Global Governance and Rights to Development: Opportunity or Charade?

Abstract

The complex and asymmetric relationship between the nation state, ‘capital’ and global structures of governance makes the pursuance of rights to development easier said than done. As I have discussed in previous Chapters, the global capital market has shifted the locus of effective political power away from the nation state, while at the same time testing its regulative authority. This also impacts on the distribution of roles and responsibilities between state and non-state actors in a world that is politically and economically interconnected. Although the current global political and economic order continues to be based on local territorial sovereignty, its prospect is clearly shaped by global and intergovernmental networks. The network of organisations, which effectively governs the new ‘global order’, is captured by the umbrella term ‘global governance’ (Risse, 2005: 350). In this Chapter I will consider whether institutions of global governance can, as suggested by proponents of Cosmopolitanism, be reformed and restructured to deliver a mechanism for addressing inequality, poverty and environmental issues at all levels from the local to the global. In other words could institutions of global governance enhance state capacity to deliver rights? How expedient is it to engage a diversity of agents in development, thereby extending responsibility for delivering rights beyond the state? Could the concept of global justice be the key to the effective delivery of rights for the individual or community?KeywordsInternational Monetary FundPoor CountryAsylum SeekerRich CountrySocial ProtectionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.