Global Governance Models in History
Global Governance Models in History
Global Governance Models in History
models in history
I
n the 21st century mankind is facing a range of severe risks and
challenges that call for effective global action. Politically motivated
violence, weapons of mass destruction, climate change and other large
scale environmental damage pose a threat to all people in all countries
on earth, and exceed the capacity of any state to act effectively to
protect its own citizens.
To manage these challenges, we need institutions that allow us to take
and implement collective decisions on a global level, in a way that takes
the interests of all into account. The current international system has
unfortunately proved unable to cope with the most pressing global issues in
an acceptable way.
The Global Challenges Foundation wants to contribute to the amendment
of this deficiency, and has therefore challenged participants from all over the
world to formulate alternatives to the present state by designing new models
of global governance for The Global Challenges Prize 2017: A New Shape.
The idea that the world is one, that we are all part of a world community
with shared interests and challenges, and a shared future, and that we
therefore need a system of global decision making and governance, is not
new. Throughout history, several writers have designed and proposed models
of global governance. Some of them have been ambitious ideas about joining
all of humankind under one single rule, and some have been more modest
reform proposals intended to preserve but improve the existing system.
Some were formulated in the aftermath of bloody wars that made the need
for better world governance obvious.
This short paper presents only a small sample of these ideas. Hopefully,
some of them could serve as inspiration for readers who want to continue the
endeavor to find new solutions to an issue that is old, but more urgent than
ever.
REFERENCES
1. Kleingeld, P. B., Eric. “Cosmopolitanism”. The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011). <http://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/
cosmopolitanism/>.
2. Alighieri, D. On World-Government or De Monarchia.
(Wildside Press, 2009).
3. Crucé, E. The New Cyneas. (Allen, Lane and Scott,
1909).
4. Kant, I. Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer
Entwurf. (Königsberg, 1795, 1795).
5. Einstein, A. Out of my later years. (Philosophical
library, 1950).
6. Borgese, G. A., Hutchins, R. M., Adler, M. J., Kahler, E. &
Redfield, R. Preliminary Draft of a World Constitution.
(University of Chicago Press, 1948).
7. Kelsen, H. Peace through law. (Lawbook Exchange,
2000).
8. Streit, C. K. Union now : a proposal for a federal union
of the democracies of the north Atlantic. (Cape, 1939).
9. Clark, G. & Sohn, L. B. World peace through world law.
(1958).
10. Held, D. Democracy and the global order : from the
modern state to cosmopolitan governance. (Open
University, 1995).
11. Monbiot, G. The age of consent : a manifesto for a new
world order. (Flamingo, 2003).