IS OLD DIPLOMACY BECAME OUTMODED BY NEW DIPLOMACY?

Diplomacy began many centuries ago as simple meetings between emissaries to discuss issues in relationship between and among tribes, states, kingdoms or empires. Most of the contacts were bilateral and secretive.

Today, diplomacy is a set of international rules which evolves to deal with more complex set of issues that face modern nation states and their relationships.

Traditional diplomacy addresses the following major topics:

Ø War and Peace

Ø Defining territorial borders and resolving border disputes

Ø Trade rules between and among nations

Ø Treatment of foreign citizens by governments

Ø Operational rules for transport and communications between nation states (postal, air, sea and land transportations when crossing borders, etc)

The War and Peace and defining Territorial Borders are often referred to as “Spectacular Diplomacy” because of the significance of the consequences. These diplomatic issues address state issues of sovereignty and territoriality.

These are the two principles which were defined for Europeans by the peace of Westphalia in 1648 when the modern nation state was created. The Treaty of Westphalia ended years of religious wars among competing groups of Christians in Europe, and gave the sovereign in each state the right to choose the religion for his people. Thereafter, this principle has evolved into the notion that each government have the sovereignty to make all decisions within their borders. And this notion has remained for many years and even the colonial powers tried to implement it in their colonial subjects, instead, they rebelled and demanded for sovereignty themselves.

To many, the creation of the United Nations following the World War II was the starting point of the New Diplomacy that challenges many of the perceptions of the Old Diplomacy. One of the most significant challenges to national sovereignty was the Charter of Human Rights as it gave the right for other governments to be concerned on how a nation state or government was treating its own people. There is also issues related to humanitarian, labor, environmental and global issues have reinforced the challenge to the old notion of sovereignty.

The New Diplomacy addresses the following:

Ø Human rights (Apartheid in South Africa, Genocide)
Ø Humanitarian assistance (in many countries turn by war, bad governance or natural disaster)
Ø Labour Rights (labour conditions in the peripheral)
Ø National Environment issues (forestry and biodiversity)
Ø Transboundary environmental issues(acid rain and air/water pollution)
Ø Global environnemental issues (marina fisheries, climate change, etc)
Ø Toxic substances, genetic engineering and biotechnology etc)
Ø Fair trade (EU, NAFTA, and Free Trade Areas Americas).

All the above issues, challenges the national sovereignty because in many cases foreign governments or coalitions of governments have crossed borders to resolve a violation of an international norm.

The New Diplomacy is a set of new rules added to the old diplomacy. These new rules makes traditional diplomats, totalitarian and corrupt governments very uncomfortable as it evolves the globalisation of the economy, for example, apart from extract diamonds from Sierra Leone, send them to London for cutting and sale in the world market and make profit, with open and inclusive Diplomacy, multinationals and NGOs move across national boundaries in ways that governments organisations cannot. By doing so, the host governments find themselves under pressure over the distribution of resources and more emphasis have been put on environment, health and wellbeing of the workers of the countries where the resources are being extracted.

However, in my opinion, the emergency of “New Diplomacy” has not outmoded the Old Diplomacy; but has come to complement the works of traditional diplomacy to meet the new demand on a globalized international politics.