Our review of foreign and international policy doctrines is drawing to a close. Let our more than a year long peregrination be crowned with a description of the most Promethean and utopian idea of international politics – the idea of a world state. The idea of a world state has not yet become an official doctrine of foreign policy of any country. Not surprisingly, as the world state would put an end to the traditionally understood foreign policy of nation states. But in essence the idea is quite old. Let us recall that the Marxist ideology appealed to the goal of building a world community without a state. The world proletarian revolution was to embrace the whole world, abolish classes, and therefore the instrument of class exploitation that was the state. The doctrine of the USSR foreign policy after the Bolshevik revolution did not openly stress the idea of expanding the state ruled by the working class to the creation of a global proletarian state, although it was undoubtedly a doctrine of the global expansion of communism. Leninism, however, assumed that the proletarian states would inevitably multiply, and that when they embraced the entire world, the universal working-class state would immediately begin to die.
The idea of a world state (world government) is undoubtedly the last great political utopia of foreign policy. In its soft version, as an extensive system of global management of peaceful countries joining their sovereignty, it is a continuation of the Kantian vision of Foedus Pacificum, a federation that would protect the freedom and sovereignty of its associated states. Its nucleus would be Civitas Gentum, growing gradually to finally cover the whole world. Many see the European Union as the embodiment of the Kantian idea of Civitas Gentum and the regional edition of a peaceful federation. Undoubtedly, the Union is a community that excludes the use of force, any form of violence, for the purpose of resolving disputes between nations. Disputes and conflicts, even territorial within it, exist. Sometimes they even interfere with its activities. The Spanish-British dispute over Gibraltar blocked the EU from concluding, inter alia, air traffic agreements with several countries (they were immediately formalized after Great Britain left the EU). But no one would ever think of using the argument of force to prove their point.
In the postmodern version, the sphere of civilized behaviour of states will expand as societies mature, and in the name of common global challenges they will join forces, assigning appropriate powers to common structures. It is significant that the European Union, seen by so many as the best way to organize the whole world, by itself in its common foreign policy does not refer to the vision of a world state or even to a substitute for supranational management. And yet universalism is treated as an immanent feature of European identity. It is high time for the Union to begin to be inspired by it.
The old universalism born in the Age of Enlightenment came from the common roots of human civilization, from the belief that all human beings are children of the same God, that they are born with the same inalienable rights. The problem is not so much that the old universalism was marked by the stigma of Western supremacism, that it was associated with colonialism and imperialism. The bigger problem is that it was quite quickly married in the 19th century to the national idea. It transformed in a noble edition into internationalism, which today has exhausted its potential.
The new universalism stems from the common destiny of human civilization, the belief that we, as a human race, have a common destiny related to the fate of our planet and a common responsibility for the planet’s future.
But I will talk about the intertwining of old and new universalism and European responsibility another time, in a different format (though not so soon).
The most important motive throughout the ages for the development of a vision of a world state has been the introduction of an order that excludes war and the violation of the law. Dante already wrote that the easiest way to eradicate wars is to proclaim a world monarch. He will not be exposed to the temptation of territorial gains, because when he has everything under him, he will have no one to fight with for territory, and he will be able to restrain the violators of order by force.
The idea of a world state caught the wind in its sails after World War II, but it had to take into account the advent of the nuclear age of confrontation. Serious analysts then saw in a world state a logical way to build lasting security based on the principle of collective security. Perhaps the Baruch Plan of 1946 to submit nuclear energy to central, supranational control was a missed opportunity to follow this path. But then it had no chance of being realized. The Soviet Union saw in it an attempt to legalize the American monopoly on nuclear weapons, and the implementation of the Plan would require at least a minimum of trust between states, which was impossible to achieve in the conditions of increasing confrontation.
When in 2009 Barack Obama resuscitated the idea of a world without nuclear weapons, in order to implement it, he no longer needed the creation of a supranational world structure. Without universal denuclearization, it is argued that it is difficult to seriously consider creating a world government. How can you imagine that it can take any coercive measures against states that, as in the DPRK’s case, rely on their nuclear arsenal to build their entire ability to resist external pressure.
Globalization has added intellectual charm to the idea of a world state. It highlighted the weakness of the nation-state concept and the limited effects of local action, even in an intensified form. The economic dimension of globalization appeals to the imagination the most. The world has become economically a system of communicating vessels. And the financial crisis has given supporters of world government a new argument – the necessity to tame the global power of capital, which in the era of globalization cannot be controlled by nation-states. When in need, international capital will always look for national colours. When, however, capital is in expansion, national governments have little leverage to influence its behaviour.
The world economy after the Second World War grew under the overwhelming influence of the United States. American economic dominance (with the dollar as the informal world currency) is now shrinking. Despite the challenge posed by China (or, in the future, by India), America will remain the center of technological and innovative progress, and in a sense also of civilization. But its ability to deal with the world’s economic problems is already significantly undermined. The world is probably moving towards the single market (despite the de-globalization trends that are currently visible). The flows of capital, currency, trade, population and information will make borders more and more porous, and the economic policies of nation states more and more powerless. Neither protectionism, nor own currency, nor banking policy will help. In the dystopian version, the global integrated market, devoid of real state supervision, will inevitably generate a demand deficit, demolish labour markets, generate unprecedented economic and speculative crimes, and will encourage monopolistic practices, for example related to the shrinking stocks of some natural resources. The crowning argument of the supporters of the world government is the inability of the market to cope with such challenges as climate change. Indeed, national and international markets have not been conducive to containing negative climate change. Without strong state (international) intervention, there would be no breakthrough in the fight against climate change. A similar administrative intervention is required in dealing with the effects of these changes.
Challenges such as demographic and migration processes in the world require state intervention. Without state intervention, China would not have been able to cope with the uncontrolled population growth. Similarly, without the government’s pro-natal policy, Europe will not be able to at least partially fill the demographic gap. Markets do not guarantee taking up the problems of poverty, healthcare and migration.
The global COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the weakness of international mechanisms to counter similar threats. Much criticism was caused by the inability of, for example, the World Health Organization to mobilize an effective response, including helping weaker and poorer countries deal with the effects of the pandemic. And pandemics will come back. Even if the criticism was not entirely justified, there was a lack of initiatives, especially from Western countries, on how to strengthen universal instruments for taking up similar sozological challenges.
In the opinion of recognized authorities, such as Juergen Habermas, even such a challenge as ensuring effective guarantees of human rights is not possible without implementing elements of world government. He repeated the postulate of establishing a world criminal tribunal, creating a world parliament, and introducing the practice of people’s referenda on a global scale.
The supporters of the world state are strengthened in their convictions by the challenge of managing the so-called global commons. They remain outside the jurisdiction of nation states and, at the same time, are shared.
The classic common good is the global ocean. The law of the sea regulates the rules of navigation, the scope of jurisdiction over coastal waters and the territorial shelf, rules for the use of the seabed, exploration of natural resources and bio-resources. The problem of the degradation of the ocean environment, in particular water pollution, and the depletion of biodiversity, inspires non-governmental organizations to postulate stricter regulations on the behavior of states and non-state entities in maritime areas, going beyond the classic scheme of inter-state cooperation, on which the functioning of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 was based.
Another common good is the atmosphere. Transboundary pollution, ozone hole, greenhouse effect mobilized the international community to conclude several important global international agreements regulating the activities of states in relation to the atmosphere. 1963 Treaty Ban on Nuclear Testing in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (including the Montreal Protocol), the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, and finally the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the 2015 Paris Agreement regulating carbon gas emissions have become milestones in cooperation between states for a clean and healthy atmosphere.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty regulates the activities of states in space, on the moon and other celestial bodies. It excludes jurisdictional claims against celestial bodies, prohibits the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and gives the right to unfettered research and exploration. Supporters of more efficient management of the cosmic commons point to the growing problems with contamination of the Earth’s orbit, efforts to militarize space, and finally the need to develop mechanisms of global cooperation in the face of the movements of meteorites, asteroids and other bodies that threaten the Earth, whose orbits may turn out to collide with the Earth. A supranational institution could guarantee effective operation.
In the light of the Washington Treaty of 1959, Antarctica is a common good. The Treaty does not allow military activities, does not recognize territorial claims, and provides for the freedom of scientific research. There are a few countries that treat parts of Antarctica as special rights zones. It is enough to go to Chile or Argentina to see how the map of Antarctica is coloured there. But as long as the great powers, especially the USA, Russia and China, agree to deny jurisdictional claims, the status of Antarctica as a common good is not disturbed. There are several dozen scientific bases in its area, but there is no interfering with each other and no disputes over their location. Antarctica hides tempting deposits of natural resources, including oil and gas, under the ice cap. So far, the costs of their extraction are so prohibitive that economic activity on the continent is not an option in the coming years.
Policies of some countries in the Arctic are causing more concern. Climate warming made the region geostrategically more attractive. Zbigniew Brzeziński saw the Arctic as a potential source of global tensions. President Biden raised the topic of the Arctic in talks with Putin in 2021 for good reason. The Arctic Council, established under the 1996 Ottawa Pact, focuses on environmental aspects. But from the point of view of global geopolitics, this is a secondary topic.
Cyberspace was also called the common good. Theoretically, it is an open space, not subject to state management. However, its Balkanization is progressing, individual states are introducing elements of surveillance, censorship and blockades. And above all, they use the virtual world for aggressive and hostile actions. Cybercrime has grown to gargantuan proportions. Cyberbullying has entered the arsenal of hybrid wars. The International Telecommunications Union deals with cybersecurity. There have even been initiatives to use this global institution to regulate the rules of using cyberspace. Several UNGA resolutions were adopted relating to sectoral aspects of cybersecurity. A special international panel was established to prepare Internet governance models. Similar panels were convened under the aegis of non-governmental organizations and institutions. There is no end to the discussions, however. There is still no political will to settle the problem in its entirety. On April 28, 2022, on the initiative of the USA, the Declaration on the Future of the Internet was adopted. More than 60 countries have joined it, but a few prominent democracies have not yet signed up to it. And the freedom of the Internet may become a key issue for the new international order.
There will be no new value-based order without it being reflected in the freedom of the Internet.
International legal and institutional instruments for the management of the global commons are a product of the traditionalist understanding of international relations, in which the aspect of state sovereignty is the chief and indisputable axiom. So they display weaknesses inherent in this paradigm. First of all, the treaty instruments are not fully universal. States, sometimes crucial to the effectiveness of these instruments, retain the sovereign right not to adhere to or to depart from these legal regimes. Second, the instruments lack effective enforcement tools. Individual states may try to enforce them on their own, but without general authorization. The instruments can sometimes provide for the resolution of disputes by international tribunals and through arbitration, but also with no guarantee of enforcement. It is political pressure from individual states that decides. Suffice it to recall, for example with regard to the law of the sea, the tensions caused, for example, by Russia’s actions against Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov before the war in 2022, or by Turkish actions in the Aegean Sea. Without the political pressure of the European Union, these tensions would be difficult to alleviate.
There were ideas of using the United Nations Trusteeship Council for the management of the commons. However, without any practical consequences. Nevertheless, the only realistic way to introduce the elements of supranational management on a global scale is to use the United Nations as their matrix. However, it has supranational powers in a very narrow area: with regard to the introduction of coercive measures under Article 49 of the Charter by the Security Council. It has no enforcement prerogatives in the sphere of the world economy, social problems, human rights, environmental protection and others. Its basic weakness is, however, the anachronistic way of functioning and the widely criticized lack of representativeness and the limited mandate of the present formula of the Security Council. The formula of world leadership reflected in the governance of the United Nations is a product of the old post-war world. For this very reason, the Security Council must have turned out to be powerless in the face of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. And the presence of Russia in the Security Council – a country which has violated the most fundamental provisions of the UN Charter looks like a travesty.
There are, however, no prospects for a reform of the Security Council in the foreseeable future.
The current formula for managing the world suits the United States, and certainly Russia. China has never succumbed to the temptation to radically restructure it, believing that it would have enough strength to use the existing formula in its own interests. The United States defends its freedom of movement to solve the world’s problems. It will not follow any ideas of the transfer of its sovereign rights in the foreseeable future. Russia, on the other hand, defends its great-power status, reflected in the United Nations, on a global scale. And many key developing nations, including India, fear that the new world governance model may be a Western ploy to impose the West’s supremacy with its waning economic, population, and military power.
The functioning of global platforms with limited membership does not serve the authority of the United Nations. The leadership of the G-7 in creating the global economic agenda or the arrangements made during the G-20 summits indirectly weaken the importance of the United Nations. The formula of the G-5 summits (permanent members of the Security Council) proposed by Putin once was interpreted as an attempt to legitimize a new directorate on a global scale.
There is no radical UN reform on the horizon. Despite the fact that in the new millennium, reform efforts have gained quite a positive momentum. But they led to changes in their effects of secondary importance.
There was a time when the UN reform became a vehicle for the global activity of Polish diplomacy.
In the fall of 2002, the flagship political project which I was entrusted to develop was the Polish initiative of the UN New Political Act. It was proposed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz at the session of the UN General Assembly in September 2002, and the impulse came from the then Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Adam D. Rotfeld, and the first general ideas from Professor Roman Kuźniar, my predecessor in the chair of policy planning director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs .
The initiative was extremely apt. I enthusiastically set about developing it. It was not about replacing or renegotiating the UN Charter. The idea was to prepare a new politically binding document that would reflect the needs of the new era and mobilize all to act in the face of contemporary challenges. We conducted, immediately after the submission of the proposal, preliminary research among experts as to possible ideas that could be specifically included in the development of the initiative. They gave little tangible inspiration, which only triggered the necessary internal intellectual mobilization (there is no better way to act than under pressure).
Before Christmas 2002, our first non-paper (ten pages long) was created, on the basis of which we could start talking to our partners. I dictated this non-paper in English on the Poznań-Warsaw train, returning from a conference of the Institute for Western Affairs (irritated by the inept attempt to compose a text by one of my co-workers). This train etude was accepted (without corrections, because it was obviously good, let me praise it after many years) by the management of the ministry. And it went out into the outside world with great success.
In February 2003, I travelled with a colleague from the department dealing with UN affairs to New York to investigate the response to our initiative among the permanent representatives of states to the United Nations. Maybe not too much, but it could have been shocking that the vast majority of the interviewed delegations simply did not remember our initiative. The general debate at the session of the General Assembly consists of almost two hundred speeches and forms such a cacophony of voices that a country the size of even Poland is hardly seen there. And it really takes effort and originality to mark your identity in this marketplace of nations. For me, it was an additional argument to build our recognition in New York around the New Act initiative. I consulted over a dozen representatives. Even Sergey Lavrov found time for us, casually and courteously, but the time was very tight as the Security Council battle over the American intervention in Iraq was coming up. It was not surprising that the permanent members of the UN Security Council were the most cautious about UN reform, vigilantly guarding their special prerogatives and fearing that existing procedures would be disrupted. Members of the non-aligned movement looked at it suspiciously as well. As an ambassador from a group of these countries told me then: “Because we are suspicious of all initiatives coming from the rich West.” But in general, the results of the consultation could be encouraging. Following one of the advice we had received at that time, we went to Ottawa for talks to ask Canadians about their experience of working on the initiative on responsibility to protect they had promoted. And we learned that promoting initiatives could cost even millions of dollars (which in our case we could not count on).
In July 2003, we asked a group of former political figures, academics and experts from around the world for their opinions and ideas. The responses could impress with intellectual depth and sincere enthusiasm. The academic community warmly supported our initiative, and their thoughts contributed to a rich publication prepared later under the editorship of Professor Rotfeld.
At the beginning of September 2003, a memorandum of the Polish government on the initiative was drawn up in the department I headed. I could put less of my heart in it this time. Because of several reasons. First, for me personally, the most important element of the reform of the United Nations was raising the common axiological denominator of the international community. In other words, the reform was for me more about values and a sense of solidarity than about operational mechanisms. It was in this direction that I pushed our initiative. The consultations showed that states, not only those with authoritarian tendencies and contesting the Western catalogue of values, were not ready for it. Therefore, our initiative had to lean towards suggesting new concepts of action and improving the effectiveness of the functioning of the UN (e.g. what to do with failed states?). Besides, I heard rumours at that time that Secretary General Kofi Annan was going to come forward with an initiative to work on a comprehensive reform of the United Nations. It cannot be ruled out that our actions, including the letter on our initiative from Minister Cimoszewicz with information about the course of consultations, confirmed Annan’s belief that it was worth taking such an initiative. Indeed, two weeks after our memorandum, Kofi Annan announced the establishment of the UN Comprehensive Reform Panel.
For the sake of good cause, we could not go on to develop a competing project. This was appreciated by Kofi Annan. But the conversations with him about the appointment of Polish personalities to his Panel did not bring any results (he had some personal dislike towards the candidate suggested by us). On the other hand, we managed to organize regional consultations with the members of the Panel in May 2004 in Warsaw. Primakow, Bildt, von Weizsacker and others were impressed by the resoluteness of the Warsaw debaters.
The end result of the work of the Panel had to take into account known political limitations. But it would be unfair to say that the mountain bore a mouse again, even if the practical decisions taken as a result of the UN Secretary-General’s reformist fervor were modest. And they strengthened the belief that only a powerful tremor in the world can change the functioning of the Organization. During the time of the rule of the PiS (which also included Polish membership of the UNSC), there was neither ambition nor the ability to think about the UN in terms of the times of Cimoszewicz and Rotfeld.
In September 2021, Secretary General Antonio Gutteres launched a bold reform initiative. He expressed the need for reform in a dramatic way. Without making a breakthrough on this point, he predicted the collapse of the UN system. And the UN’s helplessness in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine later added a gloomy current context. The UN has become now the symbol of ineffectiveness.
Maybe it’s time to think about a completely new approach to world management?
