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A World in Crisis: Challenge and Response

The Contemporary Human Predicament

1.  Our world is buffeted by a series of multifaceted & mutually reinforcing crises:

• Threat of "total war" (two world wars, possible nuclear war)
• Widening gap between rich and poor and between private wealth and public squalor
• The severe disruption of planetary ecosystems (e.g. global warming, loss of biodiversity)
• The gross violations of human rights and mass slaughter of innocents (e.g. war crimes, genocide)

2.  The cumulative impact of these crises greatly exceeds the problem-solving capacities of our existing cultural, legal and political institutions (municipal, provincial, national, regional and universal).

3.  The most pressing threats to human security (e.g. arms transfers, drug trafficking, transnational organised crime, financial crises, transboundary pollution, global epidemics, international terrorism, massive refugee flows) cannot be understood, let alone resolved, by just national institutions

4.  These multi-dimensional threats are deepening existing divisions and creating new ones:

• geopolitical divisions that pit one state against another (United States-China)
• economic divisions (e.g. North-South)
• ethnic/religious divisions between states (e.g India-Pakistan) and within states (e.g. Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka)
• civilisational divisions (e.g. Islam-West).

The Response Thus Far

1.   Steadily expanding consciousness in many parts of the world of a shared human destiny - of the need for global solutions to global problems

2.   Rise of 'informed world opinion' (as expressed by 'knowledge communities' and quality information and analysis outlets, newspapers, magazines, journals, books, electronic media, Internet) calling for major policy and institutional changes

3.   Extraordinary growth of civil society organisations at all levels - local, national and international - involving:

• social movements, networks and NGOs active around such issues as peace, human rights, development, environment and globalisation (e.g. International Physicians for the prevention of Nuclear War, Pax Christi International, Red Cross, Greenpeace, Oxfam International, Amnesty International, Asustralian Volunteers International)
• Professional associations (e.g. International Commission of Jurists, Academic council of the United Nations System,
• Equally rapid growth of international law and international organisations  -  both regional and global (e.g. UN Charter, International Court of Justice, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, international humanitarian law, IMF, WTO, World Bank, G8, OECD, OSCE, EU, ASEAN, ARF, OIC, International criminal Court).