Prospects and challenges for multilateral cooperation.

 

The signs are quite clear: The liberal international order as we used to know it from the early 1990s on will not return. As the discussion has shown, this may open new avenues of correcting some effects that went with it. The main challenge still lies in reducing inequalities within and between countries and making global decision-making more inclusive – even against the resistance of illiberal states, in which the space for civil society participation is constantly shrinking. We have also learned that so called “norm entrepreneurs” – state or non-state –, who advocate for certain norms, do not always promote only “liberal” or “good” norms. Very often, autocratic and backsliding democratic states are joined by conservative NGOs, when “family values” have to be protected, which usually results in curtailing reproductive rights, in other words: women’s rights. Another strategy of illiberal states is to place their citizens in the secretariats of multilateral institutions. China, for instance, uses its growing global engagement strategically to enter the UN civil service. This is the new global context, in which new rules must be negotiated, and old ones (re)interpreted and applied. It also means that on a global level, the pragmatic approach should be to agree on normative guidelines and the goals you want to achieve – and leave the implementation of the policies to the domestic or regional level, as in the case of the Paris Agreement regulating the emission of greenhouse gases. This will not lead to solving problems automatically, as can be seen from the ongoing climate change. However, it makes clear that solving global problems rests on shared – even if differentiated – responsibilities . The age of interdependence is especially visible with respect to the digital transformation that is under way. The United States and China, conjointly with their big tech companies, dominate digital technologies and services. The new technologies offer both benefits and risks. At UN level, the debate over what rules should shape the transformation and the application of digital technologies is gaining momentum. In her chapter, Cornelia Ulbert argues that we need principles guiding the digital transformation and shows what a human-centred approach can look like and what kinds of regulatory frameworks are currently already in place. Despite digital dependencies on the United States and China, there are ways for states to enhance their digital sovereignty. They do not rest, 32 though, on protective measures but on engaging in producing more global digital public goods. In a multiplex order, regions are becoming more important. Bringing regions with their wide range of formal and informal institutions into global problem-solving, in his chapter, Christof Hartmann sketches the future of multilateral peace operations with reference to African regional organizations. He shows that the existing international toolbox may still be relevant for stabilizing violent conflicts. The growing regionalization in securing peace contributes to a more pluralist and representative international system in which responsibilities are more widely shared and in which also domestic civil society actors are included, as in the case of infrastructures for peace. However, on a global level, the future of multilateral peace operations depends on two crucial factors: The first is the provision of adequate resources. The willingness of the global community to invest in collective security mechanisms would also underline the idea that international peace is a global public good whose costs must be shared. The second factor relates to what kind of peace forthcoming peace operations want to achieve. Stabilization, in essence, just means the absence of violence. The SDGs reflect a broader notion of peace. That would make it necessary to also address the root causes of conflicts and contribute to transforming conflictual relationships on the domestic level into cooperative ones. Pluralizing the range of actors that shape global policy processes does not only mean that the landscape of actors has become more diverse. One of the consequences is that authority, the power and – if legitimately delegated – also the right to take decisions that have effects on a collective, does not only rest with states anymore. There is much empirical evidence that private actors play a major role in a multitude of international and transnational regulatory processes today, especially relating to global value chains. In this paper we scrutinize the politics of due diligence in global value chain regulation. Private regulation does not replace rulemaking by the state. Rather, reflecting the various functions of private actors in political processes, there are highly diverse forms of private, private-public and public regulation which interact with each other to varying degrees. Emanating from a global process, several regional and national state regulations have developed, supplementing private regulations. These state regulations are increasingly contested and are a vivid example of contestation processes that involve states, civil society 33 and private actors. In essence, due diligence regulation is also an expression of a global struggle over corporate accountability, public authority and the regulation of global production. The last chapter, by Marcus Kaplan, deals with one of the long-term problems that has not been regulated much on a global level to date: water resources are under severe stress due to increasing demands and reduced availability and quality. Therefore, water stress threatens human well-being, development, and, above all, can trigger intra- and interstate conflicts. Water conflicts have been exacerbated since the access to, and provision of water has become a matter of national security. And increasingly, restricting the access to water is used as a weapon against individual groups or neighbouring countries. However, water diplomacy can be a useful tool for conflict transformation if it is based on identifying shared interests and brings together the different perspectives of all relevant stakeholders in an integrative approach. The following chapters illustrate that the international order has become more pluralistic with more instances of contestation. However, the new multiplex order still has a multitude of instruments and institutions at its disposal on which global cooperation can be based. In particular for tackling long-term and complex problems we need spaces for negotiation, creation and participation that enable us to think about the future, which might be a common at best. This entails considering unorthodox or new perspectives and approaches, as well as doing justice to the diversity and complexity of global politics – in terms of plurality of actors, disparity in values and multiple scales. For liberal democratic states this also means that they should be conscious about the risk of inattention that comes along with leaving the multilateral institutions to illiberal states. The urgent message reads: re-engage with global governance to seek common ground amid difference.