A Regional Approach to Global Governance
INTRODUCTION
We find ourselves in a globalizing world of nation-states where age-old worries
and New Age threats commingle. Discerning the primary forces at work and envisioning
ways in which those forces can be productively harnessed is challenging. A number of
paths toward a better form of global governance have been charted. Notable among these
are recommendations to strengthen and/or reform the United Nations, and explorations in
the realm of global civil society. This paper takes up the issue of global governance by
proposing, articulating, and assessing a particular proposal for a new international
institution. My solution advocates a regional/great power approach and recommends
creating an entirely new Global Directorate. The Global Directorate would consist of the
most important states in the international system along with regional groupings. Thus, it
forms a hybrid of state and non-state actors.
Every novel proposal that is advanced must pass the following tests:
1. That it be more desirable than the status quo.
2. That it be rooted in currently existing international forces.
3. That it be internally coherent.
Once those tests are passed, the final test is confronted:
4. That it be politically feasible to move from the status quo to the proposed
situation.
The proposal advanced in this paper will address each of the first three tests in
varying degrees, but will not address the last test. It begins with a brief examination of
the fundamental flaws at the root of the central institutions of global governance. It then
Convention