Multilateralism
Opening Ceremony of the Fifteenth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, May 9, 2016
Credit: UN Photo / Rick Bajornas
Summary
Multilateralism, in its normative dimension, appeared in the nineteenth century when international actors were attempting to resolve problems of mutual interest. As both a resource and constraint for the most powerful, it redefines the power dynamics. The transformations it produces renew the issues of international cooperation, which are now posed in terms of governance.
Multilateralism is a form of collective action, involving at least three states, that seeks to produce “norms and rules to establish a cooperative international order holding sway over international interdependencies ” (Franck Petiteville). The concept, though, is more than merely a cooperation technique, encompassing not just the idea of coexistence but also the intent to resolve problems of mutual interest, whether these are economic (driving the creation of the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine in 1815), technical (signature of the Metre Convention in 1875), social (creation of the International Office of Public Hygiene in 1907) or political (organization of the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907). Though often conceived as an inter-state dynamic, from the very beginning multilateral cooperation has been driven by diverse actors – as evidenced, for example, by the tripartism of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which represents states, workers and employers simultaneously.
Multilateral initiatives can be developed within international organizations, whether these are global (WTO), regional (EU, ASEAN, ALBA, AU), limited in scope (OPEC), generalist (UN) or sector-specific (IFIs), as well as in less formal and institutionalized frameworks like the clubs of major powers (G7/G8, G20 (the financial G20), BRICS), open-ended groups (Open-ended Working Group on Ageing), groups of friends (the Friends of Syria Group), and the major themed conferences – on oceans (2017), financing fordevelopment (2015), and indigenous peoples (2014). The proliferation of these international institutions since the 19th century reflects the rise of multilateralism, which now impacts all sectors and all actors in the global arena.
Members of selected “Gs,” 2018
Comment: This map, although featuring only a few “clubs,” shows that scarcely any states escape the club logic. Clubs are organized informally on a power basis (G8 and G20), enabling a partial multilateral dialogue to take place, relieved of the constraints dogging negotiations within global organizations; or they can be based on a coalition of states defending the common interests of developing countries (130 for the G77) to represent them in international negotiations.
Multilateralism and power
Multilateralism is helping to redefine power, reformulating the challenges it faces and the legitimate means at its disposal. Multilateral institutions have often been created by the most powerful states: the Covenant of the League of Nations bore the imprint of two individual figures, Léon Bourgeois and Woodrow Wilson, while the multilateral order that emerged after the Second World War (Bretton Woods institutions, UN, GATT) emanated from the United States. Although some powerful states have at times sought “à la carte multilateralism” (Richard Haass), it is difficult for them to wholly disregard the multilateral operation of “collective legitimization” (Inis Claude). Far from being merely a resource for the most powerful, multilateralism constrains them by establishing rules and standards that apply to all, by integrating them within an iterative negotiation process that makes defection more costly, and by compelling them to consider the voices of the majority. Small states, or middle and emerging powers, deploy a range of strategies (niche diplomacy, coalitions like AOSIS in the climate change negotiations, standards-based entrepreneurship) as they seek to participate in defining the rules of the game by activating multilateralism’s equalizing powers. Yet these powers do not prevent the emergence of “international pecking orders” (Vincent Pouliot), which can vary from one multilateral institution to another, underscoring the fact that multilateralism, while not erasing power altogether, is reinventing the way it plays out.
In the process of becoming a standard international mode of operation, multilateralism itself is evolving, addressing increasing numbers of issues (human rights, environment, fighting transnational crime, sustainable development, gender equality) and attracting increasingly diverse actors (states of the South / Third World, NGOs, social movements, multinational corporations, etc.). In 2000, for example, Kofi Annan launched the Global Compact facilitating dialogue between the UN, NGOs and the private sector. Businesses that voluntarily join this initiative undertake to practice and promote the Compact’s principles (on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption measures) and to give account of their endeavors in a report.
Companies participating in the United Nations Global Compact, 2000-2017
Comment: Launched in 2000 at the suggestion of the UN Secretary-General, the Global Compact brings together businesses, NGOs and voluntary UN actors who share ten norms for more stable, inclusive, and sustainable societies (respect for human rights, international standards for work, the environment, and the fight against corruption). The map featuring the number of businesses committed per country shows that Europe is the pioneer, followed by South America. The curve showing changes in the numbers of members increases ever more rapidly (13,000 in 170 countries by late 2018).
Institutional proliferation
Finally we are seeing a proliferation of institutions. Alongside IOs, clubs are developing, with three defining features: they are limited in scope, often informal or relatively unformalized, and with voluntary participation, membership being decided by deliberate choice and/or cooptation. Overall these changes are producing a complex, opaque multilateral configuration whose actors criticize a lack of efficiency and transparency and an absence of coordination among institutions, programs and projects. Growing debates on global governance and demands around global common goods and common goods of humanity are redefining the issue of international cooperation. On the one hand, contemporary multilateral practices reveal a drive for more functional and inclusive forms of governance, as with the creation of public-private partnerships like Stop TB. On the other – and particularly in their minilateral forms (G7, G20) – they highlight the determination of some actors to maintain the status quo and close ranks.
The fight against tuberculosis: Stop TB public-private partnership, 2018
Comment: Since 2001, the partnership Stop TB has brought together NGOs, communities, private actors, states, and international institutions (1,700 partners in over 100 countries) for the purpose of eliminating tuberculosis, a preventable, curable disease. It is recognized as a unique international body that has the power to mobilize actors from all over the world with a common aim. The map shows it has a global presence, but it is very strong in Africa and Western Asia where cases are most numerous, prevention is lowest and treatment is underdeveloped.
- interdependencies > Interdependency
- Mode of relationship based on dense, continuous interaction between social and political entities, leading to reduced autonomy for each of them individually as they are partially reconfigured in relation to each other. Used of states primarily in the context of globalization, implying a reduction or modulation of sovereignty as well as a relativization of power: after all, interdependence goes both ways, implying a reliance of the strong on the weak just as much as of the weak on the strong.
- international organizations > International Organization
- In the words of Clive Archer, an IO is “a formal, continuous structure established by agreement between members (governmental and/or non-governmental) from two or more sovereign states with the aim of pursuing the common interest of the membership.” Marie-Claude Smouts identifies three characteristics of IOs: they arise out of a “founding act” (treaty, charter, statute), have a material existence (headquarters, finance, staff), and form a “coordination mechanism.
- G7/G8
- Following the informal meetings of the Library Group (comprising representatives of the United States, Japan, France, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom), French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing brought together the heads of government of six states in 1975 (Italy being added to this list). Becoming G7 (Canada) in 1976, then G8 (Russia) in 1997, the group has now become seven again following Russia’s suspension (due to its annexation of Crimea). Initially focused on economics and finance, the G7-G8 agenda has since expanded to address security, political and social issues. This club of the major powers appears to lack legitimacy and representativeness; its summits regularly give rise to demonstrations.
- G20 (the financial G20) > G20 (The financial G20)
- Club comprising the G8 members, 11 other developed states (South Korea, Australia) and emerging states (South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey) and the European Union. These countries’ finance ministers and central bank governors have been meeting since 1999, following a number of economic crises. Since 2008 it has become a summit meeting (heads of state and government), addressing financial, trade and development issues.
- development > Development
- Definitions of development and its opposite – underdevelopment – have varied considerably according to the political objectives and ideological positions of those using these words. In the 1970s, Walt Whitman Rostow conceived of it as an almost mechanical process involving successive stages of economic growth and social improvement, whereas Samir Amin analyzed the relationships between center and peripheries, seeing the development of the former as founded on the exploitation of the latter. In Latin America, the dependency theory condemned the ethnocentrism of the universal view that the “periphery” of underdeveloped states could simply catch up through modernization. Talking of poor or developing “countries” masks the inequalities that also exist within societies (in both Northern and Southern hemispheres) and individuals’ connections to globalization processes.
- indigenous > Indigenous
- Although there is no universally accepted definition to describe indigenous or first peoples, the UN has declared that “indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.” The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted in 2007. According to the UN, indigenous peoples represent 370 million individuals, forming over 5,000 different groups, present in around 90 countries on five continents and speaking more than 4,000 languages, most of which are becoming extinct.
- power > Power
- Ability of political actors to impose their will on others. Comparable to the notion of authority within a nation, power is never absolute but has its existence in a relationship, since power relations are a matter of each actor’s perception of the other. Power is key to the realist approach to international relations, where it is understood in geostrategic terms (hard power is based on force and coercion, especially of a military nature). The transnationalist approach offers a more diversified vision including factors of influence (Joseph Nye’s soft power exerted in economic, cultural and other terms) and emphasizing the importance of controlling different orders of power, from hard to soft (Susan Strange’s “structural power”).
- negotiation > Negotiation
- Practice which aims to secure agreement between public or private actors, satisfying the participants’ material and symbolic interests by means of mutual concessions. International negotiations are one of the methods of peacefully resolving disputes and can be bilateral (between two actors) or multilateral (three or more actors). They often result in an official document (joint declaration, peace agreement, trade treaty, international convention). Collective negotiation (or collective bargaining) refers to negotiations within a company between the employer and workforce representatives (generally belonging to trade unions) regarding the application of labor law.
- climate change > Climate changes
- The UN defines climate change as “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods” (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], 1992). The expression is used to describe global warming of the Earth’s surface, whose extent and rapidity are without precedent in the planet’s history, and results from the increase in anthropic greenhouse gas emissions (principally carbon dioxide and CO2, but also methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride).
- human rights > Human rights
- These are the fundamentally inalienable and universal rights and duties of human beings, which are indefeasible and universal. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these were limited to “natural rights” (basic freedoms considered to be allied to human nature) but human rights have now been expanded to include civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights on the basis of human freedom and dignity. Human rights have been enshrined in the constitutions of most democratic regimes. They are also subject to many protective provisions at both regional and international levels.
- environment > Environment
- In broad terms, the environment is understood as the biosphere in which living species cohabit, while ecology studies the relations between these organisms and their environment. The environment encompasses very diverse natural areas from undisturbed virgin forests to artificialized environments planned and exploited by humans. In a more limited definition of the term, “environmental” issues are those relating to natural resources (their management, use and degradation) and biological biodiversity (fauna and flora). As a cross-cutting public concern, the environment encompasses issues of societal organization (production models, transport, infrastructure, etc.) and their impacts on the health of humans and ecosystems.
- sustainable development > Sustainable development
- Sustainable development is a form of development which fulfils present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs. The concept is defined in the UN Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, which recognizes the compatibility between a market economy and environmental protection; as such, it has been criticized in some quarters. Based on three foundations (economic, social, and environmental), sustainable development seeks simultaneously to attain economic growth, greater social equity in order to limit global inequality, and respect for the ecological balance.
- gender > Gender
- Historic, social, cultural and psychological construction of a binary categorization between sexes (men/women) and between the values and representations associated with them (masculine/feminine). Arising from the feminist works of the 1970s, the concept of gender spread through the United States during the 1980s and then in Europe from the 1990s before being taken up in the literature on sexual minorities. The gender concept views relations between the sexes as a power relationship (historically constructed around the material and symbolic subordination of women compared to men) that cannot be isolated from other power relationships such as social class, race, age or disability.
- Third World
- The term Third Word, coined in 1952 by French demographer Alfred Sauvy, has become dated since the end of the Cold War. A reference to the Third Estate of the French Revolution (Sieyès), for Sauvy the Third World comprised those countries, mainly in the South, that were “ignored, exploited, and scorned” and “also wants to be something.” The desire of these actors to promote discussions of the North-South divide (notably in relation to development) rather than focusing solely on East-West relations reveals the political dimension of their actions.
- NGOs > Nongovernmental Organization
- Use of this expression became more widespread following its inclusion in Article 71 of the United Nations Charter. NGOs do not have an international legal status and the acronym is used in different contexts to refer to very different kinds of actors. It generally designates associations formed by individuals over the long term in relation to not-for-profit goals, often linked to values and beliefs (ideological, humanist, ecological, religious, etc.) rather than financial interests. Active on a wide range of issues at both the local and global levels, NGOs now number tens of thousands, but vary greatly in the scale of their budgets, staff and development.
- governance > Governance
- Inspired by management and entrepreneurship, the expression global governance refers to the formal and informal institutions, mechanisms and processes through which international relations between states, citizens, markets and international and non-governmental organizations are established and structured. The global governance system aims to articulate collective interests, to establish rights and duties, to arbitrate disputes and to determine the appropriate regulatory mechanisms for the issues and actors in question. Governance takes various forms: global multilateral governance, club-based governance (restricted to members, e.g. G7/8/20), polycentric governance (juxtaposition of regulatory and management mechanisms operating at various levels), and so on.
- global common goods > Common goods
- Goods considered as the common property of humanity, for which each of us is responsible for the survival of all. This notion comes from two philosophical traditions: the ancient concept of community, taken over by the Catholic Church, and the liberal and utilitarian idea of individual responsibility. It enables the general interest of societies, such as the protection of common goods, to be defined. On the global scale (global commons), the concept invites indivisible control of humanity’s common heritage, both material (health, environment) and immaterial (peace, human rights, transcultural values). Some goods are therefore beyond the limits state jurisdiction (the high seas, space) or beyond sovereign claims (Antarctica).
- common goods of humanity > Common goods
- Goods considered as the common property of humanity, for which each of us is responsible for the survival of all. This notion comes from two philosophical traditions: the ancient concept of community, taken over by the Catholic Church, and the liberal and utilitarian idea of individual responsibility. It enables the general interest of societies, such as the protection of common goods, to be defined. On the global scale (global commons), the concept invites indivisible control of humanity’s common heritage, both material (health, environment) and immaterial (peace, human rights, transcultural values). Some goods are therefore beyond the limits state jurisdiction (the high seas, space) or beyond sovereign claims (Antarctica).
- public-private partnerships > Public-Private Partnership
- A method of financing and managing public infrastructure (hospitals, water supply, highways, etc.) through which a public body delegates the funding, building and/or commercialization and maintenance of the facility to a private operator, while retaining public ownership. In exchange, the private operator receives payment from the state (in the form of rent) or charges users for the service. While this system absolves governments from having to provide the necessary funding themselves, it is criticized for leading to the privatization of profits and, often, a significant rise in the ultimate cost to the taxpayer (total value of rents paid by the state far exceeds the sum invested, increased charges paid by users, etc.).
- G7 > G7/G8
- Following the informal meetings of the Library Group (comprising representatives of the United States, Japan, France, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom), French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing brought together the heads of government of six states in 1975 (Italy being added to this list). Becoming G7 (Canada) in 1976, then G8 (Russia) in 1997, the group has now become seven again following Russia’s suspension (due to its annexation of Crimea). Initially focused on economics and finance, the G7-G8 agenda has since expanded to address security, political and social issues. This club of the major powers appears to lack legitimacy and representativeness; its summits regularly give rise to demonstrations.