Report about the ACUNS ASIL Summer Workshop 2008
"Building the Knowledge Base for Global Governance"
held at Ljubljana, Slowenia, July 23 to August 2, 2008

by Julia Harfensteller

General Information about the program

Every year, the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) and the American Society of International Law (ASIL) organize a workshop for UN practitioners and academics alike.

For more information see ACUNS website at: http://www.acuns.org/programsan/acunsasils

Information on the 2008 Workshop

This year's workshop was held in Ljubljana in cooperation with the Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office Ljubljana.

For more information, see http://www.acuns.org/programsan/acunsasils/summer~15

Summary and experiences

Following questions/problems were discussed by the workshop participants:

1. The Concept of Global Governance (GG)

• Why did the concept of GG surge? Why was it necessary to replace the commonly used concept of "international relations" with a new term?
• Does the conceptual shift reflect social change or does social change induce conceptual change? 
• What is the meaning of Global Governance?  What does it refer to? Does it refer to new phenomena or problems in our world? What are new phenomena and are they really as new as we claim them to be? For example can terrorism and global warming be viewed as new problems/phenomena?
• Normative dimension: Does the concept of Global Governance refer to something which does not yet exist?

2. The knowledge base of Global Governance

• What is knowledge? (different kinds of knowledge: know how, know to, etc.)
• What are the problems of a Global Governance knowledge (base)? --> knowledge is not neutral; it is not general/universal; unequal access to (Global Governance) knowledge

3. The role Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for a GG knowledgebase

• ICts offer new opportunities in the transfer and dissemination of knowledge
• Problems related to ICTs: ICts are not accessible by all people in the world; they make it possible to disseminate distorted/manipulated information
• Do new media catalyze the power of civil society? or are new media tools of powerful governments?

4. The practitioners-academics-dichotomy

• Do practitioners and academics have different views on the UN?
• Does the practitioners-academics divide also reflect the difference between "insider-outsider-view" or realist-idealist attitude  towards the UN?
• Does the dichotomy of practitioners-academics make sense in view of UN practitioners working as lecturers at universities or vice versa, academics working within the UN?
• What can practitioners and academics learn from each other/ offer each other?

5. What is the UN?

• Is it "the power of member states" or is it more than the member states influence?