Global Governance & Human Rights Lecture Notes

UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE D’AFRIQUE CENTRALE
INSTITUT CATHOLIQUE DE YAOUNDE
FACULTE DE SCIENCES SOCIALES ET DE GESTION
Académie de la paix et des droits de l’homme en Afrique centrale
MASTER DROITS DE L’HOMME ET ACTION HUMANITAIRE
COURSE GLOBAL
GOVERNANCE
2016-2017
Pr ATANGCHO AKONUMBO

UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE D’AFRIQUE CENTRALE
INSTITUT CATHOLIQUE DE YAOUNDE
FACULTE DE SCIENCES SOCIALES ET DE GESTION
Académie de la paix et des droits de l’homme en Afrique centrale
LECTURE NOTES ON GLOBAL GOVERNANCE
Introductory note
According to the Commission on Global Governance (1995), governance is the sum of many
ways by which individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs.
Governance is a complex political concept that appeared at the end of the 80s in international
relations, and which has now slithered into the national stage as a key vector for integrating
and unifying political efforts in the management of resources in the interest of citizens,
through transparent and accountability rules in strict respect for the rule of law, democratic
principles and human rights. It involves a system of supranational regulation of public goods
through organisational rules at the global level, most especially, as a result of international
cooperation. The CotonouAgreement between the EU and ACP countries (2000 as revised in
2010) provides a graphic description of the notion of governance, as one of the principles
founding the partnership:
‘In the context of a political and institutional environment that upholds human
rights, democratic principles and the rule of law, good governance is the
transparent and accountable management of human, natural, economic and
financial resources for the purposes of equitable and sustainable development. It
entails clear decision-making procedures at the level of public authorities,
transparent and accountable institutions, the primacy of law in the management
and distribution of resources and capacity building for elaborating and
implementing measures aiming in particular at preventing and combating
corruption’ (Art (3))
Since world politics is characterised by (global) governance, without government, the process
of (global) governance (or world governance) encompasses a broad range of actors. In
addition to the public, inter-sate economic actors such as the IMF, WTO and the World Bank,
and human rights treaty-based monitoring bodies such as the various UN Committees, states
retain a key decision making role although it is thought in some quarters that states have lost
their individual sovereignties in favour of the global ‘government’). Meanwhile, large private
scale enterprises or Multinational Corporations and NGOs also participate in governance by
attempting to influence the activity of international organisations and states.
Undoubtedly, human rights have, more than most other issue areas, been regulated through
global governance. The interplay between states, international organisations and non-state
actors has allowed human rights to become a core component for global governance. In fact,
the advocacy and mobilisation efforts of NGOs, for example, have to a great degree been
responsible for the successful institutionalisation and legalisation of human
rights.Transnational NGOs such as Transparency International and Human Rights Watch act
as powerful agenda-setters and watchdogs. They brief the United Nations Security Council

UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE D’AFRIQUE CENTRALE
INSTITUT CATHOLIQUE DE YAOUNDE
FACULTE DE SCIENCES SOCIALES ET DE GESTION
Académie de la paix et des droits de l’homme en Afrique centrale
and the Human Rights Commission in informal and formal consultations on a regular basis.
Human rights committees increasingly rely upon their reporting (so-called “shadow reports”)
as an independent information mechanism additional to the states’ reports.
Despite global governance efforts in the domain of human rights, challenges abound for a
number of reasons.
- The first relates to the implementation of international human right law standards and
there are no compelling parameters. States’ interests in implementing human rights
and ending immunity is still problematic
- Accountability of human rights institutions. Achieving global accountability for
human rights violations would mean to establish accountability checks for global
governance institutions and non-state actors as well. Global governance can help
addressing the implementation gap.
- Human rights may be used as a pretext for strategic interests. The over-extension of
human rights, i.e. applying human rights to all kinds of situations, leads to a
devalorisation of the concept that threatens existing achievements. For example,
interventions in the name of human rights need to be legitimised and mandated by the
international community, else they become is a clear to mandates for occasioning
further human rights violations such as in the case of Iraq and Syria.
- The sanctioning regime for non-compliance is weak. It is important to enhance the
sanctioning capacities of the existing legal regime. Countries that are reluctant to
implement treaties should be sanctioned or dismissed or not admitted in international
human rights forums/institutions.
This course focuses on global governance actions in human rights related issues by global
governance actors: states and multinational (or so-called global) institutions as one aspect of
the much wider global politics and governance structure in five almost apparentlyunrelated
thematic areas linking human rights.Suffice to note a priori thatth e thematic areas portray the
fact that, just as human rights, the conceptual framework of global governance is both huge
and complex.
Session 1: Global public goods
Session 2: Water as a global public good and a human right
Session 3: Global socioeconomic rights
Session 4: Environmental and sustainable development areas of food security, inclusive green
growth and energy security
Session 5: Corporations and human rights: framework for legal responsibility

UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE D’AFRIQUE CENTRALE
INSTITUT CATHOLIQUE DE YAOUNDE
FACULTE DE SCIENCES SOCIALES ET DE GESTION
Académie de la paix et des droits de l’homme en Afrique centrale
1. UNDERSTANDING GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS: CONCEPTUALIZATION
OF
1.1 Identifying Global Public Goods
The substance of the concept of global public goods (GPG) is not new but as a theory in the
parlance of the (drifting) welfare state, it is a rather new. Its analytical foundations are traced
in the mid-50s when strong and central role of the state was advocated thereby lending
support to the frequent equation of GPGs and state-provided goods.1 Meanwhile, one may
side with the view that public goods were provided before the middle-ages and even before
the advent of the nation-state. However, while the theory of public goods assumes this role
for the state, the latter’s functions have changed considerably over the second half of the last
century as have the goods and services provided by the state itself.2
The theory of GPGs is somewhat blurry and at best, a sheer abstractum. Indeed, it is difficult
to determine the full breadth of what really constitutes GPGs and what does not. In addition,
even when it is known, difficulty abounds in sifting the so-called pure public goods from the
impure public goods.3 This is especially so as the rather controversial distinction between
private goods and public goods (discussed below) is often the privileged stance of the sifting
process. When one clamps on their (private and public goods) respective features, the
definition of GPGs is blurred as some goods are complex in nature while others have literally
changed over time from the private regime to the public regime and vice versa, or have
simply shuttled between or straddled the regimes. More so, the role of the state has also
changed from the pure welfare state (that is, the provider of all basic social needs) to the state
liberal and democratic that provides only what is traditionally devolved to it – security,
education, defence, etc. Even here, the state is losing its grip because of globalization and the
need to address issues from a global perspective than from national perspective. For example,
security is now a global issue. Terrorism, crime and pollution are not issues affecting one
state. Transmissible diseases know no borders. Rivers serve more than one country as they
pursue their courses. The place of action/cause and the place of effect/consequence are
different and extensive in space. This means that more efficient provision and standardization
of GPGs no longer depends on individual state actions, but on that of more than one state
through regional and international cooperation and non-state actors.
1 That is, goods provided by the state and which provision are seen as one of the main rationales of the
existence of the state. See Desai, M ‘Public Goods: A Historical Perspective’ in Kaulet al (2003) infra, 5.
See generally, Kaul, I & R Mendoza ‘Advancing the Concept of Pubic Goods’ in Kaulet al (2003) infra 78,
at 78.
2 Desai supra.
3 Impure public goods are public goods that are excludable and have externalities but which are genuinely
beneficial to many people. They are rivalrous, in the sense that one has to choose among them as well as
determine the quantity and quality of the chosen item. It is submitted that the state supplies both pure and
impure public goods. There is a choice and budgetary problem with regards to impure public goods. For
example, for goods such as national security, there can be differences among citizens and their
representatives about the optimal level of provision. Desai (p. 72). Meanwhile, goods such as the judicial
system have been considered pure goods. However, some private goods have universal benefits and are
consumed by specific age groups, such as basic education by children. Desai supra.

UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE D’AFRIQUE CENTRALE
INSTITUT CATHOLIQUE DE YAOUNDE
FACULTE DE SCIENCES SOCIALES ET DE GESTION
Académie de la paix et des droits de l’homme en Afrique centrale
Thus, security measures are no longer national in the event of transnational and international
crime and so are environmental actions and policies which have transborder implications.
Goods are produced in one country and are consumed globally and so the regime for
consumer protection can no longer be national as the rights of consumers and the health
implications of the goods are no longer national. Equally, one of the virulent aspects of
globalization is trade fluency across borders calling into play multilateral trade rules and
regimes for the protection of intellectual property rights in the interest of both creators and
distributors of goods and services and ultimate consumers. However, the major setback in the
globalization of public goods in the search for equity and justice between nations, states,
peoples, groups, communities, cultures, regions and generations is the very inequality that
exists between them resulting in whether poorer states are capable of absorbing the shock of
the weight of the process generated by richer nations. The search for equality amongst
unequals invariably entails sacrifices in the form of concessions, influences and losing or
gaining of standards. The European Union type of political and economic integration is
reminiscent of the discussion here as poorer former Eastern European states have seen their
per capita income and social security standards improved to meet community standards while
the richer Western Europe has seen increased unemployment rates due to free migration of
community citizens across community borders in search for better paid jobs as a right. Yet,
the other side of the story is also true as the weaker and poorer states have to bear strict
community rules on sustainable management of the environment, energy, the natural
resources sector and intellectual property for the benefit of the whole community including
the richer states which are poor in natural resources.
In developing countries and in least developing countries generally, the state is still largely
the welfare state which provides almost every basic need due to poverty constraints contrarily
to what obtains in developed countries. In this light, AgnarSandmo,4 basing on the Theory of
Pure Public Expenditure by Paul Samuelson,5 has shown that pure public goods can be
generalized to an international level and that pursuing global production efficiency may lead
to inequity.
With this in mind, one may now focus on an attempt to define the concept of GPG. Let’s
begin with a key note on the key expression - ‘good(s)’. From a prompt reflection, the
expression refers to a commodity of trade or commercial activity – goods and services. This is
correct if one were to go by the items constituting ‘goods’ in the ordinary sense, which
generally includes private commodities of trade which are accessible depending on one’s
choices, needs and means or even the availability of a desired or chosen item. But in reality,
the notion of goods in GPGs is more complex (and sometimes abstract) in nature; it refers to
something more abstract - more than the ordinary commodities of trade. Strangely, therefore,
beyond ordinary trade items, ‘goods’ in the concept of GPGs may refer to institutions, legal
frameworks, reforms, access standards to adequate and potable water, access to adequate
health standards or even policy options which are for the common good undertaken or
4 Sandmo, Agnar‘International Aspects of Public Goods Provision’. In Kaulet al (2003) infra.
5 Samuelson, Paul (1954) ‘Theory of Pure Public Expenditure’ Review of Economics and Statistics, 40 (4),
332-38.