The paper develops a critical analysis of deliberative approaches to global governance. After first defining global governance and with a minimalist conception of deliberation in mind, the paper outlines three paradigmatic approaches: liberal, cosmopolitan, and critical. The possibilities and problems of each approach are examined and a common concern with the scope for “deliberative reflection” in global governance is addressed. It is argued that each approach, to varying degrees, foregrounds the currently underdetermined state of knowledge about global governance, its key institutions, agents, and practices. In doing so, the question “ What is global governance?” is retained as an important and reflective element of ongoing deliberative practices. It is suggested that this constitutes the distinctive and vital insight of deliberative approaches to global governance.

The notorious Bybee Memorandum produced by the Bush Administration in 2002 defends the use of coercive interrogation by (among other things) arguing that torturing terrorists in order to prevent future harm could be justified as a form of “self-defense.” This argument relies on a recent and little-known theory of self-defense that I call the “distributive justice” theory. The goal of this essay is to demonstrate that distributive justice is a flawed theory of self-defense and must be rejected, thus undercutting the argument that torture can be justified as self-defense. Harm inflicted on a person who is in custody and no longer able to commit further acts of violence cannot plausibly be considered a form of self-defense.

Many intergovernmental organizations (IOs) have recently established offices of internal oversight. Yet scandals such as the one surrounding the Oil-for-Food Program in the United Nations have revealed serious flaws in the design of these institutions, especially their lack of independence from top administrators of the bureaucracies that they are supposed to oversee. This study argues that this is due, in great part, to the initial use of an imperfect domestic model. It shows that, in addition to using a flawed model as a starting point for negotiations, states and IO officials intentionally weakened oversight offices even more. The study argues that member-states need to quickly give such offices increased independence in order to make them more effective and to avoid the continued erosion of the legitimacy of IOs.

Since the early 1990s, a variety of African and Western governments alike have often suggested that finding “African solutions to African problems” represents the best approach to keeping the peace in Africa. Not only does the empirical evidence from post-Cold War Africa suggest that there are some fundamental problems with this approach, it also rests upon some problematic normative commitments. Specifically in relation to the problem of armed conflict, the “African solutions” logic would have at least three negative consequences: it would undermine the UN; it would provide a convenient excuse for powerful Western states that wished to avoid sending their own soldiers to peace operations in Africa; and it would help African autocrats fend off international, especially Western, criticism of their policies. After providing an overview of the constituent elements of the “African solutions” approach, this article sets out in general terms the central problems with it before turning to a specific illustration of how these problems affected the international responses to the ongoing war in Darfur, Sudan. Instead of searching for “African solutions”, policymakers should focus on developing effective solutions for the complex challenges raised by the issue of armed conflict in Africa. To this end, Western states in general and the P-3 in particular should give greater support to conflict management activities undertaken by the United Nations, develop clearer guidelines for how these should relate to regional initiatives, and facilitate the efforts of civic associations to build the foundations for stable peace in the continent's war zones.