IN THIS ISSUE

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Henning Melber
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
Similar Degree ◽  
Double Standards ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Local Meaning

This year will focus on celebrations and reflections on occasion of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. At the same time, the Millennium Development Goals as well as the Sustainable Development Goals for thepost-2015 era remain central items on the agenda when global governance issues and international responsibilities are discussed.Notions, which by implication always also carry a local meaning and impact on domestic policy in as much as domestic policy (not only as foreign policy) also impacts on global governance issues. The divide often maintained is more than ever artificial and misleading in the face of the global challenges humanity faces — not only in terms of environmental degradation as a resultof climate change. Many issues do not have any territorial boundaries orare transcending those. The inter-linkages of the local and the global (for which the term'glocal' was minted a few years ago) are obvious not only when it comes tohumanitarian disasters and emergency situations appealing to globalsolidarity, such as the recent earthquake in Nepal and its devastating consequences. Other manifestations of solidarity in a global world include the almost world-wide 'Je Suis Charlie' response and outcry to the terrorist attack on the journal and the cold-blooded execution of its cartoonists in Paris. The gathering of world leaders there in defiance of the assault on civil liberties and freedoms of expression was a symbolic act of some magnitude and brought together even deeply antagonistic political players. But at the same time the lack of similar visible and determined symbolic acts of defiance by the world's political leaders and Western civil society agencies, suggesting an absence of a similar degree of moral outcry and global protest over the ongoing slaughters and abductions by Boko Haram in Nigeria or the massacre of students at the Garissa University College in Kenya seem to suggest that we still live in times of double standards and/or selective perceptions. Humanity as well as humanbeings remain divided and seem to live in different worlds. Likewise, the tragedies taking place visibly in broad daylight on the Mediterranean Sea, reaching a scale of human loss at days bordering to the numerical proportions of 9/11, have not been met with a similar rigorous political will topromote true values of humanity.

Introduction: Global Governance through Goal Setting

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norichika Kanie ◽  
Steven Bernstein ◽  
Frank Biermann ◽  
Peter M. Haas
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Goal Setting ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Unique Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Governance Strategy

This chapter lays out a research agenda to assess conditions, challenges, and prospects for the Sustainable Development Goals to pursue this aim. First, the chapter discusses goal setting as a global governance strategy. Second, to contextualize the Sustainable Development Goals, it discusses the unique nature of the modern challenges that the Sustainable Development Goals must confront and review the historical and political trajectory of sustainable development governance, including the evolution from a primarily rule-based to a more goal-based system and the experience of the earlier Millennium Development Goals. Third, the chapter reviews the negotiating history of the Sustainable Development Goals. Then, the chapter elaborate on how the chapters are organized to address the three questions that guide the book.

Humane global governance—an area for the future where progress inches forward

2020 ◽  
pp. 935-939
Author(s):  
Richard Jolly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The Future ◽  
Neoliberal Economics ◽  
Development Goals

This chapter argues that the twenty-first century requires humane global governance, well beyond current perspectives usually based on neoliberal economics. Humane global governance would give priority to human concerns and human rights; encompass the Sustainable Development Goals as key objectives; be focused on support for national and international priorities for human rights, poverty reduction, and diminishing extremes of inequalities. Global public goods should be defined and pursued in a humane way, emphasizing human needs in tackling such global threats as the transmission of communicable diseases, extremes of rapid migration, civil conflict, peace and human security—all key elements in human development. Examples are given as to how such approaches have been demonstrated by different UN agencies and how they can be built on for the future.

The Sustainable Development Goals and Multilateral Agreements

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arild Underdal ◽  
Rakhyun E. Kim
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Goal Setting ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Governance System ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
The Impact

This chapter explores goal setting, as exemplified by the Sustainable Development Goals, as a governance strategy for reforming or rearranging existing international agreements and organizations so as to enhance their overall performance in promoting sustainable development. It discusses the political and entrepreneurial challenges peculiar to bringing existing international institutions into line, and identifies the conditions under which goal setting could be an effective tool for orchestration. The chapter concludes that, because of their ecumenical diversity and soft priorities, the Sustainable Development Goals are not likely to serve as effective instruments for fostering convergence. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides neither an overarching norm that can serve as a platform for more specific goals nor an integrating vision of what long-term sustainable development in the Anthropocene means. In the absence of such an overarching principle and vision, the impact of the Sustainable Development Goals on global governance will likely materialize primarily as spurring some further clustering of existing regimes and organizations within crowded policy domains. The Sustainable Development Goals cannot be expected to generate major architectural reforms that will significantly reduce the fragmentation of the global governance system at large.

Conclusion: Key Challenges for Global Governance through Goals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Biermann ◽  
Norichika Kanie
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Institutional Arrangement ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Setting Process ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Development Goals

This chapter summarizes some key findings of the book, discuss the challenges for, and opportunities of, the Sustainable Development Goals by identifying several conditions that might determine their successful implementation, and also suggest some possible avenues for further research. The approach of “global governance through goals”—and the Sustainable Development Goals as a prime example—is marked by a number of key characteristics, including its detachment from the international legal system, weak institutional arrangement, global inclusion and comprehensive goal-setting process, and granting much leeway to national choices and preferences. Those characteristics are reflected in the challenges for implementation, including those of developing indicators and institutional arrangements, tailoring implementation at national or stakeholder levels, and securing policy integration. Further research is needed in addressing these challenges, which requires inter- and transdisciplinary research development.

The Future of Global Governance for Health

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Sidibé ◽  
Helena Nygren-Krug ◽  
Bronwyn McBride ◽  
Kent Buse
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
The Right ◽  
Development Paradigm ◽  
Global Governance For Health

This chapter argues that the current global health agenda has failed to put people and their rights at the center. With communities unable to have their voices heard, challenge injustice, and hold decision makers to account, states are ill-equipped to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 3 to ensure healthy lives and well-being for all. The chapter articulates a shift from a discretionary development paradigm to a rights-based paradigm for global health, building on rights-based approaches that have been proven to work—as in the AIDS response. Seven reforms are proposed, addressing: (1) priority-setting, (2) systems for health, (3) data and monitoring, (4) access to justice, (5) the need to safeguard the right to health across sectors, (6) partnerships, and (7) financing. These reforms call for a broad social movement for global governance for health, advancing and operationalizing rights-based approaches across the SDGs.

scholarly journals G20 Hangzhou Summit: A Possible Turning Point for Global Governance

2016 ◽  
Vol 02 (03) ◽  
pp. 327-346
Author(s):  
Colin I. Bradford
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
2030 Agenda ◽  
The Face ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Paris Climate Agreement ◽  
Public Reaction ◽  
The Uk

The 2016 G20 Summit in Hangzhou takes place within a tense global political context. The outcome of the UK Brexit referendum in June revealed the deep divide between the politics of competitive nationalism and the commitment to international cooperation. It also reflected the depth of public reaction to global economic integration and the absence of response to public anxieties about social well-being and environmental sustainability from the political middle in many countries. China’s hosting of the G20 Summit presents an opportunity to turn a corner in global summitry by strengthening global leadership at this critical juncture, while China’s ability to do so depends on the willingness of other G20 members to comprehensively address public anxieties. The UN 2030 Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement, both reached in 2015, do provide political and policy answers to the public anxieties. The question is the effectiveness of the initiatives governments are taking to implement them, which could be framed together to achieve sustainability for all in the face of serious, demonstrable systemic risks. Many governments may resist this level of ambition and prefer to strike a lower profile as the world shifts its focus from goal setting in 2015 to goal implementation in 2016. Yet even with this less ambitious approach, there are ways that G20 countries can initiate processes that engage stakeholders in envisioning the future and developing alternative approaches and pathways to move their nations toward where they need to be by 2030 in terms of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. As people-centered and planet-centered agendas, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set in the UN 2030 Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement have the policy content necessary to provide hope and direction for anxious publics. Similarly, it is hopeful that G20 leaders can develop narratives and define commitments to address the economic insecurity of their people and in the meantime strengthen the G20’s role in global governance.

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