Barbara Adams, Global Policy Forum
Original article on Metapolis (December 2024)
The current normative standards and institutions of global governance, many constructed decades ago to ensure international cooperation, are proving ineffective in the face of challenges of peace and security, human rights and sustainable development. This has spurred and reinforced multilateralism “a la carte” and “forum shopping” and enabled increased domination of big powers, public and private. The terrain of global governance has shifted away from the values and norms of the UN Charter, human rights conventions and environmental treaties toward market forces, especially in financial and technological sectors/spheres.
Global governance has been littered with veto and veto-like instruments that reflect or protect power asymmetries in global decision-making fora and mechanisms. Most notable are those of the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs), the UN Security Council, the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), investor–state dispute settlements (ISDS), and GDP as the dominant (and inaccurate) measure of progress.
The Member States are confronted at the United Nations with a staggering agenda of interlocking and reinforcing crises, deepening pre-existing inequalities, both within and among countries – and exposing another crisis – that of multilateralism and global governance embedded in institutions established before most Global South countries were politically independent.
“When the United Nations was established nearly 80 years ago, it had 51 Member States. Today there are 193. The global economy was less than one-twelfth of its current size. As a result, our peace and security tools and institutions, and our global financial architecture, reflect a bygone era. The United Nations Security Council is outdated, and its authority is eroding. Unless its composition and working methods are reformed, it will eventually lose all credibility. The international financial architecture was established when many of today’s developing countries were under colonial rule. It does not represent the realities of today’s global economy, and it is no longer able to resolve global economic challenges: debt, climate action, sustainable development. It does not provide the global safety net that developing countries need. Meanwhile, technology, geopolitics and globalization have transformed power relations.”
UN Secretary-General, António Guterres
At UN General Assembly High-Level meetings in 2024, many Heads of State and Government addressed the multiple manifestations and consequences of a broken global governance system.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: “Even today, the cynicism and double-speak of several major developed countries is breathtaking in response to the quest of most of the global community to transform the international financial institutions as fit-for-purpose in today’s world, and for responsible, reasonable alterations in the actual modalities of climate change financing….This old political shell of the post-1945 global order can barely contain the erupting contradictions within, and outside, it. A search for new modalities is emerging but not yet fully formed, in part because the old order is unprepared to relinquish, cede, or share power, even as it realizes that it cannot continue to rule in the old way; but the new is yet to be born, and the forces of change lack a sufficiency of strength to deliver satisfactory alterations….
The blinding truth is that the central contradiction in today’s political economy is not between democracy and autocracy. The main contradiction, has been and still is today, that which revolves around the fundamental material questions of ‘who gets what, when, where, and how’; it is centrally about the struggle or competition for ownership, control, and distribution of material resources which constitute the basis for regional or global hegemony. In the variously proposed ‘New World Order’ by rival hegemons, we from the periphery ask: What’s new? Which world? And who gives the orders?”
Ireland: “Achieving food security, economy of sufficiency, the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals urgently requires, of course, debt sustainability. We cannot continue to ignore the debt burden hanging around the necks of the world’s poorest who have such little fiscal space to do the things being suggested to them, be it in responding to climate change or achieving sustainability. 3.2 billion people, let us remember, live in countries that spend more on debt interest payments than on the essential basic services of education or health. We need to give our fuller support then to campaigns that seek to eliminate hunger and poverty. In the interest of all, the few must indicate their willingness to change if we are to avoid the horrific consequences of climate change, lose prospects for sustainability, and effectively prevent the conclusion that as a species, we have failed to achieve peace, have instead become addicted to war, have rewarded investors and instruments of debt rather than promoting sustainability.”
Barbados: “Neo-colonialist structures which reflect and perpetuate an old world order characterized by racism, classism and misogyny, while ignoring the legitimate aspirations of billions, will not help to foster hope or trust. We must ensure that global institutions give developing countries, especially small vulnerable ones like my own, seats at the tables of decision-making where we can be seen, heard, become active agents in our own cause and lead our own development paradigms.”
Speaking to the World Economic Forum in January 2023, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned of the deepening North-South divide: “I am not convinced that the wealthier world and their leaders truly grasp the degree of frustration, and even anger, in the Global South. Frustration and anger about the gross inequity of vaccine distribution… about pandemic recovery – with support overwhelmingly concentrated in wealthier countries that could print money.”
Reform of the International Financial Architecture (IFA) and the UN Security Council
IFA Reform
The UN Secretary-General has stubbornly called attention to the power asymmetries in global decision-making, notably of the United Nations Security Council and the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs). Pointing to “a morally bankrupt financial system in which systemic inequalities are amplifying societal inequalities”, he has stated that too many countries are trapped in agreements where servicing ever-escalating debt precedes and undermines providing essential public services and protecting human rights and sustainable ecological futures because “the rules are not made to allow it”. Speaking to the UN General Assembly in February 2023, he stated:
“Something is fundamentally wrong with our economic and financial system. The global financial architecture is at the heart of the problem. It should be the means through which globalization benefits all. Yet it is failing.
The global financial architecture does not need a simple evolution; it needs radical transformation. It is time for a new Bretton Woods moment. A new commitment to place the dramatic needs of developing countries at the centre of every decision and mechanism of the global financial system.”
The UN Independent Expert on foreign debt, other international financial obligations and human rights, Attiya Waris also emphasized the inadequacy and broad reach of the current International Financial Architecture:
“[W]e have irresponsible borrowing taking place, but we also have odious and illegitimate debts, conditional and harmful tax regime reforms, and frankly, an international financial system that is certainly not architecture, but a series of bilaterals that continually leave out other states in this selfish control of finances that we are all working towards. The fiscal social contract refers to this implied agreement between not only the state and their population, but between Member States also at an international level. And it includes not only expectations and obligations around tax and public spending, but also on issues of accountability…
Countries across the globe, including and specifically developing countries and the LDCs, have faced challenges in the adhering of the fiscal social contract. But this is not only because of challenges that are at a domestic level, but because what we face is a fragmented and broken international financial system…”
Current rules and practices of the International Financial Architecture (IFA) not only impede the protection of human rights through predatory financing policies, but also produce unfair decision-making processes due to the disparity in financial capabilities of UN Member States. Member States have outlined numerous recommendations for reform in many UN policy processes such as those addressing the climate crisis, the Financing for Development Forum and the Right to Development.
Many Member States laid out their priorities on IFA reform at the 2024 UN General Assembly High-Level Week as well as proposals in the Pact for the Future:
Brazil: “The conditions for accessing financial resources remain prohibitive for most low- and middle-income countries.The debt burden limits the fiscal space to invest in health and education, reduce inequality and tackle climate change. African countries borrow at rates that are up to eight times higher than Germany’s and four times higher than the United States’. It is a reverse Marshall Plan, in which the poorest finance the richest. Without greater participation of developing countries in the management of the IMF and the World Bank, there will be no effective change. While the Sustainable Development Goals are lagging behind, the 150 largest companies in the world have together profited 1.8 trillion dollars over the last two years. The fortunes of the world’s top five billionaires have more than doubled since the beginning of this decade, while 60% of humanity has become poorer. The super-rich pay proportionally much less taxes than the working class. To correct this anomaly, Brazil has insisted on international cooperation towards developing minimum global taxation standards.”
Ghana: “We are told to ‘adapt’ and ‘be resilient’, but how does one adapt to famine or build resilience when farmers cannot predict the seasons? Africa cannot continue to pay for a crisis she did not create. We demand fairness, not charity. Climate justice requires an economic system that works for everyone, not just the privileged few. The vast gulf between rich and poor should be a stain on our collective conscience. Over seven hundred million people, that is 8.75% of the world’s population, still live in extreme poverty, deprived of basic human rights – education, healthcare, housing and the dignity of work. The pandemic exacerbated this inequality, pushing millions more into poverty, while the wealth of the richest soared. This is unsustainable, and it is immoral. We must build a new global economic order, one that promotes inclusivity and equity for all.”
Bahamas: “Aspirations to lasting global peace and security will remain empty dreams, if not supported by economic security. For too long, the global financial system has been skewed against developing nations. It is a cruel irony, that industrialized nations who bear the greatest responsibility for the climate crisis, often perpetuate another form of injustice in the form of our current global system. We have been instrumental in exposing the hypocrisy of unilateral blacklisting, and advocating for a framework that prioritizes fairness and inclusivity. The present system, with its dark rules and uneven playing field, drains resources from developing countries, leaving us to grapple with the consequences.”
UN Security Council Reform
Of the 51 countries of the United Nations at its founding, just two – Ethiopia and South Africa – were from Sub-Saharan Africa. To date, some 60 countries, mainly from the Global South, have never served on the Security Council.
Reform of the UN Security Council has been on the Member State agenda for decades. In 2008, the UN General Assembly adopted Decision 62/557 “to commence intergovernmental negotiations (IGN) in informal plenary of the General Assembly” and the IGN sessions have been held annually.
Member State priorities diverge on Security Council reform on two primary issues: the question of the veto, the full exercise or limitation of its use, or its elimination, and whether to expand seats in both the permanent and elected categories, or expand only non-permanent seats, a question which is both strategic and fundamental.
An agreement to eliminate (not expand) the use of the veto is viewed as an essential ingredient to rebuild credibility and trust, eroded by its weaponization by Security Council’s Permanent Five (P5) members to serve geopolitical and geo-economic interests, despite the exorbitant toll on human life and violation of international law.
Mozambique: “The fact that we have 193 Member States of the United Nations and 15 Security Council members and five of them have veto power is the source of imperfection, the source of incapacity for the world to act when it needs to act. The veto should have never been allowed in cases of flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, as we are witnessing in Gaza…. The United Nations cannot say stop. We are in a very unfair, unjust and imperfect world.”
Malaysia: “On the question of the veto, Malaysia supports the limitations to the scope and use of veto as a preliminary measure. In the longer term, a comprehensive reform of the Security Council must include the abolition of veto entirely, because the veto goes against the democratic principle of equality among nations that underpins the UN multilateral system.”
Pressures for reform have been mounting from “marginalized” countries and on those traditionally with more power. Many Member States are clamouring for transformative changes in the inequitable current world order. Focusing on permanent membership of the UN Security Council, Heads of State and Government across all regions recognized the lack of regional representation, especially of Africa. There is wide agreement that change is imperative, and ongoing discussions in the IGN process will continue with diverse priorities and proposals and as yet without a clear consensus.
Kenya: “[In the Pact for the Future] it should be expressly acknowledged and recognized that the Security Council as currently configured is unrepresentative and democratically inefficient, ineffective and unaccountable…. Needless to say, if the permanent membership category goes untouched in the Security Council reform, we will only succeed in making cosmetic changes while perpetuating and perhaps worsening the existing inequities, inequalities and inefficiencies of the Council.”
Bahrain (Arab Group): “The Arab group stresses the need to present our group as an underrepresented group in the Council. Our representation must be strengthened and the objective of the reform of the Council and to increase the number of its members is ultimately to establish a balance in the representation of different geographic and regional groups. This must be fair and proportional, which is why we must provide a priority to the representation of developing states who are the majority of countries in the world, and this includes Arab states and African states as well as Small Island Developing States (SIDS).”
Ghana: “In its current form, the Council does not reflect the realities of today’s world. It remains an outdated, post Second World War relic, with Africa, a continent of 1.4 billion people, grossly underrepresented. We cannot speak of multilateralism when the structures of global governance are rooted in an unjust and unequal world order. The Ezulwini Consensus, adopted by African leaders as the Common African Position on UN Reform, demands reform of the Security Council to give Africa her rightful place. This is not a request for charity, but for fairness—Africa’s voice must be heard in shaping the future of global peace and security. The time for half measures is over. Bold reforms are needed to ensure that every nation—large or small, rich or poor—has an equal voice at the table. Only then can we achieve a fair and inclusive system of governance.”
Finland: “First, all major continents need to be represented in the UN Security Council, at all times. It is unacceptable that there is no permanent representation from Latin America and Africa in the Security Council, and that China alone represents Asia. We therefore propose that the number of permanent members be increased by five – more concretely two from Asia, two from Africa and one from Latin America.
The total number of permanent members would thus be 10. That combined with 10 elected members would ensure that the Security Council would hold roughly 10 percent of the UN’s members at any given time. My part of the world, Europe, should think hard about how best to divide its existing two seats.
Second, no single state should have veto power. I fully understand that the veto was necessary in the aftermath of World War II, but in today’s world, it has too often incapacitated the Security Council and halted decision making here in New York. The UN agencies are not subject to national vetoes and are working effectively precisely because no single member can prevent them from doing so.
Third, if a permanent or elected member of the Security Council violates the UN Charter, its voting rights should be suspended. This decision should ultimately be taken in the General Assembly. There should be no room for double standards in the United Nations.”
False solutions: stakeholderism as a contested space
Decades of structural adjustment, market liberalization and austerity policies, together with processes of financialization and digitalization have shaped the rush to neo-liberal governance. This was characterized by the unwillingness and/or loss of capacity of Member States to support the need for a vibrant public sector and the provision of essential public services at the national level, and by implication and logic, also at the global level.
Proposals and strategies to tackle power disparities reveal the tensions: between those who accept these realities as inevitable or even desirable, align with the “winners” and aim to limit the damage, and those who want more fundamental or transformative change that reduces and redistributes the power of the dominant. Among small and medium States from all regions, the similar tensions and splits in strategies, in blocs and in perceptions of options are evident: align or regroup. These tensions are also evident in the UN system: some entities promote and propagate partnerships; the OHCHR documents intimidation, recrimination and reprisals, practiced by state and non-state actors.
Distrust in government has caused many to turn to civil society organizations (CSOs) as outspoken and consistent supporters of human rights, sustainable peace and futures for all and the provision of essential services. This has propelled the concept and promotion of “multi-stakeholderism” but without de-constructing the concept, its diverse players, their accountability tracks and power imbalances. The category of stakeholders also includes corporations, the private sector, foundations, academia, etc. Multi-stakholderism has become a contested space and runs the risk of further enabling powerful actors, mainly big corporations and favouring market solutions to provide essential services and economic and social rights.
“I am personally aware of a number of governments in the Caribbean who went to the market to purchase vaccines, and were told by the market ‘No, we cannot sell you these vaccines. Why? Your numbers are too small. We need to sell to countries that can purchase 50, 80, 100 million doses of the vaccine.’ But if you’re Trinidad and Tobago with a population of 1.3 million, your numbers are too small. In other words, the market was rationing vaccines based on the market determination of who should have them and who should not. Is that the kind of world you want to shape in the 21st century? Where is the public interest in that? In a pandemic in which it was absolutely clear to everyone that any unvaccinated person constituted a threat to the rest of the society, how do you square that?”
The 78th President of the General Assembly’s statement illustrates how a reliance on the market alone hinders the ability of small and medium states to fulfill their commitments to public health. Relying on GDP to define policies that should prioritize human and planetary health and failing to invest in public institutions at all levels further undermines democratic governance, including at the global level.
The High-level Advisory Board (HLAB) on Effective Multilateralism’s report, A Breakthrough for People and Planet – Six Transformative Shifts for a More Secure and Sustainable Future, named the private sector as a “glaring hole” in power asymmetries of global decision-making. It criticized the lack of multilateral treaties governing these entities, seeing reliance on domestic or state-by-state/state regulation of private sector action as insufficient as it can lead to “a system where a relatively small number of large private sector actors can influence processes without being held to account”.
The investor-state dispute settlement system provides a stark example. In an unusual joint letter to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) addressing Working Group III on Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) Reform, seven human rights experts addressed the urgency to “remedy the power imbalance between investors and States”, calling for systemic reform in their submission to consideration of the architecture of the ISDS system. Their letter addressed the “inherently asymmetric nature of the ISDS system, lack of investors’ human rights obligations, exorbitant costs associated with the ISDS proceedings and extremely high amount of arbitral awards are some of the elements that lead to undue restrictions of States’ fiscal space and undermine their ability to regulate economic activities and to realize economic, social, cultural and environmental rights”.
A popular concept especially in sustainable development circles including in the system, multi-stakeholderism is yet to demonstrate inclusivity. It labours under the false assumption that all “stakeholders” are equal in participation and resources, and undermines or ignores the rights of those stakeholders who rely on state responsibilities as duty bearers for human rights. In a similar vein, partnerships have been promoted as a strategy for inclusiveness. But this ignores the power asymmetries within partnerships, that they are self-selected and primarily accountable to the partners themselves and not to the would-be “beneficiaries”.
UN Independent Expert Attiya Waris summed up the need for all actors, including transnational corporations, to be held accountable in upholding human rights:
“International cooperation and assistance is crucial for enhancing fiscal legitimacy, but under international human rights law, it is the State that is held responsible for compliance with international human rights. But then we must ask ourselves which human rights principles? The monitoring and implementation of human rights is largely focused on individual countries; however, global actors such as transnational corporations, the international financial institutions, investment agencies as well as UN agencies do play a critical role in the realisation.”
Summit of the Future takeaways
Proposed by the Secretary-General and taken up by Member States, the Summit of the Future (SOTF) provided a rare opportunity for Member States to redress the imbalances and failures in the current multilateral system for a just and peaceful collective future. In addition to the imperative of reforming the International Financial Architecture and the Security Council, the Summit addressed the lack of democratic global governance, norms and standards in the digital and tech world and the failure of deliberations and policies to be forward-looking and future-focused – failings that permeate all levels of society across work, rights and security.
The Pact for the Future (PFTF) and its annexes, Global Digital Compact (GDC) and Declaration on Future Generations (DFG), were adopted by consensus after many months of negotiations, at least five revisions and dramatic last minute amendments and responses. All the Pact revisions were made public, along with the Co-facilitators’ letters, albeit with limited time for response and no time for mobilization; very few observers, including CSOs, academics and journalists, grasped the breadth of the issues at stake and many were unable to assess and engage beyond their primary issues of concern and advocacy. This widened the enormous accountability gap in global governance, whereby the executive branch of national governments continued their dominant role in representing countries in global governance negotiations.
Many months of negotiations and amendments through multiple revisions exposed disturbing positions, often enabling back-sliding. The Pact negotiations and Summit outcome barely scratched the surface of the global economic governance gap; some would argue for the worse, as the shareholder, “one dollar, one vote” governance structure seems to have been endorsed – “the United Nations and the international financial institutions have complementary mandates that make the coordination of their actions crucial, while fully respecting existing governance mechanisms and mandates independent of the United Nations that preside over specific organizations and rules” (Action 48).
The Summit process did make more transparent the indications of power shifts in Member State dynamics and the evolution of Member State groupings, notably the Africa Group, Like-minded group (LMG) and “Group of Friends in defence of the UN Charter”.
On the opening day of the Summit, the Russian Federation and five other countries proposed an amendment that would put aside the Summit outcome as described in a draft amendment giving priority to domestic jurisdiction.
In response, the Africa Group rejected taking action on this amendment, calling on all Member States to adopt the Pact. While viewing the Pact as far from perfect, the Africa Group placed emphasis on the imperative of collective responsibility.
“The African Group believes it’s our collective responsibility to ensure and guarantee a better future for current and future generations. At a time when we find ourselves at a crossroads, given what is currently at stake, things that will define our common future. The African Group believes we need to show our unity and our ability to provide common, concerted answers to the multiple and complex challenges that we are facing today. The African Group firmly believes that the adoption of such an amendment is not going to help us meet our legitimate hopes and aspirations. The African Group firmly supports the leadership of the President of the General Assembly, and we support you in all of your efforts for the adoption of the Pact for the Future. And finally, the African group would propose that no decision be taken with regard to the draft amendment A/79L.3.”
Republic of Congo on behalf of the African Group, on Russia’s proposed amendment to the Pact for the Future at the SOTF Opening Plenary (22 September 2024)
The Pact for the Future and its annexes failed to remove the obstacles in multilateralism that undermine universal norms for peace, human rights and justice as well as strengthen the public sector’s capacity, vital for conflict prevention and sustainable peace. Yet, the Sumiit exposed the yawning and unaccountable gap between the realities driven by power asymmetries and the injustices and insecurities of peoples’ lives – from violence and genocide, and planetary collapse to relentless poverty and inequalities, income and non-income.
SOTF pushed to the front of the agenda the failures and fault lines of international cooperation, nature, scope and quality of multilateralism and global governance – a failing system “working as intended”. Can the momentum, analyses and organizing built during the Summit and related processes shift the needle in closing the gaps and injustices in global governance; can this be carried forward into upcoming processes in 2025 and beyond such as intensified Security Council reform negotiations, the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) and the Second World Summit for Social Development (WSSD2)?
While the Pact, albeit adopted by consensus at the top political level, is not a binding treaty (which may bring comfort to some), it is agreed language and at the highest political level and could set the bar for negotiations going forward. The value of the momentum and organizing at the national and community levels, where people have agency and accountability, is the sine qua non for the vital global shift to justice in the global system.