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.The U.S.intervention in Panama in 1989 was carried out despite the refusalto accord it legitimacy at either the regional or UN level, whereas a protectiveintervention in Haiti enjoyed both regional and UN blessings.There areimportant differences between these two cases, yet in both contexts interventionis essentially a hegemonic initiative (as it is shaped in Washington with respectto time, goals, modalities, and battlefield control).Regionalism in relation to the emergence of positive globalism remains a latentpotentiality.The Charter gives ample space for complementary regional roles inpeacekeeping settings, and in Article 52(3) expresses a favorable dispositiontoward resolution of disputes at a regional level, thereby seeming to endorsesubsidiarity.Again, context matters; Castro s Cuba is under far more intensehegemonic pressures as a regional pariah than it is in the UN setting.It would REGIONALISM " 59seem that the virtues of regionalism in relation to positive globalism are, atpresent, mainly speculative.Its more serious relevance would arise as aderivation from the emergence of positive globalism, not currently in the offing,and especially backgrounded in light of the geopolitical response to September11 that has accentuated militarist approaches to global security and conflictresolution.Promoting Positive RegionalismRegionalism has achieved positive results in relation to specified world ordervalues in several substantive sectors and various geographic settings, mostsignificantly, of course, in Europe, but also in Asia/Pacific, Latin America,Africa, and the Middle East.(Hettne, 1994, 2002).The most impressive of theseachievements involves the promotion of human rights, including revolutionarysovereignty-eroding procedures, as embodied in the European framework, and toa lesser extent within the inter-American setting (Held, 1989, esp.pp.212 42);mitigation and resolution of conflicts via diplomacy, mediation, and regionallinkages; promotion of environmentalism; innovations in transnationalcooperation and institutionalisation; experimentation by way of the MaastrichtTreaty with innovative extensions of political identity by way of the conferral ofEuropean citizenship (van Steenbergen, 1994; Clarke, 1994).European regionalism has demonstrated that it is possible to extend the rule oflaw beyond the state and often promote further human rights gains withingenerally democratic states by asserting grievances at a regional level.This hasbeen impressively demonstrated with reference to the extension of gay andlesbian rights, which provides a model for other concerns, including theprotection of resident refugees, access to asylum, and the treatment of foreignersor strangers generally.There is a school of Eurocratic thought, given attention adecade ago by Jacques Delors, that believes further economic integration willsucceed only if accompanied by parallel moves to strengthen the political facetsof the European Union, and that such momentum needs to be maintained toconsolidate the economic results in terms of increased trade and investment sofar achieved.Again, grassroot dissatisfactions with the Euro and the generaltroubles of the world economy cast a dark cloud over prospects for anydeepening of the European vision at this point.Perhaps most significantly, regionalism has protected the peoples of Europeagainst deteriorating standards of living and the prospects of gradualmarginalization in relation to the American project of global empire.Thisprotection has been somewhat controversial because of its tendency to buildpressure by way of competitiveness to conform to the requirements imposed bynegative globalism.The latter has contributed both to high levels ofunemployment and to static, or even falling, real wage levels in Europe andNorth America.An assessment is not a simple matter.To the degree thatregionalism has been instrumentalized by negative globalism, it then forms part 60 " THE DECLINING WORLD ORDERof an overall global structure of dominance that is leading to acutemarginalization for certain nations and regions, sectors deemed inefficient anduninviting if considered either as producers or consumers.The geographicdistribution has some North/South features, but the burdens of marginalizationare not so neatly configured, given the rise of South and East Asia and parts ofSouth America
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