Pundits and politicians who giggle and point fingers at people who dare refer to global governance display their ignorance, or their duplicity. The U.S. National Intelligence Council, and the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies has just released a report called: Global Governance 2025: At a Critical Juncture.
This 82-page document discusses quite openly the current status of global governance and the likelihood of global governance maturing into full-fledged global government. Those who scoff at the reality of global governance are to be pitied for their ignorance or despised for their duplicity. As Gustave Speth , former director of the World Resources Institute and head of the U.N. Development Program, said in 1997:
“[G]lobal governance is here, here to stay, and driven by economic and environmental globalization, global governance will inevitably expand.”
Speth’s belief was confirmed in November 2009 by Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Union Council, who said “Global governance is the global management of our planet.”
The new U.S.-E.U. report defines global governance to be “the collective management of common problems at the international level” and says that global governance is at a critical juncture.
The United Nations Development Program, in its 1999 report, defines global governance to be “the framework of rules, institutions, and practices that set limits of the behavior of individuals, organizations and companies.”
Both the U.N. and the new U.S.-E.U. report are quick to say that global governance in not global government. The new report describes global government as the exercise of sovereignty through a hierarchical system of authority, while global governance is a voluntary arrangement of shared sovereignty among nations.
If global governance has the power to “limit the behavior of individuals, organizations, and companies,” then such actions are, indeed, the exercise of sovereignty, even if that sovereignty has been voluntarily surrendered to an international institution such as the World Trade Organization or to an international treaty.
Dancing around the semantics is simply a diversion in an attempt to appease, distract or discredit the opponents of global governance. The indisputable fact is that global governance has advanced dramatically in the last two decades and is moving forward even faster under the Obama administration.
The new report says: “[The] EU has sought to export its model of regional integration and sovereignty-sharing and has devised a distinctive discourse on global governance and priorities.” The report also quotes a Chinese participant: “Global governance requires giving over significant sovereignty to others – that is the view in China. …” Any way you look at it, as global governance advances, national sovereignty evaporates. The report identifies three areas in which more effective global governance is badly needed and is likely to materialize: climate change and the environment, opening of the Arctic and the global economy.
Proponents of global governance expected the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change to provide the structure required to impose global governance over global energy use. Their plan has not yet materialized, even though the proponents continue to work toward a treaty and an international mechanism with the power to control energy use.
The Convention on the Law of the Sea, and its International Seabed Authority, was supposed to be the treaty and the mechanism to control the use of the sea and its resources. Recent discoveries of enormous petroleum reserves in the Arctic region are sure to prompt ownership battles between the United States and Russia, unless proponents in the Obama administration and the Senate can get the treaty ratified.
The global economic meltdown in the last few years has forced the U.N. and other global governance enthusiasts to shift into high gear their plans to take over the global economy. First proposed publicly by the U.N.-funded Commission on Global Governance in 1995, it is their ultimate goal to have all international trade, international transfer of currency and international money flows under the direct control of a U.N. agency. Inherent in this dream is the authority to rake-off a percentage of the money flow as a global tax that would provide independent funding for the United Nations operation.
Whether it is recognized or not, global governance is here, here to stay and it is expanding rapidly. At the very least, global governance is the transitional step to unabashed global government. One of the most important obstacles that have yet to be overcome is the creation of an independent revenue stream. So far, the Obama administration has been very supportive of the U.N.’s plans to create this global economic regulatory mechanism.
In fact, the Obama administration supports the creation of a global system to control energy through a climate-change treaty. The Obama administration supports the ratification of the Convention on the Law of the Sea, as well as the global economic regulator mechanism.
No wonder the new U.N.-E.U. report forecasts global governance. They claim the prospects for global governance are at a critical juncture because despite Obama’s support, their agenda has met significant opposition within the U.S. and in other countries. It is clear that the governments of the U.S. and the European Union are eager to continue expanding global governance. No combination of nations can stop the U.S. and the E.U. in their quest.
The only power sufficient to stop this agenda is the power of American voters who care enough to turn out the current majority in Congress, in a dress rehearsal for turning out the current administration in 2012.
Henry Lamb is the author of “The Rise of Global Governance,” Chairman of Sovereignty International , and founder of the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) and Freedom21, Inc..
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.