Critical Perspectives On Global Governance

This one-day landmark event brings to Helsinki some of the world’s leading critical thinkers on global political economy, law and international relations. They will address the challenges of achieving sustainable and democratic global governance in the 21st century. This event is free and open to the public.

For the purposes of the Helsinki discussions, the participants will develop a dual perspective on the nature, and future of global governance. First, they will consider global governance as the practices associated with enduring forms of international rule beyond the purview of individual nations – that is as it has been normally understood in politics and diplomacy since ancient times. Thus global governance involves consideration of the main mechanisms that have emerged to stabilize, modify and legitimate the global status quo, such as the G8 or the G20. Thus global governance is mainly evaluated from the perspective of the most powerful states and economic interests. In this sense global governance today involves devising durable methods, mechanisms, and institutions – including those of peace and war – to help sustain an international order that is premised on the primacy of capitalism and the world market as the key governing forces of world politics.
Second, participants will also develop critical perspectives on global governance – involving not only a demystification of the power relations between leaders and led, but also assessment of the potential for changes in those relations. Participants will analyze global governance not just from the vantage point of dominant power but from the perspectives of subaltern forces. Participants will question the necessity, desirability and sustainability of existing institutional arrangements in light of global economic, social and ecological crises and challenges.

Our speakers will therefore engage with contested political issues such as: the legitimacy of global institutions; social justice, taxation and redistribution; privatized security governance; gender, race and equitable development; environmental issues and climate change; global health; the rights of subordinated peoples in an era of globalization: Islamic conceptions of justice and leadership; corporate social responsibility and public-private partnerships; and various mechanisms of regulation in finance, the workplace and in trade and investment.

The event has been organized under the auspices and sponsorship of the Jane and Aatos Erkko Chair on the Study of Contemporary Society at the University of Helsinki, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki (HCAS). Other sponsors are the Canada Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC); the Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research, University of Helsinki and the Finnish Institute of International Affairs; Office of the Rector, University of Helsinki; the Centre of Excellence in Foundations on European Law and Polity, the Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki.

Format:
After a very brief introduction from the chair, each session will have presentations of 15 minutes, if necessary followed by short comments from the chair. Then comments & questions will be taken from the floor, with presenters responding.

PROGRAMME

10:00-10:30 OPENING REMARKS:
Greetings & Introduction to the Public Event: Teivo Teivainen, Professor of World Politics, University of Helsinki.

10:30-12:00SESSION 1. GLOBAL GOVERNANCE: OF WHAT AND FOR WHOM?
Introduction, chair and comments: Stephen Gill, Jane and Aatos Erkko Visiting Professor for the Study of Contemporary Society, Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki (HCAS) and Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science, York University, Toronto.

1. Richard Falk, Emeritus Professor of International Law and Politics, Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor: Global and International Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara:“Legitimacy and Humane Global Governance”.

2. Upendra Baxi, Emeritus Professor of International Law Universities of Warwick and Delhi and Emeritus President, University of Delhi: “Reinventing Human Rights in an Era of Failed Hyper-Globalization?”

3. Nicola Short, Associate Professor of Political Science, York University, Toronto: “Optimism of the Will: Gramsci’s Conception of Leadership and the Global Financial Crisis”.

12:00-13:30 LUNCH BREAK

13:30-15:00 SESSION 2. GLOBAL GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES — HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT & IN/SECURITY
Introductory remarks, chair and commentator: Isabella Bakker, Fellow HCAS and Professor of Political Science, York University, Toronto.

1. Solly Benatar, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of Cape Town and Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto:“What do we mean by Global Health and how could improvements be achieved?”

2. Hilal Elver, Visiting Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara: “Environmental Crises and Global Leadership Challenges”.

3. Claire Cutler, Professor of International Relations and International Law, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, Canada: “Privatized Security Governance: the case of power, profit and security arrangements for the Vancouver Olympics”.

15:00-15:30 COFFEE & TEA

15:30-17:00 SESSION 3. GLOBAL GOVERNANCE ALTERNATIVES
Introductory remarks, chair and commentator: Richard Falk

1. Mustapha Kamal Pasha, Professor and Chair of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, UK: “Global Governance and the Islamic World”.

2. Adam Harmes, Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, Canada: “Social Forces and the Future of Global Governance”.

3. Teivo Teivainen, Professor of World Politics, University of Helsinki: “Critical Reflections on the Future of Global Governance”.

Helsinki speakers:

DR ISABELLA BAKKER is a Professor of Political Economy and former Chair of Political Science at York University, Toronto. Appointed a Fulbright New Century Scholar in 2004–05, she worked with a team of international scholars and activists on Beyond States and Markets: The Challenges of Social Reproduction (co-edited by Isabella Bakker with Rachel Silvey and published by Routledge in 2008). Her previous publications include: The Strategic Silence: Gender and Economic Policy and Rethinking Restructuring: Gender and Change in Canada. She is currently a Trudeau Fellow (2009-2012), a Visiting Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and a consultant on gender and human security issues to the UN.

DR UPENDRA BAXI is Professor of Law in Development, University of Warwick. He was previously Professor of Law, University of Delhi (1973-1996) and was its Vice Chancellor (1990-1994.) He was the President of the Indian Society of International Law (1992-1995.). His principal publications include: Human Rights in a Posthuman World: Critical Essays (Oxford UP 2007); The Right to Human Rights Education: Critical Essays (Oxford 2007); The Future of Human Rights (Oxford, 2002); The Rights of Subordinated Peoples (Co-author, Oxford, 1994). Inhuman Wrongs and Human Rights: Unconventional Essays. (Haranand, 1994); Towards a Sociology of Indian Law (Satvahan, 1986); Inconvenient Forum and Convenient Catastrophe: The Bhopal Case (NM Tripathi, 1986).

DR SOLOMON (SOLLY) BENATAR, MBChB, DSc (Med), FFA, FRCP, FRS SAfr is Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of Cape Town and Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. He is a founder member of the South African Academy of Science, and an elected Foreign Member of the United States National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His publications include over 270 articles and book chapters on respiratory diseases, academic freedom, health care services, medical ethics, human rights and global health. He was co-editor of A Century of Tuberculosis: A South African Perspective (OUP 1991) and is the lead editor on a forthcoming book Global Health Ethics (Cambridge University Press: late 2010).

DR A.CLAIRE CUTLER is Professor of International Relations and International Law in the Political Science Department at the University of Victoria, Canada where she teaches International Relations, Law and Global Governance. She is interested in advancing critical theory in international relations and developing a radical political economy critique of both public and private international law. Cutler is presently conducting a study of the Privatization and Commodification of International Security and is completing a manuscript on the transnationalization of law and capitalism. Her publications include Private Power and Global Authority: Transnational Merchant Law in the Global Political Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2003) and Private Authority and International Affairs (SUNY Press,1999).

DR HILAL ELVER is Visiting Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. A former professor at University of Ankara Law School, she was founding legal advisor to the Turkish government’s Ministry of Environment and General Director of Women’s Status in the Prime Minister’s Office. In 1993 she was a Fulbright Scholar, University of Michigan Law School. In 1994, she was appointed as Chair in Environmental Diplomacy by the United Nations Environment Program at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta, In 1996-98 she was Visiting Fellow, Center of International Studies, Princeton University. Her publications include: Human Rights: Critical Concepts in Political Science, ed., with Richard Falk & Lisa Hajjar (Routledge, 5 vols. 2008). She recently completed a book on secularism and human rights in the Islamic world.

DR. RICHARD FALK is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The author of many books and articles, some of his most recent work includes: The Declining World Order: America’sImperialGeopolitics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004); The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy. With Howard Friel (Verso, 2004); Crimes of War: Iraq. Edited with Irene Gendzier and Robert Jay Lifton (Nation Books, 2006); The American Empire and the Commonwealth of God: A Political, Economic, Religious Statement. With David Ray Griffin, John B. Cobb, Jr., and Catherine Keller (John Knox Press, 2005); Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order After Iraq (Routledge, 2008); International Law and the Third World, ed. with Balakrishnan Rajagopal & Jacqueline Stevens (Routledge 2008).

DR STEPHEN GILL is the inaugural Erkko Visiting Research Professor for the Study of Contemporary Society, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto. His publications include The Global Political Economy (with David Law, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988); American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (Cambridge University Press 1991); Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge 1993); Globalization, Democratization and Multilateralism (UN University Press & Macmillan, 1997); Innovation and Transformation in International Studies (co-editor, Cambridge University Press 1997), and Power, Production and Social Reproduction: Human In/security in the Global Political Economy (with Isabella Bakker, Palgrave 2004) and Power and Resistance in the New World Order (Palgrave 2003 & 2008).

DR ADAM HARMES is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. His work has dealt with global political economy, global finance and global governance. He is the author of Unseen Power: How Mutual Funds Threaten the Political and Economic Wealth of Nations (Stoddart, 2001) and The Return of the State: Protestors, Power-Brokers and the New Global Compromise (Douglas & McIntyre, 2004). His current research examines the competition between neo-liberalism and social democracy over multilevel governance in federal, regional and global contexts.

DR MUSTAPHA KAMAL PASHA is Professor and Chair of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Aberdeen, UK. Previously, he taught at the School of International Service, American University in Washington, DC (1993-2005). In 2001, he was Program Director of the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association. He is the author of Colonial Political Economy (Oxford University Press 1998) and co-author of Out From Underdevelopment Revisited: Changing Global Structures and the Remaking of the Third World (Macmillan, 1997). He also co-edited Protecting Human Security in a Post-9.11 World (Palgrave 2007) and International Relations and the New Inequality (Blackwell 2002).

DR NICOLA SHORT is Associate Professor of Political Science at York University (Canada). Her current research examines the political economy of inequality and difference in world affairs from the perspective of Gramscian political theory. Dr. Short is the author of The International Politics of Post-Conflict Reconstruction in Guatemala (Palgrave: 2007). She has been a visiting scholar at the Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex (Summer 2009) and holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics as well as an MA in Peace Research from the University of Bradford.

DR TEIVO TEIVAINEN is Professor of World Politics at the University of Helsinki as well as Director of the Program on Democracy and Global Transformation at the San Marcos University in Lima, Peru. In 2005 he was Distinguished Visiting Professor of Development Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Canada. As representative of Network Institute for Global Democratization, he is a founding member of the International Council of the World Social Forum and he has been a consultant for various international organizations, trade unions, social movements and governments. His main publications include: A Possible World: Democratic Transformation of Global Institutions (co-author, Zed Books 2005); Pedagogía del poder mundial: Relaciones internacionales y lecciones del desarrollo en América LatinaEnter Economism, Exit Politics: Experts, economic policy and the damage to democracy (Zed Books 2002).