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Perils of Global Legalism

• October 20, 2009 11:09 am

Henry Farrell and I discuss my book on bloggingheads.  We briefly touched on the topic whether the EU could be a model for international law (Henry-yes, me-no).  It is interesting in this connection to read the following passage from one of the Economist blogs.

Chinese intellectual curiosity in the EU seemed to peak a few years ago, when in Beijing and Shanghai think tanks grew moderately excited about the idea that Europe was about to adopt a constitution and equip itself with a permanent president and foreign minister. Such European swagger fed into China’s (only natural) desire to see a more multipolar world develop, to replace the post Berlin Wall era of American hegemony.

Then came 2005, and French and Dutch referendums that rejected the draft EU constitution, tipping the union into four years of institutional squabbling that has still not ended. In the meantime, the forces of globalisation, accelerated by the global economic crisis, left the relative decline of Europe as a trading power even more cruelly exposed.

The EU is also exceedingly bad at dealing with Beijing. The 27 member countries undercut and compete among each other for commercial advantage, while the central EU bureaucracy has allowed itself to be bogged down by process (there are scores of EU-China structural dialogues now).

Now, a common Chinese view of Europe amounts to:
-   Europe is in decline but has not come to terms with it.
-   Yet Europe still wants to impose its values on China.
-   There are structural problems in dealing with the EU because of the difficulty in distinguishing EU from member-nation interests.

Categories: International Law    

    23 Comments

    1. Martinned says:

      Charlemagne’s blog is excellent, as are his columns. The are often critical of the EU, but always with nuance and actual argument.

      In this case, you left out the rest of the post:

      I have much sympathy for Chinese complaints about the structural difficulties of dealing with the EU. I also have nothing but admiration for the hard work, ambition and astonishing tenacity of the Chinese people, as they study, work and dream their way to lives their parents and grandparents could never have known.

      But, and it is a big but, I have real problems with the idea that because Europe is in relative decline, we have no right to promote our values.

      Values are not proved right or wrong by the wealth or growth of the economies behind them. Today’s Chinese arguments amount to a boast that their model of 21st century autocracy is being proved objectively superior by China’s economic and strategic rise.

      Many people would argue that China is rising (at least in part) despite its autocratic model, which ignores such important drivers of success as meritocracy, transparency, and the promotion of creative and innovative thinking. I would argue that an alternative history of the past 30 years of Chinese Communism might be this: if you abandon some of the most economically destructive policies ever devised and stop kicking the Chinese economy, it will stand up and be rather big.

      We in Europe are far from saintly, and we certainly have a lot of structural problems that need to be addressed. But here is a question: what if we in Europe are worth listening precisely because we made so many mistakes in our glory days? Mistakes that echo many of today’s Chinese policies.

      We in Europe have tried mercantilism, militarism, statism, corporatism and inculcating our youths with angry nationalism. We know all about the model of state-driven investment (as do the Japanese, another declining power the Chinese like to disdain). And we know its wisdom is far from proven in the long run, thanks to problems of misallocated resources, weaknesses in the banking system, pollution and the like.

      We in Europe thought it was a good idea to scramble after African resources, first by grabbing them then in the post-colonial period by extending vast loans to murderous kleptocracies. And we were right when, far too late in the day, we decided to do less of that, and try to promote good governance in Africa.

      Plenty of European countries also used to be dictatorships, which jailed dissidents and systematically suppressed bad news. And so Europeans remember the low quality of government and administration that you get when you lack democratic checks and balances. We know to be deeply sceptical when non-democratic regimes say they are self-policing.

      In short, throughout the bloody centuries of European rule and misrule over large chunks of the world, we tried a lot of things that were both wicked, and ultimately self-defeating. Now, and perhaps only because we are in the twilight of our power, Europeans believe we have learned some bitter lessons about values.

      October 20, 2009, 11:43 am

    2. Martinned says:

      More importantly, another one of my favourite bloggers, the Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman, used his column recently to explain why (and how) Europe is going to take over the world:

      (…)
      Jean Monnet, the founding father of the EU, believed that European unity was “not an end in itself, but only a stage on the way to the organised world of tomorrow”. His successors in Brussels make no secret of the fact that they regard the Union’s brand of supranational governance as a global model.

      The realisation that the G20 is Europe’s Trojan horse struck me at the G20’s last summit in Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago. The surroundings and atmosphere were strangely familiar. And then I understood; I was back in Brussels, and this was just a global version of a European Union summit.

      It was the same drill and format. The leaders’ dinner the night before the summit; a day spent negotiating an impenetrable, jargon-stuffed communiqué; the setting-up of obscure working groups; the national briefing rooms for the post-summit press conferences.

      All of these procedures are deeply familiar to European leaders – but rather new to the Asian and American leaders whom the Europeans are carefully entangling in this new structure. Watching an Indonesian delegate wandering, apparently carefree, through the conference centre in Pittsburgh, I felt a stab of pity. “You don’t know what you are getting into,” I thought. “You are going to waste the rest of your life talking about fish quotas.” (Or, this being the G20, carbon-emission quotas.)

      The Europeans did not just set the tone at the G20 – they also dominate proceedings, since they are grossly over-represented. Huge countries such as Brazil, China, India and the US are represented by one leader each. The Europeans managed to secure eight slots around the conference table for Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, the president of the European Commission and the president of the European Council. Most of the key international civil servants present were also Europeans: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund; Pascal Lamy of the World Trade Organisation; Mario Draghi of the Financial Stability Board.

      As a result, the Europeans seemed much more tuned into what was going on than some of the other delegations. Puzzling over the new powers given to the IMF to monitor national economic policies in the Pittsburgh conclusions, I was interrupted by an old friend from the European Commission, who recognised the language immediately. “Ah yes,” she said, “the open method of co-ordination.”

      But does any of this really matter? After all, EU summits and statements have become a byword for tortuous and ineffective machinations that often have little real-world effect. The process that gave birth to the Lisbon treaty started eight years ago. Even after Ireland’s Yes vote, Lisbon could still be derailed by recalcitrant governments in the Czech Republic or Britain.

      However, the saga of Lisbon can be read another way. Once the EU gets its teeth into an issue, it never really lets go. Processes started at EU summits – which often seem minor bits of bureaucratic paper-shuffling – often turn out to have important political implications, years later. The same could well be true of some of the decisions made in Pittsburgh – such as the language on tax havens and bankers’ bonuses.

      From the very start, the EU advanced through small, apparently technical, steps focusing on economic issues – the so-called “Monnet method”. Monnet himself believed that Europe would be built through “the common management of common problems”. Is this so very different from President Barack Obama’s recent appeal for “global solutions to global problems”?

      Of course, there is still a huge gap between the capabilities of the modern EU and those of the G20. There is no army of G20 civil servants to match the bureaucrats of Brussels. There is no body of G20 law and no G20 court to enforce the group’s decisions. Nor is there much immediate prospect that the US or China – both countries that zealously guard their sovereignty – will cede any serious powers to a G20 law-making body.

      Yet the kernel of something new has been created. To understand its potential, it is worth going back to the Schuman Declaration of 1950, which started the process of European integration. “Europe,” it said, “will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements, which first create a de facto solidarity.”

      The G20 now has some achievements and a burgeoning sense of solidarity between the members of this new, most exclusive, club. Who knows what comes next?

      October 20, 2009, 11:47 am

    3. Steven Zoraster says:

      When does the post-Lisbon Treaty EU, with its own president and foreign minister, give up its multiple seats at various international organizations such as the UN, UN Security Council, NATO, IMF, etc? If I was President of the US, I would asked that question in public. If only to cause confusion in Brussels. And Paris, London, Warsaw, Berlin and Madrid, etc. It would also be a serious question.

      October 20, 2009, 1:04 pm

    4. Martinned says:

      Steven Zoraster: When does the post-Lisbon Treaty EU, with its own president and foreign minister, give up its multiple seats at various international organizations such as the UN, UN Security Council, NATO, IMF, etc? If I was President of the US, I would asked that question in public. If only to cause confusion in Brussels. And Paris, London, Warsaw, Berlin and Madrid, etc. It would also be a serious question.

      Fair enough question. But then, what would we get in return? I don’t even get why the West (US included) agreed to reduce its influence in the IMF and the World Bank last month. Why would you do such a thing without getting something in return?

      NATO is a separate question, because military matters are only to a limited extent an EU competence. (Not to mention that Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, and Austria aren’t even members of NATO.)

      I can see the UK and France giving up their UN security council permanent seat for the benefit of the EU, but only as part of a comprehensive reform, with Brazil and India getting a permanent seat as well. In that case, the offsetting benefit would be that it would be a huge favour to Germany, who reasonably feel they are entitled to a permanent seat, but who can’t get one for themselves without hopelessly cluttering up the place. For Germany, having an EU security council seat is the next best thing to have one for themselves.

      October 20, 2009, 1:15 pm

    5. The River Temoc says:

      Values are not proved right or wrong by the wealth or growth of the economies behind them.

      But wasn’t this one of the strongest arguments against communism — that empirically it provided a terrible living standard for people, that the “workers’ paradise” was anything but?

      This was the central argument of Zbig Brzezinski’s book THE GRAND FAILURE, for instance. I recognize, of course, that one can make other arguments against communism, such as that it degrades the inherent worth of the individual. But pie-in-the-sky arguments often appeal less than bread-and-butter ones. IIRC, Alan Garcia, a former Peruvian president, was initially pro-Soviet but abruptly turned away from communism when he returned to power for a second time because “this economic system just isn’t working.”

      Similarly, what about the current debate about healthcare delivery in the U.S.? The argument seems to be one of pragmatism (“the status quo just isn’t working”) versus ideological arguments about the role of government in society. The former are going to prove more compelling, I think, because the Republicans just don’t have a good answer to the question, “so, do *you* think there’s anything wrong with our healthcare system under the status quo, and how would *you* fix it”? For the most part (yes, there are some exceptions), the Republicans have provided few alternatives.

      I’m not taking a stance here on whether the EU is actually in decline, or whether China perceives it as such.

      October 20, 2009, 1:47 pm

    6. midasear says:

      The River Temoc: I’m not taking a stance here on whether the EU is actually in decline, or whether China perceives it as such.

      It’s not the EU that’s in decline. It’s fairly obvious that the EU is doing very well currently.

      As for the EU’s member societies…well….that’s another question.

      October 20, 2009, 2:19 pm

    7. Barrister's Handshake says:

      Very interesting, although your book wins the award for worst book cover post-1970.

      October 20, 2009, 2:20 pm

    8. PubliusFL says:

      Martinned: Fair enough question. But then, what would we get in return?

      No separate UN seats for California, New York, Texas, etc.? ;)

      October 20, 2009, 2:23 pm

    9. Martinned says:

      The River Temoc: Values are not proved right or wrong by the wealth or growth of the economies behind them.But wasn’t this one of the strongest arguments against communism — that empirically it provided a terrible living standard for people, that the “workers’ paradise” was anything but?

      Sure, but if it had been a “workers’ paradise”, communism would still have been wrong. (That’s more or less Charlemagne’s point about China.) Now, they weren’t only dictators, they were lying dictators to boot.

      October 20, 2009, 2:36 pm

    10. Martinned says:

      PubliusFL: No separate UN seats for California, New York, Texas, etc.?

      That’s my point exactly: no such change can be made without everybody agreeing. The idea of unanimity is that you throw however many issues together in however much detail and nuance it takes to get everybody an improvement compared to the status quo. That’s how EU treaties work, for example. The Irish weren’t satisfied with what they got in Lisbon, so after the first Irish referendum they got an extra protocol. Most recently, the president of the Czech republic wants an extra footnote to make sure the ethnic Germans who got kicked out of Czechoslovakia after World War II can’t come back and sue. You keep tinkering until everyone is better off than under the status quo.

      So why give away power in the UN or the IMF without getting something in return? Because it’s the nice thing to do?

      October 20, 2009, 2:39 pm

    11. Martinned says:

      midasear: It’s not the EU that’s in decline. It’s fairly obvious that the EU is doing very well currently.As for the EU’s member societies…well….that’s another question.

      Compared to China, everyone’s in (relative) decline.

      October 20, 2009, 2:40 pm

    12. Mark N. says:

      The River Temoc: Values are not proved right or wrong by the wealth or growth of the economies behind them.But wasn’t this one of the strongest arguments against communism — that empirically it provided a terrible living standard for people, that the “workers’ paradise” was anything but?This was the central argument of Zbig Brzezinski’s book THE GRAND FAILURE, for instance.

      It actually seems like a particularly weak argument, to me. If one nation were unquestionably better than another one in every way in its social organization, except that it had a lower standard of material wealth, I would hardly consider that a good refutation of its policies. The main problem with the USSR, I hope, wasn’t an inability to provide its citizens with as many televisions, cars, and suburban homes as the United States did. If that was its only problem, and in every other way it were some sort of paradise, it wouldn’t have been a very bad country after all.

      October 20, 2009, 5:01 pm

    13. midasear says:

      Martinned: Compared to China, everyone’s in (relative) decline.

      Just wait ’til the Yaun-Dollar peg finally breaks.

      October 20, 2009, 5:25 pm

    14. TheBadness says:

      midasear: Just wait ’til the Yaun-Dollar peg finally breaks.

      I hear the Elders of Zion have set a date: December 21, 2012.

      October 20, 2009, 5:45 pm

    15. Malvolio says:

      Martinned: if it had been a “workers’ paradise”, communism would still have been wrong.

      Is that true? If communism had really provided the material victory over want and privation that its proponents promised (and revoltingly, continue to promise), are you absolutely certain that the sacrifices of (what they call “bourgeois”) freedoms would not have been worthwhile?

      Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending communism but I for one feel much more comfortable criticizing it for the huge gap between its rosy promises and the grisly reality than establishing an abstract, non-materialistic standard and measuring communism by that.

      That said, I am aware of the special pleading involved in saying that the EU’s shortcoming are because of its theoretical defects, while China’s success has been despite its defects (not because they got right what Europe got wrong), even though I know that’s that case.

      Whenever I get uncertain on this issue, I recall 1990, when I spent a lot of time trying to explain to everyone that Japan’s corporatist model was doomed in the long run. Less difficult to convince people of that today, and I hope that 2030 will find me glad that Europe and China both managed to ditch the collectivist policies that were wrecking them.

      October 20, 2009, 5:56 pm

    16. Martinned says:

      an abstract, non-materialistic standard

      You mean like free and fair elections? Rule of law? A bill of rights?

      October 20, 2009, 6:01 pm

    17. Martinned says:

      That said, I am aware of the special pleading involved in saying that the EU’s shortcoming are because of its theoretical defects, while China’s success has been despite its defects (not because they got right what Europe got wrong), even though I know that’s that case.

      Help me out here, please. What shortcomings are you talking about when you’re talking about the EU? Its (alleged) democratic deficit? Or its (alleged) tendency towards “collectivism”?

      October 20, 2009, 6:03 pm

    18. The River Temoc says:

      The main problem with the USSR, I hope, wasn’t an inability to provide its citizens with as many televisions, cars, and suburban homes as the United States did.

      The USSR had many problems, to be sure, but I think it was precisely its inability to provide consumer goods (and to spur technological innovation) that did it in. The reason why almost no one in the West foresaw the USSR’s collapse was an almost myopic focus on the dissident movement, and almost none at all on the dissatisfaction of consumers (save perhaps the famous “kitchen debate” between Nixon and Khrushchev).

      October 20, 2009, 6:35 pm

    19. Ten Four says:

      So why give away power in the UN or the IMF without getting something in return? Because it’s the nice thing to do?

      The most obvious answer is that Obama is playing for the other side, i.e. not the US. If you assume that his goals are to weaken the US in favor of … well really just about anyone, but specifically any “international” organization … then a lot of otherwise inexplicable things the current administration is doing make perfect sense.

      October 21, 2009, 1:13 am

    20. Mark N. says:

      Ten Four: So why give away power in the UN or the IMF without getting something in return? Because it’s the nice thing to do?

      The most obvious answer is that Obama is playing for the other side, i.e. not the US.If you assume that his goals are to weaken the US in favor of … well really just about anyone, but specifically any “international” organization… then a lot of otherwise inexplicable things the current administration is doing make perfect sense.

      Your haste to gratuitously attack Obama must’ve caused you to misread here, because we were talking about the prospects of the European Union giving up seats, and Obama is not president of the EU. The argument further up the thread was that “the post-Lisbon Treaty EU, with its own president and foreign minister, [ought to] give up its multiple seats at various international organizations”, since it’s in effect acting like a single nation state, so should get the representation of one. The counter-argument was basically: why should it, unless it gets something in return? None of this has much to do with Obama.

      October 21, 2009, 2:40 am

    21. bgates says:

      None of this has much to do with Obama.

      Your reflexive defense of Obama must’ve caused you to misread there, since Ten Four was clearly replying to the commenter who wrote, “I don’t even get why the West (US included) agreed to reduce its influence in the IMF and the World Bank last month”, and then switched from asking the rhetorical question (as a European) “what would we get in return” to asking (other, mostly American commenters) “Why would you do such a thing without getting something in return?”

      So, no, aside from the guy who asked why the US was doing what it’s been doing recently and the guy who answered him, none of this has much to do with Obama.

      October 21, 2009, 3:24 am

    22. Martinned says:

      bgates: None of this has much to do with Obama.Your reflexive defense of Obama must’ve caused you to misread there, since Ten Four was clearly replying to the commenter who wrote, “I don’t even get why the West (US included) agreed to reduce its influence in the IMF and the World Bank last month”, and then switched from asking the rhetorical question (as a European) “what would we get in return” to asking (other, mostly American commenters) “Why would you do such a thing without getting something in return?”So, no, aside from the guy who asked why the US was doing what it’s been doing recently and the guy who answered him, none of this has much to do with Obama.

      Well, half right. There’s no suggestion of the US giving up power in the UN. But for the IMF all this works fine.

      October 21, 2009, 7:20 am

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      October 22, 2009, 7:15 am