Internationale Institutionen und nichtstaatliche Akteure

tegrate a cosmopolitan dimension into their
“radically incomplete identity”. This last
point is highlighted for instance by Homi K.
Bhabha, Professor at Harvard University and
one of the most important figures in contemporary
post-colonial studies.
You both mention “burden-sharing” as one
of the main ideas of fair global governance.
International negotiations such as, most recently,
Copenhagen have shown that different
countries apparently have very different
views on the “burden” they ought to carry.
How can we reach a common understanding
on global justice?
Fues: In my view, global norm-creation
should be considered as a double-track process:
deductively from above – for example
distilling common ground from world religions
– and inductively from below. A nice
example for the second kind of approach is
given by the current proposals for global climate
policies, particularly regarding the allocation
of the remaining environmental space
– the so called “sink capacity” – for greenhouse
gas emissions. Policy-makers from Indian
prime minister Manmohan Singh to
German chancellor Angela Merkel, as well
as scholars, do agree that the available environmental
space should be distributed on an
equal per capita basis – meaning that each person
on this planet would ultimately receive
the same emission quota. This, multiplied by
the population of a particular country, would
lead to the national emission quota. If nations
would agree to that formula in climate policies,
the principle of equal per capita rights to
the global commons could be applied to other
kinds of transnational environmental goods.
This would represent a powerful component
of global ethics coming from concrete intergovernmental
dialogue and negotiations.
Mallavarapu: When talking about a common
understanding of global values, we have
to make sure first of all that the provincial
– any hegemon’s values – is not masquerading
as the universal yet again. Let me give you an
example: The first generation of human rights
focused more exclusively on civil and political
rights, while the developing world was keen
to lodge economic and social rights as equally
fundamental in a charter of human rights.
The second generation of human rights eventually
incorporated these rights more square-
ly. This suggests that there may be alternative
maps in terms of a hierarchy of values, in
other words, there may be different answers
to the question: What matters most? A solution
to this problem would be to register
these different maps and bring them into conversation.
But this will be difficult – though
not impossible – to achieve. Even within domestic
spheres the establishment of common
norms and a national identity are contested,
and this is particularly glaring in situations of
ethno-national polarisation such as between
the Sinhalas and Tamils as witnessed until recently
in Sri Lanka.
“Why always refer only to Kant?”
You mention the establishment of a common
identity at the national level: Can the process
towards more global governance be compared
to the state-building processes as they
took place in Europe during the 19 th century,
for example?
Mallavarapu: The analogy is certainly
limited. Governance beyond the boundaries
of the nation-state poses its own set of problems.
While there is growing recognition that
distinguishing too sharply between the domestic
and the international is certainly inadequate,
there still remain some dif feren ces.
For the process of nation-building, clear devolution
of structures is essential. Governance
internally is about governments, about sovereignty
and constitutionalism, all aspects
which are relatively weaker outside the domestic
sphere. So the fundamental issue at the
international level would be to achieve governance
in the absence of government. How
do we establish a body of regulations without
having a supranational authority? How do we
arrive at universally acceptable standards?
Fues: The difference at the global level is
that no world government is in sight nor is
it desirable. Rather, global governance has to
rely on the motivation for voluntary association
and collaboration. The incentives for this
will increase as the benefits of shared sovereignty
become more obvious in the face of
global interdependencies. Rather than looking
for national models, it might be useful to
look at the formation of regional blocks like
the European Union (EU) or the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The
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