Polictics and governance - global

Contents

• One view
• United Nations
• WTO - WCO - WEF - Worldbank
• OECD
• G7
• Animals
• Further views

• UN - United Nations - 189 member states (2001)
• Peace keeping, food programmes
• Health, vaccinations, etc
• Sustainable development, trade, intellectual property
• Cross-border organised crime, refugees
• Maritime law and operations
• Atomic energy, toxic chemicals
• International telecommunications
• UN - Cyberschoolbus - excellent overview of the world in tables and graphs
• UNDP - United Nations Development Program - Human Dev Index

E.g. HDI 2004 - top 10 only

1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Sweden
4. Australia
5. Netherlands
6. Belgium
7. US
8. Canada
9. Japan
10. Switzerland
Further (random selection): 18 Germany, 22 Israel, 24 Greece, 28 Singapore, 41 Estonia, 52 Cuba, 58 Malaysia, 172 Mali, ...
• UN - Security Council
• Counter-Terrorism Committee, Non-Proliferation Committee, Military Staff Committee, Sanctions Committees
• Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations, Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, Ad Hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa
• UN - Counter Terrorism
• UN - International Criminal Court (The Hague)
• UN - United Nations' IT services
• 50.000 staff worldwide
• facilities in Geneva, New York and Rome
• UNCITRAL - United Nations Commission on International Trade Law
• established in 1966 as a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly with the mandate to further the harmonization and unification of the law of international trade
• has since prepared a range of conventions, model laws and other instruments dealing with the substantive law that governs trade transactions or other aspects of business law which have an impact on international trade
• meets once a year, typically in summer, alternatively in New York and in Vienna
• has 6 Working Groups:
  • Working Group I - Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
  • Working Group II - Arbitration and Conciliation / Dispute Settlement
  • Working Group III - Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform - includes on-line dispute resolution and Transboundary Trust Spaces (TTS)
  • Working Group IV - Electronic Commerce - includes Electronically Transferable Records (ETR) and identity and trust management
  • WG IV meetings and minutes
  • Working Group V - Insolvency Law
  • Working Group VI - Judicial Sale of Ships
  • Other Groups: Privately Financed Infrastructure Projects
• UNECE - United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
• UNECE's CEFACT - UN Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business
• UN/CEFACT is subsidiary, intergovernmental body of UNECE
• serves as a focal point within the UN's Economic and Social Council for trade facilitation recommendations and electronic business standards
• publishes
• recommendations (eg Rec 14 on authentication of trade documents)
• standards (eg UNLOCO United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations, Biz Req Specs (eg of transfer of custody of digital records, of ledger and audit, of supply chain, etc)
• technical specifications
• guidance material
• 'publications'
• includes white papers on technologies such as blockchain
• UNCTAD - United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

WTO - WCOOMD - WEF - Worldbank

• WTO - 150 members - multilateral trading agreements amongst countries
• WCO - World Customs Organisation
• WEF - World Economic Forum - NGO, founded in 1971
• Worldbank.org

OECD

• OECD - some 30 current members

  From OECD reports - some sample GDP's for 2002 (in billion dollars, prices and exchange rates 2004-01) and population

  • US: 10.383,1 US$ - 285 million persons
  • JP: 3.987,5 US$ - 127 million
  • DE: 1.986,2 US$ - 82 million
  • UK: 1.564,6 US$ - 59 million
  • NL: 418,5 US$ - 16 million
  • BE: 244,7 US$ - 10 million
  • GR: 133 US$ - 10 million
  • IL: 103 US$ - 6 million (UN estimate - year 2000)
  • CU: 24 US$ - 11 million (UN estimate - year 2000)

G7

G7 organisation

• G7 Wikipedia
• G7/8 information centre - UTORONTO

Animals

• CIWF.org.uk - Compassion in World Farming
• CIWF.nl

Further views

Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)

• The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) Regulatory Oversight Committee (ROC)
• GLEIF.org, the Global LEI Foundation, supports the implementation and use of the LEI, is overseen by the LEIROC
• LEI resolver - ref Robert Trypuz
• OpenCorporates.com
• FactForge - includes a.o. info on companies on the basis of GLEIs

Other

• US - Governance Metrics International
• riverbendblog.blogspot.com
• WorldWatch.org
• MichaelMoore.com
• UPU - Universal Post Union - also XML for e-services
• OPEC
• ISO
• WIPO
• MIRA - Registration Holders a la Sabam

OpenSource and Government

• eGovOS.org - The Center of Open Source and Government