Everyday Global Governance

Author(s): Anne-Marie Slaughter

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Daedalus, Vol. 132, No. 1, On International Justice (Winter, 2003), pp. 83-90
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027825 .
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Anne-Marie Slaughter

Everyday global governance

V Vith the creation of a new Interna problems

on a
global scale. We must de
tional Criminal Court and the sudden velop this capacity without risking what
proliferation of international, regional, Immanuel Kant called the "soulless des
and hybrid criminal tribunals for Rwan potism" of world government. And we
da, the former Yugoslavia, Kosovo, East must develop it in a way that is genuine
- -
Timor, and potentially Cambodia and ly global. That does not necessarily
Sierra Leone, it is possible to discern the mean states in the world,
including all
outlines of a new global system of crimi but rather all the government institu
nal justice. However flawed, these are tions that regulate the lives of the
-
real achievements almost unimagin world's peoples.
able even a decade ago. But the tribunals In this essay Iwill describe the quiet
-
and courts are only a part and arguably emergence of an informal global system
a small part -
only of the institutions of of governance comprising networks of
-
global governance that already exist, lay regulators around the world regulators
an foundation for fu for everything from environ
ing inconspicuous responsible
ture progress and reform. mental protection to competition policy
I define global governance here as the to securities regulation. Similar net
collective capacity to identify and solve works are beginning to link judges and
even in different countries.
legislators
Anne-Marie Slaughter is dean of theWoodrow networks are not
Transgovernmental
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs one-shot deals. While the activities of a
on a
and a professor of politics at Princeton University. given network may focus particular
A Fellow of theAmerican Academy since 2002, issue, such as environmental enforce
occur within a broader
Slaughter was a leading participant in thegroup ment, they
of jurists who in 2001 formulated The Princeton
framework of sometimes formal, some
times interaction. And as they
Principles of Universal Jurisdiction. Slaughter has informal,
come over time, the
written or co-edited four books and more thanfif together parties de
that allow them in
ty articlesfor academic and legal journals. In ad velop relationships
dition to her scholarly work, she has been afre turn to understand the context in which
their counterparts
quent commentator in themedia on such topics as operate.
international tribunals, terrorism, and interna It is hardly surprising that such rela
tional law, including issues related to the after tionships help defuse major conflicts.
math of September 11. They enable regulators to keep an issue

D dalus Winter 2003

Anne-Marie from becoming the source of conflict in what rather than from an abil
you want,
ter
another issue-area. Indeed, cooperation ity to compel them to forego what they
^aug
international on one issue can be ameans of keeping want by using threats or rewards.1
justice the iines 0f communication open when The new networks thus coexist along
states are unable to agree on anything a
side much more traditional world or
else, as with China and the United der, structured by both the threat and
States's on environmental use of 'hard' power. In that old world or
cooperation
protection. Equally is the
important der, states still jealously guard their sov
as a commitments to
transgovernmental role network's ereignty and undertake
or 'bearer' of reputation - as one another with considerable caution.
transmitter
a forum in which behavior has conse Still, it is possible to glimpse the outlines

quences, for good or ill. In other words, of a very different kind of world order in
members of a government network are the growing system of government net
In this system, political power
likely to try to meet agreed standards of works.
behavior and substantive will remain primarily in the hands of na
professional
commitments to one another because tional government officials, but will be
else iswatching. a select group of supra
they know everyone supplemented by
In the context of the larger drama of national institutions far more effective
- than those we know
global justice capturing terrorists, try today. And in it,
creating new interna could become more than a
ing war criminals, global justice
- Iwill de
tional courts the activities dream.

scribe may seem humdrum indeed. But

justice requires order, and order requires 1 he logs of embassies around the world
-
at least ameasure of regulation or, in are the best evidence for the
perhaps
the global sphere, some form of gover growing importance of the networks of
nance, short of the Leviathan that Kant national regulators. U.S. embassies, for
feared creating. The emergent global instance, host far more officials from
system of government networks per various regulatory agencies than from
forms precisely this function. Within the State Department, and foreign af
this system, national and supranational fairs budgets for regulatory agencies
officials must cooperate, coordinate, and across the board have increased dramati
but without coercive as the State
regulate, power. cally, even Department's
Each member of a transgovernmental budget has shrunk. Regulators, at both
- a securities
network national regulator, the ministerial and bureaucratic level,
-
or a utilities commissioner ex are a new of diplo
say, may becoming generation
ercise ameasure power at
of coercive mats.

home. But within the network, regula Where are these networks of national
tors cannot compel one another to take In some familiar places, and
regulators?
certain measures, either by vote or the in some surprising ones. Briefly Iwill
binding force of international law. They outline the genesis of several such net
do not have the power to conclude trea works.

ties or to establish new in

by themselves Transgovernmental regulatory net
ternational rules. In effect, the new works have long existed within the tradi
transgovernmental networks exercise a
i Robert O. Keohane and S. Nye, Jr.,
Joseph
kind of "soft power" (as Joseph Nye calls "Power and in the Informa
Interdependence
it) what
; power they have flows from an tion Age," Foreign Affairs 77 (5) (September/
ability to convince others that they want October 1998): 81, 86.

84 D dalus Winter 2003

 tional framework of international
organ cials that has emerged as the pragmatic Everyday
izations. Robert
Keohane and Joseph answer to calls for a new financial archi- 8ohal
governance
Nye have described these networks of tecture for the twenty-first century in
government ministers as emblematic of the wake of the Russian and East Asian
the "'club model' of international insti financial crises of 1997 and 1998. Not
tutions. [C]abinet ministers or the awide range of
withstanding proposals
in the same issue -
equivalent, working from academics and policymakers in
area, initially from a
relatively small one for a global central bank -
cluding
number of relatively rich countries, got what actually emerged was a set of finan

together to make rules. Trade ministers cial reform proposals from the G-22 that
dominated GATT ;finance ministers ran were
subsequently by the G-7
endorsed
the IMF; defense and foreign ministers (now the G-8). The United States pushed
met at NATO ;central bankers at the for the formation of the G-22 in 1997 to
Bank for International Settlements create a network of
transgovernmental
(bis)."2 officials from both developed and devel
More recently, transgovernmental net oping countries, largely to counter the
works have arisen through executive Eurocentric bias of the G-7, the Basle
agreement. Between 1990 and 2000, the Committee, and the IMF's Interim Com
U.S. president and the president of the mittee, which is itself a group of finance
European Union (eu) Commission con ministers.
cluded a series of agreements to foster Even more striking are the transgov
increased cooperation, including the ernmental networks that have emerged
Transatlantic Declaration of 1990, the more or less These have
spontaneously.
New Transatlantic Agenda of 1995 (with been formed in two main ways. Some
a U.S.-EU action networks have institutionalized them
joint plan attached),
and the Transatlantic Economic Partner selves as
transgovernmental regulatory
ship agreement of 1998. Each of these organizations. The Basle Committee on
agreements spurred ad hoc meetings be Banking Supervision was created in 1974
tween lower-level officials, as well as and is now composed of the representa
among business enterprises and envi tives of thirteen central banks that regu
ronmental and consumer activist late the world's largest banking markets.
groups, on issues of common concern. The InternationalOrganization of Secu
Many of these networks of lower-level rities Commissioners ( IOS CO) emerged
officials were anyway, for in 1984, followed in the 1990s by the cre
emerging
functional reasons, but they undoubted ation of the International Association of
a boost from agreements at and of a network
ly received Insurance Supervisors
the top. of all three of these organizations and
Or consider the web of transgovern other national and international officials
mental networks among financial offi for financial
responsible stability around
the world called the Financial Stability
2 Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Jr.,
Forum. These networks do not fit the
"The Club Model of Multilateral Cooperation model of an organization held either by
and Problems of Democratic pa international or scien
Legitimacy,"
lawyers political
per prepared for the American Political Science - are not
tists they composed of states
Convention, Washington, D.C., 31 August-3

September 2000, available at

<http:www.ksg.
and constituted by treaty; they do not
(last vis have a legal personality; they have
no
harvard.edu/cbg/trade/keohane.htm>
ited 28 March 2000), p. 3. headquarters or stationery.

D dalus Winter 2003 85

Anne-Marie The second or a
category of spontaneous recommendations promulgating
aug ter networks has grown model code for its solution. But more
transgovernmental
international out of agreements between the domestic broadly, OECD officials see all OECD
justice
regulatory agencies of different nations. member states - including all EU mem
The last few decades have witnessed the bers, the United States, Japan, South Ko
a - as
emergence of vast network of such rea, and Mexico participating in a
agreements effectively institutionalizing "multilayered regulatory system"5
channels of regulatory cooperation be whose infrastructure is government net
tween specific countries. These agree works.

ments embrace principles that can be It isworth bearing in mind that the
implemented by the regulators them governing committees of the 'global'
selves ; they do not need further approval organizations I have just described are
from national legislators. Widespread mainly comprised of ministers from the
use of Memoranda of Understanding most powerful economies. The Basle
and of even less formal initiatives has Committee, for example, is explicitly

sped the growth of transgovernmental limited to the central bankers of the

interaction exponentially, in contrast to world's most powerful economies, al
the lethargic pace at which traditional though it has outreach efforts to the
treaty negotiations proceed. bankers of many
developing countries.
The most highly developed and inno The all-important Technical Committee
vative transgovernmental regulatory sys of IOS CO looks much more like the
tem is of coursethe EU. Legal scholar OECD than the world. And the G-7 re
Renaud Dehousse describes a basic para mains more than the G-22.
" powerful
dox in EU governance : increased uni I have aworld of con
just described
formity is certainly needed; [but] great centric circles of government networks,
er centralization is politically inconceiv most dense among the world's most
able, and probably undesirable."3 The highly developed countries. The relative
-
response is "regulation by networks" density of these circles reflects the rela
networks of national officials.4 The tive willingness of national governments
now a growing to delegate government functions be
question confronting
number of legal scholars and political their borders to networks of na
yond
theorists is how decision-making tional officials rather than to a suprana
by
these networks fits with varying national tional bureaucracy. Thus the EU is pio
models of European away for states to govern them
democracy. neering
The EU itself sits within a broader net selves collectively without giving up
work of regulatory networks among Or their identity as separate and still largely
anization for Economic Cooperation and sovereign states. The challenge, howev
Development (oecd) countries. The er, is to make such networks truly global.
primary function of the OECD has been
to convene government officials in spe 1^0 what exactly do the new transgov
cific issue-areas for the purpose of ad ernmental networks do?
a common problem and making Above all, their members talk a lot. So
dressing
much, in fact, that it is easy and com
3 Renaud Dehousse, "Regulation by networks
in the European :The role of Euro 5 Scott H. Jacobs,
Community "Regulatory Co-Operation
pean agencies," Journal of European Public Policy for an World : Issues for Gov
Interdependent
4 (2) (June 1997): 259. ernment," in Organisation for Economic Co-opera
tion and Development, Co-operation for
Regulatory
4 Ibid. an
Interdependent World (Paris: OECD, 1994), 18.

86 D dalus Winter 2003

mon to write them off as mere talking mated search operating twenty- Everyday
facility
shops. But talk is the first prerequisite of four hours a day in four languages ; is-
information ; in the sues international wanted notices ;dis
fovernam
exchange process,
trust is fostered, along with an aware tributes international publications and
ness of a common enterprise. This expe updates ;convenes international confer
rience reinforces norms of ences and symposia on matters ;
professional policing
ism that in turn strengthen the socializ offers forensic services ;and makes spe
ing functions of these networks, through cialists availablefor support of local po
which lice efforts. With a of 179
regulatory agencies reproduce membership
themselves in other countries. police agencies from different countries,
Indeed, what sometimes starts as hap making it the second largest internation
hazard communication may lead offi al organization after the UN, it is striking
cials to recognize the need and opportu that Interpol was not founded by a treaty
nity for coordination, across the range of and does not belong within any other in
domestic concerns - from ternational
governmental political body.
enforcement efforts to codes of best Other agencies around the world co

practices. For example, U.S., Canadian, operate on enforcement activities within

and Mexican environmental officials the framework both of informal under
now coordinate the release of informa and more formal mutual rec
standings
tion to the public as one means of en agreements, such as that con
ognition
effective environmental en cluded between the United States and
hancing
forcement. Similarly, U.S. and Mexican Europe specifically concerning enforce
environmental officials now coordinate ment cooperation in awide range of
areas
training sessions for the private sector. subject in 1998. Regardless of the
As transnational corporations have be surrounding framework, participants in
come in scope, interna enforcement networks call on the fol
genuinely global
tional cooperation has become crucial :
lowing tools strategic priority-setting
for the effective enforcement of domes and -targeting, cooperative compliance
tic laws. In the case of drug enforcement promotion, cooperative compliance
efforts at the U.S.-Mexican border, co onen
monitoring, cooperation specific
operation allows the U.S. Drug Enforce forcement cases, sharing experiences to
ment Agency, with its large budget, build enforcement capacity, including
many agents, equipment, consultation on laws and and
sophisticated policies,
and extensive files, to compensate for training and technical assistance.
Mexico's limited resources to battle Groups of ministers and regulators are

drug production and trafficking. Such increasingly involved in the collection of

cooperation involves more than coordi information aboutregulatory activities
nation, but something less than policy from countries around the world. They
harmonization. Cooperation to combat process and distill this information, fre
international crime
takes place both quently in the form of codes of best

through formal organized bodies, such practices. The Basle Committee of Cen
as Interpol (International Criminal Po tral Bankers, the International Organiza
lice Organization) and Europol, and on a tion of Securities Commissioners, and
more
regional and bilateral level through financial regulators around the world
national agencies. For instance, Interpol have all issued codes of best practices,
has a general secretariat that provides in on
everything from how to regulate the
formation an auto securities market to how to prevent
exchange through

D dalus Winter 2003 87

Anne-Marie ination
money laundering. The impact of these of the world of transgovernmen
aug ter codes points to a complex interaction tal cooperation reveals amuch more de
international between the private and public sectors. liberate and checkered pattern of repli
justice por iack 0f other criteria by which to cation and resistance. To understand
a economic or we must delve further
judge country's regulato replication fully
investors into the motives a do
ry performance, private-sector driving it. Often
may increasingly on codes of best mestic agency seeking to its
rely replicate
of or structure is to
practices developed by public-sector style trying strengthen
ficials. Regulators of states are generally its autonomy on its home turf, or to en
the initial source of such codes, pro hance the effectiveness of its regulatory
cessed through officials meeting within activity by creating a more uniform
networks and then disseminated to be transgovernmental system. But as legal
come the standard scientist Kal Raus
by which national scholar and political

regulators will judge domestic and trans tiala documents, replication, regardless
national activities within their compe of motives, is a clear and measurable ef
tence. fect of transgovernmental interaction.6
Best practices can also be disseminat
ed in a less formal manner. Since 1997, to providing
In addition part of the crit
the Public Utility Research Center at the ical infrastructure for any hope of global
University of Florida has hosted eleven networks
justice, transgovernmental
International on Util teach us several lessons that are vital for
Training Programs
ity Regulation and Strategy in coopera future efforts to achieve on a
anything
tion with the WorldBank. The program
global scale.
brings together senior public utility reg First is the value of soft power, not as a
ulators to address the "principal areas of substitute but as a complement, for hard
concern" faced by utility regulators power. Second is the value and strength
worldwide. Reports from the organizers, of pluralism, based on a concept of legit
such as from British water regulators imate difference. Third is the need for
and Russian electricity regulators, attest active cooperation and collaboration, an
to the nature of the international best ethos of positive rather
engagement
practice that prevails.
transfer than of respectful noninterference. Fi
Information as discussed networks are a direct
exchange, nally, governance
above, may be an end in itself or ameans of the disaggregation of the
- outgrowth
to future cooperation. And whether an state - that is, of the ability of different
ulterior motive or an unintended effect institutions to interact with
political
-
the replication of a particular form of their national and supranational coun
or of a type of reg on a basis.
regulation, particular terparts quasi-autonomous
ulatory institution, might accompany it. That disaggregation the creation
permits
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Com of awide range of new forms of gover
mission, for instance, enters into bilater nance, including between
relationships
al agreements with securities regulators national and international courts, that
all over the world with the explicit aim will be the backbone of a genuinely glob
of replicating itself and its relationship al justice system.
with Congress.
Treatises on 6 Kai Raustiala, "The Architecture of Interna
globalization speak glibly
of 'convergence,' as if forces tional : Net
impersonal Cooperation Transgovernmental
works and the Future of International Law,"
were at work homogenizing national
Journal International Law 43 (2002).
cultures and institutions. A closer exam Virginia of

88 D dalus Winter 2003

 Overall, the most important lesson particular defendant. In the Interna- Everyday
that transgovernmental networks can tional Criminal Court (ice) the relation-
teach is the appreciation of the simple :national g^nance
ship will work the other way
fact of their existence and the precondi courts will be primarily responsible for
tions for it. Networks of national regula trying perpetrators of war crimes, geno
tors can only exist as a form of global cide, and crimes against humanity, while
if the purported architects the ICCwill serve as a a
governance of backup if nation
-
world order whether scholars, policy al court proved unable or unwilling to do
makers, or the members of in the job.
pundits,
numerable task forces and commissions At the same time, national courts are
-
think of the state not as a unitary enti networking with one another in a variety
ty but as an aggregate of its component of interesting ways. National constitu
official parts. tional judges are exchanging ideas and
Individuals in domestic and transna decisions on issues that
thorny they all
tional society do not interact with states ; must face, such as the constitutionality
they interact with specific branches of of the death penalty, the balance be
government. Thus, in imagining the pro tween privacy and liberty, the limits of

jection of domestic institutions onto a free speech, and the enforceability and
we should be less scope of economic, social, and cultural
global screen, thinking
- courts
of replicating domestic institutions rights. Ordinary involved in
courts, regulatory even transnational are com
agencies, legisla litigation openly
tures - at the global level, than of con municating with one another to try to
necting the national institutions we al out where and how a
figure particular
in global networks. case should be tried. And
ready have These bankruptcy
government institutions exercise an in judges are negotiating mini-treaties to
measure of coercive power, ensure the of de
dispensable orderly management '
combined with an as yet unmatched funct multinational corporations fi
measure of public legitimacy. nances. All of these open
developments
Further, once we have got used to new institutional horizons for the possi
thinking about domestic government in bility of global justice.
stitutions linking up with their foreign
counterparts, it is also easier to start A he new world order has thus far pro
about how they might link up a
thinking moted healthy amount of transgovern
with supranational equivalents. mental comity. "Neither amatter of ob
Here the judicial possibilities are
by far ligation
on the one hand, nor of mere
the richest. As has been demonstrated in
courtesy and good will on the other...
the EU, it is possible for a supranational in the words of the U.S. Su
comity,"
court such as the European Court of Jus Court in 1895, "is the recognition
preme
tice to forge a dynamic and highly effec which one nation allows within its terri
tive relationship with different national
tory to the legislative, executive, or judi
courts for the interpretation and appli cial acts of another nation_"7 'Recog
cation of EU law. The International nition' is generally a
passive affair, sig
Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the to another nation's ac
naling deference
former Yugoslavia also have structured tion, as regulators participating in gov
relationships with national courts built ernment networks must often choose
into their charters ; they can ask a na
tional court to cede jurisdiction over a 7 Hilton v 159 US 113,163 -164 (1895).
Guyot,

D dalus Winter 2003 89

Anne-Marie between and active lar interaction with each other will
ter passive recognition
- as in a do
of their national law extra bump heads just they would
^aug application
mestic as
international territorially. system, demonstrated by the
justice The EU competition authorities and regulators of the different states of the
the U.S. antitrust regulators, however, United States. And just because action is
have developed amore robust notion of does not mean it is achieved.
requested
a of affirma But the point of departure in aworld of
'positive comity/ principle
a of as
tive cooperation between government positive comity is presumption
agencies of different nations. As a princi sistance rather than distance, of trans

ple of governance for transgovernmental governmental cooperation based on co

cooperation, positive comity ordinated national action. In aworld in

regulatory
on
requires regulatory agencies
to substi which crime depends global net
tute consultation and active assistance works as much as corporations do, that
for the seesaw of noninterference is a positive a
and step. Global justice is
unilateral action. More generally, as a noble but sadly distant ideal. Global dis
of order ismore evident than order. But in
principle global governance, positive
amove from deference the everyday rhythms of regulators
comity mandates
to dialogue, from T-thinking' toRe around the world, new forms of global
'
are
thinking. governance being born.
This shift hardly means the end of
- in regu
conflict far from it. Regulators

90 D dalus Winter 2003