From Prof Dennis J.D. Sandole.

Sir, Gideon Rachman has crossed the Rubicon with his bold proposition that the “international community” go where no man or woman has gone before: actually to design and implement a global governance regime to deal with the bewildering array of complex global problems that continue to defy and assault traditional Westphalian state frontiers (“And now for a world government”, December 9). The problem, however, as Mr Rachman observes, is that the human capacity for collective identity stops at the nation-state, where not even the successful European Union project – a possible model for what he has in mind – qualifies as an exception.