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Global governance

Global governance - understood as a combination of security providers, policies and underlying norms – is directly affected by the simultaneous evolution of threats and shifting centres of power. On the one hand, the world remains characterised by instability, conflict and human suffering, as well as by high levels of strategic uncertainty. On the other, institutions like the United Nations, the African Union or the European Union itself – as well as non-governmental organisations – have developed a wide range of tools to tackle evolving dangers.

International law and regimes, including norms on intervention (peacekeeping, the responsibility to protect) or justice (International Criminal Court), also provide a political and legal framework for global regulation efforts.But existing mechanisms are being increasingly called into question over their effectiveness and levels of legitimacy, in particular by those not represented in decision-making. This in turn challenges the position and role of the European Union and its aspirations to be both a norm-setter and a broad security provider.

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    01September 2007
    Seeing blue: American visions of the European Union
    By

    For six decades the United States has supported European integration, yet many Americans have an ambivalent attitude towards the European Union. Some Americans see the EU as the culmination of historic efforts to ensure peace, stability and democracy on the continent, while others consider the Union an elaborate scheme to create a rival to US hegemony. Still others dismiss the EU as irrelevant.

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    01July 2007
    A European centre of excellence in tune with the world
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    The new EUISS Director, Álvaro de Vasconcelos, outlines his vision for the Institute and its role in shaping EU foreign policy in this edition of the Intitute's newsletter 'ISSues'. Other articles include missile defence and gender mainstreaming.

  • 01July 2007
    The calm before the storm
    By

    Before attacking the Persians, King Croesus asked the Delphi oracle about his fate. According to Herodotus, the oracle said: ‘if you cross the Halys river, a great empire will be destroyed’. Croesus attacked and the next winter Cyrus the Great retaliated and defeated him. The empire that Croesus had contributed to destroy was in fact his own.

  • 01July 2007
    Gender mainstreaming
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    In 2000 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1325, Women, Peace and Security, which calls for ‘gender mainstreaming’. International organisations, governments and national militaries have become increasingly aware of the unintended gendered side-effects of peacekeeping operations.

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    01April 2007
    Building the future: the EU’s contribution to global governance
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    This Chaillot Paper suggests that the next frontier in the future’s improvement process is global governance. Global challenges and opportunities call for concerted action. Individual states, including major - both old and emerging - powers cannot tackle challenges and exploit opportunities on their own.

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    01January 2007
    ESDP Newsletter No. 3
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    The EU military operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo has come to an end, on schedule, as the presidential election process came to its own successful conclusion. For the first time in decades, this major African country, as large as the entire EU-25, and so crucial for the stability of the Great Lakes region and of Africa as a whole, has elected its president democratically.

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    01November 2006
    Enforcing non-proliferation. The European Union and the 2006 BTWC Review Conference
    Edited by
    With contributions from

    In its 2003 strategy against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the EU underscores that it is ‘committed to the multilateral treaty system’ – considering it the legal and normative stepping stone for all non-proliferation efforts.

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    31October 2006
    The New Global Puzzle. What World for the EU in 2025?
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    The EUISS has conducted a wide-ranging exercise to detect the long-term trends, factors and actors shaping the global environment of European integration - The New Global Puzzle. This Report illustrates the evolution of the key structural factors affecting change over the two decades to come and addresses some of the main questions concerning the future of the international system.

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    19October 2006
    North Korea goes nuclear: global reactions and the EU
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    Following its underground test on 9 October, carried out in defiance of international warnings, it is probable that North Korea has become the world’s ninth nuclear power. Whilst there were initially some doubts as to the strength or the exact nature of the detonation the presence of radioactive particles in North Korea has been now confirmed by US spy planes as well as by neighbouring Russia and Japan.

  • 01October 2006
    The New Global Puzzle
    By

    The ongoing debate on the future of Europe suffers from a lack of perspective on the global developments that are changing the context of European integration itself. The debate on the reform of the Union, its policies and institutions, and on the division of tasks between the EU and its Member States, needs to be linked to a strategic assessment of the rapid transformation of the international system, and its implications for Europe.

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