And now for a world government

I
have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take
over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky
above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the
formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world
government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations.
It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body
of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government
for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a
currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the
ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First,
it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national
governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a
global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it
could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk
the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian
historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world
government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an
attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two
centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average
newspaper column.

But – the third point – a change in the
political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much
sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing
national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such
as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national
sovereignty.

Barack Obama, America’s president-in-waiting, does
not share the Bush administration’s disdain for international
agreements and treaties. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, he
argued that: “When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its
power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct,
it sends a message that these are rules worth following.” The
importance that Mr Obama attaches to the UN is shown by the fact that
he has appointed Susan Rice, one of his closest aides, as America’s
ambassador to the UN, and given her a seat in the cabinet.

A
taste of the ideas doing the rounds in Obama circles is offered by a
recent report from the Managing Global Insecurity project, whose small
US advisory group includes John Podesta, the man heading Mr Obama’s
transition team and Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings
Institution, from which Ms Rice has just emerged.

The MGI
report argues for the creation of a UN high commissioner for
counter-terrorist activity, a legally binding climate-change agreement
negotiated under the auspices of the UN and the creation of a
50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force. Once countries had pledged troops
to this reserve army, the UN would have first call upon them.

These
are the kind of ideas that get people reaching for their rifles in
America’s talk-radio heartland. Aware of the political sensitivity of
its ideas, the MGI report opts for soothing language. It emphasises the
need for American leadership and uses the term, “responsible
sovereignty” – when calling for international co-operation – rather
than the more radical-sounding phrase favoured in Europe, “shared
sovereignty”. It also talks about “global governance” rather than world
government.

But some European thinkers think that they recognise
what is going on. Jacques Attali, an adviser to President Nicolas
Sarkozy of France, argues that: “Global governance is just a euphemism
for global government.” As far as he is concerned, some form of global
government cannot come too soon. Mr Attali believes that the “core of
the international financial crisis is that we have global financial
markets and no global rule of law”.

So, it seems, everything is
in place. For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave
walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious
steps towards a world government.

But let us not get carried
away. While it seems feasible that some sort of world government might
emerge over the next century, any push for “global governance” in the
here and now will be a painful, slow process.

There are good and
bad reasons for this. The bad reason is a lack of will and
determination on the part of national, political leaders who – while
they might like to talk about “a planet in peril” – are ultimately
still much more focused on their next election, at home.

But this
“problem” also hints at a more welcome reason why making progress on
global governance will be slow sledding. Even in the EU – the heartland
of law-based international government – the idea remains unpopular. The
EU has suffered a series of humiliating defeats in referendums, when
plans for “ever closer union” have been referred to the voters. In
general, the Union has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have
been agreed by technocrats and politicians – and then pushed through
without direct reference to the voters. International governance tends
to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic.

The world’s
most pressing political problems may indeed be international in nature,
but the average citizen’s political identity remains stubbornly local.
Until somebody cracks this problem, that plan for world government may
have to stay locked away in a safe at the UN.

gideon.rachman@ft.com

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