When we talk about creating a global authority to take decisions and exercise control, are we talking about a global government, binding, with capacity to enforce? Are we going to have a global president someday? Most people have that idea of global governance. Now, do we need that? The answer is no.
If we want to fight populism, the worst strategy could be to generate new level of power concentration.
What we need is for national and local leaders to have a series of standards to guide government action -not even oblige it- and provide for their actions, policies and behaviours to be evaluated.
That is a critical role for the United Nations. It is true that their institutions and mechanisms may seem slow or outdated. Certainly, they were designed to operate last century´s system of international relations. And the truth is that the UN can decisively contribute in a much more effective way than it does today. However, with all its shortcomings we have nothing better than the United Nations to work together for a better world.
The problem goes beyond having or not having a world president. A global authority is not a man who gives orders to all of us. Global governance is a mechanism of negotiation, of defining common and acceptable standards, of creating trust. It is a gradual process of building criteria of global coexistence that set limits and guide the action of leaders in issues that concern humanity. Nothing more than that. Nothing less than that.
The important thing is not that there is a global authority that gives orders but that we all accept common rules of coexistence, which reflect progress and improvement in the living conditions of humanity as well as in the values and goals that inspire it, and that let’s see the one who departs from those norms and principles as an anomaly.
