Global governance at the G20: protest on the outside, national self interest on the inside. Where will the solutions we need come from?

Simultaneous Policy Adopters are planning a visible presence at protests in London today in advance of the G20 summit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/28/g20-protest-police-rainbow-alliance

Many other groups are also to be there. The Guardian reports disparate groups are setting aside their differences to protest.

And there is the nub of the problem of the Global Justice Movement in my view. It can unite in opposition, but has no real mechanism for debate and building consensus on alternatives. It has struck me at the European Social Forums I have attended that those seeking democratic discussion are frustrated; the slogan may be 'another world is possible', but there is no route map for bringing it about.

Even amongst campaign coalitions such as the Trade Justice Movement, I have seen how policy aspirations have to be scaled back to what is politically achievable: it is a piece meal approach that wins important concessions, but nothing like the sweeping changes advocated. A broad coalition campaigning in the UK for corporate accountability measures had to celebrate as a victory a requirement that corporations report on their social and environmental impacts; indeed, it was a significant victory given the scale of political opposition. Yet there are no standards for the reports, nor sanctions if companies lie. Perhaps those will be achieved in the decades to come once the reporting principal has bedded in. That is the best hope on offer through conventional campaigning. On climate change, some campaigners are already voicing fears that the lack of progress means there is no hope left: runaway climate change could be unavoidable.

It is such concerns that fuel my support for the Simultaneous Policy approach, which provides a structure for discussing, developing and approving the policies needed to address global problems. My own proposal, which gained good support in the last voting round, is for a World Transnational Corporation Regulatory Authority, something with real teeth to ensure corporations comply with the human rights and environmental standards their glossy reports claim to respect and means to ensure governments play their part in regulating wayward corporations. See:

http://globaljusticeideas.blogspot.com/2008/07/world-tnc-regulatory-authority.html

Other top issues and policies are given in the youtube clip below.

Simultaneous Policy Adopters call on politicians to pledge to implement, alongside other governments, the policies agreed on by we, the people, of the world. Simultaneous implementation removes the principal obstacle to progress: the fear that unilateral action will put a country at a competitive disadvantage, harm its economy and lose political leaders their power. It breaks the power of vested interests to play one country of against another.

The democratic process and the undertaking by Adopters to give a voting preference at elections to candidates who have made the pledge overcomes the second obstacle: the influence of vested interests on the political process. Business leaders may gain privileged access to politicians, but their hold on setting policies to address global problems is broken.

Some politicians have already signed up, as much for the logic of the approach as the chance to pick up votes. When I briefed one MP on the strategy she immediately saw the point, having campaigned without success for aviation fuel to be taxed as other fuels; such a tax, the government argues, would shift air transport from London to Paris or Amsterdam. But not if introduced simultaneously. She returned the signed pledge a few months later.

Even the UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, sees the point of simultaneous action even if the Simultaneous Policy is not yet on his radar. Look at what he was saying in New York this week, as reported in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/28/gordon-brown-g20-summit

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"Global problems will need better global solutions. In the wake of the second world war, we managed to create an IMF [International Monetary Fund], a World Bank, a WTO [World Trade Organisation], a Marshall Plan. We had the capacity with vision and determination to create institutions based on the principle that for prosperity to be sustained it had to be shared and we had to have mechanisms by which we brought the whole world into this enterprise.

"I think we need the same vision now to say the IMF was built for the days when you were dealing with balance of payments problems of individual countries in essentially a national set of economies. Now we've got a global market place, global competition, global flows of capital, global sourcing of goods.

"The institutions you need to deal with these problems are going to be quite different for this new era, so we must shape them."

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Well, that's great, but if the G20 is capable of the vision and agreement to achieve these new institutions, what guarantee is there that they will not be as divisive and flawed as the IMF and World Bank and the structural adjustment policies they forced developing countries to adopt? Ironically the IMF, controlled by rich nations, has in the past pressured developing countries not to intervene to protect their banking systems, saying they must be allowed to fail; when it suits them, rich countries do not follow the rules they impose on others.

The answer is, of course, that there is no guarantee. Even if it works, the vision is still for perpetual growth on a planet that already cannot support the demands placed upon it.

While the Simultaneous Policy campaign cannot offer guarantees about the policies developed in the democratic space it provides, the fact that people around the world are invited to participate in the process, shape the policies and vote on them does provide checks and balances missing from the rich countries' club.

The G20 will see campaigners united in opposition on the outside and leaders inside protecting their individual national interests when we need coordinated, coherent and effective action.

If all involved backed the Simultaneous Policy approach, at the very least as a parallel strategy, we might get somewhere. Global problems require global solutions, but they also merit global involvement of citizens in deciding those solutions.

You can take part by signing up as a Simultaneous Policy Adopter free of charge at:

http://www.simpol.org/

This clip gives information on the state of policies at the moment. As an Adopter you will be able to vote against any you don't like and put forward and support those that you do.

Gordon Brown's global vision

This is from Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister, speaking today:

"And I believe that in our international co-operation on finance, climate change, terrorism and ending conflict, there is evidence of this new multilateralism at work in the world – fairer, more stable and more prosperous because it is rooted in cooperation and justice.

"And if we learn from our experience of turning unity of purpose into unity of action, together we can seize this moment of profound change to create, for the first time, the age of the truly global society, one where progressive multilateralism, not narrow unilateralism, is the norm."

Well, governments acting simultaneously to address global problems is the aim of the Simultaneous Policy campaign, so if this multilateralism turns into reality that will be a significant step forward. Simultaneous action removes the fear of first-mover disadvantage and should enable more comprehensive responses to be introduced.

Prime Minister Brown also had this to say (see The Guardian report):

"We cannot afford to put climate change into the international pending tray because of the present economic difficulties," he said. "On the contrary, we must use the imperative to act for our future prosperity through the transition to a low carbon economy and reduced oil dependency as a route to creating jobs and economic opportunity for our peoples today."

Which is great. Though if you look at the Prime Ministers past action, then there is less cause for optimism. Critics point to his insitence on pushing ahead with high-carbon capital projects, such as a third runway at Heathrow Airport as a jump-start to the economy.

So the transparency and democratic involvement engendered by the Simultaneous Policy approach is still missing.

Take action to save Zimbabwe - and seek an end to all dictators

This is an alert from a campaign to 'Save Zimbabwe from Mugabe'. You are asked to sign a petition, which will be publicised in the press in Southern Africa. The petition states:

"Petition to Thabo Mbeki and other leaders of Southern Africa:

"We call on you to hold an emergency meeting of Southern African leaders, to work by all means necessary for a legitimate Zimbabwean government that reflects the will of its people, and to decisively isolate those who stand in the way of a peaceful, democratic future for Zimbabwe."

Click here to sign up.

I travelled to Zimbabwe when I worked as a volunteer in nearby Malawi in the 1990s. At that time Zimbabwe was seen as a much more developed African nation. Certainly the far better infrastructure and shopping opportunities were striking. Development indices such as child survival and life expectancy showed the country was doing better than many in these regards too. Now the situation has changed dramatically as President Mugabe tries to hang on to power for power's sake.

Other governments are always reluctant to meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, lest the same should happen to them.

The route being proposed by a growing number of nations for Zimbabwe is to refuse to recognise Robert Mugabe as the legitimate President of the country as he lost the first round of the Presidential election and the run-off election cannot be free and fair due to state-sponsored violence.

It struck me long ago with Iraq, when it was suffering under the sanctions regime which led to the deaths of many thousands of children, that such a route could have been followed. UNICEF suggested 500,000 children would not have died if health improvements prior to the sanctions regime had continued. See:
http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm

---extract from UNICEF press release
Ms. Bellamy [UNICEF Executive Director] noted that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998. As a partial explanation, she pointed to a March statement of the Security Council Panel on Humanitarian Issues which states: "Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war."
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UNICEF called for better targeted sanctions and a more health conscious approach from the Iraqi regime, which used the resources it gained through the 'oil for food' programme as a political weapon of internal control.

Some argued that the 'oil for food' programme actually worsened the situation as it gave Saddam Hussein's regime great power through how it distributed the resources. During this period the north of Iraq was semi-autonomous, with a no-fly zone enforced by the US and UK. The elected authority there succeeded in reducing under-5 mortality rates from 90 deaths/1,000 live births in the period 1989-1994 to 72 deaths/1,000 live births in the period 1994-1999.

An argument for military intervention was that it would put an end to the unnecessary death toll brought about by the sanctions approach. How to evaluate whether the deaths, suffering and terror resulting from the invasion is better or worse is a difficult one.

Those in favour of military intervention asked what was the alternative. An alternative could have been to have stopped recognising Saddam Hussein and his government and instead dealt solely with the authorities in the semi-autonomous regions and a government in exile. The fact that the Iraqi government was repeatedly infringing on the no-fly zones demonstrates there would have been some level of conflict in any case in trying to isolate the government, but there may have been the possibility of strengthening more legitimate authorities.

The difficulty is, of course, that the government, whether legitimate or not, holds the levers of power. They have armed forces and police forces. They control who enters the country, unless geography and the political will of other nations undermines this. Pragmatism may suggest they have to be recognised and dealt with. An unwillingness of other governments to set a precedence where their own legitimacy may be questioned is also perhaps fundamental.

If Mugabe continues to call himself President and to govern, it will be interesting to see how the international communities refusal to recognise him will manifest itself. Perhaps a strategy for dealing with rogue regimes without necessarily going to war can be developed.

These questions come down to the willingness of nation states to act, either individually or collectively. The United Nations can provide legitimacy and strengthen alliances, but, as an institution, is limited in its ability to act.

George Monbiot argued in his book 'Age of Consent' for a democratised UN. The following extract is from his summary at:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/06/01/the-age-of-consent/

---Quote begins

Let us start with the United Nations. In principle, it’s a good idea. In practice, it helps the strong to bully the weak, for three reasons. The first is that the permanent members of the Security Council have been granted absolute power. The second is that it is riddled with rotten boroughs: the tiny nations have the same vote as the very large ones. This is grossly unfair – every Tuvaluan, for example, is worth 100,000 Indians - and it also means that the strong nations have a powerful incentive to kick the small ones around. The third is that the dictatorships have the same voting rights as the democracies, and none of the attendant governments have any obligation to refer to their people before voting.

It seems to me that the answer here is not to junk the UN, but to democratise it. The first step is surely to scrap the Security Council and vest its powers in the UN General Assembly. The second is to weight the votes of the member states according to their country’s size and their degree of democratisation. Democracy rankings are already being developed by groups such as Democratic Audit. But we should begin to develop our own. Among the criteria we should investigate are the nation’s degree of economic democracy (the distribution of wealth) and the extent of public consultation before global voting takes place.

This weighting of votes has the double benefit of democratising global governance and encouraging national democratisation, as the quickest means by which a nation can enhance its power at the global level. It also means that the nations with the biggest votes – the largest and most democratic – are the hardest to bully and blackmail: vote-buying, in other words, becomes much more difficult.

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There does seem to be a lot of merit in these proposals, which have not yet been submitted for inclusion in the Simultaneous Policy. Any Adopter may do so. In the case of Zimbabwe, the country's vote at a UN under this system would be radically cut if Robert Mugabe continues as President after Friday 27 June, having both symoblic and practical impact.

Monbiot also promotes an elected World Parliament, something governments, and many citizens, react to with horror as it undermines their sovereignty.

The Simultaneous Policy campaign is not about world government, it is about world governance, meaning rules-based systems to transform the competition between nations to constructive cooperation. That is not to say that the World Parliament proposal cannot be put forward for the consideration of Adopters (it has not been at the time of writing). It will be for Adopters to debate and vote.

The world has not yet worked out an effective way to deal with leaders who operate in their own interests rather than those of their people. The simple fact that the Simultaneous Policy campaign works by bringing people together to decide policies for addressing global problems and calls on leaders to implement those, may in itself play an important role in empowerment.