Just back from a very stimulating trip to Colombia, where a group of Latin American & international thinkers, ex-diplomats and strategists explored the future of global governance. (I also spent time with ex-FARC combatants in the Amazon, but that's another story!)
My main take-aways:
- We're trying to move from an 'old logic' of international relations, defined by the primacy of national interest and national sovereignty, great power dominance and imperialism to a 'logic of the future' that focuses on collaborative sovereignty, equitable distribution of power, and strategic mutualism.
- While there are many different proposed reforms on the table to make multilateralism more effective, they largely fall under the concepts of a 'Global Commons' and 'Nothing About Us Without Us'.
- For some, focusing on Security Council reform is a waste of time. Making it more democratic would make it less effective - and how much impact do its resolutions have anyway? Critics argue there are better areas to focus our energy.
- Even governments are disappointed by the lack of ambition in the 'zero draft' of the UN Summit of the Future's outcome declaration, and are currently working to improve it. But civil society's posture is mostly defensive: many are fighting to avoid language in the text that will undo previous wins.
- Low-capacity governments need support to be able to formulate policy positions that are in their countries' best interests. They have not had the bandwidth to absorb all the policy briefs the Secretary-General has produced, and their engagement has thus far been limited as a result.
- The biggest traction is on reform of the international financial architecture, and a review is soon to be launched of the Bretton Woods Institutions. Less progress is expected in major reforms to the world's peace and security architecture.
- While it's easy to think this isn't a conducive moment for a conversation about improving global cooperation, the Human Rights Council, the Peacebuilding Commission and the notion of Responsibility to Protect came out of a similarly difficult moment in geopolitics, after the Iraq War. The choice is between "breakdown or breakthrough".
- The Summit of the Future is not be the be-and-all, but a useful touchpoint on a much longer journey of reform of multilateralism; a moment when important seeds can be planted. To that end, proponents of triggering a formal review of the UN Charter - via Article 109 of the Charter- are growing in number, and more broadly, the global governance reform movement is alive and well!
Thank you to Project Starling's Minh-Thu Pham, Cepei Think Tank's Philipp Schönrock and Southern Voice's Andrea Ordóñez Llanos for organising! And to Jonathan Glennie for insisting I join! Great to see/meet Natalie Samarasinghe, Ryan M., Alex Urwin, Mauricio Artiñano Guzmán, Aarathi Krishnan, Martín Vidal, Carole Osero-Ageng'o, Maiara Folly, Philani Mthembu, Jesselina Rana and many others!
