Of all the questions that may be asked about this project, perhaps none is so decisive as this one: who administers it?
For a network of such magnitude, if it should fall into the hands of one country or of a group of the powerful, becomes an instrument of domination rather than an instrument of connection. Just governance, then, matters in this project even more than the engineering itself.
Not an unprecedented dream: mankind has done this many times
The first question that forms in your mind is this: is it possible at all for dozens or hundreds of countries — many of them rivals or even enemies — to come to agreement over a common structure and to administer it together?
The answer is a decided “yes”, because mankind has done this before, again and again, with success.
Look at the International Space Station: a structure which America, Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada — with all their rivalries upon the ground — have built together, and which for more than two decades they have administered through a multilateral coordinating board.
Or think of Intelsat, a consortium founded to build and to hold a global system of communications satellites, which at its height had a hundred and forty-four member countries and whose ownership lay in the hands of the member governments — a living witness that a multinational project can build and administer a vital and strategic technology for the benefit of all.
And again, the European nuclear research organisation (CERN) and the global nuclear fusion project (ITER) show how countries that are rivals in politics — from America and Russia to China and India — can lay their resources and their knowledge together to build something that lies beyond the power of any single country.
The Global Rail Network, then, does not take its model out of the air; it builds it upon the shoulders of these successful experiences. The Global Rail Consortium works, in principle, just as these tried institutions have worked — but on a greater scale and with a loftier ideal.
The heart of justice: one country, one vote
But the Consortium of this project has one fundamental difference from many international institutions, and that difference is the very soul of its justice.
In many international organisations, power is tied to wealth or to the size of a country; the larger and richer countries have more votes and more influence. But in the Global Rail Consortium the fundamental principle is this: each country, one vote.
A small country with a small population has, in decisions, the very same voice as a superpower. This principle guarantees that the network never becomes an instrument of the domination of the powerful over the weak, and that the same spirit of equality upon which the whole project is built runs also through the structure of its decision-making.
But here a natural question arises: if a country brings a great part of the capital and accepts a greater risk, why should its vote be equal to that of a country with a small share? It is a fair question and has no short answer; in the final part of the book, where I address the hardest challenges, I shall return to it in detail.
The organs of governance
For such an institution to work properly, it needs several harmonised organs — just like the members of a sound body. The Global Rail Consortium rests upon five principal organs.
First, the General Assembly; the highest body of decision, in which all member countries have a representative and each, with one vote, takes part in the great decisions — from the acceptance of routes to the broad policies. This assembly is the parliament of the network.
Second, the Executive Council; the executive arm of the Consortium, which puts the decisions of the Assembly into effect and directs the daily work.
Third, the Technical Commission; the assembly of engineers and specialists which decides upon standards, technology and questions of engineering — the very body to which I referred many times in the technical part.
Fourth, the Court of Dispute Resolution; an independent body for the arbitration of disagreements. When a dispute arises between countries over a route, a share, or any other matter, this court — impartially and upon the basis of rules agreed beforehand — takes it up, so that disagreements, instead of turning into tension, are resolved by a peaceful road.
And fifth, the Independent Audit Office; the watching eye which oversees all financial affairs and guarantees transparency — a body from whose supervision no one, not even the highest officers, stands outside.
How decisions are taken and disputes resolved
In this structure, great decisions are put to the vote and the public interest is the measure of judgement. If a country does not wish to join the network, no one compels it; and if there is disagreement over a route, then instead of force and sanction the matter is entrusted to a vote and to the arbitration of the court, and an alternative way is even proposed.
This is what I promised earlier: nothing is imposed. The power of this system lies not in compulsion but in the attraction of common benefit — countries join it because they see the profit and growth and flourishing of their own land in cooperation, not because they have no choice.
Transparency: a shield against corruption
The greatest danger threatening such a project is corruption and abuse. For this reason, transparency has been woven into the heart of this structure.
The accounts are open and open to inspection, the decisions are public, and the Independent Audit Office watches continually over everything. When ownership lies in the hands of the people and all countries are observers, concealment becomes difficult and accountability becomes easy. This transparency is itself the best shield against that very greed of which I spoke in the earlier parts.
The spirit of the governance
At the last, it must be seen what this structure embodies, beyond its diagrams and its institutions.
The Global Rail Consortium is in truth the very principles upon which this whole book is built, but this time in the form of a living institution: mutual respect, in the principle of “one country, one vote”; cooperation in place of domination, in the mechanism of voting and arbitration; and human dignity, in that the final owner is the people.
This governance is not merely a method for administering a railway; it is a small model of what humanity could be, when it gives the hand of cooperation instead of standing in confrontation.
And perhaps this is the greatest achievement of this project: that beyond steel and rail, it shows the world that the common and just administration of a global asset is not a dream but a possibility within reach.