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Module 5.
Contemporary Global Governance

At the end of the discussions in this module, the students are expected to:
1. Identify the roles and functions of the United Nations;
2. Discuss the challenges of global governance in the twenty-first century; and
3. Explain the relevance of the state amid globalization.

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Introduction

This module discusses the essential role of the United Nations Organization for
multilateral negotiations represented by the General Assembly. Its existence in the current
state of world affairs has affected a lot of nations. While the Assembly is empowered to
make only non-binding recommendations to States on international issues (including
concerns and issues on globalization) within its competence, it has, nonetheless, initiated
actions - political, economic, humanitarian, social and legal - which have affected the lives
of millions of people throughout the world. The module covers the challenges of global
governance and the voices of individual states through the Assembly of the United Nations.

Brief History and Principles of the United Nations

Prior to the United Nations (UN), the League of Nations was the international
organization responsible for ensuring peace and cooperation between world nations. It was
founded in 1919 to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security. At
its height, the League of Nations had 58 members and was considered successful. In the
1930s, its success waned as the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) gained influence,
eventually leading to the start of World War II in 1939.
The term "United Nations" was then coined in 1942 by Winston Churchill and
Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Declaration by United Nations. This declaration was made to
officially state the cooperation of the Allies (Great Britain, the United States, and the former
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and other nations during World War II.
The UN as it is known today, however, was not officially founded until 1945 when
the Charter of the United Nations was drafted at the UN Conference on International

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Organization in San Francisco, California. The conference was attended by 50 nations and
several non-governmental organizations - all of which signed the Charter. The UN officially
came into existence on October 24, 1945, after ratification of the Charter. The principles of
the UN as explained in the Charter are: (a) to save future generations from war; (b) reaffirm
human rights; and (c) establish equal rights for all persons. In addition, it also aims to
promote justice, freedom, and social progress for the peoples of all of its member states.

Organization of the United Nations Today

In order to handle the complex task of getting its member states to cooperate most
efficiently, the UN today is divided into five branches:
1. The first is the UN General Assembly. This is the main decision-making and
representative assembly in the UN and is responsible for upholding the principles of
the UN through its policies and recommendations. It is composed of all member
states, is headed by a president elected from the member states, and meets from
September to December each year;
2. The UN Security Council is another branch in the organization of the UN and is the
most powerful of all the branches. It has power to authorize the deployment UN
member states' militaries, can mandate a cease-fire during conflicts, and can enforce
penalties on countries if they do not comply with given mandates. It is composed of
five permanent members and ten rotating members;

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3. The next branch of the UN is the International Court of Justice, located in The
Hague, Netherlands. This branch is responsible for the judicial matters of the UN;
4. The UN Economic and Social Council is a branch that assists the General Assembly
in promoting economic and social development as well as the cooperation of
member states; and
5. Finally, the UN Secretariat is the branch in the UN headed by the Secretary General.
Its main responsibility is providing studies, information, and other data when needed
by other UN branches for their meetings (Briney, 2017).

United Nations Membership

Today, almost every fully recognized independent states are member states in the
UN. As outlined in the UN Charter, to become a member of the UN, a state must accept both
peace and all obligations outlined in the Charter and be willing to carry out any action to
satisfy those obligations. The final decision on admission to the UN is carried out by the
General Assembly after recommendation by the Security Council.

Functions of the United Nations Today

As it was in the past, the main function of the UN today is to maintain peace and
security for all of its member states. Though the UN does not maintain its own military, it
does have peacekeeping forces which are supplied by its member states. On approval of the
UN Security Council, these peacekeepers are often sent to regions where armed conflict has
recently ended to discourage combatants from resuming fighting. In 1988, the peacekeeping
force won a Nobel Peace Prize for its actions.
In addition to maintaining peace, the UN aims to protect human rights and provide
humanitarian assistance when needed. In 1948, the General Assembly adopted
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a standard for its human rights operations.
The UN currently provides technical assistance in elections, helps to improve
judicial structures and draft constitutions, trains human rights officials, and provides food,
drinking water, shelter, and other humanitarian services to peoples displaced by famine, war,
and natural disaster.
Finally, the UN plays an integral part in social and economic development through
its UN Development Program. This is the largest source of technical grant assistance in the
world. In addition, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, The Global Fund to Fight

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AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, the UN Population Fund, and the World Bank Group to
name a few play an essential role in this aspect of the UN as well. The UN also annually
publishes the Human Development Index to rank countries in terms of poverty, literacy,
education, and life expectancy.
The UN has established what it calls its Millennium Development Goals. This
landmark declaration, adopted in 2000, and the 2005 World Summit Outcome
Document reflected the commitment of Member States to reach specific goals to attain
peace, security and disarmament along with development and poverty eradication; child
mortality, fighting diseases and epidemics, develop global partnership in terms of
international development, safeguard human rights and promote the rule of law; protect the
common environment; meet the special needs of Africa; and strengthen the United Nations.
Most of its member states and various international organizations have all agreed to achieve
these goals.
As the MDG culminated in 2015, some member states have achieved a number of
the agreement's millennium development goals while others have reached none. For the
future, the Second (Sustainable) Development Goals gave the UN another set of tasks to
work on from 2016 to 2030. The UN has been successful over the years and only the future
can tell how the true realization of these goals will play out among member nations (Briney,
2017).

The Search for Consensus

Each Member State in the Assembly has one vote. Votes taken on designated
important issues, such as recommendations on peace and security and the election of
Security Council members, require a two-thirds majority of Member States, but other
questions are decided by simple majority.
In recent years, a special effort has been made to achieve consensus on issues, rather
than deciding by a formal vote, thus strengthening support for the Assembly’s decisions.
The President, after having consulted and reached agreement with delegations, can propose
that a resolution be adopted without a vote.

The UN and the Challenges of Global Governance

By the end of the 20th century, the UN member nations through its Assembly had
proclaimed its role in promoting development in the context of globalization and
interdependence (sunthesized from the 1999 54th session of the The General Assembly –
Item on Globalization and Interdependence by the Secretary-General).

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Accordingly, globalization is a subject that has been on the agenda of the United
Nations system and its component organizations for a considerable period of time, both from
analytical as well as normative and operational perspectives. The present report is not meant
to be an analysis of the nature, dynamics or manifestations of globalization per se, nor a
description of current work of individual organizations of the system in relevant areas.
Rather, the report seeks to clarify the ways in which the complex phenomenon of
globalization affects development and the implications of this interaction for the
development role of the United Nations.
While the principal focus of the report is on the core issues of finance and trade, it
seeks also to identify ramifications of globalization processes in other areas and to explore
ways of enhancing the coherence of the United Nations system’s response to these
interrelated challenges. The document aims to identify and further enhance the role of the
United Nations system in designing and implementing a response, both at national and
international levels, to the challenges posed by globalization. The analysis at the global level
is supplemented by a review of country-level trends.

Challenges of Globalization and Interdependence

The Document highlighted that identifying the nature and contents of globalization,
in particular from the development perspective, is imperative for developing effective policy
responses to its challenges. There are different ways of looking at globalization:
a. Some emphasize the increased mobility of factors of production, goods and services
across borders and the resultant emergence of a truly global market;
b. Others see primarily the results - and future potential - of an explosive progress in
information technology; and
c. Still others view globalization primarily from societal and cultural perspectives.

While all these reflect certain aspects of globalization from the development
perspective the quantum change brought about by it is not internationalization of production
per se, nor the telecommunications revolution, nor the emergence of “uncivil” society etc....,
it is the impact and cumulative implications of all these processes on policy making and
policy implementation, both at the national and international levels that present the two
principal challenges of globalization as far as United Nations development activities are
concerned.

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The UN see that as the forces of globalization affect all aspects of people’s lives, the
policy responses to globalization must be therefore both comprehensive and coherent.
National and international policies affecting trade, finance, social and environmental aspects
must be formulated keeping in view the interrelatedness of these issues and the cumulative
impact of globalization. Among the first and foremost challenges posed by globalization
include:

1. The challenge of bringing coherence to policy-making

Given its universality, democratic character and broad mandate, the United Nations
has a clear comparative advantage in promoting such coherence both at the national and
international levels. Moreover, while the United Nations is an organization of sovereign
Member States, the Organization by necessity finds itself more and more often in a role of
promoting, formulating and implementing policy responses that must go beyond national
actions to be effective. Indeed, globalization tends to erode one of the principal marks of
national authority, namely complete and exclusive control of the national currency and
associated financial currency. Globally circulating monies have greatly affected national
management of money supply, exchange rates and interest levels.
On the whole, the power of global financial capital is such that Governments have
felt constrained to respond to the markets with sometimes severely restrictive policies often
with painful consequences for the vulnerable segments of the population. Also, credit-rating
agencies which assess the creditworthiness of many countries can exercise a significant
influence on macroeconomic policies. National economic policies must therefore respond to
world markets and the power of such market forces is so great that only coordinated
cooperation. and comprehensive responses can have the desired impact on market
behaviour.

2. All States are increasingly vulnerable to erosion of their ability to act effectively
and with authority.
Many transnational processes impinge on national sovereignty. Besides trade and
finance and other macroeconomic policies, one may think about global environmental
degradation, the increasingly massive refugee and migrant flows, and such epidemics as
acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome (AIDS). These issues are varied, but they have in
common that none of them can be solved by means of solely domestic policies. Individually,
nation States can do little more than control the symptoms. Getting at the cause demands
coordinated international action. Globalization thus has promoted increased multilateralism

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in some areas, for example in responding to financial crises, but much less in others. And
even many of the multilateral responses have been ad hoc and time limited.

3. Institutional or governance deficit is another challenge of globalization.

The globalization of production by transnational corporations, international finance,
information, large-scale movements of people and greatly increased cultural flows have not
been matched by a corresponding reshaping of institutions and regulatory mechanisms.
The crisis the world faces is the outcome of the fact that institutional arrangements
for economic governance have fallen way behind the realities of the growth and
interdependence that we call globalization. Increasingly, effective public action to manage
the economy needs to be coordinated among States and, as in the case of trade, an open and
rule-based system, overseen or implemented by such bodies as the World Trade
Organization (WTO). Such concerted action does not necessarily weaken States; rather it
can strengthen them by stabilizing the external economic environment and thus giving them
greater scope to pursue national goals.

Role of the United Nations

The United Nations is uniquely suited to assume normative leadership for
“globalization with a human face”. It can do so by promoting a broader vision of human
development. As a first step in this direction, it needs to help devise an effective response to
the twin challenges of globalization: the need for greater policy coherence and institutional
capacity-building at the national, regional and global levels.
This implies that the development work of the United Nations, both at the analytical
and normative level, and its operational activities need to be more sharply focused on
meeting those challenges than is currently the case. It also implies that the United Nations
will need to work very closely with key partners - the Bretton Woods institutions and other
organizations of the system, Governments of both developed and developing countries, the
corporate and financial sectors and civil society institutions at large — to build the necessary
consensus around the need for change in policies and institutions.
As noted, the potential benefits of globalization are vast, yet many developing
countries are and will remain ill positioned to partake in these benefits unless a concerted
effort is made by the international community to facilitate their integration into the world
economy. Trade and finance are the two most prominent channels through which such
integration occurs. But with an increasingly knowledge based world economy, technological
know-how, in particular information technology and its concomitant human skills, is

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essential. With goods and services and capital moving increasingly frictionless and
unencumbered, movements of people between countries will become more and more
difficult to regulate and transnational crimes, as manifested through money-laundering,
more and more difficult to contain.
The well-worn phrase “no nation State can go it alone” has to move from slogan to
practical action. Practical action means foremost agreeing on the “rules of the game” and
building institutional oversight capacity, be it in trade, finance, technology transfer,
migration or transnational crimefighting, to stay with the issues raised in the present report.
The United Nations is the pre-eminent body to launch the discussions on setting
those rules, norms and standards and to build consensus around the institutional
arrangements needed for applying them. It does not follow that the Organization in each and
every instance will actually formulate or implement those rules. In many cases those will be
prepared and negotiated in other more technical forums. However, there is no other
institution better placed than the United Nations to give the political impetus and legitimacy
to the devising of rules, norms and standards, because it is universal and democratic in its
membership and it has a broad deliberative function which allows it to consider all aspects
of development issues in their political context along the following:
1. The Assembly could encourage a deepening of reflection on global economic
governance in the context of globalization.
2. As far as policy coherence and institutional capacity-building are concerned, the
biannual high-level General Assembly meetings on the renewal of dialogue should
provide an important opportunity for a broad-based dialogue on such issues.
3. The themes and issues identified in the reports of the Secretary-General on the
renewal of dialogue could be used as a frame of reference for structuring the
dialogue for the next three or four rounds.
4. Similarly, key events, such as financing for development, UNCTAD X and the five-
year reviews of global conferences, if approached as a series of interrelated forums
rather than separate events, should serve to advance the overall agenda of
strengthening the capacity for economic governance;
5. The Assembly could also encourage the Economic and Social Council to discuss the
possibility of establishing a task force on this topic, with developing and
industrialized countries and civil society representation. Such a task force could
focus on the ways and means of promoting policy coherence and related institutional
changes and report to the Council, IMF, the World Bank and WTO;

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6. Given its system-wide coordination functions, the Economic and Social Council can
make an important contribution to enhancing policy coherence. To this end, the
Council could be encouraged to deepen its dialogue with the Bretton Woods
institutions and WTO. It could encourage the United Nations system to develop
integrated policy responses and a set of mutually reinforcing actions to address
globalization, based on the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences. The
Council should build on the momentum created by its efforts to promote a
coordinated system-wide response to these conferences;
7. With regard to trade, notwithstanding that its regulatory aspects fall under the
umbrella of WTO, the United Nations and in particular UNCTAD should continue to
focus attention on issues of concern from a development policy perspective. These
relate to the difficulties that developing countries, especially the least developed
African countries, continue to face in market access and in diversifying their
production and exports, the problems that are likely to arise when preferential access
comes to an end, as well as the inability of poor and small countries to effectively
participate in multilateral negotiations and to take advantage of WTO dispute
settlement mechanisms;
8. Following the adoption of the ministerial declaration on market access by the
Council at the high-level segment of its substantive session of 1998, the Assembly
could encourage continued deepening of trade liberalization by developed and
developing countries, in particular in sectors of export interest to developing
countries;
9. Appropriate arrangements for consultations between the Council and the WTO
Council could also be considered to examine how to better integrate the
developmental perspective into the trade arena;
10. Consideration could also be given to creating an independent legal aid facility and an
ombudsman to support developing countries in WTO.
Stronger public action is also needed to support the development of new
technologies for human development and the eradication of poverty. The Economic and
Social Council at the high-level segment of its substantive session of 2000, when it
considers the role of information technology, could examine ways to ensure that developing
countries’ interests are addressed in the decisions on and governance of global
communications and of the Internet in particular. It could also consider the launching of an
international programme to support public investment in technologies for the needs of poor
people and poor countries.

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