Global Governance in the 21st Century - Essay Example

Global Governance in the 21st Century. The United s and the entire globe have for a long time tried to address issues surrounding conflicts and inequality but the issues continue to persist and escalate even in the 21st century. Beginning October last year for instance the US has witnessed an influx of children crossing into its territories as they flee violence, poverty and drug trafficking groups. Central American nations such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have contributed over forty five thousand unaccompanied children into the US and this has led to a serious humanitarian crisis pushing President Obama to request congress to approve a 3.7 billion budget for dealing with the problem. The whole issue of minors’ crossing the boarders into the US has led to an important question of who should be responsible for these children (Savage, 2013). The issue is such a serious one the governor for Texas Rick Perry has threatened to deploy the National Gourd so as to beef up controls on the porous borders and force immigrants to detention. President Obama held a meeting with the leaders of the three nations in which his take home message was that the countries have to share with Washington in the responsibility of curtailing the escalation of minors crossing the Mexico-U.S.A boarder point. Obama prevailed on the leader to curb the immigration of minors and warned that those children that did not have a proper claim of staying will be sent back home (Neuman, 2014). According to Reuters, the President has proposed that there will be instances where the immigrants can apply to be given refugee status but such would be very few. The President reiterated the need for a shared responsibility with the concerned countries in addressing the problem of immigration as well as that of trafficking drugs. In a Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted in Washington DC, Honduras President Juan Hernandez appealed on Americans to approach the issue as a humanitarian one and that of their neighbors. Guatemala’s Molina on his part opined that immigration situation was a real tragedy requiring the reflection of all humanity. He said through Plan Columbia as well as the Merida Initiative, America assisted Columbia & Mexico push out organized crime but this squeezed the same towards Central America. A unanimous position taken by the leaders is that fresh regional approaches anchored on the Merida Initiative and Plan Columbia which saw billions invested in the fight against organized crime be embraced. The leaders from Central America argue that billions U.S directs at attempts to stop immigrating children can be redirected and utilization better in solving the root cause of the crises back home. They urged America under Obama’s administration to focus on combating armed groups; drug barons and other criminal groupings responsible for the emigration that led to thousands of minors fleeing their home countries towards the boarder of Texas in the past few months (McGreal, 2014). Ensuring protection for refugees is a responsibility entrusted in the UNHCR by the United Nations. UNHCR works in close collaboration with governments throughout the world to promote refugee rights realizing that it is a responsibility of nations to protect refugees. For a long time therefore government across the world have offered asylum and permitted refugees stay in their territories until that time considered conducive for them to return home. Governments also permit UNHCR carry on its duties within their territorial boarders and also offer financial support through internal refugee plans as well as directly funding the operations of UNHCR. But with the increasing constraints on countries economically and as a result of careless uncontrolled emigration many countries have moved to tighten their boarders as well as conditions for asylum and attaining refugee status with the aim of curbing the influx of emigrants (IPU, 2001). In March 2014, the US affirmed its position that the global Bill of Rights-style treaty did not impose any obligations in terms of human rights on its military and intelligence troops operating overseas. This implies rejection of the interpretation by UN and its own State Department lawyer Harold Koh. The 192 treaty ratified by senate criminalizes killings that are arbitrary in nature, torture, discriminative trials, and detention without fair trial. The debate around the treaty has to do with whether its state obligations apply only at home or even with people abroad subject to its jurisdiction. The UN holds that the treaty applies even outside a country’s territorial boarders while Washington maintains a stance that the treaty applies only within. The Washington stance has been criticized widely and there were indications in the Obama administration that it will be reconsidered but this has not happened (Savage, 2014). Activists for human rights continue to urge President Obama to accede the fact that USA has obligations as per the treaty-the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights while imprisoning persons abroad. The administration seems not to have any plans at changing its position as concerns interpretation of the treaty. It is therefore very difficult for the UN to set up refugee camps in the US as it would in any other country considering Washington’s positions on major international treaties and issues yet the US is on a receiving end when it comes to uncontrolled emigrations. Immigration is therefore a global problem in the modern times and issues related to it affects many nations the world over. Due to the increasing numbers of people fleeing war back home, poverty and many other problems such as environmental disasters the question of global governance in the 21st century is an important one. Terrorism on the rise, rising world populations and the ever tightening economic conditions across the world have forced many countries to become apprehensive when considering obligations in international treaties especially to do with human rights. Governments have to strike a balance between meeting their increasing internal responsibilities to their citizens and those imposed by treaties to which they have acceded (IPU, 2001). It is important for world governments to commit a considerable amount of effort and resources towards addressing international problems of poverty, war, terrorism, environmental safety, global warming, drug trafficking, human trafficking and many others which have contributed significantly to the growing emigration in the 21st century. Considerable efforts have been seen pushed by the UN through its various agencies as well as regional organizations at strengthening democracy and as such America as the world’s largest democracy should lead from the front. Systematic challenges to the unity of common purpose across the world have hindered achievement of envisaged goals in global governance and these include inadequate finances & other important resources, capacity gaps at different levels, absence of accountability on the part of countries, persistent fragmentation, out of date development models, inconsistency in policies and more importantly outdated moral standard. But this can still be reversed by strengthening commitment and trust among countries through their legislatures who make favorable policies and guide corporation with international treaties (McCarty, 2013). Works Cited. 1. Charlie Savage. U.S., Rebuffing U.N., Maintains Stance That Rights Treaty Does Not Apply Abroad. The New York Times, 2014. 2. Chris McGreal. Central America Leaders Meet Barack Obama to Criticize US Boarder Policy. The Guardian, 2014. Retrieved at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/26/central-american-leaders-obama-border-policy 3. Inter-parliamentary Union. Refugee Protection: A Guide to International Refugee Law. UNHCR, 2001. Retrieved at http://www.ipu.org/pdf/publications/refugee_en.pdf 4. Joseph Stiglitz. Inequality Is Not Inevitable. The New York Times, 2014. 5. McCarty, Philip. 2013. Integrated Perspectives in Global Studies. Cognella, 2013. 6. Scott Neuman. Obama: U.S., Central America Share Responsibility For Influx of Minors. WBAA, 2014. 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