GLOBAL ISSUES -- new challenges, new approaches.

• Author: Goff, Phil
• Position: Statistical Data Included

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Phil Goff calls for a wide-ranging New Zealand response to the problems confronting it in the new century.

The problems we confront in the 21st century have one thing in common -- we cannot solve them by national action or legislation. Nor can we solve them solely through traditional patterns of government relations and diplomacy. Most of all, we cannot afford to ignore them.

Take the latest report of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change. It forecasts major changes to the Earth's climate system, including, on a worst case scenario, increases in global surface temperatures of up to six degrees for the next century. That could mean three-quarters of a metre increase in global sea levels. For Pacific Island neighbours such as Tuvalu and Kiribati, that elevates the issue of climate change to one of national survival.

Four million people were killed by small arms in the 1990s. Most of these weapons were illicitly traded through global networks. We face transnational crime, people smuggling, money laundering, drug trafficking and the spread of HIV-Aids. These are just some of a growing range of issues that threaten every country.

In tomorrow's world, New Zealand's stability and prosperity will depend on how the international community is able to work together to pursue those issues that transcend national boundaries. Of course, we will always pursue our national aims. But increasingly, we have an added responsibility to look globally -- not simply out of altruism -- but out of hard self-interest because these issues will impact on our security and prosperity.

The rapid emergence of these problems demands that we tackle them in new ways because they are beyond any one of us to resolve alone.

Some of the global challenges New Zealand faces in foreign affairs will be outlined in this article. They require of us new ways of approaching problems. First, we need to build the views of civil society more closely into government policy. And second we need to build effective multilateral agreements to address the issues that will confront us in the 21st century.

Civil society

Traditionally, international issues have been left largely to our diplomats. That is no longer sufficient. The old distinctions between domestic and international affairs are no longer so easy to draw. For a start, governments have lost their monopoly of international relations and there are new players to be acknowledged and drawn into the search for solutions.

Businesses are truly trans-national. Non-governmental organisations and community groups, linked through the Internet and by an international media and network of contacts, are a formidable force -- either to push for progress or to hold it back.

Non-government players with principles and ideas can and should be brought more closely into constructive partnerships with government. They have much to contribute. The progress on the landmines campaign that led to the 1997 Convention on Anti-Personnel Mines came about from the power of non-governmental organisations pushing for their ban. The forthcoming meeting in July on the control of trafficking in illicit small arms is spearheaded by non-governmental organisations in a union with some governments that a few years ago might have been unthinkable.

Of course, there is a limit to how far government policies can -- or should -- go to satisfy interest groups. But working together builds not only a better understanding of the...