13/1 Geopolitical Order 1 | Global Governance.pdf

Discussion

Multilateralism, plurilateralism, bilateralism and unilateralism exist as global governance schemes. The new plurilateralism is a scheme of international governance between more than two countries ie not bilateral, but less that ‘a great many’ ie not multilateral. It has come about as a result of the GATT/WTO ‘Most Favoured Nation’ MFN Principle that any favourably low tariff imposed applies to all nations therefore banning discrimination between trading partner nations. The MFN Principle workaround is a plurilateral Free Trade Agreement FTA applying to the trade between the members of the FTA and discriminating against all non members. The EU is the leading example of such a plurilateral FTA (established various external tariffs but much reduced internal tariffs), but with the further radical advance of a Customs Union (common external tariffs no internal tariffs) cum Single Market (common internal regulatory standards so eliminating any barriers obstructing the freedom of movement of the four factors of production: capital, goods, services, labour). Plurilateralism may lead to multilateralism over a period of time by an organic co-ordination of plurilateral treaties into a single multilateral treaty. As systems of governance, multilateralism and plurilateralism give a voice to the weaker parties by their pooling of sovereignty and militate against the stronger parties and their powerful vested interests by an inherent transparency of policy objectives and concomitant regulatory measures, while bilateralism works to strengthen the hand of the stronger party. Unilateralism asserts outright the benefits of the single party to the exclusion of others and is the antonym to multilateralism asserting the benefits of the greatest number of participating parties. The post War trend to multilateralism has seen reverses: (i) the New International Economic Order NIEO 1974 then meeting the increasingly neoliberal Washington Consensus and (ii) major multilateral initiatives now meet Washington nativist rejection as infringements of US sovereignty. However, in early 2020 China, the EU and 15 others agreed a WTO ad hoc appeal body to circumvent Trump World US obstruction and in late 2020 China and the EU concluded in principle a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment CAI: the US is meeting World Island resistance.

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