GLOBAL OR REGIONAL: WHAT CAN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS DO?

Bruce Russett, Professor, Yale University, USA

To consider the relative advantages of regional versus global organizations one must begin with clarity about why it is that particular international organizations are created. Some organizations are essentially single purpose, others have multiple purposes. Among the purposes, or functions, for which international organizations are designed are (1) to secure peace among their members; (2) to provide for external security vis-á-vis other states; (3) to carry out a variety of economic-related tasks, such as development, managing or promoting interdependence; (4) to address problems of environmental protection; or (5) securing human rights. These purposes are of course carried out by a wide range of international organizations, including international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) as well as intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). In this paper, however, it will be enough of a task to address just the potential of IGOs.

The European Regional Experience

I begin the discussion with the example of the European Union, or rather the set of organizations that formed predecessors of the contemporary EU and of the various organizations that currently constitute the EU system. It can serve to illustrate all of the above-mentioned purposes. It is especially worth noting that the origins of the EU lie in a history of warfare. As a regional organization, it arose after centuries of violent conflict among neighbouring states. Indeed, as with individuals, most conflicts among states occur between states which are close together. By virtue of their closeness they have what has been termed both the opportunity to fight and the willingness, or reasons, to fight.1 They have the opportunity because it is relatively easy even for a militarily weak state to mobilize its armed forces on its borders and to use those forces against a contiguous or other nearby state. It may not have the "global reach" of an imperial power or superpower, but can exert force against its neighbours. Similarly, states within the same region have issues about which they can readily come into conflict. The most obvious concern territorial borders, often including irredentist claims and cross-national ethnic conflicts. Pairs of such states frequently carry on what have been termed long-term rivalries.2

Certainly, Europe was cursed by regional conflict and long-term rivalries. Three times in 75 years it had been the site of massive wars, of which the last two left the protagonists exhausted and, especially in 1945, their economies devastated. Given that experience, the leaders of the major West European states determined to build a new kind of international order to prevent war among themselves. Thus the predecessor institutions of the European Union were devoted first of all to promoting peace among their members. The statesmen who designed and put into place these institutions - Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, Alcide de Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer - worked especially to that end, vowing that war among their states, though once common, would be made unthinkable by linking their economies so tightly that no rational leader could possibly see any gain accruing from war with any other member state. They began with the European Coal and Steel Community, then EURATOM for the nuclear industry, and then combining these into the European Community and ultimately the EU.

But peace among its members was only one of the security functions of the nascent EU. It was also intended to provide a measure of external security relative to the world's two great superpowers. While allying solidly with the West against the Communist threat on the continent of Europe, the Western European states did not wish to live under excessive United States domination. Militarily weak as individual countries, they hoped to pool their economic and demographic resources sufficiently to have some degree of flexibility and independence in their foreign policies.

Thirdly, they hoped to restore their war-shattered economies. They were acutely aware of the strains which the great depression and trade disputes had put on their economies during the inter-war period, contributing to the outbreak of World War II. Moreover, they understood that their national economies were now too small, individually, to benefit properly from economies of scale. Thus economic integration was intended to promote greater prosperity than previously achieved, both for its own sake and as a contribution to securing the peace.

And finally, the new European institutions were to enhance and solidify political and social rights, especially those associated with democratic governance. Germany and Italy had become aggressors once their democratic regimes were overthrown, and other states' democratic institutions, such as those of France, were gravely endangered. So the new European order was to preserve and defend democracy, again both for its own sake and from a conviction that stable democratic states would be less likely to fight one another.

The IGOs of Europe have multiplied and strengthened over the past 50 years, broadening both their scope and their membership to extend far beyond the original six members of the Coal and Steel Community. Their evolution has perhaps been least impressive in the area of external security, since Europe still has neither a common military force nor a common foreign policy. Nonetheless, even here there has been some coordination, with the formation of at least a French-German brigade, some movement toward common military command, and (rather muddled) efforts to produce a common policy in the Balkans. They have done much better in securing a lasting and stable peace among their members, and in promoting economic growth and interdependence. That interdependence has in turn impelled substantial cooperation and institutional formation to deal with health and environmental protection. The preservation of human rights has become a major function, embodied for example in the Council of Europe and the European Court of Justice, where states can be brought to the bar for human rights violations. Adoption of a democratic form of government has in fact become a prerequisite to joining and remaining within the EU; the hope of achieving EU membership has proved a powerful force to encourage democratization and human rights in Eastern Europe.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 931