Global Governance & the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century (Session 5)

The World Citizen Book Club concluded its five-session series on Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century with a final Q&A session featuring all three authors. This closing discussion addressed corruption, international enforcement, education for transformation, and concrete steps forward for reform and bridging the governance gap.

About the Book

Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century by Augusto Lopez-Claros, Arthur Lyon Dahl, and Maja Groff provides ambitious but reasonable proposals for giving the globalized world the institutions of international governance necessary to address catastrophic risks beyond national control. The authors argue for extending to the international level the same principles found in well-governed national systems: rule of law, legislation in the common interest, an executive branch to implement it, and courts to enforce it. Published by Cambridge University Press.

About the Authors

• Augusto Lopez-Claros, Executive Director, Global Governance Forum; Senior Fellow, Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; Former Director, Global Indicators Group, World Bank
• Dr. Arthur Lyon Dahl, President, International Environment Forum; Retired Deputy Assistant Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
• Maja Groff, Convenor, Climate Governance Commission; Visiting Professor/Scholar, Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University; Lecturer, Hague Academy of International Law

Discussion Highlights

This final session explored the challenges of corruption in international institutions and the urgent need for effective enforcement mechanisms. The authors discussed education as a transformative force for building public support for global governance reform, and outlined immediate steps that citizens and policymakers could take to begin bridging the gap between existing institutions and the governance structures the world needs.