Global Institutions

What Global Institutions Are

As Henri Reymond has argued, if the institutional innovation of the nineteenth century was the nation-state, the main innovation of the twentieth century has been the international organization. While such global institutions might appear remote to the people of affluent societies, they have more immediate presence for citizens in countries affected by war and conflict, or by problems of development like infant mortality or infectious diseases. A major reason behind the apparent remoteness of global institutions in affluent societies is their apparent absence from the everyday lives of contemporary consumers. Yet such institutions play a significant role in regulating consumption and mobilizing consumer responses to global “problems” such as climate change. These institutions increasingly adopt the tools of consumer culture (such as celebrity culture and marketing) for [Page 666]their own ends and have become sensitive to the ethical concerns of consumer groups (through consumer movements and lobby groups).

International regime theory puts global institutions into context by explaining why individual nation-states would voluntarily cede their sovereignty to international institutions to solve problems that they could not themselves solve. The theory emerged when international relations scholars had to deal with something called a global commons, a space that is borderless and in which each individual could pursue his or her interest. The tragedy of the commons suggests that without some regulation, the consequences of human activity could be disastrous. In the latter half of the twentieth century, new regimes have begun to be created and with them global institutions.

Some key institutions include the World Trade Organization, which seeks to remove artificial restrictions on trade and solve disputes without trade wars. The growth of transnational organized crime as well as trafficking in drugs and people has led to strong international treaties that are overseen by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. How to ensure that the Internet remains free and open, but not subject to abuse, is being addressed in the U.N. Internet Governance Forum, based on a new multistake-holder model. The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was created to ensure coherence in humanitarian relief when significant man-made or natural disasters occur, such as the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 or the Asian tsunami in 2004.

Climate change management is an important area where a new regime is being created since dealing with the increasing global temperature caused by human use of carbon-based energy, and the reduction in forests will require new global institutions as well as modification of existing ones. The problem affects everyone, regardless of where they live, and falls clearly within the tragedy of the commons since it requires behavioral changes at the individual and household level, with national policies and programs based on international norms and standards. However, developing the climate change management regime has been slow. A global institution, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was established in 1988 to provide a place where consensus could be achieved about the facts of climate change. The IPCC has performed four appraisals and is working on the fifth. To achieve agreement, it has had to engage a large and complex epistemic community of climate scientists into the discussion and has largely done so successfully, although it has been contested by a group of climate change deniers, many of whom are funded by large corporate interests seeking to influence consumers.

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