Research on Global Contracts

The origins of research on global contracts can be found in the works of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). In his essay on “Perpetual Peace” in 1795, Kant already pointed out that peace is not possible without a contract of the peoples among themselves.

If Rousseau’s social contract is transferred to the global level, it means that the individuals have to agree on such a global social contract.

More recently, Ernst Heinrichsohn formulated a suggestion of a global contract with concrete articles, which strongly follows the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.

In 2003, Hady Fink did an internship with the Global Contract Foundation, and after that wrote his diploma thesis on “Global Contracts – Key for Sustainability?”. He writes that in his opinion, what matters most is a kind of global social contract which is made up of many global contracts. According to him, when several win-win situations have arisen at the same time, a global social contract based on them can be negotiated, producing a system of global contracts.

In 2004, Armin Frey developed the first definition of the concept “global contract” and applied it to the Montreal Protocol. He lists eight elements of a global contract and comes to the conclusion that the Montreal Protocol with its various amendments represents a global contract of a high quality. In his opinion, a global social contract can only result in the long run and as a consquence of various global contracts.

For an in-depth analysis of this topic see the draft paper for discussion "Global Contract Report 2005" by the Global Contract Foundation.