John Kerry and Founder Klaus Schaub at "Breaking the impasse" meeting on Middle East, World Economic Forum, Davos, 2014. Wikicommons/US Dept.of State. Public domain.Prompted by the uncertainties regarding the stability of globalisation, in 2009 the World Economic Forum (WEF) convened an international expert group to formulate a new system of global governance. One of the concepts proposed by WEF for its aptly named ‘Global Redesign Initiative’ (GRI) is a system of multi-stakeholder governance as a partial replacement for intergovernmental decision-making.[1]
Over the 18 months of the GRI programme, WEF created 40 Global Agenda Councils and industry-sector bodies to craft a range of theme-specific governance proposals. Each Council consisted of a mix of the corporate, academic, government, entertainment, religious, civil society, and academic worlds.[2] Their 600-page report centres on these thematic proposals, plus a series of policy essays and organising principles that lay out the WEF framework for a multi-stakeholder governance system.
What is ingenious and disturbing is that the WEF multi-stakeholder governance proposal does not require approval or disapproval by any intergovernmental body. Absent any intergovernmental action, the informal transition to ‘Multi-stakeholder governance’ (MSG) as a partial replacement for multilateralism can just happen.
