Dr. Negi at Oxford conference on 'Effective Multilateralisms'

Dr Archna Negi from CIPOD attended an International Conference on “Effective Multilateralisms: Cross-Regional Perspectives” at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford from 17-19 December 2009. The conference was organized by the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford.



Dr. Negi's brief comments:

The Conference focused on the management of global security relations in the 21st century in light of the growing gap between the ‘normative ambitions’ of the international society and the ‘lack of means to deliver them’. Discussions centered on possible forms of global governance that can effectively achieve desired global action outcomes and a ‘global order based on the principle of effective multilateralism’. Nuclear non-proliferation and climate change were the two themes identified for discussion, being areas of severe potential consequences in the event of a collective action failure. Principles, problems and prospects relating to these issue areas were discussed from a cross-regional perspective.

Dr Negi’s presentation was titled “Effective Multilateralism, Climate Change and Trade: Prospects for Conflict and Cooperation between the Trade and Environmental Governance Systems”. Although there is an established prima facie case for the need for ‘effective multilateralism’ in the realm of climate change as well as trade, no two regimes are more visibly blighted with the curse of ‘ineffective multilateralism’ than those relating to climate change and trade. The presentation dealt individually with each of these governance systems and attempted to identify possible explanations for the ‘deadlocked multilateralism’ that currently characterizes both regimes. It focused specifically on potential areas of conflict and cooperation between the trade and climate change regimes. Based on specific examples, some generalizations relating both to effective multilateralism as well as coherence across the two regimes were sought to be identified.