Beyond Transnational Governance

Abstract

REFERENCES TO WORLD GOVERNMENT have long been treated as utopian notions held by a few visionaries. This much-dismissed vision is re-examined here in light of the fact that self-determination based on national governments, to the extent that it existed a generation ago, is increasingly curtailed by transnational developments. Weapons of mass destruction (and the means to build them) are traded across national borders. Hate materials, drugs, guns, and child pornography banned in one country are readily accessed via the internet in others. Civil war in one country (for example, Yugoslavia) threatens others with massive immigration. Crime is increasingly organized across state lines and is on the rise.(1) Women and children are sold across borders into slavery for sex and forced labour.(2) A currency collapse in Russia, Thailand, or Indonesia rattles the world's financial markets. A computer virus set loose in the Philippines causes worldwide disruptions. Supranational corporations shift capital and jobs from one nation to another, circumventing national policies, regulations, and taxes. While these problems and others like them differ greatly from one another, they have one common denominator: the national institutions that are supposed to express people's preferences in these matters are increasingly ineffective in coping with them.This article takes for granted that the old functional approach is properly discredited, that the fact that there is a growing need for some different form for managing transnational problems does not mean that a new system will necessarily develop. Nor does it mean that world government is necessarily the only or the likely response, even if some new global architecture does arise. Rather, the discussion focuses on recent changes in global architecture, whether they might suffice to deal with the increase in transnational problems, and the different types of global architecture that could arise in response to the future escalation of these problems.INTERGOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM IS OVERLOADEDReference was made to the decreasing ability of national governments to cope with rising problems that are increasingly transnational in nature. The same holds true for the old international system, based on bi- or multilateral agreements by national governments and on international organizations composed of national governments, largely because the old system is not well suited for a high volume of significant governing activities.One major reason for the increasing inadequacy of the old international system is that it is largely an intergovernmental one that draws on formal procedures, relies on decision-making by representatives of national governments, and involves large numbers of actors. In this system, worldwide policies are formed - as is well known - through negotiations, via accredited diplomats or other national representatives, sometimes involving as many as two hundred nations. Diplomats must consult with and receive instructions from home-based authorities (the Department of State and the White House in the United States or their equivalents in other countries). Significant parts of these agreements must be ratified by national legislatures, which takes years. Often they are not ratified at all or demand further adaptation, which then requires years more of inter-national negotiations.Moreover, when agreements finally are reached, they are often not honoured or are openly breached; frequently, the mechanisms for enforcement either do not exist or are themselves cumbersome, slow, and weak and can handle only a small volume of traffic. The argument may be made that the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have worked reasonably well.(3) However, one should note that trade is different in character from most other transnational issues,(4) and it is hence a mistake to generalize from the experience of trade treaties and organizations to other transnational treaties and organizations. …