Vision and Global Governance

In 1995, the UN Commission on Global Governance issued a seminal report. It was met with much skepticism and resistance by "pro-sovereignty" and conservative groups on the right and world federalists on the left. It is a report that deserves being resurrected, as it speaks clearly and eloquently of the issues that need to be addressed in the 21st Century age of Globalization. Following 9/11, the global financial meltdown and the looming threat of global warming and resource shortages, perhaps the world is ready for the report's recommendations.

The Commission had the following to say about the role of Vision"

"The Need for Vision

"The last fifty years have radically and rapidly transformed the world and the agenda of world concern. But this is not the first generation to live on the cusp of a great transformation. The turbulence of the last decade is not unlike those that accompanied the rise of Islam in the century following the death of the Prophet, the European colonization of the Americas after 1492, the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, and the creation of the contemporary international system in this century. Yet there is a distinction between the contemporary experience of change and that of earlier generations: never before has change come so rapidly--in some ways, all at once--on such a global scale, and with such global visibility.

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"A time of change when future patterns cannot be clearly discerned is inevitably a time of uncertainty. There is need for balance and caution--and also for vision. Our common future will depend on the extent to which people and leaders around the world develop the vision of a better world and the strategies, the institutions, and the will to achieve it. Our task as a Commission is to enlarge the probability of their doing so by suggesting approaches to the governance of the global, increasingly interdependent human society."

I recommend that all read the full report. I will be coming back to it shortly on this blog.

http://www.sovereignty.net/p/gov/ogn-front.html