Kishore Mahbubani

Can Asia re-legitimize global governance?

The need for global governance has never been greater. Hence, there is a dire need for a clear global understanding among the 6.8 billion occupants of the planet on the sources of legitimization and delegitimization of global governance. Sadly, instead of a convergence of views, there is a growing divide between the 12 per cent of the world’s population who live in the West and the 88 per cent who make up the rest of the world. Many in the West believe that the West provides the biggest source of legitimization of global governance. This belief is justified. The West has clearly created the most benign international order in human history. However, few in the West point out that the West has also become a major source of delegitimization by undermining its own international order. In the context of this issue, my argument therefore works at a politically more radical level than suggested in the Introduction. It is not simply a case of recognizing the contingency of particular values of legitimacy, or thinking about how they legitimize themselves. Instead, our task must be to actively contest the western bases of legitimacy that are employed in the political context of global governance. The claim of Western delegitimization is a strong claim to make at the outset. Let me illustrate with one powerful recent example. Under Western inspired international law, the use of force is legitimate if it is exercised in self-defence or under the authorization of the UN Security Council. The American–British invasion of Iraq in March 2003 did not satisfy either of these criteria. Hence, as Kofi Annan was forced to admit, this invasion was illegal under international law. Yet few Western inspired lawyers use the adjective “illegal” before the Iraq War. And an equally few speak of accountability for this “illegal” war. In this sense, it is of political and ethical importance that Robert Keohane uses his assessment of the UN to actively interrogate the UN itself for failing to question US representatives who falsified evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, although I also know from first-hand experience that the US has

The World Health Organization (WHO)

Kofi Annan described our world well in his Millennium Development Report. He said that we live in a small global village. He also pointed out that this global village has enormous inequalities. Today, less than a billion people live in the affluent Western world, and their share of the global population continues to shrink rapidly, making them one of the fastest-shrinking global tribes. Over six billion people live in the developing world. The West also has the most educated societies, and the best universities, thinktanks and public policy advisers. With all these resources, it would have been natural to expect the West to pursue enlightened policies of strengthening, rather than undermining or weakening, global village institutions. Anyone who nurtures such an illusion of an enlightened West should read this small but brilliant book produced by Kelley Lee. With a style of spare, even appropriately clinical, prose, she dissected well many flawed Western policies about the WHO. What makes the book truly impressive is that she had no ideological agenda. She only strived to produce an objective diagnosis of the WHO. And, in so doing, she inadvertently revealed three major strategic errors that the West made with regard to the WHO. The first major strategic error that Western countries made was to allow shortterm and often sectional special interests to override their enlightened long-term interests in developing stronger global village institutions. As the fastest-shrinking and most affluent members of the global village, they have the greatest vested interest in strengthening the WHO to improve global health conditions and to develop the political and organisational capacity and legitimacy to fight major global epidemics. Anyone who doubts the danger of global epidemics should remember the SARS episode. It began in a small village in China. From there it went to Hong Kong and from Hong Kong it paralysed two cities on opposite sides of the global village: Singapore and Toronto. To protect its long-term interests, the West should have spent the past few decades strengthening the WHO and providing it with more resources. Instead, it starved the WHO of resources just when it needed more to manage a more complex world order. One chart (p. 40) eloquently describes Western folly in starving the WHO. In 1970/1971, the WHO received 62% of its budget from Regular Budget Funds (RBFs) and 18% from Extra Budgetary Funds (EBFs). By 2006/2007, the ratio had reversed to 28% from RBFs and 72% from EBFs. Why did this shift damage the WHO? The WHO can only make long-term plans from RBFs. EBFs can disappear overnight, at the whim of Western donors. The Western donors, therefore, engineered this shift to Global Public Health Vol. 7, No. 3, March 2012, 312 314