Mark Dick and Tony Emerson discussed this important question regarding global governance in the Joy in Enough talk on Wednesday 15 March 2023 at 7pm
Mark Dick writes (based on A World Parliament by Jo Leinen and Andreas Bummel): - Why the need for a World Parliament? ……..Because it is time to represent all of humanity in decision making. Presently we, the peoples, have no say at a global level.
What would it look like? A directly elected second (first!) chamber at the UN? Central decision makers must be held accountable. A world parliament would aid the development of a planetary consciousness, and ideological voting-blocks would form to discuss shared ideas and eventually global political parties would emerge, to have open discussion on globalisation, climate change etc.
A practical idea? Visionary? Not workable? Could a kind of global citizens assembly ever be workable?
Questions from Tony
Can you briefly outline how democracy has evolves through the ages?
Assembly Democracy — ancient Athens -spoken word
Electoral Democracy — 1776 - 1945 - written word
Monitory Democracy (John Keane) - post-1945 digital mass communication
Global Democracy? assemblies, elections and more monitoring and citizen engagement
What are the political obstacles that need to be overcome?
Who governs the world, and how? Well global governance is messy and complicated. It can be divided into (1) state centred governance, (2) multi-stakeholder governance and (3) private governance.
Firstly, International organisations like the United Nations are not fully democratic (one state, one vote with no population weighing); the World Bank and IMF are more one dollar, one vote (US holds a veto) and operate unfair loan conditionalities to poorer nations; the G7 and G20 “Clubs of Governments” are undemocratic and operate behind closed doors; and even more secretive are trans-governmental networks such as Financial Stability Board FSB and International Competition Network ICN.
Secondly, multi-stakeholder governance includes government officials, NGOs and trans-national business organisations but who elected them, whom do they represent – shareholder/corporate rule? Multi-stakeholder networks dealt badly with COVID through COVAX.
Thirdly, private governance is the most undemocratic governance of all : Big Finance, Big Oil, Big Pharma. There is no regulation of banking in the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) or internet domain name access in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the problems of the Investor State Dispute System (ISDS) demonstrate how undemocratic our world is. Corporate courts and private tribunals seem to be necessary to enforce global business law for the elite but global human rights law has no such governance. Far better to have a global democracy overseeing all global governance.
A federation is one political unit with subsidiarity of devolved powers to regions (multi-level governance), but with two central chambers one to represent the states/regions and one to represent individual citizens. A confederation is a union of equal sovereign states. The EU is a hybrid model. Thirty countries (mostly the larger ones) are federations (40% of world population) because federations are excellent for large complex societies (giving equal status to all citizens). Unfortunately, the UN is a weak confederation of sovereign states with no representation for individuals. Federation could improve global governance and world politics by transferring power both up and down to aid redistribution and tackling climate change.
Mark Dick and Tony Emerson discussed this important question regarding global governance in the Joy in Enough talk on Wednesday 15 March 2023 at 7pm
Mark Dick writes (based on A World Parliament by Jo Leinen and Andreas Bummel): - Why the need for a World Parliament? ……..Because it is time to represent all of humanity in decision making. Presently we, the peoples, have no say at a global level.
What would it look like? A directly elected second (first!) chamber at the UN? Central decision makers must be held accountable. A world parliament would aid the development of a planetary consciousness, and ideological voting-blocks would form to discuss shared ideas and eventually global political parties would emerge, to have open discussion on globalisation, climate change etc.
A practical idea? Visionary? Not workable? Could a kind of global citizens assembly ever be workable?
Questions from Tony
Can you briefly outline how democracy has evolves through the ages?
Assembly Democracy — ancient Athens -spoken word
Electoral Democracy — 1776 - 1945 - written word
Monitory Democracy (John Keane) - post-1945 digital mass communication
Global Democracy? assemblies, elections and more monitoring and citizen engagement
What are the political obstacles that need to be overcome?
Who governs the world, and how? Well global governance is messy and complicated. It can be divided into (1) state centred governance, (2) multi-stakeholder governance and (3) private governance.
Firstly, International organisations like the United Nations are not fully democratic (one state, one vote with no population weighing); the World Bank and IMF are more one dollar, one vote (US holds a veto) and operate unfair loan conditionalities to poorer nations; the G7 and G20 “Clubs of Governments” are undemocratic and operate behind closed doors; and even more secretive are trans-governmental networks such as Financial Stability Board FSB and International Competition Network ICN.
Secondly, multi-stakeholder governance includes government officials, NGOs and trans-national business organisations but who elected them, whom do they represent – shareholder/corporate rule? Multi-stakeholder networks dealt badly with COVID through COVAX.
Thirdly, private governance is the most undemocratic governance of all : Big Finance, Big Oil, Big Pharma. There is no regulation of banking in the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) or internet domain name access in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the problems of the Investor State Dispute System (ISDS) demonstrate how undemocratic our world is. Corporate courts and private tribunals seem to be necessary to enforce global business law for the elite but global human rights law has no such governance. Far better to have a global democracy overseeing all global governance.
A federation is one political unit with subsidiarity of devolved powers to regions (multi-level governance), but with two central chambers one to represent the states/regions and one to represent individual citizens. A confederation is a union of equal sovereign states. The EU is a hybrid model. Thirty countries (mostly the larger ones) are federations (40% of world population) because federations are excellent for large complex societies (giving equal status to all citizens). Unfortunately, the UN is a weak confederation of sovereign states with no representation for individuals. Federation could improve global governance and world politics by transferring power both up and down to aid redistribution and tackling climate change.