Global public goods are hard to define. Even though, there is a consensus about the definitions of public goods and collective goods, there exists different approaches. Public goods are supposed to be available for all and they are characterized by two principles: non-rivalry, which means that the consumption of the good by a person does not prevent its consumption by another one, and non-excludability, that means that no one can be excluded from the consumption of the good. When a good does not fulfill these two characteristics, then the public good is impure. One typical example of public good is the traffic control system or national security, which benefits all the citizens in a country. Public goods can be regional, national or even global. Thus, global public goods are a set of international goods whose benefits are supposed to be enjoyed by the governments and the people of all states. Many examples of global public goods exist, for instance, scientific knowledge leading to the discovery of a vaccine, international mechanisms ensuring financial stability, regulations for telecommunications, and so on. Still, there is not a steady consensus about what the term 'global public good' means. Indeed, even though international financial stability, peace, world security, fighting global pandemics of HIV are global public goods, we are not sure to include whether or not other principles like food security, social protection or international political stability.
[...] Finally, after studying the obstacles impeding the provision of global public goods, both on the international and national scale, it is now important to mention the strategies that exist to improve the allocation of these goods. Many new solutions were discussed to manage the production of global public goods. First, it has been thought that appointing national issue ambassadors would be a good deal to inform better the states of the importance of some global public good and would encourage their participation. [...]
[...] Hence, the “weakest link” problem is a long-term issue of cooperation. At the national level, there are also many problems hindering the efficient allocation of global public goods. The first important issue is related to the countries sovereignty. Often, governments decide not to sign an agreement or not to respect an international rule because that would limit their sovereign power of decision making. Their sovereignty would be constrained if they accepted binding rules in a global agreement, or an international monitoring of their compliance with this agreement. [...]
[...] Hence, here, we will try to answer this question: what are the main obstacles to the provision of Global Public Goods? To do so, we will first identify the international issues before arguing about the problems on the national scale. Then, we will study the different solutions and strategies that are proposed to tackle these obstacles and to provide Global public goods sufficiently. In this part, we will study the obstacles to the provision of Global public goods on the international scale, notably the free-rider problem. [...]
[...] This difficulty we have to precisely identify what are global public goods comes from the fact that this notion was built over “social constructs”. In spite of a certain theoretical consensus about this notion, on a more pragmatic level, the definition is different because it will not include the same things in a country or in another. Thus, the concept of global public goods expresses political, social, economic and ethical values. It is then obvious that its meaning evolves. Therefore, while the traditional class of global public goods includes “external” and “at-the-border” issues (such as trade tariffs, military security), the new class of global public goods cut across borders and needs a international policy convergence to be provided (clean air, financial stability,, health, etc.). [...]
[...] The very one solution to the efficient provision of global public goods is obviously cooperation, but nations being self interested, we need to create institutions. By institutionalizing this cooperation, we will finally manage the sufficient provision of global public goods and, at the same time, we would create entities of control. Many solutions have been thought both on the national and international level, but in the end, the very one ingredient we desperately need is cooperation. Bibliography Books/documents _Albert BINGER, Global public goods and potential mechanisms for financing availability, background paper prepared for the fifth session of the committee for development policy, 2003; _Isabelle GRUNBERG et Inge KAUL, Global public goods: international cooperation in the 21st century, Oxford University Press _Inge KAUL, Governing Global public goods in a multi-actor world: the role of the United Nations, 2000; _Inge KAUL, Why do global [...]
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