Project Expert

Miles Kahler

Senior Fellow for Global Governance

About the Project

In the past two decades, and at an accelerating pace during the past ten years, global governance has witnessed innovations that diverge from the model of formal, intergovernmental organizations. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and private corporations have joined national and local governments in new governance arrangements. Rather than producing formal intergovernmental agreements, governance has taken a variety of formats, such as industry codes, best practices, and soft law.  Though distinct from traditional multilateral governance, these new forms of governance often work in tandem with governments (at all levels) and in coordination with multilateral organizations.

These innovations raise important questions of accountability, effectiveness, and suitability for specific issue-areas that lie at the center of the project. Given recent political developments in the United Kingdom and the United States, the response of these new forms of governance to possible withdrawal from or reconfiguration of support for multilateral governance on the part of leading national governments will also be highlighted. Such a shift by national governments could promote and deepen support for new forms of global governance. On the other hand, a less friendly political environment could test the resilience of these governance innovations.

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Fossil Fuels

As oil rigs and coal plants churn on, national emissions targets grow increasingly disingenuous and infeasible. To prevent the worst implications of the climate crisis, it is time to target the supply side of the world's dirty fuel addiction. 

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