Marcel Rouby (Ed.)
Le pari d'un gouvernement mondial (The Challenge of a World Government)
A2C Medias, Paris, 2010

In recent times, the world financial and economic crisis and the growing difficulties in creating an effective governance for global problems have raised the question of world’s governability. A globalized world, and at the same time not governed: this is the situation in which we find ourselves, a situation that could produce (and in a way already produces) uncontrollable catastrophes. This situation is visible to everyone, but many people persist in refusing to believe it or in underestimating it. It is significant, from this point of view, that now also statesmen, representatives of the national political ruling class, intellectuals close to the centres of power, recognize the reality and the urgency of the problem of world’s governability. 

An evidence of this is represented by the book edited by Marcel Rouby, which collects about ten essays by French or French-speaking esteemed authors (among them a minister of the Sarkozy’s government), with the preface by Mikhail Gorbatchev. This is a twofold evidence: on the one hand it highlights a growing attention also among national political leaders; on the other hand, it highlights at the same time a significant degree of confusion, uncertainty and “shyness” about the perspectives and possible solutions. A first and relevant example: governance or government, and which relation between them? In the book the two words swing frequently: the title talks about government, but in the essays the word governance is more often present. And, what is more important, nowhere in the book there is an attempt to explain these concepts, their identity, their differences, the scientific and political debate regarding them. Often the terms are used as if they could have the same meaning, while, as it is known, they refer to institutional constructions, procedures of decision and political experiences significantly different. A second important example: the fact that a world government presupposes explicit and relevant transfers of sovereignty from the states to the supranational institutions is never mentioned in an explicit and adequately articulated way. The very concept of sovereignty is almost absent. Only Gorbatchev in the preface (perhaps because he has not been a man in power or a political leader for a long time now?) says explicitly and without diplomatic prudence that «the States must give a piece of their sovereignty to international organizations and, more precisely, to international juridical systems».

But, apart from these critical considerations, the book presents also some interesting inputs and suggestions for those who want to develop the perspective, by now inevitable in order to really avoid catastrophes, of the world’s government. First of all, there emerges, in all of the essays, the acknowledgement of the decisive role that the European Union, if it manages to complete its process of political federal unification, is called upon to exert for the creation of a world system of government. More generally, in the essay of the Canadian intellectual and former ambassador Vlaskakis is outlined the perspective of world regional unions, and among them the EU in the first place, called by the author OGRs (Optimum Geographical Regions), as a necessary and intermediate step towards the creation of a world government. Another interesting point to be signaled is the proposal of a world parliamentary assembly, on the model of the first European Parliament (not yet elected), made by the Action Committee for a World Parliament (COPAM) already in 1993 on the initiative of Olivier Giscard d’Estaing, and backed by several important people in the world (from Boutros-Ghali to Delors to Mandela to Valérie Giscard d’Estaing to Amartya Sen). In a perspective of governance, which forecasts and prepares a system of government, finds a place the proposal by Olivier Giscard d’Estaing himself, about a «multinational sectional governance» in the sectors of public activities, already globalized, in which national governments are by now (and they acknowledge it more and more) powerless in reacting efficiently. In other words, it would be a functional way to proceed towards a world government, as it was done throughout the 1960s with the European integration. It should be remembered that the specialized agencies of the United Nations (FAO, WHO, ILO etc.), if adequately legitimated and provided with decisional and financial instruments, could become the fundamental actors of this process of functional governance. 

Finally, it should be underlined that among the essays published in the book some of them are of a cultural nature and, specifically, of an ethic-religious one. In fact, it could not be imagined to create a system of government for the world without also imagining to create a moral public ethic, to which the religious thought could surely give a decisive contribution (for its elaboration but also, on the contrary, for stopping its advancement: the ambivalence and the risks of religions are well known by historians). In this direction, there is an interesting debate among a Catholic priest, a Rabbi, an Imam and a Buddhist monk: different experiences and religious positions, linked though by a common conviction on the necessity of a cultural dialogue and of a quest for a shared “world ethos”. The perspective of a world government needs rules, institutions, power architectures: but also new soul visions.