A couple weeks ago there was the G20 conference in South Korea, which failed to come up with any sort of resolution on currency issues. Almost exactly a year ago, world leaders from over 200 nations met in Copenhagen and failed to reach any agreement on global warming. That, needless to say, was a follow-up to the equally failed meeting in Cancun on the same issues a few years earlier and another conference, also in Cancun, will begin failing soon. Throughout the past decade we’ve witnessed a series of international trade talks that failed to hammer out any major new agreements. I sense a pattern here.
For a long time, all international conferences and the bodies that depended on them were run by the “Washington Consensus”, formed because the USA, Japan, and western European nations usually found their interests aligned with each other and had enough clout to steamroll everyone else. Now, however, that group has broken apart, while poorer nations now have enough power to fight back against the wealthy ones. There are simply too many nations with competing interests to expect that all of them or any large portion of them will all reach an agreement which they can sign on to.
These international conferences are a waste of time and money. The WTO and suchlike organizations are lumbering dinosaurs that should be put out of their misery. Activist groups should spend less time trying to shape worldwide treaties and agreements that won’t ever go into effect and should instead focus on getting results at lower levels. Nations should stop sending their heads of state to these conferences and should instead establish smaller, regional groups to hammer out local agreements on trade, the environment, and other issues.
I concur with these sentiments. In regards to the environment and sustainable development, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability has probably been the most effective governmental organization out there. (Even though some Tea Party-ers think its a tool for the UN to start the ‘New World Order.’) Working at the local or regional level tends to focus on realistic policies that can actually be implemented, as opposed to high-level ‘priorities’.
ISO standards can also be effective tools for action. Since they rely on voluntary compliance, they again focus on areas where realistic progress can be made. (No point in adopting a standard no one will use.)
I am sure international conferences like the G-20 may serve as a decent forum for national leaders to mingle, network and trade ideas (sort of like industry conferences in general), but, yeah, I think the days of the Montreal or Kyoto Protocols or the Rio Declaration are past.
Eh. When it comes to nations, “no developments” is not exactly the worst thing I can think of. Certainly you’re not likely to see world leaders come out and put other countries’ needs above their own country, but hey, at least for the most part the world is not at each other’s throat. Wars are the historical result of hard times and percieved inequity; if we don’t have major successes at least we don’t have major failures.
There are the big issue tickets, but international get-togethers result in hundreds and thousands of important - if not exactly sexy and headline grabbing - agreements.
There are already tons of regional organizations (SAARC, ASEAN, the EU, NAFTA, NATO, etc.). There are also tons of common interest international organizations (OPEC, OECD, NAM, OIC, etc.). I don’t understand where this idea that nations haven’t already established regional organizations is coming from.
Why should we have regional agreements on issues like air travel, postal services, the environment, the law of the sea, and other issues that are clearly global in nature? And yes, trade is increasingly part of those global issues.
Just because international negotiations don’t work on your preferred time line doesn’t mean that progress isn’t made. It took almost ten years to complete the Uruguay Round of trade talks, but it got done, and something like 140 countries signed up to those trade rules. Those countries now have a common rulebook for dealing with all those other countries.
If you wanted to deconstruct those trade rules, then the US government may sign conflicting agreements that means that in trade with Japan, such-and-such policy is okay, but it is forbidden when dealing with Germany.
Investing enough time to get major agreements done correctly is a good investment of time. I think the OP is impatient and expects every conference to be a smashing success, as though a lot of work doesn’t have to be done before major agreements are made. The idea that 180 countries will just show up in town and make major concessions to each other so some treaty or another can be signed to make everyone’s airfare worth it is pretty naive.