Which Is and Will Be the Most Powerful Institution Guiding Human Activity in the Next Century - Essay Example

Full Full Submitted Which is and will be the most powerful guiding human activity in the next century... the state... the market ... or NGOS and IGOS? Pick an issue and say how each institution would play a role in solving a problem or exacerbating it. In the next century, the world will have been more globalized, economies will have been more integrated, and nations will have been more interdependent that intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) rather than the state or the market will be the most powerful institution guiding human activity, specifically that which pertains to peace and security. Why is this so? First, most issues will have continued to be supra-national in nature to which the state is inherently constricted by its territorial boundaries. Hence, there is the increasing need for global governance (UBUNTU Foundation 94). As such, this makes IGOs most in demand, because the very supra-national nature of IGOs enables them to transcend the limitations of the state, while allowing them to act just like the state. In short, IGOs can govern globally. Where the state cannot intervene into the peace and security problem of a neighboring state, IGOs can. As defined, IGOs are created through a constitutive treaty involving two or more nations that come together in good faith for a common issue of interest. They are meant to create a mechanism through which nations of the world could work collaboratively more successfully concerning peace and security, economic and social issues. (Koteen, par. 1-2) Thus unlike NGOs, IGOs, Pease explains, have international legal personality. Meaning, IGOs are authorized to act under international law. For example, they can enter into international agreements with other international organizations and states; they can file a case in national courts; and they are also given immunities similar to the state. (6-7) Therefore, IGOs can be as powerful as the state in a much broader framework. Second, the unregulated dominant position of the market in the world economy, as manifested by the pervading powers of transnational and multinational corporations, is perceived not only to have increasingly threatened the sovereignty of nations but also to have caused poverty and to have widened inequality as it polarizes the world between the rich North and the poor South (Lodge and Wilson 9), which to many are enough reasons for violent conflicts to further intensify and for rebellion and terrorism to be justified. Though it may be argued that poverty is not the main cause of terrorism, Von Hippel sustains that there exists a significant relationship between economic vulnerability and radicalism and terrorism (52-53). Suffice it to say therefore that the market, given its greed for profit, tends to exacerbate rather than mitigate violence and insecurity. Given this negative perception of the market, the need for global governance to regulate the market in order to lessen its impact on global economic inequality, consequently lessening possible sources of global insecurity, will become a necessity. Hence, the IGOs will become more influential. In fact, history shows the consistent trend that every after major world conflicts (i.e., Russo-Japanese War, World War I, and World War II), the emergence of IGOs for peace and security sharply increases (Jordan 18). Since the threats of world conflicts, though may no longer be in the form of world war, remains; the necessity for IGOs stands. Third, IGOs have consistently shown their effectiveness not only in finding ways to help resolve interstate conflicts but even in helping nation-state deal with its intractable conflicts (Brahm, par. 1). Hence, the prime usefulness of IGOs rests on their capability to provide states with a forum through which they can sit down and resolve their conflicts – Something that the market and the nation-state have not shown to be capable of. This cited effectiveness of IGOs could be attributed to the very purpose of their creation, which Brahm continues, is to facilitate cooperation among its member nations. Thus, the very framework of IGOs is directed at the promotion of peace and security which is different from that of the state, which purpose is sovereignty or that of the market, which purpose is profit. It is also worthy to note that IGOs could be usurped by powerful states in their bid to control political power. Perhaps, a study of IGOs will probably reveal that they are driven and dominated by powerful states. Nonetheless, this can only strengthen the claim that IGOs will be the most powerful institution guiding human activity, specifically that which pertains to peace and security, because it will be through them that powerful states will try to influence the activities of the world. However, these IGOs will be more regional in scope, like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Organization of American States (OAS), or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) rather than global in scope like the United Nations (UN), International Monetary Fund (IMF), or International Labor Organization (ILO). Global trends show that peace and security issues are easier to define regionally than locally, nationally or globally, making regional IGOs increasingly important (Tavares 3). For instance, the North is threatened with terrorism using weapons of mass destruction; whereas the South is confronted with peace problems characterized by intrastate wars, failing states, violently abusive government, and in some cases inter-state wars (Fearon 2-3). In fact, the UN has recognized the effectiveness of regional IGOs in promoting regional peace and security (Tavares 3). Furthermore, compared with the UN and the like, state membership in regional IGOs could be easier to achieve not only due to their limited scope but more so due to issues that commonly concern them. 2. Is global warming a "real" problem in International Relations and if so why has the world done so little about it? The US and China are the greatest polluters. Why are their circumstances policies and goals different? Global warming is a real problem in international relations because, as Denmark’s State Secretary Ib Petersen notes, it is a multidimensional, invisible, unpredictable, and borderless global problem necessitating a global solution that explores for greater interdependence and integration. Therefore, the global impact of global warming requires a consensus and strong commitment among nation-states, most especially the greater contributors to the problem, the industrialized nations. (Drexhage et al. vi) However, it is precisely the achievement of greater integration where the problem in international relations lies. For one, global warming brings to fore the issue of the relationship between the human population’s general consumption of natural resources and the threshold set in its utilization (Luterbacher 3). Asked who consumes most at whose expense will bring the problem of economic inequality where the industrialized countries exploit most of and gained most from the world’s resources at the expense of poor countries. This imbalanced international relationship in resource utilization has a devastating implication once again against the poor countries. According to Luterbacher, studies of historical climate change suggest that the greatest impact of future climate change will actually be on poor countries because they do not have other recourse that will enable them to adapt to sudden changes, yet they have higher population to feed, to clothe, to shelter and to secure (8). Another thing, “climate stability is a good in joint supply, because all countries can enjoy it without prejudice to other’s consumption” (Weale 193). Thus, the call for greater international cooperation to overcome the threats of global warming becomes problematic because the achievement of collective good subsequently creates free riding. In fact, not all countries who committed to the reduction of greenhouse emissions within a certain period of time as agreed upon at the 1992 UN Conference on Environments and Development acted on their commitments. Many nations appear to be forced by national self-interest towards free riding causing the failure to achieve the necessary reduction of greenhouse emission in order to stabilize it for a longer time. (Luterbacher 4-6) Most countries fail to comply because they value more the cost than the benefit of their compliance which has to be reaped yet by future generations (Bjorkum 70). Other than this, international cooperation against global warming necessitates the enforcement of rules for mutual restriction, hence making international relations problematic (Luterbacher 6). Despite the worldwide recognition of the threat of global warming, the world could do little about it because the two most influential and competing countries today, the US and China which only happen to be the two greatest polluters treat the issue of global warming differently, resulting to differences in policies that hinder international cooperation. For example, the Kyoto Protocol failed because the US rejected it, calling it too expensive. Then the post-Kyoto framework also failed because China disagreed on linking global warming and national security (Freeman 5). Unlike the US, the UK, and even the EU which treat global warming as a security and more specifically a national security issue, China only treats global warming as a serious and urgent development issue, no more, no less. Hence, it only sees its resolution along the framework of sustainable development. Although in China there are also advocates of climate change as a national security issue, the Chinese government is not swayed by them. (Freeman 15) The reason as to China’s unbending position on this matter is mainly political. The problem can be traced back to China’s long isolation from international integration and its historical animosity with the US. Freeman explains that China perceives the raising of the global warming issue as an issue of national security is another ploy of industrialized nations, especially the US, to escape from their responsibility to confront the root cause of the problem fair and square. More than this, it also viewed the linking of global warming and national security as a move against China. For example, calamities could be used by the US to insist on humanitarian intervention using its military assets as had happened in various occasions in other parts of the world that were badly hit by calamities to penetrate China’s security. As such, China does not see any need and is not inclined at all to address global warming along the global consensus on the link between climate change and national security (23-26). Given its increasingly important role in international relations, China’s unbending position different from the so-called global consensus has become a great set-back in the establishment of effective international climate change cooperation (Bjorkum 66). On the other hand, although the US perceives the issue of global warming or climate change and national security to be linked, the US has not yet reengaged in international climate negotiations since its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. Also, even though the US addresses global warming on its own in its various policies, it has adversely affected the transatlantic alliance – the core of its foreign policy – and has put itself in bad light. To rebuild its image and its weakened relationship, most especially among its major allies in Europe who are in the forefront of the anti-global warming campaign, the US is now set to reengage. Hence for the US, the importance of global warming is foreign diplomacy. (Pataki et al. 22) Works Cited Bjorkum, Ida. The Fridtjof Nansen Institute Report: China in the International Politics of Climate Change: A Foreign Policy Analysis. Norway: The Fridtjof Nansen Institute, 2005. Brahm, Eric. "Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs)." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Burgess, Guy and Burgess, Heidi. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. March 2005. http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/role-igo (1 December 2013). Drexhage, John, Deborah Murphy, Oli Brown, Aaaron Cosbey, Peter Dickey, Jo-Ellen Parry, John Van Ham, Richard Tarasofsky, and Beverley Darkin. Climate Change and Foreign Policy: An Exploration of Options for Greater Integration. Manitoba, Canada: International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2007. Fearon, James D. Reforming International Institutions to Promote International Peace and Security. Prepared for the International Task Force on Global Public Goods. Stanford University, 2005. Freeman, Duncan. “The Missing Link: China, Climate Change, and National Security.” Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies Asia Paper 5.8 (2010): 1-35. Jordan, Robert S. International Organizations: A Comparative Approach to the Management of Cooperation, 4th edition. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2001. Koteen, Bernard. “Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs).” Harvard Law School. The President and Fellows of Harvard College. 10 December 2012. http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/careers/opia/public-interest-law/public-international/interngovernmental-organizations.html (1 December 2013). Lodge, George C. and Craig Wilson. A corporate solution to Global poverty: How multinationals can help the poor and invigorate their own legitimacy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006. Luterbacher, Urs. “Problems of Global Environmental Cooperation” and “Environmental Constraints on Human Activities and the Environmental Consequence of Human Activities.” PIK Report No. 21: International Relations and Global Climate Change. Eds. Sprinz, Detlef and Luterbacher, Urs. Germany: Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 1996. Pataki, George E., Thomas J. Vilsack, Michael A. Levi, and David G. Victor. Confronting Climate Change: A Strategy for U.S. Foreign Policy: Independent Task Force Report No. 61. US: Council on Foreign Relations, 2008. Pease, Kelly-Kate S. International Organizations: Perspectives on Governance in the Twenty-First Century, 5th Edition. New Jersey: Pearson, 2007. Tavares, Rodrigo. Regional Security: The Capacity of International Organizations. Oxon, OX: Routledge, 2010. UBUNTU Foundation. 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