Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World 
A citizens’ thinking and action dynamics. Movements and persons from 115 countries
Preparation of a Citizens’ Earth Assembly in 2001 
Geocultural, Socioprofessional and Topical Workshops

Web : http://www.echo.org – Email : alliance@echo.org

Proposals for a Global Governance Adapted to the Challenges of the Twenty-first Century

There is general agreement on the serious shortcomings affecting international relations today. As global unity becomes manifest, awareness of the vulnerability of humankind rises. This situation has produced numerous contributions and initiatives emanating from all the horizons. The present document is set in the perspective of refusing inhumanity and of searching for the way for when there is a will. Just as movement is demonstrated by walking, the possibility of a “global governance" is confirmed through sharing and accumulating experiences. 

The present paper testifies to the preceding statement: it is the fruit of work conducted collectively in an international citizens’ dynamics, the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World, and constitutes the third draft of a proposals document that has been progressively enriched by reactions from four continents: America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. 

August 2000 

The Global Governance Workshop (Web site: http://www.echo.org/en/idx_global.htm) 

I) The Need to Recast Global Governance

There is a constantly increasing gap between the de facto interdependence linking the peoples of the world and the de jure mechanisms intended for the organization of international relations. It is urgent to set up a new global governance. 

By governance, we are not only referring to the executive systems in charge of stating and applying international or judicial rules but also to the practical conditions under which these rules are designed and applied and to the role of public and private actors in their development and implementation. 

In the second half of the twentieth century, starting with the Bretton Woods institutions and the San Francisco agreement on the Charter of the United Nations, the first elements of global governance were set up. They have among others made it possible to open up world trade and recognize Human Rights, a preliminary world order founded on a set of relations between Nations. They have not prevented the advent of very serious conflicts, or even of genocides, especially affecting the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere. This form of governance must nonetheless be given credit for having generated a general dynamics of human progress and, in particular, for having established democratic principles as a majority reference. 

It is precisely the success of this dynamics – especially in its aspect of the very fast growth recorded in the past thirty years, of interdependence among human beings and between humankind and the whole of the living world – that makes the present forms of global governance obsolete, despite continuous, but partial, efforts to adapt them. The economic and financial globalization of the world is an incomplete but eloquent illustration of the speed at which interdependence has developed; it illustrates the unique character of present globalization compared to other phases in the history of humankind that have also been marked by an opening and globalization process. However, although awareness of interdependence reinforces, with the help of modern means of information, the feeling of belonging to a common humankind, it is far from founding, in itself, the idea of a global community. 

Many concrete signs show the acute unsuitability of present global governance: 

•	Conflicts are frequent and generally associated with humanitarian disasters, the victims of which are in their majority the civilians, older persons, women, and children that fundamental human rights are precisely intended to protect, without the global political systems’ offering any organized reaction in response to the movement of international conscience. 

•	States no longer have the initiative on the elaboration of the rules and there is even a tendency to the inversion of public and private agendas, the latter substituting for the former in the absence of rules capable of promoting any international public good other than the freedom of circulation of commodities and trade. An example of this inversion is the negotiation on the legal framework for the mobility of investments on a global scale, in which rules have been developed that are practically imposed on governments by a small number of private operators. The high visibility of this kind of situation has turned public opinion against multilateral institutions, which paradoxically leads to thwarting their modernization. 

•	Present governance suffers from a structural near-sightedness linked to the North-South unbalance of interests that it embodies. This is illustrated by the example – not an isolated one – of the global energy fora. Practically all of the debate and decisions in this field are concentrated on nuclear or fossil energy, which are of concern to only 800 million people. The two billion persons of the planet whose survival currently depends on firewood have neither visibility nor expression in these fora. 

•	The legitimacy of the present international institutions is all the more contested that they are lacking in coherence. Every multilateral agency has its own counterparts within the national administrations and pursues its own agenda without much of a dialogue with the others and without any real arbitration. Furthermore, they do not all have the same financial and regulatory means to promote their ideas and impose the application of the rules that they decree. Some – the IMF, the World Bank and today the WTO – can do so; others are restricted to simple recommendations. This dissymmetry accredits the idea that globalization is no more than the economic globalization wished for and imposed by the most powerful in their own interest. 

•	In fact, this legitimacy deficit is probably the handicap most seriously weighing on present governance. The gap is clearly getting wider, at different levels, between the legality of the exercise of power, which refers to the formal rules that define it, and its legitimacy, which refers more subjectively to the perception that the population has of it. On a global level, this gap is colossal. International rules stated by authorities that have no face, no clear mandate, and no identifiable body of recourse are proliferating, undermining the authority of these rules and their effectiveness, but also discrediting, for the future, the claim to formulating others, including in fields where the law of the jungle and the proliferation of injustice are denounced. 

These few examples are among the many symptoms of the unsuitability of present governance, but we need to undertake a much deeper analysis to disclose the shortcomings in the foundations and the architecture of the global governance system, shortcomings that are rooted much further back than in the fifties. 

These shortcomings should first be sought in the deficiencies of the very conception of the Nation-State, defined in the past centuries as the exclusive embodiment of public interests. This exclusive right is, according to the expression of Ambassador Valaskakis, at the heart of the "Westphalian order," an order that imposed itself in late-seventeenth-century Europe and became the model for the whole world in designing international law. Today, however, identification of the Westphalian State, with its own system of administration and appraisal of the "public domain" has frozen a practice that is now out of date. The renewal of governance requires a revision of the traditional borders between what is defined as public and what is defined as private: henceforth the public character of an institution, a rule, or a responsibility is no longer defined by a formal status but by its real impact on the community. Private actors, large corporations in particular, exercise a public influence through the considerable number of people whose everyday life they orient or affect. As a result, for example, the growth in the circulation of trade, that is of the private rights of access to markets, should be accompanied with a correlative responsibility to the preservation of public, environmental, and social goods. Equally ensuing is the need to associate private actors - civil society, corporations, etc. - in some form or another to the conception and implementation of public rules. 

The Westphalian order also erects the sovereignty of the State as absolute. This results in a weaker status of international law as compared to national law, including in areas of major concern to a set of nations or the community of nations. The experience of the European Union – which requires reconciling an effective supranational law with the autonomy and respect of the cultural identities of very unequal nations - remains exemplary but exceptional in this respect. This same absolute conception of sovereignty institutes every national territory as an isolated entity cut off from the rest of the world and turns international action into a layer added onto the national and infranational political orders. 

This situation is in contradiction with the need for coherence in the public actions taken at the different territorial scales, increasingly concerning same fields of activity and interacting with one another. This is probably a major, distinctive feature of the new global governance: it is not only concerned with the superficial sphere of interaction among nations, its object is the achievement of positive coherence among the different levels of government, from the local to the global. The relation among the different levels of government is at the heart of tomorrow’s public management. This finding is just as valid when it has to do with managing an urban area made up of multiple territorial communities as when it has to do with reconciling the global rules governing freedom of trade with national laws. This is additional proof that the effort to recast global governance cannot be separated from all the efforts made to reconsider the foundations and methods of public action at every level. 

The second congenital flaw of present global governance, the fruit of successive historic concessions among constituted States, is to remain centered on a founding core of Western nations. Certainly, the “North-South” concept needs to be qualified: the great diversity of situations in the "South" limits the reach of any generalization. The fact remains that the center of gravity of the interests managed by present global governance is in the North. The result is an obvious lack of legitimacy, the dismal character of which bursts forth when the issue is - as in the Earth Summit of 1992 - to discuss a sustainable, fair access to natural resources. 

II) Recasting Global Governance on a Pillar of Common Ethics and Common Principles 

A.	A pillar of common ethics: Moving toward a constituent Charter of the International Community 

Governance, from the local to the global, is today a vast construction site. It is being rebuilt, a bit here and a bit there, in no special order. Negotiations follow one another in succession and overlap, field by field. The issue is clearly no longer to extend the reach of international conventions or the areas of trade liberalization. It is also the fact that the organization and operation of public institutions at every level are being simultaneously debated on. Many countries are building, at the national level, the conditions for a state of law and democracy. International institutions lavish advice, sometimes even seeking to impose, through aid conditionality, rules of "good governance". In the early democracies, a vast movement of public-action reform is in progress, marked by a strong accent on decentralization so as to move closer to the citizens. Nothing, however, ensures the convergence of these movements, except, probably, the democratic perspective itself. However, how can democracy be given back its meaning when the essential part of our common future is being played out outside of the national and local democratic bodies? How can we ensure that at the various levels there is concern for the public goods that have become the common heritage of humankind? How can public actors and private actors be included in a common perspective of rights and responsibilities? 

To answer these questions, a true recasting is necessary. It must go beyond what has been achieved by the Charter of the United Nations, which in fact only recognizes Nations–States as the subjects of international law and gives little value to the peoples. It must also go beyond the rights of individuals, because a true implementation of the solidarity that unites them also requires their active commitment and their personal responsibility. What we need is a new founding charter, complementary to the first. The elaboration of such a charter can only be the result of collective and progressive work. The Charter for a Responsible, Plural and United World drawn up in the framework of the Alliance, prefigures the kind of process this can be and its results. Without claiming to be exclusive, it represents the beginnings of this collective contribution. 

This Charter has produced five fundamental ethical postulates:

1	To preserve humankind in its wealth and the planet in its integrity, there must be harmony at every level between unity and diversity. 

2	Recognition of others is the foundation of all relationships and all peace.

3	Acceptance of the constraints entailed by the preservation of the common good is indispensable to the exercise of individual freedom. 

4	Material development is at the service of human development. 

5	Change is not an aim in itself; it is a means to serve human development and the safekeeping of the planet.

From these five postulates, we can deduce the responsibilities that should be taken by the “International Community.” These include, in particular:

a)	preservation of the common good – understood to include all living beings – and of the integrity of all ecosystems;
b)	guaranteeing the preservation of the diversity of societies, the preservation of the dignity of persons, the access of all to the common good, and the implementation of the principle of precaution;
c)	distribution and redistribution, in particular of scarce goods, and management of the debt incurred by Nations with regard to each other and with regard to the biosphere for having used these goods;
d)	monitoring the evolution of humankind and of the ecosystems, as well as enforcing codes of conduct and standards, and setting up the means to do so;
e)	learning: by helping to circulate all goods that are multiplied through sharing, experience in particular; by promoting conflict resolution through cooperation and education to tolerance; by facilitating continuing reflection on the rights and responsibilities of humankind; 
f)	arbitration, in particular with regard to contradictions among standards and codes of conduct; construction of a hierarchy of standards and its continuous revision; and the search for complementarity among such standards;
g 	recourse regarding the way in which private and public actors, particularly the supranational ones, assume their responsibilities.

For international rules to be effective and lastingly agreed to, they also need to resonate deeply among the people and be consistent with the ethics that guide their own conduct. There needs to be a correspondence between the general principles of collective action – which are source of law – and the ethical orientations that are the source of individual conduct. This way, the need to reconcile at every level unity and diversity, the two inseparable faces of the living world, is in agreement with personal inspiration to freedom and creativeness, including the spirit of research and innovation, as well as with the individual exercise of tolerance and respect of others. This way, the principle of responsibility goes hand and hand with the personal obligation of solidarity and mutual aid. 

Such correspondences very extensively escape the judicial field and its ensuing policies. They refer responsibilities and duties to the citizens themselves. This leads to underscoring the importance of the educational and teaching function assumed by the various moral and religious traditions. For this reason, the major religions of the world must contribute to the development and multicultural expression of such a charter. 

B. Three common principles of governance 

The Charter points to the magnitude and depth of the renewal that is needed. Nonetheless, without waiting for the process of development and appropriation of the Charter to be completed, there is sufficient consensus established today among a very large variety of actors to agree on some basic principles, the application of which would ensure a greater legitimacy and a greater coherence to the reforms of public action being undertaken at various levels. 

In reviewing our experiences as NGOs, persons in charge of administration and policy, and stakeholders at every level from local development action to international negotiations, we have noted that three main principles prove to be essential, at every geographical scale, to inspire collective action and to organize public action. 

These three principles – of responsibility, subsidiarity, and plurality – are not fortuitous. Their exactness has been proven through innumerable experiences, at various geographical scales and in different contexts, whenever it has been necessary to obtain a collective mobilization in view of complex objectives integrating various dimensions in a context of interdependence. These principles can therefore be perceived as a form of contemporary wisdom. Their formulation is of course open to further discussion. 

1 The Principle of Responsibility 

All power induces the responsibility of whoever exercises it, not only with regard to those who entrusted it and can also withdraw it but, even more so, with regard to all that which, in society and the biosphere, is affected by the exercise of such power. Under these conditions: 

•	Any power is held to be accountable. In particular, any public authority can be tried by a higher authority, any sovereignty is limited, and any State is held accountable not only to its own citizens but also to the international bodies in charge of representing "the rest of the world." 

•	The scope of such responsibility does not only ensue from the mandates that are given for the exercise of power by voters or shareholders, but more generally from the impact of the exercise of such power on third parties. 

2 The Principle of Subsidiarity 

One of the roles of international rules is to ensure as much as possible the cohesion and unity of the whole, by taking into account two conditions: the need to promote our common good or goods; the need to preserve the greatest possible autonomy for each of the components. 

•	The principle of subsidiarity leads to seeking a distribution of jurisdiction among the various levels of authority or responsibility, but it gains to be enhanced by the concept of active subsidiarity in the increasingly frequent situations where jurisdiction is necessarily shared: no major problem, whether it has to do with ensuring security or essential needs, or with the management of the biosphere, can be taken at only one level of responsibility; this therefore requires cooperation among the different  levels and leads to the exercise of shared responsibility. In the practice of active subsidiarity, decisions are taken at the lowest possible level in compliance with the duty to achieve a given result. The definition of this mandatory result is the fruit of collective elaboration. Active subsidiarity thus serves as a foundation for the necessary cooperation of power exercised at different levels. 

3 The Principle of Plurality 

Collective action cannot be fully engaged without the acknowledgement of a common objective. The identification of such an objective must not, however, conflict with the diversity of cultural belonging and identities. This is what the principle of plurality expresses. 

This principle can be applied through legal provisions designed to prevent or repress of discrimination based on ethnic belonging, gender, or religion, but it should also be expressed positively through the attribution of greater value to geographical, cultural, and linguistic diversity. At the various territorial scales – local, regional, national, and plurinational – where collective action is sought, the process of construction of unity placing value on plurality can take the form of partnership approaches. 

III) Ten Proposals for a More Effective and More Legitimate 
Global Governance

The lack of legitimacy and credibility is currently a major obstacle to the strengthening of global governance. This deficit has multiple causes, which are related to the way those that exercise authority are designated then controlled, to the absence of transparency and of checks and balances, to the dissatisfactory nature of the way institutions work, and to the quality of decision-making processes. 

To strengthen the legitimacy of the multilateral system, it is necessary to translate into acts the pillar of common ethics and common principles of governance that were expressed above, and the ensuing responsibilities of the International Community. This is the object of the following proposals – not exhaustive – which aim: to materialize the principle of responsibility; to achieve a higher involvement of the civil society and the national parliaments in the development and the implementation of rules; to restore a balance, to the benefit of the South, in their negotiation and application methods; to accelerate the constitution of regional entities; to extend and to specify the concept of the common good; to draw a distinction between the power of proposal and the power of decision; to develop independent monitoring, warning, and assessment systems; to diversify and consolidate the bases for the financing of international collective action; and finally, to undertake a vast consultation process. 

Proposal 1: Materialize the principle of responsibility

We have previously defined, for all levels of governance, the main principles of responsibility. Translating them into concrete realities on a global scale is all the more urgent that, at this scale, actual power is mostly exercised outside the framework of classic political responsibility: by bodies of officers and experts whose autonomy is all the greater that the problems they deal with are complex and that the political decision bodies are weak, distant, and divided; and by private actors who are only accountable to their own principals. 

Under these conditions, it is necessary to reinforce both the transparency of decisions and the accountability of those who hold power. For this, we propose: 

•	Greater transparency. All international rules that have been transposed nationally should have source and recourse clearly identified. The subjects and users of these rules should insofar as possible know the references of the international and national agencies that originated the statement of the rule as well as the methods of recourse in case of litigation on their application. 

•	Publicizing of the way in which the bodies in charge of the implementation of international rules have carried out their mission. 

•	Possible implementation of sanctions in cases of serious shortcomings with regard to the execution of mandates. 

Proposal 2: Achieve greater involvement of the civil society in the development and implementation of international rules

It will be lastingly difficult to establish a parliamentary-type representation on a global or plurinational scale, even though this perspective remains a long-term objective. Nonetheless, there is already a global public forum where many forms of civilian influence are exercised and heard, independently of national and international public authorities, for the promotion of individual or general interests. 

This "global civil society" is not limited to NGOs. Its emergence, increasingly organized at the international level, is facilitated by the new information and communication technology. This is one of the major changes of these past fifty years. It is often through more-or-less organized forms of the civil society that new issues appear on the political agenda, and that the actions of the public authorities and the implementation of international conventions are monitored and checked. Similarly, the large companies and large pension funds have become major actors and sometimes regulators of international choices. 

Associating this international civil society to the preparation and the implementation of international rules can constitute a legitimization factor for the institutions themselves, provided that there is compliance with rules of procedure. We propose the following rules as examples: 

a) Companies and NGOs acting at an international scale should necessarily subscribe to a code of conduct, the implementation of which must also be controlled at the international scale (symmetry of levels of action and control). 

b) Methods for the representation of the civil society and an obligation of transparency of this representation must be defined by all international agencies as a guarantee for public control over their action. 

c) Appeal mechanisms for the civil society should be able to produce audits of the action of the public authorities at different levels or of the implementation of codes of conduct and rules of the International Community. At present, this power of referral to higher authorities is reserved for all practical purposes to the holders of financial power: shareholders in the case of companies, and the shareholders countries in the case of the World Bank and the IMF. This power of referral needs to be extended to all those who undergo the impact of the action of private or public actors. 

d) Population-based initiatives should be able to lead to the organization of global consensus conferences, on the model first initiated by the Danish government. These consensus conferences would apply to the complex problems engendered among others by the impact of science and technology. 

e) The civil society must be involved in the establishment and management of monitoring systems at the international scale. 

f) The consequences of scientific and technological development play a decisive role in the evolution of humankind. They should be part of the public good par excellence. Their forms of production and exploitation are leading today to their increasing privatization. The International Community must earmark part of the investment devoted to the development of new technology for the promotion of a citizens’ use of technology, so as to strengthen the civil society. 

g) In order to increase the awareness of a single human community and the consideration of the diversity of contexts and interests, it is necessary to work toward the emergence of an international representation of the different social sectors with organization and appraisal means allowing them to take into account the complexity of the problems and to move beyond corporatistic attitudes. 

Proposal 3: Achieve greater involvement of national parliaments in the development and implementation of international rules 

In the absence of a world parliament, the legitimacy of international rules depends on that of the national governments themselves, which can also, in the framework of constitutional rules, be suited to the exercise of shared sovereignty. Ultimately, however, in the democratic states, national parliaments have the responsibility of ensuring the proper application of any international action conducted by governments, directly or indirectly. 

However, international comparisons show that the provisions by which the competent parliamentary commissions or delegations are informed or are set up to assume their responsibilities are extremely variable. All too often, the international field escapes parliamentary discussion and assessment. It is necessary to encourage the dissemination of the most positive experiences in which there has been parliament involvement in international debates, interparliamentary cooperation or the constitution of independent evaluation bodies at the service of parliaments. National administrations will not necessarily appreciate what they may consider as interference in what they basically see as their own territory, and many parliaments are likely to have, at the start, unenthusiastic and nationalistic reactions, but democracy stands to gain in the long run. 

Proposal 4: Put the South on an equal footing with the North for the negotiation and the implementation of rules 

The time for a true representative global democracy may have not arrived, but we can certainly do much better than the inequitable poll-tax system that currently prevails, in which the richest countries have, given in particular the lack of a world taxing system, the monopoly of power. It is a poll-tax system where the G8 poses as the board of directors of the world, with the United States as censor or policeman, where the power of shareholders – private in the case of companies, public in the case of the Bretton Woods institutions – totally overrides the power of citizens. It is a system in which the techno-administrations of the rich countries and the international institutions have the monopoly over the definition of the terms of negotiations. 

To be legitimate, global-governance systems should truly be negotiated with all regions of the world and be judged equitable. Above all, the stated priorities must correspond to the real concerns of the most numerous and poorest peoples. 

To stop being mere spectators of negotiations conducted over their heads, according to an agenda determined by the rich countries, and to get existing international rules to play in their favor, the countries that are not part of the G8 must first be helped to reinforce their capacities of analysis, independent appraisal, and proposal, in particular in the framework of regional coalitions (see Proposal 5), failing which they have no way of being heard. 

As long as only the rich countries can decide what it is acceptable or not to negotiate (for instance: the circulation of goods but not the circulation of people; the development methods for poor countries but not the lifestyles of the rich countries; negotiable permits but not the property of natural resources, etc.), all the other countries will pay no more than lip service to accepting global governance and its ensuing constraints. As long as the rich countries, often under the influence of their economic agents, claim the monopoly over concepts (as for the definition of what is merchandise and what is public good) and strategies (as for the promotion of large-scale or high-technology development projects to the detriment of more socially adapted solutions), the populations of the other countries will not feel involved, nor even concerned by what their administrative and political elite will have possibly negotiated in their name. 

The negotiations to set the international agenda could, in fact, lead in certain areas, as in trade or science, to slowing down negotiations or technological innovations, against the pressures of lobbies intending to strengthen their comparative advantage by constantly pushing for innovation and the opening of borders in the name of the progress of humankind. Indeed, the major problem of our societies today is no longer to accelerate the evolution of technology nor even yet to enlarge the sphere of the market economy. It is rather, on the contrary, to fill the gap between this speedy evolution and the tremendous lagging behind of mindsets and institutions. 

Finally, equity requires that sanctions for non-compliance with rules should be just as dissuasive for the powerful. This is not yet the case, as illustrated by the WTO, in which the poor countries do not have the means to know and master the complexity of the rules, to finance contentious actions, and, if they are successful in a suit, to have dissuasive sanctions applied against an economically powerful country. For sanctions to be sanctions, they must be applied automatically by the whole of countries and not only by the adversely affected country. 

	Proposal 5: Accelerate the constitution of regional entities

A North-South balance in the management of world security and in the establishment of the multilateral agenda requires setting up large regional entities that are not just common economic markets but also political and institutional realities and efficient mediation entities between the national and global levels. 

Along with the opening of markets to international trade, we have witnessed the spontaneous formation of regional economic and social entities, of which the European Union is an example. It has turned out that, far from being an obstacle to trade, these groups have accelerated globalization through the fact of having had to fully elaborate the necessary rules for free circulation within their group of countries. 

To accelerate the formation of regional entities, three procedures need to be applied: 

•	In the various international agencies and institutions, representation must be explicitly based on regional groups, with every representative thus being accountable to the countries of their region. 
•	Negotiation and decision-making processes must privilege the regional scale. This is particularly the case for the inevitable reform of the Security Council. The latter should be constituted as an Executive Board made up of representatives of the regions of the world. Every country of a region would occupy the Chair in turn, and, as such, representation in international negotiations. The concerted action of the European Union in such negotiations already illustrates this principle. 
•	In the framework of essential principles expressed on a global level, a set of rules under international law should be able, in accordance with the principle of active subsidiarity, to be given their specific form at the regional scale. 

Proposal 6: Extend and specify the concepts of common good 

Global governance is warranted, in the final analysis, by the need to agree on a number of rules for living in society at the world scale and by the safekeeping, creation, or development of global public goods. There is, however, enormous confusion regarding the definition of these common goods and on what distinguishes the public good from that which is a matter for market mechanisms. This confusion is convenient for all those who, in a position of power, can profit from a complete marketability of the world. To dispel this confusion, we propose to refer to a new typology of the goods that are necessary for wellbeing and development. This typology, which is subject to discussion, takes into account the recent developments of science and technology. It makes a distinction among several categories of goods: those that are destroyed when shared, for example the integrity of ecosystems; those, such as energy, that are the result of the working of the biosphere and are divided when shared; those that are the object of human intervention in their production and are divided when shared; those that are multiplied when shared, starting with knowledge and experience. The privatization of goods should concern mainly the third category of goods. The rest should be included in the vast category of common goods for which suitable rules of management need to be designed. 

	Proposal 7: Make a distinction between the power of proposal and that of decision to reconstruct the United Nations 

Traditional “political power” has been defined as the capacity to design, decide and implement suitable solutions to problems, in general through the definition of sectoral policies implemented by specialized administrative institutions. These conceptions are at the heart of the present operation of the United Nations and of the mandate of their agencies. However, they are also a major cause of the dead ends of a lot of UN action. Every State, beginning with the most powerful, is reluctant to place its sovereignty under tutelage. Each specialized agency acts autonomously whereas today's "global challenges", whether they have to do with the environment, poverty, or the development, are all characterized by their complexity and interconnectedness. To come out of these dead ends, we propose to institute, within the UN system, a separation between the power of proposal and the power of decision and to systematically apply a collective, interagency approach to problems that are in fact global. 

•	Separate the power of proposal from the power of decision. This principle has been experimented by the European Union and has made it possible for it to progress in its construction while respecting multiple identities. It has consisted in making of the Commission, placed in a status of extra-territoriality, the legitimate body for the elaboration of proposals of common interest; the Council, constituted of State representatives, keeps the power of decision. This system is currently experiencing a twofold crisis: the mechanism for the elaboration of proposals is too confidential; and the rule of unanimity that prevails for decisions is not suited to the admittance to the Union of a greater number of countries. However, transposed to the United Nations and taking judicious advantage of the crisis of the European institutions, this distinction can be made the starting point of a regeneration of the system. 

The General Secretariat would become the extranational institution endowed exclusively with a power of proposal. It would be backed by the Directors General of the agencies formed as a College, which should reflect a balance among the regions of the world. The process of elaboration of proposals would be extensively publicized and would associate, according to the procedures described elsewhere, the civil society and the national parliaments. 

The Assembly of States would have the power of decision. It would exercise this power through a renewed Security Council, comprising representatives of the different regions of the world, each of them having the right of veto. This procedure would have the advantage of reinforcing regional cooperation and of encouraging processes of discussion in two stages, at the regional scale then on a world scale, in keeping with the active subsidiarity principle. In the preparation of world conferences organized by the UN during the last decade, the regional debates were often in fact more active and concrete. 

•	Systematize the collective approach to global problems. For the past few years, cooperation among United Nations agencies and with the Bretton Woods institutions, in particular the World Bank, has grown. Such cooperation would be reinforced and institutionalized for every global problem. An institution would be chosen as project manager with the mission to facilitate the collective work of analyzing and elaborating proposals. An important part of this work would be to expose the inconsistencies and contradictions between rules and sectoral policies and to propose arbitration and common policies. This question is especially relevant for all that concerns the relationship between trade, environment, macroeconomic balances, and policies to combat poverty. 

In the proposed policies, the twofold reference to the ethical pillar (the Charter) and to the fundamental principles of governance would be mandatory, as well as the statement of effectiveness of the proposed policies and rules. As much in the development of the proposed policies as in their implementation, the principle of active subsidiarity would command the “duty to achieve given results” and to offer, on the basis of previous experiences, a range of means to achieve them rather than the universal "best practices" or the mandatory guidelines in which the Bretton Woods institutions have become specialized in the past. 

Proposal 8: Develop independent monitoring, warning, and assessment systems

Far from being secondary, the problem of monitoring, warning, and assessment is at the heart of governance and democracy. It is not a simple one to solve because the question of independence itself is sensitive. Bodies of experts have their own institutional and career rationale, their own forms of dependence with regard to the major economic and political actors. Preventive diplomacy fumbles, entangled in diplomatic relations founded on the sovereignty of States and lacking efficient early-intervention mechanisms. States are greatly concerned with controlling any information on their own territory, even more so in the many cases where they are stakeholders in a conflict. Independent early-warning mechanisms should be a central element of the future global-security system. 

Many countries and an increasing number of companies, have set up on their own account world monitoring or impact-measuring systems. For the analysis of economic, social, and environmental evolutions, pooling these tools can only be of benefit to all. 

Setting up systems of this kind is one of the fields where the organization of the civil society at the international scale is especially effective and the assessments that they provide are often judged by public opinion to be more believable – because more independent – than public assessments. The case of Transparency International, which is interested in questions of corruption and whose index has become a standard of reference, is eloquent in this respect. The role of private rating bodies is not new, in fact; they have played for a long time a considerable role in the financial markets, where the cost of access to information is high. Similarly, in inter-company relations, privately defined standards such as the ISO standard have become standards of reference that are also used by public authorities. 

The development of world governance involves, and will involve even more in the future, the development of monitoring and measuring tools. Biosphere sampling is increasing dramatically. It is underestimated because of the almost exclusive use of monetary or macro-economic trade-valuation criteria. It is necessary to set up information systems focusing on the one hand on exchange flows between human activities and the biosphere, and on the other hand, on the terms of contracts, on compliance with codes of conduct and standards, and on the assessment of actions.

Proposal 9: Diversify and consolidate the bases for the financing of international collective action 

The past fifty years’ experience has shown the fragility of the financing mechanisms in the international agencies or programs founded exclusively on contributions from Member States.

This financing method, unavoidable in the first construction phase of an international action, presents an array of possible disadvantages: it opens the door to all kinds of political blackmail; it generates too much uncertainty to set up permanent means to guarantee security; it encourages, as shown in the case of the European Union, every state to keeps accounts of the costs and benefits of international cooperation, which reinforces national egoism.

It is therefore necessary to set up global taxing partnerships, based, for instance, on: 

	a) the use of the world’s scarce resources or of those with low renewability, use that can be summarized in particular by "the ecological footprint"; 

	b) the usufruct of common goods; 

	c) taxes on exchange flows, for both matter and money exchanges;

	d) a tax on capital, reflecting the idea that the creation of wealth is linked directly to international capacity for ensuring civil peace and maintaining the major balances between humankind and the biosphere. 

	Proposal 10: Undertake a vast consultation process, a new Bretton Woods for the United Nations 

In the past thirty years, many new actors have had to confront the reality of global interdependence. Many have either contributed to economic globalization or have had to suffer it. International networks have been set up, even by traditionally dominated social groups such as farmers or the populations of urban working-class districts. Some global NGOs have been developed. There is thus considerable collective evaluation, which can have a “top-down” view, as well as, more importantly, a “bottom-up” view on the concrete impacts of the way international systems work. This collective capacity and the vast awareness that it reflects are a radically new given and they are often more advanced than the political and administrative bodies that have remained focused – by vocation, electoral obligations, and tradition – on national issues. 

In the past, two major negotiations led to the creation of the League of Nations then of the Organization of the United Nations. They were essential, but incomplete stages in the institution of a global governance. In this same spirit, to integrate the above-stated  proposals in the political and diplomatic reality and, more generally speaking, to apply to the reform of the system itself the principles of governance that have just been expressed, it would be desirable for the United Nations’ Millennium Assembly to launch an initiative combining credibility, quality of proposals, and a critical mass that will bring governments to take them into consideration. This initiative could be the preparation for a Convention on Global Governance of several thousand of people, gathered to this effect, for the first time in history, for a few days, on the invitation of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The persons invited to attend would be the leaders of organizations using the transnational dimension in the public or private field (examples: Universal Postal Union, IMF, Red Cross, Arab League, Médecins sans Frontières, IBM, religions, IATA, Rotary Club, etc.). 

Persons attending the Convention would have answered a questionnaire about their transnational role, their view of the world and of the future, the reforms that they see as appropriate, the most suitable institutional forms for them, and their willingness to contribute to the necessary transformations. 

The summary of these answers, preliminary documents, and discussions would make it possible to draft the Convention Acts, then a White Paper, which would be sent to all Heads of State and Government of the UN Member Countries proposing that they accept it as a basis for the general negotiations that should lead to a true International Community. 

Conclusion 

In the wake of World War II, women and men, thinking about the causes of the cataclysm that humankind had just undergone, were able to mobilize generosity and imagination, and to combine idealism, prospective views, and pragmatism to lay the foundations of a new world. 

Today, fifty years later, challenges and dangers are accumulating. Conscience is awakening. The world is not a marketable commodity. The fate of future generations is not a figure of speech, it is a burning question. Experience and imagination can once again be mobilized to integrate the considerable heritage of the past fifty years in a construction that has been renewed in depth and adapted to the challenges of the twenty-first century. It is the responsibility of the General Assembly of the United Nations to mobilize them. 

The Process of Development of the Proposals in the Present Text 

The initiative to launch the Workshop of the Alliance on Global Governance was taken at the beginning of the year 2000, after a long maturing period, by: Stéphane Hessel (from 1946 to 1950 international officer at the United Nations in New York, then administrator attached to the UNDP from 1970 to 1972; French Ambassador to the United Nations since 1977; currently Ambassador of France, and member of the High Council for International Cooperation since 1999); Jerôme Vignon (worked on the implementation of regional and sectoral policy at the Commissariat au Plan, and for 15 years with Jacques Delors in the Forward Studies Unit of the European Commission); Georges Berthoin (Director for Jean Monnet in 1952 at the European Community;  Former Ambassador of the European Commission in London; International Chairman of the European Movement. Co-chairman of the Trilateral Commission for 17 years); and Pierre Calame (General Director of The Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH)). They opened to discussion a first text of proposals among an international network of people thinking about these questions, from different geographical and professional horizons. The text was also presented on the Web site of the Alliance (www.echo.org), on which a number of contributions were also collected. 

Substantial contributions were provided, among others, by: Béatrice Pouligny, Ph.D. in Political Science, Researcher at the Centre d’Etude de Recherche Internationale; Richard Goldmark, CEO of the International Herald Tribune, former Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation; Gorän Von Bonsdorf, Honorary Chairman, Foreign Policy Association, Association for the United Nations, Professor Emeritus of the University of Finland; Robert-Ali Brac de la Perrière, Coordinator of the Topical Workshop on Biodiversity of the Alliance; Bengt Broms, Judge, President of Chamber One, former President of the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations; Rabah Lahmar, Coordinator of the Topical Workshop on Sols of the Alliance; Ignacy Sachs, CIRED (Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement), specialist in eco-development issues (Brazil, Poland, France) ; Paul Tran Van Thinh, former representative to the European Union in the GATT négociations ; Joseph Rocher, Director of Réseau des ONG Européennes sur les questions Agro-alimentaires et de Développement (RONGEAD).

On the basis of the discussions in this first phase, a second draft of the text was drawn up in June 2000. From this second version, an international meeting took place in mid-June. It associated the following people: Larry Thomson, (United States) former Ambassador of the United States in different countries, currently runs Refugees International, a Washington-based organization in charge of aid to refugees; Matthew Stilwell (Australia) who works in Geneva at CIEL, AN international law firm, specialized in the analysis of international policies on trade, and in particular the WTO; Adilur Rhaman Khan (Bangladesh) lawyer to the Supreme Court, after an early political career, currently in charge of the defense of human rights; Sinha Sureshwar (India), after a career in the army, founded the Rural Development Foundation in New Delhi; Paul Dembinski (Switzerland), economist, runs the Financial Monitoring Center in Geneva, coordinates the Workshop "Financial Markets" of the Alliance; Fabiola Rüegg (Switzerland), of the Financial Monitoring Center; Jean Tardif (Canada), anthropologist specializing in Africa, Senior Officer of the state of Quebec, Delegate for the Francophonie, currently detached to Paris; Larbi Bouguerra (Tunisia), former opposition leader to the regime of Bourguiba, biochemist, specialized in water, Coordinator of the Water Workshop of the Alliance; Bernard Laponche (France), engineer and physicist, worked in the nuclear industry at the Commissariat of Atomic Energy, then against nuclear energy, currently working on energy efficiency and coordinating the Energy Workshop of the Alliance; Richard Pétris (France) in charge of the Ecole de la Paix in Grenoble, coordinates the Workshop "Conversion of Arms Industries” of the Alliance; Laurence Tubiana (France), in charge of sustainable-development issues for the Prime Minister, one of the founders of Solagral, partner of the FPH, Publisher of the magazine Courrier de la Planète; Ahmedou Ould Abdallah (Mauritania) Executive Secretary of the Coalition for Africa, based in Washington; Silvio Marzaroli (Uruguay), leader of a farmers’ coordination in the MERCOSUR countries since 1994, which has a strategy in three points: alternative project, mobilization of grassroots populations, permanent negotiations; Jean-Christophe Bas (France), in charge of Pan-European Dialogue at the World Bank in Paris. 

This meeting made it possible to enrich the proposals on the basis of governance issues raised in different sectors: 

•	Water 
•	Energy 
•	Finance and financial markets 
•	Security, arms, conflict management 
•	Environment 
•	Culture and cultural relations 
•	Trade 

The present text is the result of this work. It will be completed shortly with proposals relative to these different sectors. As of the fall, the full text will be open to discussion within the Alliance for achieve an enriched version at the end of the year 2001. 

The Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World

Humankind, on the eve of the twenty-first century, is facing the challenge of having to undertake deep mutations because of the crises of relations of human beings among themselves, of societies among themselves and of humankind with the biosphere, resulting among others from our present forms of development. These mutations will be a long-term task because they involve all the dimensions of human activity and the way societies work. Because these mutations will be deep and slow, undertaking them is an emergency. Otherwise, they will be imposed upon us by social, political, and environmental disasters with incalculable consequences. The difficulty lies in knowing how to undertake them and who can take the initiative. A twofold difficulty arises: most our approaches, practices and institutions have been designed to manage yesterday’s, rather than tomorrow's situations; political power, mainly organized at the scale of  Nation-States, is focused on the medium term and is badly prepared to take on worldwide, long-term challenges while, on their side, the economic actors and financiers who have been quick to measure the importance of globalization, often have neither the vocation nor the desire to undertake transformations that are in contradiction with their own interests. It is therefore up to the citizens to take initiatives while respecting the immense diversity of situations, contexts, and cultures, from China to India, to the Arab countries, to Africa, to America, to Europe and the Pacific. For this, people who are individually in a situation of helplessness must unite around common perspectives. This finding and this conviction are the keystone of the Alliance for a Responsible and United World. The Alliance was born in 1994 with the support of an independent Swiss foundation, the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation, on the basis of a common platform drawn up in 1993 by distinguished persons from different continents. It includes, in 1999, Allies from more than 100 countries and various backgrounds. It is preparing for the year 2001 an Earth Citizens' Assembly which will open the discussion and present its proposals.

Topical Workshops of the Alliance for a Responsible and United World

The collective work of the Alliance is organized according to 3 “paths”: 

•	the “geocultural path” highlights the diversity of contexts in the framework of local groups;

•	the “collegial path” gathers people in an analogous professional and social situation to build their own 

point of view on the world: young people, women, scientists, business leaders, union leaders, farmers, artists, political leaders, religious leaders, etc.;

•	the “sectoral path” organizes international Topical Workshops under 4 work themes: (1) Values and Culture, (2) Socioeconomy, (3) Governance, (4) Humankind / Biosphere Relations. Specific Topical Workshops gather Allies and sympathizing experts to draw up proposals.

For further information, contact:
The Alliance for a Responsible and United World
Web : http://www.echo.org	Email : alliance@echo.org