International seminar “A New World Political Architecture”

   A session of the World Political Forum under the chairmanship of M.S. Gorbachev opened an international seminar on October 27-28 in Bosco Marengo (Piedmont, Italy). The topic of the seminar was “A New Political Architecture”.
     The seminar was attended by prominent politicians, the heads of international organizations, well-known experts and public representatives from different regions of the world. During two days of the event held in Santa Croce monastery the participants attending the plenary sessions and working groups discussed the following topics: “The World in Crisis – Challenges, Conflicts and New Actors”, “Safeguarding Security for States and Citizens”, “A Reform of International Organizations” and a few more.
     In his opening address M.S. Gorbachev said among other things: “After the end of the Cold War which became an outstanding achievement of the 20th century international community has confronted new problems. Some of them are connected with the intensification of political processes and a rampant globalization of the world. Other problems came about because politics could not cope with the accelerated pace of history and because of the attempts to achieve fundamentally new objectives with obsolescent methods...
     ...Alongside hopeful changes one can also witness a revival of old approaches and a recurrence of old thinking, reliance on terror and the use of force, unilateral actions that bring about tragedies for millions of people and drive policy and politicians into a deadlock. International structures generated by the former epoch cannot cope with the new objectives, and we can see them loosing efficiency and authority.
     Today we are no longer talking of a “world disorder” but, instead, of a true crisis in world politics, and one can hardly argue against this term in the context of what is now happening in Iraq, Palestine, in Iran, North Korea as well as in many other regions of the world. Deadlocks where the world has been driven by the lunatic attempts to solve present-day world problems with old methods based on force, on old approaches and unilateral actions are not only obvious but also fraught with political disasters. A fundamental change in the direction and methods of doing world politics has become an urgent categorical imperative....”   
    Participants in the discussion believed that the prevailing alarming situation was due to the fact that the international community did not properly comprehend and discuss unprecedented changes and drew no conclusions from past experience. It was affirmed, among other things, that in the new world situation true security was inconceivable without the maintenance of justice, equality, development and without combating poverty or, in other words, without solving social issues. Therefore, security, having absorbed the demand to safeguard security of an INDIVIDUAL, became part and parcel of the problem of human right to life, dignity and acceptable conditions of existence, i.e. with the problem of DEMOCRACY.
 
     Many participants in this discussion pointed to the need to discuss not only various aspects of the possible world order, i.e. not only WHAT is to be changed, but also HOW this should be done in order to engage different actors in the process of world PERESTROIKA, – ranging from states and international organizations to different political forces, the representatives of civil society, media, religious and public organizations, - all those who were given a chance to participate in political processes and in world history as a result of stopping the absurdity of a nuclear confrontation between two powers and the rampant processes of globalization.   
     At the closing plenary session the participants in the seminar compared the outlines of a possible future new world political architecture and, at the same time, voiced their ideas as to the methods of its elaboration and the stages of movement thereto. International civil society – non-governmental organizations, associations of citizens, public initiatives centers – is called upon to become an important and indispensable participant of world policy. 
     “Brainstorming” that took place in Bosco Marengo resulted in the proposal to begin a broad international discussion a couple of years that may later culminate in the convocation of a broader and more representative international forum at the initiative of the World Political Forum involving not only experts but also acting politicians, the heads of major international organizations beginning with the UN as well as the representatives of civil society.