Who cares? Science diplomacy and the global commons
This commentary is written in the context of the EL-CSID project [see WWW.EL-CSID.EU] that receives funding from the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant agreement No. 693799.
CONTACT: luk.van.langenhove@vub.be
When most of us think of ‘the world’, it is easy to consider it a jigsaw puzzle of discrete nation-states, each lord over their own jealously-guarded territories. Yet most of the globe we live on falls outside of these neat jurisdictional boundaries–these are the earth’s shared natural resources such as the oceans, the atmosphere, the Antarctic, and outer space. These are the global commons, and they are the jurisdiction of all, and none.
For parts of the planet that escape the governance of individual states, the big challenge is: who is taking responsibility for these global commons? To some extent, states have taken up some of that responsibility by setting up inter-governmental organisations or treaties that function as the tools to protect and manage these shared areas. The Antarctic Treaty signed by 12 countries in 1959 is just one example. As such, global commons are generally regarded as being part of the so-called multilateral system of inter-national relations between states.
One of the main characteristics of global commons is that they have a value for humankind and the planet. In some cases they even play a crucial role in the survival of our species. More recently, cyberspace has also been regarded as meeting the definition of a global common.
Yet, International Relations, or World-Politics as it is now also called, is a strange animal as it is based upon the Westphalian principle of sovereignty, which posits that states are the highest level of authority on Earth. This worldview believes that above states there is nothing but anarchy, unless there is goodwill among states to embark upon structured cooperation.
This can be problematic because, at the end
