection of international law. The UN charter specifies the rights and obligations of all the members, whose sovereignty and dignity it protects. The rules and procedures agreed by all are the foundation of the system. They are the source of its legitimacy. It is within that framework that all States, including the most powerful ones, have delegated to the Organisation the responsibility to protect world peace. It is a tribute to the foresight of the drafters of the Charter that they largely resisted the temptation to settle for the age-old solution and draft a peace treaty that would have served only the purposes of the victors of the day and stored trouble for the future. This foresight has preserved us from a new global conflict and we still benefit from it today. Moreover, the architects of the post-war order did not limit themselves to a narrow vision of peace and security. They did not forget that it was the economic and social collapse of the early 30’s that co ntributed decisively to the coming of war. They understood the need to take into account the financial, economic, social and cultural dimension of a new world order and created a whole system of multilateral institutions to address all these issues.
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