GG - Global Governing Bodies + Agreements

• Consists of 193 member states and has 6 principle ‘organs’

• The ‘organs’ are: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the ECOSOC, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice and the Secretariat

• Resolving international conflicts

• Organising aid and financial support

• Peacekeeping forces in unstable regions

• Advancing various international charitable causes

• Protecting heritage sites and other important places

• Tolerant of dictatorship? Only 75 members are democracies

• Could be a threat to sovereignty as it promotes globalism

• Support for ‘extreme’ birth control policies (some religious groups believe it to be extreme)

• Unequal balance of power e.g. permanent members of the WTO have veto power

• Corruption linked to the direction of aid

• Not always effective in it’s aims e.g. keeping peace

• Protecting the Galapagos Islands and 1000 other heritage sites

• Deaths due to famine have fallen since the 20th century when >70m died due to famine (help from the WFP, FAO and UN-sponsored emergency management)

• Prosecution of Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes (Liberian and Serbian leaders)

• Their failure to stop the Rwandan Genocide, killing 1m of the Tutsi minority when they had an Assistance Mission in 1994

• UN officials have been accused of sexually abusing girls and women they are supposed to be caring for

• Genome testing suggested that the 2010 Haiti cholera outbreak came from UN peacekeepers

• It aims to reduce poverty and inequality in over 170 countries

• The proportion of people living in extreme poverty halved between 1990-2015

• They set the Millennium Development goals for 2000-2015

• A set of 8 development goals set between 2000-15

• People receiving treatment for HIV increased by 15 times

• Child mortality reduced by ½

• The no. of people living on <$1.25 per day halved

The Sustainable Development Goals, of which there are 17.

• In the 21st century, NGOs have encouraged the democratisation of decision-making, protected human rights, provided aid and led to countless efforts, campaigns and new laws

• Operational NGOs provide frontline support e.g. Oxfam

• Advocacy NGOs campaign and improve awareness e.g. Greenpeace

• Increasingly they work with other stakeholders and have a strong voice in global matters

• A subsidiary of the UN

• It led to a 10-year effort that eradicated smallpox

• It has led efforts against ebola, zika virus and polio

• Many praised it for it’s efforts against Covid-19, although some nations didn’t follow it’s advice and Trump accused it of being ‘China-centric’

• Formed in 1972 to provide coherent environmental governance

• It is now part of the SDGs

• It was largely seen as a failure, as it enforced few laws and in 2017, 197 people responsible for environmental defence were killed

• However it was very successful in leading the formation of the Montreal Protocol in 1987

• The body responsible for overseeing greenhouse gas emissions laws

• In 2015, the Paris Agreement was aimed at reducing climate change to 1.5 degrees Celcius

• It came into force in 2020 after >20 years’ disagreement since the Kyoto Protocol

• It helps LICs via long-term loans

• It also gives out interest-free loans via the IDA

• It gets resources from trading on the international bond market

• It has 7000 staff members and an American president

• Oversees the global financial system

• It offers assistance and advice to it’s members

• It only intervenes if it can stop a global financial crisis

• The money comes from members’ subscriptions and employs 2300 staff

• Founded in 1995, with >160 members

• It facilitates international trade

• It aims to liberalise trade by removing barriers to trade, mediates trade disagreements, creates ‘ground rules’ and provides stability as changes to agreements have to pass through the WTO

An international forum made up of G7 and the EU, aimed at giving a voice to major developing countries.

• Adopted in Rio, 1992

• Aimed at sustainable development by passing ideas down through government to individuals

• E.g. UK recycling system

• Some difficulty in the USA where people felt it was ‘removing their liberties’ e.g. car size, family size, private property

• A norm refers to a social norm, as in an accepted behaviour that is not enforced by law

• An example is in Saudi Arabia, it is not the norm for women to be equal to men - women were only allowed to drive in 2018

• Norms can vary between countries, and it is difficult to govern norms internationally

• A law is legally binding and failure to comply can lead to prosecution

• E.g. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a legally binding agreement

• Because laws are legally binding, countries may be deterred from global agreement

• E.g. some people voted to leave the EU because they didn’t agree with their rules and regulations