The Forum for a new World Governance:

• submits in-depth papers for public online discussion here, on a regular basis;
• offers a documentary base on the most recent theoretical developments on global governance here;
• is compiling Proposal Papers on the key aspects involved in world governance here.
  

Statement

Today, it is commonplace to say there is a crisis in world governance. Citizens are all fully aware of the persistence of tensions, conflicts, and wars, and that national, regional, and international institutions are powerless and limiting their role to avoiding a permanent deterioration of people’s living conditions and means of subsistence.

The causes of the different wars and conflicts we are facing today are many and diverse. They include economic inequalities, social conflicts, religious sectarianism, territorial disputes, and fighting for control over basic resources such as water or land. All of them are indications of a serious crisis in world governance. And although there have been considerably fewer “traditional” conflicts among states in recent years, today’s are extremely violent and increasingly affecting civil populations and the weaker regions of the world.

The system of world governance needed today can only be multilateral. Confrontations are recurrent and growing in numbers, while economic, political, and military multilateralism is blocked by belligerent tensions and xenophobic ideologies. As a result, it has become all the more difficult now to lay the foundations for new institutions that will be adapted to all levels of governance, from local to global.

There are pockets of progressive change. Here and there, we can identify promising economic, social, technological, and cultural innovations, especially at local or national levels. Nevertheless, we have to admit that they have not succeeded in reversing a general trend toward more conflicts or the irreversible deterioration of the biosphere.

We need to rethink world governance and, to achieve this, we must go beyond the conceptual and ideological foundations of the current system. To face these challenges, we must all play our part. Multicultural communities are emerging in local neighborhoods and at all other levels, including the global. Cultural diversity offers a fundamental starting point for global communication, and we must bring together our many political and religious communities, and nonprofit organizations, if we are to build a new system of legitimate and responsible governance.

The Forum for a new World Governance encourages the development and distribution of new ideas in several languages and a large number of countries by publishing a series of Proposal Papers. These are intended to collect the most relevant proposals for generating the breakthroughs and mutations necessary for the construction of a new, fairer, and more sustainable world governance.

Published as a series, they will cover five broad categories of world governance:

• Environment and management of the planet
• The economy and globalization
• Politics, state structures, and institutions
• Peace, security, and armed conflicts
• Knowledge, science, education, and the information and communication society