The global targets adopted by the 193 UN Member States in 2015 should be integrated into national policies. The seventeen goals can be a practical program to create a better world order, although they were seen more by states as a manifestation with good intentions.
What are the main obstacles to achieving a better world order?
Of the great powers, the United States has a key role to play as usual. President Biden makes it clear that the country has returned to being a global player. Unfortunately, many factors suggest that the United States will continue to act alone. Its resources make the country increasingly independent of the outside world, and despite all the talk of its abandoning superpower, it is likely that the U.S. competitive advantage will only grow. Its population is younger than in rapidly aging Europe and China. A large domestic market, its own natural resources, and a huge military budget make the United States interested in jeopardizing its power and influence. The change of president is unlikely to break this trend.
At the moment, given the authoritarian threats to democracy, it is to be hoped that the U.S. Constitution will remain in place and that the U.S. will help other democracies in need. Together, democracies need to look at every global commitment and its impact on our common values. However, in a functioning world order, we must accept that many countries in the world are not democracies. If everything is included, it is unrealistic to hope for a rapid change of government.
In the near future, China will be a one-party dictatorship and a superpower that does not want to give up its influence but is interested in a stable world order. In an unstable world, its trade routes and supply of raw materials are at stake.
We easily interpret globalization as the westernization of the world with the spread of our values, technology, and free trade philosophy. Others may also see it as a Western capitalist invention. Positive globalization must also have an Asian and African face.
Immigration is a key issue
Immigration is a sensitive and difficult figure in the process of globalization. Progressive Westerners like open borders and are in favor of free movement – this is a moral position. That would at least mean a world revolution. Studies show that 13-14% of the world’s population wants to move, which means at least seven hundred million migrants. If this were on the cards, it would end the positive trend of globalization. It can be said that public opinion in no country is ready for this revolution.
In addition, a sociologist Robert Putnam among other things, studies have shown that a large number of immigrants reduce social cohesion in the host society. The nation state must have the right to regulate immigration so that it does not become a stone that overturns the carriage of globalization.
On the other hand, a functioning world order requires a sensible solution to the refugee issue. Recognizing the real persecution of the large mass of migrants is a necessary step forward. Without compromising the right to asylum, it must be acknowledged that it is not possible for everyone to choose a new home country. New agreements are needed to share the burden and apply for asylum for persecuted people without making life-threatening journeys.
Another huge obstacle to the future of the global community is the economic distortion of the rules of the game. Revelations about tax havens, large-scale corporate tax fraud for the lowest tax systems, and countries ’struggle to invest“ at the bottom of their competition, ”lower corporate taxation, have led to increasing moral and political outrage. As early as 2015, Gabriel Zucman described tax evasion as costing us $ 200 billion a year ($ 78 billion in the EU). Six hundred billion in corporate taxes were withheld from the states where the profits had accumulated.
Interesting processes are taking place on this front, and if the OECD reforms materialize, tax havens will lose their customers. If the national corporate tax cannot be less than 15%, it will suppress unhealthy competition between countries.
No quick reorganization is visible
Research and the literature offer a wide range of suggestions on how global society could and should be shaped. Here you will find idealistic, romantic, practical and realistic designs. While working for a balanced world order requires a good dose of optimism, one must start with today’s reality. We need operational cooperation models and tools to prevent crises and push reluctant states towards new supranational agreements.
However, some advances give cause for cautious optimism. Binding climate agreements are another such, fairer regulation of the wild financial and tax sector. The next question concerns refugee and migration policy, which is awaiting new initiatives. Nuclear-weapon states do not voluntarily give up their military trump cards because they have the leverage effect of refusing to try to bind them. But they don’t want to expand the club, which is better than nothing. The future of the Iranian agreement will determine the direction.
Optimism easily turns into pessimism if new agreements do not become binding and do not include sanctions against those who break them. The hardest part is still: the use of force between states. The great powers and the UN then end up in the spotlight. Unfortunately, the UN system does not seem to offer a way forward. The great powers, in turn, are blocking solid reform initiatives. UN reform efforts appear to be at an impasse.
Anyone who reads Foreign Affairs can take a variety of analyzes into account. The UN model of a peaceful world is still outdated and unrealistic, Walter Russell Mead believes. Non-state actors, not peoples, are moving forward, writes Anne-Marie Slaughter, who believes that large companies, foundations and voluntary organizations can create the necessary global networks. In addition, mayors, state governors, and experts can form useful work networks.
The truth is therefore disappointing: a better and more ambitious world order is not around the corner. Finnish President Sauli Niinistö now wants to bring the 1975 Helsinki Spirit to life, which shows that this retro model is perhaps the best in anticipation of bright times. If the idea is appealing, a limited number of rules of the game that the great powers can accept would be included in the document to be signed (which is then likely to be interpreted differently). The world continues to grow from crisis to crisis, and small states, including Finland, must be prepared to fasten their seat belts and hope that all goes well.
Pär Stenbäck
Photos: MAGAZINE IMAGE / AFP
This column is the second part of a two-part column. The first part can be read here.
Pär Stenbäck is a former Finnish politician who has been a Member of Parliament, Minister of Education and Ministry of Foreign Affairs before 1985. For twenty years he was a leader in the Red Cross movement, e.g. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (Geneva). He is a founding member of the ICG and the ECP of the European Parliament of Culture. He was awarded the title of Minister in 1999. Today, he has been leading the new Finnish Foreign Policy Association (NUPS) since 2017. He regularly participates in the media.
Source: The Nordic Page