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RE-THINKING WORLD GOVERNANCE
towards the constitution of a human identity

Draft study and reflection
(translated from the French original)

“While it is urgent to warn, it is even more urgent to begin”.
Edgar Morin

On the initiative of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil, and Michel Rocard, former Prime Minister of France, the Collegium International is meeting in Sao Paolo on the 6th and 7th of November 2009. Members of the International Collegium, statespersons, and leading scientists, economists and philosophers will come together to create a Blueprint for world political governance. This Blueprint will be aimed not only at governmental executives, but also civil society representatives, who will all contribute to this debate, which is intended to be as broad as possible. To this end, the Collegium International website will consecrate an entire section to these debates.

1. The objective of this initiative is to renew the concept of World Governance.
An international debate, both intellectual and political, will be launched on a subject that even today is all too often reduced to the reform – albeit essential – of the UN and the operation of its agencies.
In addition, this reflection is occurring at a favourable historical moment, where the planetary dimension of contemporary challenges and their associated dangers are finally beginning to make their way into our consciences.

2. A particular geopolitical context: the end of hegemonies
- A post-imperial world: The key lesson of universalisation is that no single State is able to ensure respect for world order and impose essential global regulation. For the first time in the history of international relations, there is no genuine hegemonic power. The recognition by President Obama, that the United States alone cannot contend with and regulate the problems of the contemporary world, announces the end, at least provisionally, of the American temptation of Athenian-like imperial democracy. The end of this imperial dream, thwarted in Baghdad and Kabul as the resounding failure of the last great modern colonial endeavour, echoes the dislocation of the Soviet empire just 20 years ago. Moreover, the concept of multipolarity signifies not the end but the balance of hegemonic temptation. It is thus necessary to work with alternative models of organization other than hegemony and the balance of powers.
- A post-Western world: We are seeing not only the end of a hegemony of one or more great imperialist powers, but also the end of the cultural and political domination of the Occident. Over the past ten years, the progressive and indisputable appearance on the international scene of States and groupings of States – Asian, Arab, Latin-American, and even African – has prodded Western powers to give them the attention they deserve. Today, it is less the universality of the Western values that is concerned, since it is precisely on these values that these new actors rely, but rather the universality of their practical application. It is time to work with modes of action that are above any suspicion of “double standards”.

3. A particular socio-political context: the emergence of a “world society”
- The influence of non-state actors: After three centuries under the absolutist Westphalian concept of the nation state, more and more non-state actors are intervening in the international arena, complicating the traditional balance of power. This is clearly the situation with Multi-National Companies, whose capitalization and economic weight are sometimes on an equal footing with governments, including the most powerful. These non-state actors can also include criminal, terrorist or mafia networks. Lastly, social movements, trade-union confederations and NGOs embody a new form of trans-national militancy, organized at a global scale and comprised of reasonably dense and effective local networks. Capable of tapping funds to sustain their activities and campaigns, these NGOs combine scientific expertise and public intervention to further an alternative vision of the common good, which is sometimes opposed to the vision the State is supposed to represent.
- The emergence of a collective conscience: While it is difficult to evaluate with certainty the sense of collective membership of entities that are more abstract and broader than national communities, we are seeing today the evolution of something close to world civilization, created by the interactive play of science, technology, industry, transport, and instant communication whose grid offers a global perspective to individuals that were until now limited to the national sphere. This emerging world civilization is based on a certain number of shared values, and its multiple cross-cultural currents constitute an almost planetary culture.

4. A community of shared destinies – markers towards a human identity
Ecological disaster, economic recession, famines, viral pandemics, political instability, terrorist threats and nuclear power…. Since the great crises of the 21st century are planetary, we have no choice but to acknowledge our interdependence.
With past catastrophes and others to come, and poised at a crossroad of emergencies, humanity is finally becoming aware that its former categorical imperative has become an “absolute imperative”. We must change! Any crisis is a crossroad – and the conjunction of these crises is no exception – an historical chance to reverse these dangerous dynamics. If there is a lesson to be learnt from this time of crisis, it is that there can only be collective safety.
In December, almost the entire destiny of humanity will be at stake in the Kingdom of Denmark. Coming together in Copenhagen for the great world conference that must decide urgent common measures to deal with the inexorable warming of the planet, heads of state of the world will have to answer, on our behalf, the same question that haunted the young Hamlet: To be or not to be?
Yes, it is indeed the survival of humanity that is at issue. And this survival relies on the introduction of world governance worthy of this name, since the few elements of international regulation, and the rare institutions that act effectively on a global scale, are dramatically insufficient. World governance is above all the capacity to rise above haggling national interests, in order to make global political decisions – in the name of humanity itself.

5. Opening world debate on world governance
From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the proclamation of the Millennium Development Objectives or the UN report of the Commission on Human Security, the values that have inspired the United Nations have never been more relevant. After sixty years of relative hibernation in the chilly shadow of totalitarian empires or imperial democracies, its action can finally become effective and contribute to the emergence of world political governance. However, although essential, the reform of this great institution will not be enough, since the key issue is to move beyond inter-governmentalism. Naturally, the States retain their legitimacy to represent their people, however we are no longer living in an era of national sovereignty, but of world sovereignty. At a time where a true world-society is taking shape, there is a double legitimacy that must be established: that of rule of law as a principle of organization, and that of a system of bodies capable of catalysing global political decisions – in the name of mankind.
The concept of the so-called “international” community can no longer remain this vague reference, devoid of any political character. Too often scorned as the projection of Western prejudices, and a disguised form of colonial thinking, this “international community” needs its own representative body.
International regulations, universal law, distant solidarity, changing points of reference for membership of a political community, legitimacy and representativeness of non-state actors, sovereignty of humanity… the construction of world governance is huge. This is why we call for the opening of a common and in-depth reflection on this urgent existential question.