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Politics

الحفاظ على النظام الحالي المتعدد الأطراف

Jun 22, 2020 Ana Palacio

مدريد ـ للمرة الأولى في تاريخ الأمم المتحدة البالغ 75 عامًا، تقرر إلغاء اجتماع قادة العالم في نيويورك لحضور الاجتماع السنويللجمعية العامة للأمم المتحدة- وذلك بعد أسبوع من إلغاء اجتماع مجموعة السبع المُقرر انعقاده في كامب ديفيد، وبعد شهر من تخلي مجموعة العشرين عن خطط عقد قمة افتراضية. في الوقت الذي أصبحت فيه الطبيعة العالمية للتحديات الجسيمة القائمة أكثر وضوحًا من أي وقت مضى، أضحت أدوات النظام المتعدد الأطراف مُنخفضة الأداء وغير فعالة.

إن التداعيات أسوأ مما بدت عليه في البداية. بطبيعة الحال، هناك جائحة كوفيد 19 - أزمة غير مسبوقة في مجال الصحة العامة تتطلب العمل الجماعي لتطوير ونشر لقاح بشكل سريع وعلى نطاق واسع. ومن المرجح أن يُحدث الركود الاقتصادي الأكثر حدة منذ أزمة الكساد العظيم فقاعة ديون عالمية غير مسبوقة.

لكن هذه ليست سوى بداية مشاكل العالم. فقد شهدت العديد من المناطق تصاعد التوترات الجيوسياسية، بما في ذلك في شبه الجزيرة الكورية، وعلى طول الحدود بين الصين والهند، وبين الولايات المتحدة والصين. كما يتعرض التحالف عبر الأطلسي لضغوط شديدة، مع اعتبار القرار الذي اتخذه الرئيس الأميركي دونالد ترامب مؤخراً بخفض عدد القوات الأميركية في ألمانيا بمثابة أحدث علامة على العلاقات المتوترة.

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j. von Hettlingen Jun 24, 2020

Ana Palacio says multilateralism has been put on hold this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the first time in 75 years, the UN General Assembly, held in New York every September has been cancelled. The G7 summit this month in Camp David has been postponed until September or later, after Angela Merkel declined to attend. Trump said he would expand the list of invitees to include Australia, Russia, South Korea and India – as a pretext to bring Putin back to the fold, after Russia was expelled in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea.
On April 24, the G20 was supposed to hold a second virtual summit, to be attended by leaders including Xi Jinping and Trump, But the video conference was called off at the last minute amid US-China row over the World Health Organisation (WHO). As this year’s G20 will be chaired by Saudi Arabia, it remains to be seen whether King Salman will host the gathering of world leaders in Riyadh on November 21-22. As it is the first time that the G20 summit is held in the Middle East, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants to use the opportunity to project and promote his influence.
The author says, “at a time when the global nature of today’s most pressing challenges is more apparent than ever, the instruments of multilateralism are not just underperforming. They have stopped functioning.” In 2008, in the wake of the global financial crisis, the G20 called an emergency meeting in Washington in a bid to respond to the worldwide financial and economic crisis. The successful first G20 Summit provided a platform on which President-elect Obama could build in forging an inclusive and cooperative approach for resolving the financial and economic crisis.
But in 2020, it is a “G-Zero world,” which lacks a plan and leadership to tackle the many crises and challenges. The author says, “no leader possesses the will, vision, and influence to make it happen. In other words, there is no ‘convening power.’”
Apart from Covid-19 and global warming, geopolitical tensions are on the rise across the globe – on the Korean peninsula, on the China-Indian border, and between the US and China. Trump’s recent decision to draw down US troops in Germany has furthered frayed the Transantlantic relations.
Amid rising temperatures, great military powers are eyeing the Arctic Circle. “ Outer space is being militarized. And the forward march of transformative technologies like artificial intelligence is generating serious – and potentially dangerous – uncertainty.”
According to the author, “each of these developments, individually, would be worrying enough. Taken together, they imply catastrophic risks. If there was ever a moment when multilateralism was needed, this is it. And yet there is little reason to believe we will get it.” Back in 2018 UN Secretary General, Antonio Gueterres had warned against the rising tide of nationalism and deepening divisions that threatened to undermine the “seven decades" of the "world’s grand experiment in multilateralism.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has been a boon to populism and jingoism, bringing globalism to its knees. It has also led to increased nationalist exclusionary approach, with countries turning inward, away from openness and often from solidarity. In fact Covid-19 should be the catalyst the international community needs to combat nationalism – by reaching out to each other and joining forces to resolve the global health crisis.
The author says, “in the near term, it may also be necessary for international institutions to make compromises to keep uncooperative but powerful countries engaged. If such pandering sounds cynical and seems anathema to good global governance, so be it. The issue is survival, not perfection.”
There is hope that “effective global leadership” may eventually “reemerge, and the world can get to work building a better multilateral system, underpinned by common interests and a sense of shared responsibility. In the meantime, political leaders must defend those interests and uphold that responsibility by doing whatever it takes to keep the current multilateral system, flawed and limited as it is, alive and viable.”
The tragedy is that we currently have a bunch of autocrats and wannabe dictators who are seeking to derail the current global system, with the US under Trump wreaking havoc, and its Western allies being too weak to unilaterally defend the rules-based order. There is hope that this system is not doomed to disappear so soon, and that there is still time to salvage it. Much hope is placed on the American voters to see the back of Trump in November.
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stephan Edwards Jun 22, 2020

Not going to happen. The US isn't much interested in multilateralism anymore. It hasn't worked out very well for the average voter of either party and there isn't much support for it on the ground. For good reason i must admit. It been a complete and utter failure for a plurality rapidly headed towards a majority in the developed nations.
To the average voter means the taxpayer pay for it while the recipients insult them to their faces. Or that decent paying jobs are shipped to the 3rd to benefit foreign nations and wealthy political donors TO BOTH PARTIES!!! While the people whose jobs are shipped out are left to say "Welcome to Walmart!".
As for multilateral organizations???? The UN is at best a bad joke at worst? An organization not even worthy of contempt. If you don't believe me just look at current and former members of the Human Rights Council. They currently include such stalwart supporters of Human Rights as Libya, Sudan, & Venezuela. Former members such Human rights luminaries as Somalia & Pakistan. What a joke.
As for Who the US pays what percentage of their budget ? Meanwhile they act as Chinese surrogates. If they want to be China's surrogates let China pay for WHO the US doesn't need to paying for an organization that takes it's direction Beijing in this mess.
And the WTO ? Any Politician Democrat or Republican? Labor or Tory? Who suggests doing anything for the WTO might has well go back to chasing ambulances. The WTO is hated in developed world by the working class at least with visceral hatred. Fair or not is irrelevant it is viewed has one of the things that pushed so many jobs the 3rd world. You could argue all day that's unfair. But in Politics perceptions is 90%.
At this point and for the foreseeable future. IN the US & UK anyway there is no support on the ground anyway for multilateralism. A plurality headed view it has foreign countries getting our jobs & livelihoods while openly holding the developed nations in contempt and getting a free ride. True or not ? That's the perception and it isn't exactly an unfair view like it or not. No with all due respect author multilateralism is dead in much of the developed world for at least a generation possibly more. Maybe if the benefits had been wider spread? But the benefits were and are reserved for a relatively small percentage of the population. But the costs? Those were spread wide. IF you want who to blame for the hatred? Look at who benefited. And the politicians on their payrolls. Trump didn't get elected because the population thought the system was working.
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