A world where the GAO has actual power...
All jokes aside, 'Wars of Global Viability' is clunky and I can't see anyone using it. It's in the same vein as 'War of Global Involvement I', 'War of Global Involvement II', and 'The North American States War of Aggressive Separation'. Wars aren't given complicated names by the people who live through them, and even 'The Cessation War' would work better. (Also, the globe would still be viable after all the people are gone.)
The UN has always been an intergovernmental organization, and it would be wrong to describe any central government organization as its successor. Usurper, sure, since they'd literally be unable to exist together.
Establishing the GAO through a treaty doesn't make much sense, no matter how binding it might be, because the need for its existence means that there isn't any standing international law to force compliance (and you wouldn't break it so much as withdraw from it - 'breaking' here would mean legal termination of the entire treaty). Mutual Defense is also an ineffective deterrence here, as much as it is in the real world, because there's nothing actually stopping one GAO nation from waging war on another if they can win. A particularly strong nation or two could simply dare other nations to gear up for war against them (and bankrupt them), or could cut back on defense to the point of being unable to participate (meaning a weaker nation would need to capitulate immediately).
So, if you're going to go with the mutual defense route, the GAO on its own would need to have either enough power over member nations to the point that they can't wage war, or have enough power to quash 'withdrawal' (all not necessarily at the level of martial law). Without that, it's as ineffective as the current UN.
Also, how would such a cataclysmic war increase both overpopulation and hunger?
The Atlantic Ocean, especially the Northern Atlantic between Nova Scotia-Norway and Puerto Rico-Gibraltar is a major shipping lane. Supply problems wouldn't happen there, though hurricanes would. So that puts Espera (which really sounds like a place that just makes you wait...) in the South Atlantic - on or near St. Helena
?
The GAO Assembly, Commission, and Councils look like the UN's current organization with sovereignty it shouldn't actually have through just a mutual defense agreement. The Economic Council really should be a boring snoozefest, just because the GAO can only exist under one or two economic models if the Resource Council can dictate what gets used where (particularly depending on - and this is really important - if it can decide how human labor is used).
Yeah, I think the main problem is that the GAO doesn't seem to have any real power if all the nations are still essentially intact. If they decide to go to war regardless the GAO can shout at them but it can't actually do anything. It needs to have military supremacy to have any kind of claim as a true one world government.
They should have sent a poet.
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. Let's see if I can adress/clarify some of the points here.
I agree that the name is probably not so good. My main point was, that it was not directly World War 3 and more a great number of small and medium scale conflicts that never quite escalated to a global war.
Also, it is not a succesor to the UN in the sense that it is based on the legal basis of the UN, instead it is based on a new treaty and the UN are defunct (as such, the original five veto-powers do not have the same status under the new treaty, even if three of them got 'essential member'-status (USA, China, Russia)).
The treaty does not have a withdrawal-clause (like for example theu EU currently has). If you are a signatory (and most everyone is), you stay one.
War between member nations is strictly outlawed. If a member were to declare war, the GAO would probably punish the offending nation. In the extreme case probably by stripping its status as a sovereign nation and placing it under direct administration by the GAO. If the national government doesn't comply, the GAO would then declare it's territory as occupied by an hostile, unlegitimized regime and send in "stabilization forces" loaned from the essential members to enforce order in accordance with the treaty.
Basically, the most relevant change that differentiates the GAO from the UN is that the GAO does not deem the sovereignity of the nation state as untouchable but something given by the international community via the GAO (and conescutively somethign that can be revoked via the GAO).
Also, the GAO does not have military forces by itself, but it's power is underpinned by commitments of the essential members to use their respective military to enforce it's rules (and even they are subject to a limited arms control). This way, even an essential member cannot flee the GAO because no individual member is strong enough to credible threaten mutually ensured destruction against the GAO (meaning the outcome would be the destruction of the offending nation in the extrem case.)
Every other nation on the other hand would be faced with facing down six of the strongest ten militaries in the world (Numbers one through four included) when it tries to strike out.Does that help with understanding the underlying strcture?
Well, the thing about international politics is that it basically runs on "make me". I think the GAO would need to have military forces or some form of direct authority, or else the whole thing could just stop working.
For example, say India and Pakistan go to war over their border. The GAO tells them to cut it out or they'll be invaded, but Russia decides it would rather India won this war and backs them up. The US and China don't feel like risking a nuclear shootout with Russia so they sit back and issue their statements condemning the whole thing and bicker back and forth with each other. Or say Russia and the US have some sort of major diplomatic fallout and both decide to pull out of the GAO, citing this or that issue with the way things are going. China and the assorted others aren't going to invade the world's two superpowers at the same time, and other countries would likely feel a need to maintain productive relations with them outside the GAO.
Obviously those are extreme cases and a combined military response could easily crush a smaller state that was acting up, but military commitments only go as far as countries feel like going. Ultimately unless the member states (particularly the big 3) are interested in action it just wouldn't go anywhere.
I'd say the GAO probably needs to maintain its own military, and probably its own nuclear deterrent as well. Limits in place on the forces that states are allowed to operate independently would be necessary as well. Either that or it would have to be a true one world government and not allow any sovereign nations outside its authority.
They should have sent a poet.
Who Am I?
Yeah. At the very least it needs independent taxation and collection authority, and a monopoly on nuclear force. It will need it's own military, and that military better be at least strong enough to easily beat any one of the former great powers. It needs investigation and arrest authority in case officials from any of the member states conspire to violate it's rules and regulations. And the policy makers need to be directly elected.
Basically, a real world government, or you might as well stick with the UN.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
I finished work on the first draft of a setting for some spy-/politics-/crime-stories a while ago and would appreciate feedback and comments. :)
The setting is set a certain amount of time into the future (I'm not really sure how far, but I guess something of 50-200 years). As human population increased without an effective way to limit resource-usage and pollution on a global scale, populations reached unsustainable levels and the global order (and with it a good amount of nations) crumbled away in a series of hot wars and civil conflicts that are collectively known as the "Wars of global viability".
The wars ended at last when the nuclear powers of the time were sucked into the conflict and there were nukes used in live combat the first time since WWII. With the specter of total annihilation hanging over them with a good amount of threats against each other (and further nuclear pollution of earth and a few millions additional dead), they decided that there was a need for a new global order that was more effective than the UN and needed more ways to directly overrule national sovereignty.
Thus the Global Administration Organization (GAO) was born through the Treaty on Global Administration. The first time you could say, humanity had something resembling a government for the whole earth. In this time of overpopulation, recurring hunger, pollution and strife, the "Great Powers" that were left standing pooled their strength to create a deterrent against conflict with each other (if one would break the treaty, the others would gang up on it) and bring a semblance of stability to global order.
The headquarter of this new organizations was founded on international waters as an artificial, swimming city in the center of the Atlantic ocean and named Espera. As an entity beyond national borders it was ruled not by laws, but by international relations and a small set of custom rules. It was some kind of dream. A symbol of hope. On the other hand it was a costly moloch with supply-problems and a reminder of the enmity between the nations as no one trusted another to host the GAO.
Espera lies at the heart of global order. The people there can be roughly divided into four categories: 1) GAO-Officials [The political bureaucracy, it's bureaus and institutions] (Blue Identifier).
2) Diplomatic personnel [The embassies of the nations and their staff] (Green Identifier).
3) Administrative Staff [Technicians maintaining Espera, waste workers, couriers etc.] (Red Identifier).
4) Guests [Lobbyists, Representatives of non-state organizations, tourists etc.] (White Identifier). This is the setting in which all the stories shall play.
Global Administration Organisation (GAO)
- Elects the additional members to the Councils.
- Elects the members of the commission.
- Changes the Treaty on Global Administration (The "constitution" of the GAO) by a majority of 5/6.
- Changes the status of nations (Essential, Full, Associate) by a majority of 4/5 (includes recognizing the existence and sovereignty of nations or stripping them in regards to the GAO).
The most important positions within the commission are the 6 high commissioners. All of them coordinate the work of several commissioners as well as chairing one of the councils. Their responsibilities are:
High commissioner of general administrative matters (basically a cross between a secretary general and a prime minister, chairs the Administrative Council; Often shortened to just "The High Commissioner")
High commissioner of security (Chairs the Security Council, "ensures global peace" and military matters, not a defense minister as there are no state-actor enemies and no GAO-military)
High commissioner of treaties and international law (Chairs the Dispute Resolution Council, which has sway over matters of international law and settlements of conflict between nations, more or less the judicial functions of the GAO are here as well)
High commissioner of trade and economy (Chairs the Economy Council, oversees the financial system, monetary policy, trade dispute settlement and such)
High commissioner of common goods (Chairs the Resource Council, has a say over utilization of resources that are under direct GAO-supervision, for example air, ocean water not inside of national territory etc.)
High commissioner of special administrative matters (Chairs the GAO Supervision Council, is mostly responsible for the internal cohesion of the GAO and the functioning of its bureaucracy and usage of its funds.)
The true power within the GAO lies with the councils. As the Assembly is unwieldy and fragmented at the best of times and eternally gridlocked otherwise, most of the power lies with the councils. Each council has currently 13 member-nations (The 6 essential members on all councils and 7 additional nations that are elected to each council).
There is a plethora of councils, working groups and committees who create and steer policy in their respective purview. Some are more important, some less (The Culture Council), but the six most important Councils coincide with the ones the high commissioners chair.
One of the main advantages of being an essential member is the presence in all councils without a need for an election. Other nations jockey for council positions and you can somewhat measure their influence within the GAO by the number of seats it holds in the councils and which ones they are.
The most important players within the GAO are the leaders of the delegations of the essential members (their ambassadors). They traditionally are also nominally the representative of their respective nation in the Administrative Council (where they are substituted by a deputy 90% of the time).
The six most important councils are:
The Administrative Council (AC): The most important Council (colloquially referred to as "High Council") has no clearly defined jobs. In essence, the administrative councils job is to coordinate the work of the other councils, when there are policies that touch multiple councils' agendas (basically anything the High Council deems to be so). Also, it is the council that proposes changes to membership status and treaty change to the Assembly. As the essential members started using this council as their main tool to coordinate and influence their policy across the GAO, it became the de facto place to decide the most important or controversial pieces of policy. In accordance, it's member of the commission was elevated to be a high commissioner and became seen as the most important member of the administration.
The Security Council (SC): Tasked with overseeing global peace, it is important, because it can intervene against sovereign states, where it deems something like that necessary. The GAO does not have its own military, but the essential members must provide their military power on behalf of the Security Council (and other members on voluntary basis).
There are two kinds of operations, that the Security Council oversees. First are Peace Forces (which are basically what the UN coordinated right now and deployed when the concerned actors asked for them) and the stabilization forces (which are deployed whenever the Security Council deems a conflict between or within states to be a threat to global peace, when they will crack down on every side that does not stand down immediately with pretty overwhelming force).
The Dispute Resolution Council (DRC): There are many matters between states that are not resolved by the use of force (especially not, when the GAO is involved). As the GAO wasn't designed with an independent judiciary, the de facto "court" for cases which had to be decided by a higher, neutral authority became the DRC, which was originally designed to resolve matters regarding the Treaty on Global Administration.
This Council has set up numerous committees (and sub-committees) that (basically) function as courts for disputes between nations, the GAO and sometimes non-state-actors which specific standing according to international law. The DRC functions as the instance of appeal for certain cases (a bit like the German constitutional court or the US Supreme Court).
The Economy Council (EC): Pretty much what it says on the tin. The Economy Council rules on trade and international economic activity. As the GAO has basically integrated institutions like the IWF, the World Bank and most bilateral Dispute settlement Courts into itself, the Economy Council has a good bit of sway over national economics and the global flow of money as well. It's also one of the main battlegrounds for ideological disputes over the ideal model of economic governance (which is a continuation of the left-right divide on economics from today, basically)
The Resource Council (RC): After the wars around certain resources, the GAO was given the task of overseeing the use of the "common goods of mankind" and deciding on their usage. This includes air as well as ocean waters, everything that's in the ground beyond the borders of the nations states, basically everything in space, the Antarctic and several smaller things. The Resource Council is heavily coveted and lobbied, because it gives out the rights to produce CO 2 or to extract the common resources (and with that tremendous economic wealth).
The GAO Supervision Council (GSC): When the GAO was created, it got a wealth of new tasks and rights. As such, it became a huge bureaucracy and got a hefty infusion of funding. As the nations were a bit worried about corruption and correct usage of funds, they set up the GSC for the purpose of evaluating and auditing the GAO. With time, the Council branched out to prepare the GAO budget for approval by the assembly and to allocate the resources of the commission in the broad strokes.
edited 5th Apr '18 4:29:51 AM by SlavetoTropes