Global studies and the challenge of governance in the 21st Century

Adrian MACEY, February 2017

We provide a link here to a Special Issue on Global Studies for Policy Quarterly, published earlier this year by the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies of Victoria University of Wellington (IGPS).

Under the auspices of the Centre for Global Studies, the articles are a rich collection of matters for governance, law, criminality, peace, climate negotiations. National interests are juxtaposed with global interdependnecies. For example the Law of the Sea is of intense national interest and a mater of mounting global responsibility. Criminal accountability is the focus of two articles – with considerations of the anticipation of advancing peace and security through the jusrisdiction of the International Court of Justice. Am important profile of trusteeship as a framework for managing the global commons is pertinent to the quest for new forms of governance that lift us out of the confinement within models of property interests and ownership. In ‘The Atmosphere’, Adrian Macey writes his discernment of a new model of international gvernance for climate change.

The articles in Policy Quarterly reflect the mission of the NZCGS wihich is to address issues that go beyond the nation state. Reflecting this, a flagship programme that NZCGS has run in cooperation with UNESCO is global citizenship education, which has operated in secondary schools in New Zealand. Global citizenship is inextricably bound with responsibility.

Indeed, in addressing these governance challenges, the theme of responsibility is never far away. A common thread is the failure of institutions and international law based on nation states to take on full and effective responsibility for effective governance of global commons problems and other global challenges. Other actors including civil society, business and local government are in some cases taking on responsibility themselves where governments have been inactive.

In the areas covered by the authors, global governance institutions themselves are generally weak or slow to emerge. Thus the urgency and the importance of the search for innovative approaches and solutions, which is the focus of the articles. The authors cover a very wide scope, from the environment to the global economy, to peace and security and criminal justice. There is a combination of analysis, assessments of where progress has and has not been made and forward-looking suggestions.

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