by Dr Kennedy Graham | Dec 20, 2021 | Director
Part I of this blog identified the conceptual insights which members and affiliates of the Centre, and invited guests, have offered on the modern plight of the human condition, and of potential ways forward. As Director of the Centre for eight years (and stepping down on 31 December), it has been a privilege to be exposed to such deep and rational thought.
My varied professional career – academic, UN official, NZ diplomat and MP – gives me pause in presuming to offer insight into the future of the global community. But here are a few thoughts.
Career focus on the ‘existential threats’
My twin focus over five decades has been on two of the three existential threats – nuclear weapons and climate change – plus the associated challenge of taming the primordial instinct to resort to armed force.
Nuclear weapons
- In the 1970s and ‘80s, I worked primarily on nuclear disarmament, being engaged in the Pacific regional and NZ national nuclear-free zones; and arguing the official NZ repudiation of deterrence theory at the UN in Geneva (Committee on Disarmament) and New York (UN Special Session on Disarmament). In the early 2020s, I have returned to the subject, through membership of the Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament whose statutory duty is to advise the PM and Foreign Minister on implementation
- Three decades on, the threat of nuclear conflict is as real as it was in the ‘70s and ‘80s. National sovereignty plus zero-sum mind-set in a fluid strategic environment has neutralised the effort at nuclear disarmament. The NPT (1968) has been a partial success on nuclear non-proliferation, but the failure of the major powers to negotiate nuclear disarmament in good faith has led to the introduction of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. On entry-into-force in 2021, the TPNW has rendered nuclear weapons illegal in international law. The opposition of the nuclear-armed states and nuclear-reliant states has split the international community. But if sovereign equality is to be objectively meaningful, the overwhelming majority support the TPNW, and with the passage of time the minority are in danger of becoming ‘persistent’ objectors to what will become an emerging peremptory norm in customary international law.
Armed force
- In 1993 we worked in PGA on parliamentarian action towards the ICC, led by Hon ANR Robinson (Trinidad & Tobago) and Hon Emma Bonino (Italy). The Rome Statute, in force since 2002, establishes in international law individual criminal liability for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of state aggression.
- In 2009 I introduced a member’s Bill in the NZ Parliament, which would make it an individual crime in domestic law (10 years imprisonment) for any NZ government leader to commit aggression in violation of the UN Charter. The Bill had a 1st reading and came reasonably close to being handed on to select committee for deliberation (vote: 58 for; 64 against).
- In 2010 the Parties to the Rome Statute finally agreed to make aggression a justiciable crime at the Kampala Amendment Conference (which I attended). New Zealand supported and signed the amendment.
- A decade on, New Zealand has yet to ratify the Kampala Amendment and bring it into domestic law. No single advance in international law will be as effective in curbing the questionable us of armed force as individual liability on the part of political leaders. Some 16 NATO states including Germany have ratified, confining NATO’s collective self-defence article decision-making to what is strictly lawful under the UN Charter. It concentrates the mind – on the law. Non-ratification of the Kampala Amendment to the Rome Statute is the single biggest failure of New Zealand foreign policy.
Climate change
- In 1990, we organised in PGA the first international parliamentarian workshop on climate change, involving MPs from 15 large countries (including Brazil, Indonesia, China, USA, UK, South Africa). Assisted by IPCC experts with AR1 about to be released, we issued the Bellagio Communique, calling for a 50% cut in global GHG (all-gas) emissions by 2010 – from 34.2 to 17.1 Gt. CO2-e. In the event, global GHG emissions rose over that time-period by 22% to 41.8 Gt.
- In 1992, I attended the Rio Earth Summit, which adopted the foundational UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Despite assertions by one developed major power that its lifestyle was not up for negotiation, the Convention recognised, accurately and wisely, the distinction between developed and developing countries. And despite the universal consensus in the Paris Agreement, that distinction still holds.
- In 2009, I participated in the Copenhagen COP15, witnessing its failure deriving from argumentation over the Kyoto Protocol, historical responsibility and per capita differentiation, amidst strategic stand-off between the USA and the BRICs, exacerbated by inept chairing.
- In 2015, I participated in the Paris COP21, which achieved universal consensus on a global strategy for ‘well below 2ͦC’ and ‘efforts towards 1.5’, at the cost of a weaker regime of subjectively-determined national ‘contributions’ to a global goal.
- In 2021, I followed from a distance the outcome of COP26. In the 30 years 1990 to 2020, global (all-gas) GHG emissions have increased xx%, from 27 to 55 GT. (CO2-e). We are still – virtually every country without exception – justifying our shortfall in our national mitigation ‘contributions’ on the grounds of differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in light of different national circumstances’ – taking diplomatic ambiguity to absurd and irrational lengths.
Health pandemics
My fleeting engagement with global health issues was participating in the WHO’s 41st annual Assembly in 1998, which, noting the reduction of polio cases to 35,000, called for total eradication by 2000. In 2020, there were 140 recorded cases by WHO. But the emergence of global virus pandemics is changing our socio-political perceptions of governance, at both national and global levels.
Global pandemics have been a feature of human existence since primordial time. But the contemporary question is whether the global health governance system is equal to the challenge of the modern coronavirus type phenomenon. The Centre has not been engaged in this, and would look to the Helen Clark Foundation for insight.
Reflections
None of the above issues reveals humankind – as a global community or a species – as sufficiently competent to tackle and resolve global threats. In 2021, the UN and many of its Member States declared a climate emergency. The only way to tackle an emergency is to assume legitimate emergency powers. The only UN body empowered to that end is the Security Council.
- In 2007, the issue was brought onto the Council’s agenda but the idea of any proposed action on climate change was opposed by several permanent members, and nothing was agreed.
- The issue was brought forward again in 2011, with the UNSG advising the Council that in his view climate change was a threat to international peace and security, the criterion for potential enforcement action. Instead, the Council issued a presidential statement describing climate change as a ‘risk multiplier’ – acknowledging what had been obvious for the two decades since the 1st IPCC Assessment Report of 1990.
- In 2020, a formal draft declaring climate change to be a threat to IPS was drafted but not put to the vote because of the opposition of several permanent members.
- In 2021 it was re-tabled and put to the vote for the first time, being vetoed by one permanent member with another abstaining.
Opposition to enforcement action by the Security Council on climate change rests on a stated view that traditional multilateral negotiation remains the appropriate method of handling the issue. But the traditional method has weakened by the move from a ‘top-down’ approach in Kyoto (2007) to a ‘bottom-up’ approach (Durban-Paris-Glasgow). Pretending that 1993 entities claiming sovereignty, with 193 (or even five) effective vetoes, can solve a shared global problem and pursue effective remedial action defies rationality. Pretending that 193 subjectively-determined national contributions will achieve a drastic global target defies rationality.
While it is correct that the 1.5° global goal will fail without coordinated and ambitious action from non-governmental entities (private sector, civil society, personal lifestyle), that is simply one precondition, and certainly not sufficient in itself. Avoidance of dangerous climate change will not be achieved without legitimate enforcement action by the UN, whether this is the Security Council or some future body. The private sector and civil society will respond to legitimate political –diplomatic leadership.
Nuclear disarmament, the lawful use of force, climate stabilisation – and indeed a non-pandemic global society – will not be achieved on the basis of national sovereignty allowed free rein. The UN Charter, enshrined 75 years ago in the international age, sought a balance between ‘sovereign equality’ and the ‘common ends’ (universal peace). It is dangerously ironic that the balance has reverted to national sovereignty in the two decades of the global age.
To a large extent these increasingly inter-connected problems derive from the human population explosion – from 2 to 8 billion in one lifetime. I recall, from my participation in the 1994 UN Population Conference, that the (then) 185 member states representing the (then) 5.7 billion humans, judged it inappropriate to initiate far-reaching action to curb the population growth. As a result, the global ecological footprint is 56% above Earth’s carrying capacity. No way to run a planet.
The planetary interest
In 1989, working for Parliamentarians for Global Action, I developed the concept of the ‘planetary interest’ in PGA’s quarterly newsletter. The concept subsequently took the form of an edited book ‘The Planetary Interest: A new concept for the global age’ (UCL/Routledge/Rutgers; 1999), with chapters submitted by MPs from 20 major countries and foreword by UNSG Kofi Annan. We defined the planetary interest as:
”the interests of the planet, comprising
(1) the survival and viability of humanity, contingent on maintenance of the physical integrity of Earth and the protection of its ecological systems and biosphere from major anthropogenic change; and
(2) the universal improvement in the human condition in terms of basic human needs and fundamental human rights”.
Each country’s ‘legitimate national interest’ should be compatible with the planetary interest. ‘Legitimate global power’, as recognised by the global community properly assembled, would respond to the nature and severity of the global threat. The principle of subsidiarity, developed with insight and cogency by the EU, would apply to differentiate and legitimise power at the global-regional-national-sub-national levels.
Something similar was recently captured by Stewart Patrick (Sr. Fellow in Global Governance, Council on Foreign Relations) in his article: The International Order Isn’t Ready for the Climate Crisis: The case for a new planetary politics (Foreign Affairs Nov./Dec. 2021). A discourse on the conceptual congruence has been struck with the author.
The normative and the imperative
Action on existential threats is determined by the nation-state, with the UN acting as background researcher and negotiating arena. National action reflects more the domestic political scene than the international diplomatic compromise over voluntary ‘contributions’. Domestic politics continues to be interpreted simplistically through the unidimensional horizontal left-right axis. That framework is three centuries old, and is focused on normative political judgement over how we humans live within our national societies – essentially comprising two fundamental values, freedom and equality, in a competitive setting. The environmental crisis gets squeezed into this inappropriate thought-prism, and comes out unrecognisable.
In 2009 as an MP, I advanced the idea that contemporary politics required an updated framework that took proper account of the existential crisis we face, particularly climate change. I proposed a two-dimensional axis, supplementing the horizontal normative axis (left-right) with a vertical axis (up-down) for the ‘imperative’ issues of survival against existential threats. Such a framework allows people – political representatives and voters – to move more freely left or right, according to personal view, while simultaneously judging the ‘existential politics’ on the basis of an imperative. Thus, sustainability becomes the third political value, and is not disfigured on the horizontal axis.
Proactive or reactive?
Qualitative steps forward in political history have been essentially reactive. Humanity has yet to demonstrate an ability to act proactively in transforming institutions and legal obligation to deal with a major common threat before it occurs.
The next few decades will determine whether we have that capability.
by Dr Kennedy Graham | Dec 20, 2021 | Director
The Centre has been privileged this month to host some valuable commentary on the challenge of global governance.
On 6 December the Climate Minister, Hon James Shaw, gave the 8th NZCGS Annual Global Lecture, by webinar with 292 registered participants. His address (The UN and Climate Negotiations: Implications for the planet; implications for Aotearoa NZ) was focused, insightful and thoughtful. The Minister, just back from Glasgow, offered some reflection on the nature of the global system, with regards to climate change: essentially, “it’s a stupid way to run a planet, but it’s the only one we’ve got”. More specifically:
“The intergovernmental process is inherently slow moving. Every single word and every single comma must be agreed by all the more than 190 parties. Global negotiations inevitably prioritise forging consensus. … COP26 was a shot in the arm for multilateralism, dysfunctional though the system is. So, where does this all leave global governance of climate change? The UNFCCC process includes a mix of peer pressure, norm-setting, political visibility, and capacity building. And altogether, these foundations add up to push countries into doing more than they would have otherwise. … But, the pace of progress admittedly has not matched the urgency of the action required. There is a saying that, ‘winning slowly on climate change is the same thing as losing’, given that we are up against an immovable deadline to halve our emissions this decade, halve them again the next, and eliminate them entirely the decade after that.”
Separately, Sundeep Waslekar (Advisory Panel member) contributed an article, more broadly, on the stark prospects for the contemporary multilateral system in the course of this century:
“The multiple crises of our time result from the breakdown of the multilateral order. Some of these crises may intensify between now and 2030. Multilateral organizations have been eroded to the extent that they are unable to manage catastrophic risk, including a military confrontation between superpowers. The weakening of multilateralism is mirrored in the strengthening of hyper-nationalism in many countries. It will not be sufficient to mend the multilateral system. It is necessary, instead, to envisage new principles for creating a global governance grid superseding the UN Security Council that serves the interests of human civilization and not the nation-states. The new grid can be grounded in the philosophy that the world should be treated as a family. It is utopian to expect the nation-states to accept a multilateral order that does not serve their narrow interests. But the alternative is the annihilation of the human race.”
James is a political leader (a cabinet minister). Sundeep is a thought-leader (having founded a think-tank in India). What are we to make of their far-reaching comments, emanating from their different roles?
Existential risk
Leading universities are now developing focused research to explore emergent existential threats to humanity – notably the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (Cambridge), Existential Risk Initiative (Stanford) and Future of Humanity Institute (Oxford). Of the various natural and anthropocentric risks that are identified, three have direct relevance to contemporary global governance – and indeed to humanity’s medium-term future (50 to 100 years out). They are nuclear conflict, climate change, and health pandemics.
This modern research approach is regarded by some as anthropocentric ‘catastrophising’. But it is becoming increasingly recognised that survival of our own species, despite the level of intelligence and consciousness attained, is not guaranteed – see James Gee: A Very Short History of Life on Earth (Picador; 2021) and or Yuval Noah Harari: Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow (Harvill Secker; 2016).
The Centre and global thought: developing a new conceptual framework
The Centre’s statutory mission is to encourage research and debate on global affairs from the interests of the global community. It runs four thematic programmes: global citizenship & education; global law and governance; global peace and security; and global sustainability and climate change. It holds an annual lecture on a selected topic of global affairs. In fact much has been traversed along similar lines to the above, albeit through different threads, in the Centre’s annual Global Affairs lectures to date, and associated research by its members, advisers and alumni.
Assessing risk
Risk assessment is the starting-point for any remedial action in a crisis. In the Centre’s 4th Annual Lecture (2017), Hon Gareth Evans, former Australian Foreign Minister, judged that the ‘massive task’ of nuclear disarmament had two major elements. The first is for strategic policy-making to recognise that the risks, for anyone, associated with possession of nuclear weapons outweigh any possible ‘rewards’. The second is a political strategy in which a nuclear weapon-free world is a ‘truly productive’ vision.
Such a vision, clearly, requires embracing a new conceptual framework for perceiving the human condition.
New concepts
Earth trusteeship
In the Centre’s 1st Annual Lecture (2014), Prof Klaus Bosselmann (NZCGS Board member; Auckland Law School) advanced the concept of ‘Earth Trusteeship’. He saw two preconditions for effective global governance: recognition of the severity of the situation which humanity faces; and realization of the inherent limitations of the current system of global governance. He criticised the current education system for placing undue emphasis on short-term and market-oriented skill-development: the ‘sustainability and global citizenship approach has yet to be recognised in schools and universities’. He foresaw three developments: recognition of Earth systems as a governance-determining reality; legal principles for underpinning this; and new institutions to respect the principles and undertake action. Perhaps the former UN Trusteeship Council could be resurrected for the purpose.
Planetary boundaries
Earth Trusteeship is closely related to the concept of planetary boundaries, which was advanced by its original progenitor, Prof Johan Rockström (SEI/PIK) in the Centre’s 5th Annual Lecture in 2018. There are nine ecological boundaries beyond which Earth should not transgress if the planet is to retain a stable and harmonious system for human and other terrestrial life. At present, we are transgressing five of these.
Contemporary law and institutions
These are conceptual advances of recent decades, along with ‘responsibility to protect’ and ‘individual criminal liability’. But are our current international institutions – is contemporary international law – equal to the task of dealing with our existential problems?
Universal legitimacy
In the Centre’s 2nd Annual Lecture (2015), Prof Ramesh Thakur (ANU) judged the UN Security Council to be ‘unfit for purpose’ today. The challenge of global governance is that many of the world’s most intractable problems are global in scope and require concerted multilateral action that is also global in reach. But both policy authority and resources for solving them remains vested in nation-states. This disconnect explains the recurrent difficulties facing the UN and its fitful response to crises. The UN seeks to replace the balance of power with a community of power. It represents the dream of a world ruled by reason. From its universal membership flow both its unique legitimacy and its unique inability to make timely collective decisions.
Within the UN system, the Security Council is the peak body for deciding on the great issues of war and peace and the preeminent forum for addressing global crises. The Council is the core of the international law enforcement system, the world’s sheriff with the legal competence to make decisions on armed conflict that are binding on all countries, even non-members and those who voted against the decisions. It violates many fundamental precepts of contemporary good governance, including representivity, accountability and transparency. The irreducible minimum for any credible system of collective security is that the key actors making and enforcing the coercive decisions in the name and on behalf of the international community collectively are the major powers of the day. This is the logic justifying permanent membership with veto rights of the Security Council.
This is also the criterion on which, more than any other single factor, the Council fails the test comprehensively. In most cases where UN efforts to deal with outbreaks of international violence are frustrated by a veto, it is the fact of great-power opposition, not its expression in the form of a Security Council veto, which is the obstacle to peace.
Revolution of the mind
In the Centre’s 3rd Annual Lecture (2016), former PM. Sir Geoffrey Palmer (Prof Emeritus, VUW) reflected that the meshing together of politics and law is at the heart of the problems of governance that afflict global society. International law is deficient in the three fundamentals of a judicial system: compulsory jurisdiction, hierarchy of judicial decisions, and application of precedent.
Sir Geoffrey also warned about that “the future of education is not secure and we may be trapped in a time warp, where there is a widening gap between real world experience and what is taught in the system.” We are in an era where it is not easy to have confidence in the future. But keeping hope alive is an essential ingredient of a healthy society. Redemption might be found in the thought of historian-philosopher Phillip Allott:
“The necessary revolution is a world revolution. The world revolution is a revolution not in the streets but in our minds. Allott paints a picture for the future of a consciousness that extends throughout the world. It passes freely across frontiers. It is based on humanity, and our moral and social responsibility extends to the whole of humanity and to the whole of the physical world which we transform by our actions.”
Permanent empathy
In the Centre’s 7th Lecture (2020), Prof Azza Karam (NZCGS Advisory Panel member; SG of Religions for Peace) explored the relationship between universal peace (the concept identified in the UN Charter, Art. 1.2) and religion through the United Nations.
Prof Karam used the metaphor of the flamenco dance: with politics (the 193 UN member states) engaging in the song, religion providing the music, and human rights being the consequential dance. Through her deep experience in the UN, academia and civil society, she critiques the UN for being fundamentally hampered in its multi-religious engagement, still disproportionately working with one particular religion and being selective in its particular human rights focus.
Yet she sees progress in all religions working more normally with the UN today, enriching the exposure and understanding of UN officials with contemporary multi-religious dynamics. She cites the call of one religious world leader to “discover our vocation as citizens of our respective nations and of the entire world, builders of a new social bond with permanent empathy.”
Relational change
In her response to the Minister Shaw’s Lecture, NZCGS Board member Catherine Leining offered the observation that the chief barriers to progress on climate change are not technological or economic but relational. And relationships can change, which will occur “when we face the unavoidable reality of our interdependence with the Earth and with each other” – the question is when. Catherine cites the distinction between ‘finite’ and ‘infinite’ games drawn by NYU professor James Carse: the former reflects zero-sum, competitive relationships in negotiations over finite outcomes; the latter a shared relationship over continually-evolving set of boundaries, including planetary boundaries (see her blog of 15 Dec.).
Which leads naturally on to the concepts of global citizenship and global education.
Global citizenship and education
NZCGS Board Chair, Prof Chris Gallavin, has written extensively on the subject of global education. Returning from a study tour of the USA as an Eisenhower Scholar, Prof Gallavin has written five articles that can be found on this NZCGS blog site: (Dec. 2019 to May 2020). The future global university, he suggests: “must enfranchise all students as global citizens across race and class; effectively manage info-tech; and develop an accurate meta-narrative for our time, involving the normative structure of human communities and our relationship with the physical resources of our planet.
Chris as Board Chair, and Libby Giles (Board member) who becomes NZCGS Director on 1 January, together have far-reaching plans for the Centre’s activity in global citizenship and education in 2022 and beyond.
Legitimate global governance
The challenge of global governance was directly addressed in the Centre’s 6th Annual Lecture by Prof Augusto Lopez-Claros. Drawing from his co-authored book, Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions (CUP; 2020), he advanced proposals for addressing effectively the ‘catastrophic risks’ facing humanity that are beyond national control. The solution, he suggests, is to extend to the international level the ‘same principles of sensible governance’ that exist in well-governed national systems: i.e. the rule of law, legislation in the common interest, an executive branch to implement such legislation, and courts to enforce it.
In Part II of this blog-post, I shall offer a few personal reflections.
by Hon James Shaw, Minister of Climate Change | Dec 15, 2021 | Guests
The Centre held its 8th Annual Global Affairs Lecture on 6 December, 6.00 pm to 7.30 pm.
The Lecture was given by New Zealand’s Minister of Climate Change, Hon James Shaw, who had just returned from the UN’s COP26 (Glasgow), where he co-chaired a critical working group on transparency. The title of the Lecture was:
“The UN and Climate Negotiations: Implications for our planet and country”
The Minister’s Lecture can be found here NZCGS – 8th Annual Global Affairs Lecture
The audio-visual recording can be accessed here:
https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/law/news-and-events/event-gallery/the-un-and-climate-negotiations–implications-for-our-planet-and.html
by Catherine Leining | Dec 15, 2021 | Board
The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021. While tangible progress was made both inside and outside the formal negotiations, the world still faces a critical target gap to limit rises in global temperatures to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels.
I would like to share my personal experience in the international climate change negotiations and offer further reflections on the challenges of climate change and global governance. These are only reflections, not answers.
I have attended five COPs, three as an NGO observer in the Climate Action Network and two as a New Zealand negotiator. My experience has been dominated by the COPs that collapsed.
When I started at COP6 in the Hague in 2000, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) stood at 370 ppm. The agenda was finalising the rulebook for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The outcome of the US presidential battle of Bush versus Gore was undecided the whole time. The negotiations hit four sticking points: how to manage forests, how to limit the use of carbon market mechanisms and apply a share of proceeds from unit sales to adaptation, transparency of reporting and compliance, and finance for developing countries for mitigation and adaptation. Does this sound familiar? Countries failed to agree and the session was suspended. The Bush presidency was declared the next day.
By COP6-bis six months later, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had released its Third Assessment Report and the new US president had dismissed the Kyoto Protocol as ‘fatally flawed.’ This time, some decisions were made but others deferred to COP7. COP President Jan Pronk had proposed mobilising climate finance for developing countries of US$1 billion per year by 2005 but countries could not agree. Critically, the Protocol proved resilient to US withdrawal. The Hon Pete Hodgson, New Zealand Minister of Energy, who had facilitated the carbon market negotiations, was quoted as saying, ‘We have delivered probably the most comprehensive and difficult agreement in history.’
I returned to the COP as a New Zealand negotiator in 2008. By COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, CO2 was over 387 ppm. That COP was intended to ‘seal the deal’ to stop the climate crisis. It sought to bring developed and developing countries – including the US under the new Obama administration – into a common, legally binding agreement. Over 115 Heads of State attended.
As negotiations stalled, the process lost transparency and inclusiveness. I vividly remember the New Zealand team, including Prime Minister Sir John Key and the Hon Tim Groser, Associate Minister for Climate Change Issues (International Negotiations), waiting at loose ends while the so-called ‘Friends of the Chair’ – meaning China, South Africa, India, Brazil and the US – struggled to agree behind closed doors. Because of the process, the resulting 2009 Copenhagen Accord was not a legally binding treaty as intended, only a nonbinding political declaration noted by the COP. The Accord included the first global temperature goal, a framework covering both developed and developing countries, and a commitment by developed countries to provide climate finance growing to US$100 billion per year by 2020.
It took six more years for countries’ hopes in Copenhagen to actually materialise in the form of the 2015 Paris Agreement. By that point, CO2 had passed 400 ppm. The rulebook that sits under the Paris Agreement has taken a further six years to complete; this just happened in Glasgow.
As we mark COP26, CO2 is over 415 ppm. Global temperatures have reached 1.1oC above pre-industrial levels. The IPCC is releasing its Sixth Assessment Report. Even with the Paris framework, political sticking points are proving far more resilient than the climate. Countries’ climate action pledges are falling short and future delivery of those pledges is not guaranteed. The promised US$100 billion per year to help developing countries is lagging. The call from developing countries for more climate finance is now moving into the territory of trillions of dollars, with India requesting US$1 trillion for itself over the coming decade. Vulnerable developing countries are calling for urgent progress on the global goal on climate adaptation and a new finance facility for loss and damage due to climate change.
The celebrated signs of progress in the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact are baffling to those outside the process.
In their book Getting to Yes, Roger Fisher and William Ury suggest three criteria for an effective negotiation: being efficient, improving relationships among parties, and delivering a wise agreement.
Those criteria – and rising temperatures – suggest that the UNFCCC negotiations have not been effective so far.
The process has many shortcomings. For example, governments perceive competing interests between environmental damage, economic impact, and responsibility. Governments are grouped into coalitions whose common positions override the diversity of their members and get locked in. The COP makes decisions by consensus, so any one country can override the collective interest. Governments bend to broader geopolitical pressures – and change with domestic elections. Other civil society and market institutions with critical roles to play become so-called ‘observers.’ It is hard for the voices of youth, indigenous peoples, and marginalised groups to be heard.
The world has a limited emissions budget to meet the global temperature goal. Attempting to divide that emissions budget among nations has proven particularly problematic. It creates a zero-sum game with fierce competition for a finite pool of future emission rights without prior agreement on how to apply principles of fairness. A top-down process imposed by the UN threatens national sovereignty. A bottom-up process of country pledges threatens to exceed the emissions budget. The focus on emissions reductions does not ensure people can still thrive.
So how might we do better?
In my view, the chief barriers to progress on climate change are not technological or economic but relational. And that is good news, because relationships can change. And I believe they will change when we face the unavoidable reality of our interdependence with the Earth and with each other. The question is when this will happen. Sooner is better.
Negotiating from a position of true interdependence with each other and the Earth, countries would shift their focus from environmental damage to stewardship, economic impact to wellbeing, and responsibility to solidarity.
What could this mean for goal setting?
I’m intrigued by the work of James Carse on Finite and Infinite Games. Could we replace the finite game of subdividing a fixed gigatonne budget among nations with the infinite game of cooperation to sustain climate-resilient and low-emission wellbeing within planetary boundaries? The finite game is a circle, the infinite game a spiral. The finite game is motivated by self-interest, the infinite game by interdependence. The finite game discounts the future, while the infinite game safeguards it. The finite game is played by nation-state negotiators, the infinite game by everyone.
What could this mean for the role of the COP?
Climate change drivers are hugely complex and all mitigation and adaptation action is ultimately local. I don’t see how any single, centralised governing body by itself could achieve the breadth, efficiency, resources, and social licence to deliver global change at unprecedented speed. We need leadership and action at all levels – from grassroots to global.
In this regard, I am drawn to the work of Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize in economics for her work on governing the global commons. She proposed a polycentric approach to managing common pool resources. This could involve government, market and civil society institutions operating across different levels and domains and aligning efforts.
History suggests the COP may be a better enabler than driver of change for climate action. At its best, the COP focuses collective attention, shares information, builds understanding and trust, and enables transparency, accountability, coordination, and cooperation.
And to me, cooperation is the shining star that emerged from Glasgow.
Alongside formal negotiations, multiple climate action cooperation agreements were launched across government and non-government partners. These have the potential to build trust and deliver tangible outcomes among those who are ready to move. Some observers have criticised such agreements as nonbinding, but then so are countries’ NDCs.
COP26 also completed the Paris rulebook for cooperation through carbon market mechanisms. The plus is a clear mechanism for avoiding double counting of traded emissions reductions. The minus is the option to carry forward old units from the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism – which will damage the 1.5oC goal if people choose to buy them. Motu Research is part of an international group researching the design of Climate Action Teams that would help countries cooperate to reduce emissions with ambition and integrity under the Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement.
As well as being an enabler of change, the COP is a mirror of change. It shows us our global progress. In the Glasgow debates, we can see the reflection of our own struggles in Aotearoa to bridge the target gap; distribute responsibilities, costs, and finance for reducing emissions; manage our land sector wisely; plan for adaptation; respond to loss and damage; ensure a just transition that heals economic and social inequality; give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi; and support our brothers and sisters in the Pacific and elsewhere.
It is significant that at the very start of the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact, countries recognised the role of multilateralism, the Convention, and the importance of international cooperation in addressing climate change and its impacts. My hope is the spirit of multilateralism behind the UNFCCC can be directed with renewed energy, creativity, and perseverance to speed up progress. But we must be clear about the strengths and limitations of the COP.
Perhaps instead of relying so heavily on the COP for global climate governance like a single, slow ferry susceptible to breakdown, we need to position the COP within a large and agile flotilla sharing a common destination.
Ultimately, the opportunities for leadership and action on climate change rest in the hands of every one of us and all our institutions. And with a fresh outlook, perhaps we will see that the possibilities for cooperative action on climate change are infinite.
This post is an adaptation of Catherine’s response to an address by the Hon James Shaw, New Zealand Minister of Climate Change, at the Centre’s 8th Annual Global Affairs Lecture (‘The UN and Climate Negotiations: Implications for our planet and country’) on 6 December 2021. Catherine’s response was given in her individual capacity and does not represent the views of her affiliated organisations.
by Dr Kennedy Graham | Dec 9, 2021 | Director
On 1 December, the NZ Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament & Arms Control held a webinar on the above subject. The NZCGS Director, Dr. Kennedy Graham, who has been a member of the Committee (2019-21), gave the response to the introductory speech by the Minister for Disarmament, Hon Phil Twyford. Dr. Graham’s address, focusing on Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, can be found below:
Progressing Disarmament: PACDAC Webinar: 1 December 2021
Item 2: Dr Kennedy Graham: Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation
Nuclear disarmament is the most important security issue, of any, confronting the global community, and therefore New Zealand. Climate change & nuclear weapons are the two existential threats facing humanity. They are different in kind:
- Climate change is an incremental threat, like a mortal illness.
- Nuclear conflict is an immediate threat, like a fatal accident.
Concern over the nuclear threat has bothered New Zealand since the 1970s. Under the 1987 Nuclear Free Zone Act, no citizen or resident can aid or abet anyone in the manufacture or control of a nuclear weapon anywhere in our national Zone. No govt. official can do so, anywhere in the world. It’s a criminal offence under domestic law.
International law is different. It’s important to be clear about the treaty status of nuclear weapons. There are three fundamental periods – comprising 23 years, 53 years and one year:
- 1945 to ’68 (23 years): it was legal to own nuclear weapons; there was no treaty banning it.
- 1968 to 2021 (53 years): under treaty law, it has been recognised for 5 states to possess nuclear weapons and for 185 states not to – all on the understanding that negotiations will be pursued in good faith for those 5 to disarm. That obligation, after half a century, has been violated. Four other states have not joined or have withdrawn; making 9 NWS today out of 193 UN members.
- From January 2021 (1 year): also under treaty law, 56 states have agreed ‘never under any circumstances’ to possess nuclear weapons. Another 66 states voted for the treaty but have not yet formally joined.
The 10th Review Conference of the NPT is to be held in January in NY and the 1st meeting of the TPNW parties is in March, in Vienna. The two treaties are qualitatively different.
- Treaty 1 is about possession & non-proliferation.
- Treaty 2 is about prohibition & disarmament.
Perhaps the biggest single mistake the international community continues to make is to designate the NPT as the ‘cornerstone of the nuclear disarmament & non-proliferation regime.’ It is patently clear, after half a century, that there are two regimes, politically, and now, legally. The NPT is the corner-stone of non-proliferation, not disarmament.
There are two central features to the Prohibition Treaty: irreversibility and universality.
Irreversibility
If a state formally undertakes never under any circumstances to possess something, this logically indicates an irreversible undertaking. The Treaty’s preamble states that ‘a legally binding prohibition of nuclear weapons’ is an important contribution towards their ‘irreversible, verifiable and transparent elimination’. Yet there is a logical contradiction, insofar as the Treaty allows a state to withdraw if it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardized its supreme interests.
The negotiators argued that a treaty in positivist law can always be renounced and so there needs to be a withdrawal article, as there is with the biological & chemical weapons prohibition conventions. The identical article was included in the TPNW.
But it would have been preferable to use the withdrawal article in the 1985 South Pacific Zone Treaty. That stipulates that the zone treaty is permanent and will remain in force indefinitely. A party can withdraw only if another party has violated an essential provision. In the 2020s, it remains open for the TPNW parties to agree politically that they will interpret the withdrawal clause on this basis.
Universality
The TPNW raises the prospect of whether the nuclear weapon prohibition can be regarded as a peremptory norm, defined in the Vienna Convention as a norm recognised by the international community as a whole, from which no derogation is permitted.
In 2021, the opposition against the TPNW of 40 nuclear powers and allies means it currently falls short of a peremptory norm. However, this does not mean that it may not become one, in the future. Both the biological & chemical conventions have achieved effective universality. The nuclear prohibition treaty is not going away, and will trend towards universality as the decades go by, whether it takes 53 years or less.
Two critical points are relevant here:
- The Treaty is filling the ‘legal gap’ that the ICJ identified back in 1996. In its Advisory Opinion the Court stated: “In the long run, international law and with it the stability of the international order which it is intended to govern, are bound to suffer from the continuing difference of views with regard to the legal status of weapons as deadly as nuclear weapons. It is consequently important to put an end to this state of affairs: the long-promised complete nuclear disarmament appears to be the most appropriate means of achieving that result.” With that statement, the Court foreshadowed a ‘future general prohibition’. A quarter of a century later, the TPNW is exactly that.
- Article 12 of the TPNW, titled Universality, requires that each Party shall encourage non-parties to join the Treaty, to ensure universal adherence.
Conclusion
In light of all this, I suggest that the natural, and most effective, policy the NZ Govt. can pursue in the 2020s has two goals, and possibly a third:
- Actively persuade the other 66 signatory states to join the Treaty sooner rather than later. Let me name the first and most likely 12, in that group:
In Africa: Ghana, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe
In Europe: Liechtenstein
In Asia: Brunei, Indonesia, Nepal, Timor Leste
In Caribbean: Grenada
In Latin America: Peru
- Promote a joint political declaration by states parties that they relinquish the right of withdrawal from the TPNW, and also the BWC and CWC; that they regard the withdrawal articles as nullified, and regard the illegality of biological, chemical & nuclear weapons as a nascent peremptory norm under customary international law.
- Have the UNGA request the ILC to do a study on the effect which the proclaimed illegality of biological, chemical & nuclear weapons may have on customary int. law.
In this respect New Zealand will need to act entirely independently of Australia, which does not support the TPNW. But there is nothing new to that, and the recent trilateral AUKUS agreement changes nothing. It is a political document, strategically motivated, with commercial interests, and has no status in international law.
by Sundeep Waslekar | Nov 28, 2021 | Guests
A thoughtful and constructive article has been completed on Reinventing Multilateral Order by Sundeep Waslekar. The author has previously contributed to the NZCGS blog column (Systemic Global Change: Two ingredients – mutual global trust, legitimate global governance, 8 May 2020). The article, published by New England Journal of Public Policy, can be found here:
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1807&context=nejpp
by Rod Oram | Nov 12, 2021 | Board
NZCGS Board member and reputed business-environmental journalist, Rod Oram, has been attending COP26 in Glasgow these past few weeks, and regularly reporting back through Newsroom.
Here are his reports.
14 November COP26’s inadequate package could still lead to progress
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cop26-rod-oram-cop26s-inadequate-package-could-still-lead-to-progress
13 November COP26: The world waits, with faint hope
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/climate-emergency/cop26-cop-26-the-world-waits-with-faint-hope
12 November COP26 reaches its peak, final day
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cop26-rod-oram-cop26-reaches-its-peak-final-day
11 November Treacherous final two days for COP26
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cop26-treacherous-final-two-days-for-cop-26
10 November A darker prediction from COP26
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cop26/cop26-a-darker-prediction-from-cop26
10 November Q&A: What does COP26 Climate Summit mean for NZ?
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cop26/faq-what-does-the-cop26-mean-for-nz
9 November NZ’s Shaw given key task at COP26
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cop26/cop26-nzs-shaw-given-key-task-at-cop26
8 November COP26’s difficult second week
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cop26-cop26s-difficult-second-week
6 November Pro-talks: NZ farmers shouldn’t feel picked on at COP26
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/video/pro-talks-nz-farmers-shouldnt-feel-picked-on-at-cop26
3 November Things start to move at COP26
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cop26-rod-oram-things-start-to-move-at-cop26
2 November NZ loses the plot on the way to the big UN dance
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/climate-emergency/nz-loses-the-plot-on-the-way-to-the-big-un-dance
26 October What to watch for at COP26
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/cop26/what-to-watch-for-at-cop26
22 October A country getting serious about climate change
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/uk-gets-serious-on-climate-change
18 October New Zealand is ‘massively on the back foot’ on methane
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/nz-is-massively-on-the-back-foot-on-methane
8 October The harsh climate truth about methane
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/the-harsh-climate-truth-on-methane
1 October ’Keep 1.5 Alive’ is an uninspiring Glasgow goal
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/keep-15-alive-an-uninspiring-glasgow-goal
August 13 We can’t afford not to do net zero
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/rod-oram-we-cant-afford-not-to-do-net-zero
August 1 NZ’s blind spot on dairy emissions
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/nzs-blindspot-on-dairy-emissions
by Jayden van Leeuwen | Jun 21, 2021 | Young Global Scholars Group, Board
Although Samoan’s went to the polls on 9 April 2021, the wait for a clear winner of that election is still ongoing, and the outcome could have wide-ranging implications for the region – not only because Samoa is a well-respected Pacific democracy, but also because of its relations with China and the West.
Background
Samoa has a unique system of government/constitutional arrangements, which combines elements of its historical chiefdoms, and a parliamentary democracy. Those arrangements are found in the 1960 Constitution, which has been in force since Samoa achieved independence from New Zealand in 1962 – a notable 2013 amendment introduced a requirement that women make up at least 10 per cent of the Legislative Assembly. The Human Right Protection Party (HRPP) has been the ruling party since 1982, and its current leader Tuila’epa Sailele Malielegaoi, has been Prime Minister since 1998.
The Election
The election of 9 April resulted in a 25/25 tie between the HRRP, and the newcomer Faʻatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST) Party led by Fiame Mata’afa Faumuina Mulinu’u II, with the remaining seat held by an independent MP, Tuala Ioesfo Ponifasio. This resulted in an initial deadlock, while the independent MP decided which party to support.
On 20 April 2021, the Samoan Electoral Commission declared that Ali’imalemanu Alofa Tuuau of the HRRP (being the female candidate who most narrowly missed out on election) was elected in an extra seat, to meet the requirement that at least 10% of the seats in Parliament must be held by women. The following day, the independent MP announced he would join FAST, creating a 26-26.
The Aftermath
What has followed is a constitutional tussle involving the HRPP, FAST, the O le Ao o le Malo (Head of State), the judiciary, and the Speaker of the House. On 4 May, the Head of State called for new elections; but on 17 May 2021, the Supreme Court overturned the Electoral Commission’s appointment of an extra MP, and the writ for a new election, and ordered Parliament to meet within 45 days of the original election. After the Head of State suspended his proclamation recalling Parliament for 24 May on 22 May, the FAST Party challenged that suspension, and on 23 May the Supreme Court ruled the decision was unlawful.
When the FAST Party arrived at Parliament on 24 May to be sworn in, it found the doors to Parliament locked. Later that afternoon, FAST Party MPs and ministers were sworn in by a newly-elected Speaker in a tent outside the Parliament.
Through various court cases and appeals, both the HRPP and FAST have sought to legitimate their victory. Various claims are currently before the courts, and most recently on June 2, the Court of Appeal voided the claim made by Ali’imalemanu Alofa Tuuau of the HRRP against the decision that her appointment was invalid – however, the Court did also decide that the correct interpretation of the 2013 amendment does require a sixth female MP be appointed, but not until all recounts and election petitions have been determined. That judgment itself may be subject to appeal.
While the judiciary considers the various competing claims, Samoa is in the unique position of having two parties who claim to have a right to govern (whether as a caretaker or a newly elected government). Whether the litigation will resolve the issue, or whether a further election is indeed required remains to be seen.
Wider Implications
The Pacific region, and the wider global community has closely monitored the election and its aftermath, with leaders such as New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern calling on those involved to “maintain and uphold the rule of law…” and Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne stating “it is important that all parties respect the rule of law and democratic processes.” Regional, and international organisations such as the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum have also released statements of a similar nature. So far, the FAST Party’s government has been recognised by three other states, being the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands.
While some might think to draw parallels between the present situation in Samoa and the various coup d’états and constitutional crises in Fiji in the 2000s, the situation in Samoa is different in a number of ways – not the least that Samoa does not have a military, which plays a central role in Fiji. The parties to the current constitutional crisis in Fiji seem willing to await action from the judiciary – and both Ardern and Payne have emphasised their faith in Samoa’s judiciary. As one of the Pacific region’s strongest and most well-established democracies, the current situation poses a test only of Samoa’s institutions, but also of the wider region’s willingness to support that process, or to otherwise turn a blind eye to any undermining of it.
Some commentators have also discussed the potential implications of the election for Samoa’s relationship with China. While the current government had enjoyed positive relations with China, and had agreed to a major port upgrade at least partially funded, Fiame Mata’afa has publicly stated that her government would put the project on hold, noting that “the level of indebtedness of our government to the government of China was a pressing issue for voters.” Given China’s increased focus on the Pacific region in recent years, and its efforts to exercise its ‘soft power’ in the region, a re-definition of Samoa’s relationship with China could potentially open a new battleground in the geo-politics of the wider Pacific region.
by Ramesh Thakur | Apr 12, 2021 | Board
This is not a blog I had expected, intended or wanted to write. I have politely declined requests to write on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in relation to the current crisis in Myanmar and the climbing civilian death toll. The turning point was visuals of people with R2P banners, T-shirts, umbrellas and candle-lit vigils, as in the photo accompanying this article. The images have touched my conscience and should pull at the world’s conscience.
Let me explain. A number of humanitarian crises erupted in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War and were dealt with differently on a case-by-case basis, from the Rwanda genocide to the unilateral NATO military intervention in Kosovo and the UN-authorised peace operation in East Timor. The variable responses, uneven results and ensuing controversies highlighted how the global consensus on the circumstances in which it is both legal and legitimate to use force within and across borders had fractured.
Responding to a call by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose own conscience never quite recovered from the killings in Rwanda and Srebrenica that happened on his watch as the UN peacekeeping chief, in 2000, Canada assembled an international commission, co-chaired by former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans and former Algerian diplomat Mohamed Sahnoun with 10 more of us as commissioners, to search for a new normative framework. We developed R2P as the central organising principle for the world to respond, acting through the UN, to mass atrocities. We redefined sovereignty as responsibility that is located primarily in the state but residually in the UN.
The core R2P principle was adopted unanimously at the world summit in 2005 and became official UN policy. It has been clarified and refined continually since then, rejigged in the language of three pillars, but fell out of favour after the UN-authorised and NATO-led R2P intervention in Libya in 2011. While the UN had responded as it was meant to under R2P, NATO powers abused the UN authorisation to transform the mission from civilian protection into regime change.
Importantly, however, because R2P speaks to a demand-driven urge to respond to conscience-shocking atrocities in an imperfect world in which some leaders behave badly to brutalise civilian opposition, the principle itself has never been seriously questioned. It remains a readily accessed normative tool for channelling individual outrage into collective policy remedies. From the very start, we advocated for it on the grounds that, unlike humanitarian intervention, it puts the human protection needs of victims ahead of the rights and privileges of intervening powers.
Academics in comfortable Western universities continue to criticise R2P as an instrument of neocolonial white powers who camouflage darker geopolitical and commercial motives in the language of humanitarian concerns. The photos from Myanmar calling on the world to honour the R2P principle is the most poignant riposte possible by victims themselves.
So much so that doing nothing would be yet one more shameful betrayal of our common humanity at the most basic level. The pleas for credible and effective R2P action clearly show the extent to which the power of R2P as a mobilising norm has penetrated deeply and taken root in civil society in countries in need. Even more importantly, victims see in R2P the potential for international action that challenges and changes the facts on the ground in Myanmar.
Silence in the face of the atrocities is immoral and condemnation is an inadequate response to the deliberate and large-scale use of deadly force by Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw.
Many people make two common mistakes about R2P. Its first pillar refers to actions by a state that include the use of force if necessary to protect at-risk groups. The second pillar is international assistance to the state, with its consent, to build R2P capabilities. The third pillar anticipates circumstances in which escalating coercive action may be taken by outsiders if the state is unable or unwilling to discharge its responsibility to protect, or is itself the perpetrator of atrocities. But even pillar three prioritises peaceful means and contemplates the use of force only as the very last resort.
The Tatmadaw have probably been caught by surprise at the breadth, depth and persistence of protests. We don’t know if they have the unity or the stomach to go all in with mass killings. At this stage, consequently, a return to civilian rule cannot be ruled out, but the legacy of past military brutality means indefinite military rule is also possible. In this delicate balance, how can outsiders incentivise internal political-military forces and nudge ASEAN, the only regional organisation that matters, into action?
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) have a collective vested interest in keeping security decisions within the Security Council and freezing the General Assembly out. However, I previously noted the assembly’s recent bursts of independence from the council in the selection of the secretary-general, election of judges to the International Court of Justice and the adoption of the nuclear ban treaty.
There is precedent for the General Assembly to meet under the ‘uniting for peace’ formula under resolution 377(V) when the Security Council is deadlocked. Such recourse to the UN’s unique legitimacy, which resides in the assembly from universal membership to counterbalance the geopolitical heft of the council, was recommended in our 2001 commission report but ignored in the 2005 world summit document. It might be time to rescue and activate it. ASEAN should take the lead in mediating the crisis, offer its good offices, engage both the Tatmadaw without legitimising it and Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy without alienating the Tatmadaw, and, if the Security Council abdicates on its solemn R2P responsibility, transfer the issue to the General Assembly under resolution 377(V).
In the current unrest, any external military intervention in Myanmar would greatly worsen the humanitarian crisis and should not even be on the table for consideration. But there are other instruments in the UN toolbox that can and should be used. These include diplomatic rebukes by means of a resolution, targeted sanctions on senior military officials and businesses, arms embargoes, and a referral to the International Criminal Court. The threat of ICC referral could be leveraged to persuade the generals to vacate the governance space without further bloodshed.
by Tapio Kanninen | Mar 10, 2021 | International Advisory Panel
When Joseph Biden won the 2020 US election many hoped that there would be a quick return to an old globalist agenda and support for international institutions. However, the US has changed politically, socially, and culturally, which will seriously constrain such a reversal from the Trump years.
A fundamental change can be traced back at least two decades, to Newt Gingrich’s leadership in the House of Representatives and the subsequent Tea Party movement. This led to growing polarization of the two parties (with combative and emotional rhetoric), radicalization of the Republican party and, more recently, dissemination of untruths, biased reporting and conspiracy theories, fuelled by social media platforms and right-wing TV stations and websites.
According to polls, some 75% of Republicans still think Biden won fraudulently and therefore is not a legitimate president (even though all lawsuits claiming such a fraud were dismissed by the Courts). On 6 January 2021, 247 Republican representatives and senators challenged the Electoral College certification of Biden’s victory – a huge number of Republican representatives wanting to overturn the election results, which augurs badly for the future.
If Biden wants to run for a second term and wins, or another Democratic candidate wins in 2024, we can expect major challenges from the Republicans, especially from Trump’s base, including, potentially, a repeat of the instability and violence witnessed on 6 January.
What has the radicalization of the Republican party meant in practice?
An increasing number of Republicans, in particular within the Trump base, believe any elections the Democrats will win are fraudulent. Furthermore, they believe Democrats are engaged in conspiracies: trying to turn America to socialism and totalitarian dictatorship, banning ownership of guns and undermining other individual freedoms and rights. Some are convinced the use of violence is legitimate in response. The election to Congress of QAnon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene is an example of such radicalization.
Persistent electoral instability is a new trend and a legacy of the Trump presidency. This will constrain Biden’s leadership role in global affairs. The next challenge will soon be upon us: the 2022 Congressional elections.
If the Republicans win either the House of Representatives or the Senate this will diminish and potentially halt any legislative initiatives of Biden’s presidency. If the Republicans lose, the elections are expected to be called fraudulent by the Trump base, evoking instability and violence.
A particularly vulnerable point in the Biden presidency is his focus on fighting climate change. Republican party supporters see this as a path to climate socialism, which also scares Independents and some conservative Democrats.
Why should we expect electoral instability to be a consistent and long–term trend in American politics?
Umair Haque puts forward one explanation in “America’s Problem Is that White People Want it to be a Failed State”. He argues 80% of Americans are white and they want to keep it that way.
Based on the statistics he has gathered, Haque maintains that white Americans, as a group, have never voted for a Democratic president in modern times. He sets out a list of primary social values white Americans have supported and opposed as a group. They have been in favour of segregation, endless war, inequality, billionaires, capital, guns and religion. They have been against desegregation, civil rights, womens‘ rights, healthcare, retirement, and childcare. He points out that they have opposed “public goods of any kind whatsoever.”
Taking the above argumentation a bit further, it could be said that deep in the American consciousness, soul and ethos lies a kind of old Indian Wars and cowboy mentality. Centuries ago, European white settlers who wanted a better future conquered and colonised the American continent, destroying the majority of its original inhabitants: the Indians.
The long period of Indian Wars, particularly in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, was considered a proud period of American history, and the identity of the nation was to a degree shaped by this earlier, combative era.
But now, in modern times, white Americans, as a group, feel their identity is threatened when they see people of different colour and culture immigrate en masse.
The deepening economic and social problems of white Americans are often blamed on newly arrived immigrants and refugees. Before Trump, it was considered politically incorrect to raise these concerns, although they could be heard from marginal segments of the population, such as the Ku Klux Klan and other right extremist circles. Trump brought this complex racial problem to the mainstream of Republican discourse, which is a big cultural change.
There are of course people of colour in Trump’s base, but they are not the main driving force; white Americans and their concerns are.
Racial tension and instability are expected to intensify because the birth rates of people of colour are higher than those of white Americans. Biden’s immigration policy will likely also deepen the divide and anger Trump’s base. Any incident of shooting by white police officers of a person of colour will easily incite violence and rioting and, conversely, inflame passionate rhetoric in the social and other media of the Trump base, increasing overall tension and instability in the country. The same applies to school or other mass shootings.
The Trump presidency also highlighted problems with the US Constitution’s provisions for the transfer of power in cases where a sitting president does not want to leave voluntarily. If Trump or another skilful Republican populist wins the presidential race in 2024, or later, we might see an escalation of electoral instability and violence, on an even worse scale than that of 6 January 2021.
Increasing domestic instability will threaten the American leadership role in global politics for years and decades to come.
