Paper 3 Global Politics · Global governance

Global governance · Notes

Sub-topic lookup view of the topic.

About these notes. This is the sub-topic lookup version. For the full narrative lesson, use the Walk-through. For active recall, use the MCQ Quiz. To practise the comparisons, use the UN v NATO and environment v poverty grids.

Likely exam angles. How effective is global governance, and is it more effective in some areas than others? The strongest answers compare across issue areas - economic, environmental, human rights, security - and judge where governance works and where it fails.

1. What global governance is

Global governance is the cooperation and rule-making among states in a world with no government above them - carried out through intergovernmental organisations, treaties and international law. The main actors span four issue areas:

Economic: the IMF, World Bank and WTO.
Environmental: the UN climate process (Kyoto, Paris, the COPs) and the Montreal Protocol.
Human rights: the UDHR and treaty system, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court.
Peace and security: the UN Security Council, UN peacekeeping, R2P, and NATO.

The organising question. Because there is no world government, global governance depends on states agreeing and complying. Whether it works depends on the issue area - and comparing across areas is the heart of this topic.

2. Economic governance

The IMF lends to states in crisis, attaching conditions (structural adjustment), criticised as imposing the Washington Consensus of liberalisation and austerity.
The World Bank funds development and poverty reduction, with similar debates over conditionality and effectiveness.
The WTO sets and enforces trade rules and runs a dispute-settlement system - though its negotiating rounds have stalled and its appeals body has been weakened.
The 2008 crisis response (coordinated through the G20 and central banks) showed economic governance acting fast and fairly effectively under pressure.

The verdict. Economic governance is comparatively strong on coordination and rule-enforcement, but criticised for serving powerful states and creditors and for deepening inequality.

3. Environmental governance

Agreement	What it shows
Montreal Protocol (1987)	The success story: binding, near-universal, and it healed the ozone layer. Proof that global governance can work when the science is clear and the costs manageable.
Kyoto Protocol (1997)	The weak case: binding only on developed states, the US never ratified, and major emitters were exempt. Limited effect.
Paris Agreement (2015)	Near-universal but voluntary - nationally determined contributions with no enforcement. Broad participation bought by weak bindingness.
COPs and Loss and Damage	Annual summits and a fund for vulnerable states; progress is real but slow, and pledges outrun delivery.

The pattern. Environmental governance works best on a narrow, manageable problem (Montreal) and worst on the broad, costly one (climate), where bindingness and participation trade off against each other.

4. Human rights and security governance

Human rights

The UDHR and the treaty system set global standards; the European Court of Human Rights enforces rights regionally with real bite.
The International Criminal Court can try individuals for the gravest crimes, but has no enforcement arm and major powers (the US, Russia, China) are not members or do not cooperate.

Peace and security

The UN Security Council can authorise collective action, but the P5 veto blocks it whenever a great power's interests are engaged.
R2P (the responsibility to protect) was invoked in Libya in 2011 but blocked in Syria - the clearest illustration of selective, veto-bound enforcement.
NATO, a selective military alliance, can act decisively where the universal UN cannot.

5. Comparing effectiveness across areas

The comparison-grid method is the skill this topic tests: judge which issue area, or which body, the world has handled best and worst.

Strongest: technical and economic coordination - the Montreal Protocol, the 2008 crisis response, WTO rule-enforcement.
Weakest: peace and security - the Security Council veto, the failure over Syria, an ICC without enforcement.
Regional versus global: regional bodies (the EU, the ECtHR) can bind members more deeply than global ones (the IMF, WTO) in their own area.
UN versus NATO: the UN is universal but veto-bound; NATO is selective but able to act - universality versus capacity.

The verdict. Global governance is markedly more effective in some areas than others - strong on technical and economic problems, weak on peace and security, where great-power vetoes bite hardest.

6. Exam method

Compare across issue areas. The question is rarely "is global governance effective" in the abstract - it is "more effective where, and why".
Pair a success with a failure: Montreal against Kyoto, the 2008 response against Syria, the ECtHR against the ICC.
Explain the pattern: governance works where the problem is narrow and the great powers agree, and fails where vetoes and divergent interests bite.
Reach a comparative judgement rather than a body-by-body list.

📜 Walk-throughThe full narrative lesson across the four issue areas and the comparisons. 🧠 MCQ quiz15 questions across the topic. 📊 UN v NATO gridCompare the two security bodies across six tests.