Pasts and Future attempts at Global Governance

Past Attempts and Failure at Global Governance

The first attempts of humans to dominate large amounts of land and people were made by ancient empires. They did this because of their desire to control others and to have power. Many of these empires include Alexander the Great�s Empire, the Roman Empire, ancient China, and the Persian Empire. More modern empires such as the British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire, Spain, and so on made attempts to become the most dominate empire/kingdom in the world. Their leaders no doubt would have taken an offer to rule the entire world. Luckily, since there was so much competition between these great powers during their peaks of power no one power could dominate for a long period of time. This competition caused hundreds of great wars in the past. Had one gained this domination and control, and held it for long periods of time (hundreds of years) the world could have been under the command of one, supreme, almighty king.

The main attempts to control the world in the 1900s were made by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and Hitler with the German Nazis. Once the Communist take-over of the Russian Empire was completed during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917-1918, the empire was renamed the USSR. The USSR called for and supported communist revolutions worldwide. They firmly believed that they could use communism to govern, dominate, and control the entire world.

The USSR was successful in seeing that many parts of the world, including Cuba, Vietnam, China, and Eastern Europe fell victim to communist rebellions. In Eastern Europe, the USSR set up communist "satellite" governments in association with itself, to govern and dominate the individual nations of that region. The Cold War came from the effort of the USSR and Communists to attempt to install communism as a way to govern large parts of the world. Advocates for democracy (the opposite of communism), the main nation being the United States of America (USA), tried to stop the spread of communism and advance democracy and the independence of sovereign nations around the globe. These advocates/nations were the opponents of the USSR in the Cold War. Had communism been allowed to spread and be implemented across the planet, many people would have died due to the totalitarian nature of this form of government, not to mention the deaths caused by the rebellions that would establish these communist governments.

Interestingly, the USSR on Christmas Day, 1991 (25 December, 1991) officially failed (The Times Illustrated History of the World 231). Communism it seemed, was not a very efficient, democratic, and peaceful method of governing people. People literally hated the government�s harsh treatment of them and its distortion of their rights. Ironically, although the original communist ideals were to lead to a better life style and more fairly distribute the general wealth to the people; the rise and defeat of communism did just the opposite, killing many, allowing a few individuals control everyone by using totalitarian methods, and degrading the general welfare of the people.

Most modern communist governments formed by the help of the former USSR, such as the People�s Republic of China, are getting very harsh criticism from the world and their citizens. Hopefully, their governments will realize that they need to protect and promote the rights of their citizens. Once this happens, which I think is very likely in the future; communism will be eradicated from the planet.

Another famous attempt at creating a strong global government in the 1900s was made by Adolf Hitler and the German Nazis (See Figure 1). They attempted to conquer the world by war and great force. Their theory on global governance was to create one totalitarian, and possibly, a very evil global central power that would control everyone and every aspect of human life. It is perceived that they also sought to ethically cleanse the planet, so that the majority of humanity consisted of the German people. The end result of this awful attempt was millions of human deaths and the destruction of much history, economies, families, and goodness during World War II. The world learned yet again, due to the abuses of power made by leaders such as Adolf Hitler and various USSR leaders, that giving one person or power absolute authority can be devastating to people�s rights and lives.



Modern Forms of and Attempts at Global Governance

The first modern attempt at a peaceful and just style of world governance was the League of Nations. According to The Times Illustrated History of the World, "This was the first worldwide association in the history of governments dedicated to the resolution of disputes by non-violent methods." The League of Nations was created after World War I in an international attempt to maintain world peace, peacefully govern territories whose governments� were distorted during World War I, and solve social and economic issues (See Figure 2). However, the League of Nations failed due to the lack of support from the isolationist attitude of the USA, and also its failure to be respected by other powerful nations of the world.

The League of Nations disintegrated when it failed to halt World War II. It was also hindered by a lack of internal strength. After World War II, the world realized that the world needed to recover from the devastating aftermath of the War. Not only unimaginable physical damage was done, but democracy and human rights had been eradicated from many parts of the world, save for the USA and a few other nations.

In June 1945, the United Nations (UN) was established to correct the damage caused by World War II and to maintain world peace (See Figure 3). The UN was created with the knowledge of the failures of the League of Nations being considered. The UN serves now as the most powerful and successful global governance institution. The UN has since its creation in 1945 been trying to find solutions to world crises. Why has the UN lasted longer than the League of Nations? This time the USA was the main promoter of a new international peacekeeping and welfare-building organization (The Times Illustrated History of the World 287). Even though they were isolationists, the USA realized international peace was necessary for them to succeed as a world power, and therefore, they would have to contribute to its success.

To examine the issues of global governance and its reform, the UN has created the Commission on Global Governance (CGG).

The Commission on Global Governance was established in 1992 in the belief that international developments had created a unique opportunity for strengthening global co-operation to meet the challenge of securing peace, achieving sustainable development, and universalizing democracy. ("Commission on Global Governance Terms of Reference").

The CGG has created some very interesting and unique ways to strengthen the UN and world unity. The CGG in 1995 published their report, Our Global Neighborhood, which is a report of suggested proposals to strengthen the power, efficiency, and democracy of global governance. The Millenium Year and the Reform Process is a report of similar nature and is built on the foundation of the earlier report. In The Millenium Year and the Reform Process, the CGG suggests that a stronger bond be created between civil societies and the UN. It also advises that the nations of the world need to establish a stronger method of maintaining international economic security, or in other words keeping the economies of the world from failing, a condition inflicting many nations this century. The CGG plays an important role in creating new ways of strengthening global unity by strengthening global governance.

Some say that a good compromise between a powerful world government and powerful sovereign nations is the UN, because it is controlled by individual nations, giving each nation sovereign power. This satisfies the need for a body to regulate global unity and negotiation, and also allows individual nations to maintain their powers as a sovereign nation. However, due to international politics, member nations can act very politically in the UN. The UN System is not very efficient, because of the clashing done by the individual nations. For instance, recently the USA lost an election to the UN Human Rights Commission. In retaliation, the USA Congress denied the UN some of its member dues, financially burdening other UN member nations. Many world leaders are pushing to reform the UN by making it more efficient and powerful, so clashes like these do not occur.

The UN may be the most powerful global governance institution at this time, but that does not mean that it is the only one. Probably hundreds of international governmental organizations (IGOs) exist. IGOs do account for some global governance structures, such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which was founded for the following reason:

The Union is the focal point for world-wide parliamentary dialogue and works for peace and co-operation among peoples and for the firm establishment of structures which advocate representative democracy. ("What is the IPU?").

Also in existence are non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which are not as powerful as far as global governance goes, but do have a great effect on global unity and world crises. They are independent of government, verses an IPO, meaning that they can operate differently. Most NGOs are established to assist the world in solving one specialized crisis, and are non-profit. An example of an NGO can be found when looking at Greenpeace, an organization that promotes the protection of environments around the world.

The work of IGOs and also NGOs has been recognized by the UN, which during its Millenium Assembly (year 2000 session of its General Assembly) called for a special conference of NGOs and the UN to work on building ties between the UN and the various worldwide NGOs.






Nietzshe

..post a link...post a link...post a link....
Dreary old stuff -cut and paste: uuunion.tripod.com...


always a giveaway when the spelling is correct and the poster cannot spell his own pseudonym: Nietzsche, old chap - or is this another philosopher of whom only you have ever heard?

Once more with feeling:

Oh Gawd

... do posters persist in copying and pasting vast screeds to which their own contribution is limited to Ctrl+C Ctrl+V?

Maybe someone should reiterate the use of the linking commands?...

HELLO: How is it going? What do you think about the new world order? is it coming or is it just a hoax?


Nietzshe

Originally posted by Estragon
..post a link...post a link...post a link....
Dreary old stuff -cut and paste: uuunion.tripod.com...


always a giveaway when the spelling is correct and the poster cannot spell his own pseudonym: Nietzsche, old chap - or is this another philosopher of whom only you have ever heard?

Once more with feeling:

Oh Gawd