THE PLANETARY INTEREST.

• Author: CAPIE, DAVID
• Position: Review

THE PLANETARY INTEREST Edited by: Kennedy Graham Published by: University College London (UCL) Press, London, 1999, 289pp.

In the past ten years the lexicon of international relations has seen a remarkable proliferation in concepts of security. In an attempt to deal with the challenges of the post-Cold War agenda notions of common, co-operative, comprehensive and human security have been put forward. These share a common recognition that many of the security threats that face the world today do not originate from, and are not easily contained within, the territory of a single nation-state. Environmental degradation or infectious disease do not respect national borders. Global warming, nuclear proliferation, the prevention of mass human rights violations -- these are not concerns that can best be dealt with unilaterally. Rather, they point to the need for new thinking about security and co-operation -- and highlight the need for a new conceptual vocabulary upon which to base practical action. It is this kind of reasoning that underpins New Zealander Kennedy Graham's new edited volume, The Planetary Interest.

As its title suggests, the book urges the adoption of a new concept -- the planetary interest -- capable of underpinning a policy agenda to deal with the global challenges that now face the world. Such challenges include climate change, forest management, disarmament and sustainable development. These concerns are discussed by a truly international cast of contributors -- twenty-two authors, from every continent, from micro-states such as the Maldives, to great powers like China and the United States.

Unconventional notions like the planetary interest tend to set off alarm bells for the sceptical practitioner of international relations. The failures of the League of Nations and plans for world government are quickly summoned to mind. But any reader fearing a descent into the naive idealism of the inter-war years is quickly put at ease. The planetary interest is not advanced here as some sort of alternative to the ubiquitous notion of national interest. The authors do not expect the nation-state to disappear overnight, nor do they want it to. Rather, their work suggests that the planetary interest can sit above the notion of the national interest. In a thoughtful introductory chapter, Graham suggests `something concerns the planetary interest if it materially affects, not necessarily uniformly, the planet as opposed to the region or the...