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‘Once in a Generation’ – Well Maybe Not; But ‘Small Ball’ At Least

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Well, the UN ‘Summit of the Future’ (SoTF) has come – and gone.  What does the appearance and passing of the SoTF, and the continuation of the UN General Assembly’s High-level Week tell us about the state of the UN and the condition of global multilateralism? If I may be so bold it is – “not good!” But there may be a thread or two that might lead to more effective multilateralism.  Still I suspect after the most recent Posts this immediate conclusion can hardly be a surprise. Reflecting on  the UN proceeding, Bloomberg reported:

The United Nations General Assembly’s annual meeting in New York is often mocked as a farce for the endless speeches and the traffic snarling the city. This year’s gathering feels more like tragedy.

The violence and chaos engulfing the globe put questions around the UN mandate — “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” — in stark relief.

Antonio Guterres is the first to admit that the secretary-general of the UN has no power, just a voice (emphasis added). It’s one he uses time and time again like a modern-day Cassandra to lament that the world is currently experiencing the most conflicts since the organization was founded in 1945. The past three years were the most violent in three decades, according to one think tank.

So the international context is not good. But looking specifically at the SoTF, let’s look at the result. On the positive side the UN passed, ultimately unanimously the ‘Pact for the Future’. Why I say ultimately is because the document’s final passage suffered from great power intrigue before the Pact of the Future was agreed to and passage concluded. As pointed out by IISD, the International Institute for Sustainable Development:

The Summit of the Future opened with some drama when the Russian Federation tabled its objection to several paragraphs in the outcome documents: the Pact for the Future, the Global Digital Compact, and Declaration on Future Generations

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin tabled Russian objections and, according to AlJazeera:

Vershinin also stressed that the pact could not be viewed as creating “new mandates and obligations” for states as it is “simply a declaration, and a very vague one.

In the face of these objections, interestingly, the Republic of Congo – representing Africa’s 54 nations – and Mexico, rejected the Russian amendments and preventing them from going through. With the loud opposition from members of the Global South to Russia’s objections, the  IISD reported:

… after months of negotiations, the Pact was adopted. UN General Assembly (UNGA) President Philémon Yang thanked the Co-Facilitators for steering a complex negotiating process and described the just-adopted Pact as a reflection of “our pledge” to lay the foundation for a sustainable, inclusive, and peaceful global order.

On the positive side, the final Pact appears to retain the Security Council reform initiative. Though the Action numbers have changed, it appears that the reform provision has been retained:

Action 40. We will strengthen our efforts in the framework of the intergovernmental negotiations on Security Council reform as a matter of priority and without delay …

 

Encourage the submission of further models and the revision of already presented models by States and Groups of States for the structured dialogues with a view to developing a consolidated model in the future based on convergences on the five clusters, and the models presented by Member States.

It is there but we wait to see results. There appears to many at the UN to be a greater ‘majority’ to reform the Security Council, and how it works. Such reform seems to include a growing consensus to permanently add members to the Security Council. For some time now the US has lead the charge to include India, Germany , Brazil and Japan, though without a veto, and Ambassador Thomas-Greeleaf announced a US position urging two permanent seats for developing country members and a spot for a SIDS (Small Island Developing States) seat. Yet final agreement appears to be out of the reach for the members.

Now, interestingly there were a variety of insights provided by Richard Gown, currently the UN Director for the International Crisis Group, who was interviewed on the 25th by Ravi Agrawal, editor in chief of Foreign Policy. In this FP: Live session titled: “Can the United Nations Still be Effective?”, Gowan, who has long been involved with the UN, suggested that what was most interesting in the Pact was not Security Council reform but the effort to focus on digital governance and  the initiation of negotiations on AI in the Digital Compact, Annex I: Global Digital Compact:

“Objective 5. Enhance international governance of artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity”

56. We therefore commit to:

(a) Establish, within the United Nations, a multidisciplinary Independent International Scientific Panel on AI with balanced geographic representation to promote scientific understanding through evidence-based impact, risk and opportunity assessments, drawing on existing national, regional and international initiatives and research networks (SDG 17);

(b) Initiate, within the United Nations, a Global Dialogue on AI Governance involving Governments and all relevant stakeholders which will take place in the margins of existing relevant United Nations conferences and meetings (SDG 17).

Gowan suggested in the interview that the effort here with AI might well bear fruit in years to come with rules on digital governance and AI. It will in his view be looked at retrospectively as the Pact for the Future provided the framework for critical digital governance success.

Gowan was also clear-eyed when it came to the UN and its capacity to constrain and resolve conflict. He was blunt that what he called ‘first order’ crises – Ukraine and Gaza currently, due to great power rivalries and political actions are currently out of the reach of the UN to achieve any level of success and ultimately political resolution. On the other hand, what he described as ‘second order’ conflicts – an example Sudan, where most great power rivalries are not at play, can be subject to UN collective peace efforts.

So it is evident that many of the conflict crises are outside effective UN efforts. Still, Gowan reminded us that ‘everyday multilateralism’ is at the heart of today’s UN efforts. While the UN today cannot end wars, it is critical in providing significant action and progress in mitigating the consequences of violence, pandemics, and natural and climate disasters. UN agencies may be the only major players in these circumstances.

Finally, Gowan pointed out where attention needed to be paid to these recent UN summit efforts. The declarations and pacts could be largely ignored; the statements and speeches by Heads of Government and State could equally be set aside and forgotten but the actual gathering of leaders could enable numerous bilateral and minilateral meetings at the margin of the formal meetings.  These highly informal discussions could be settings where positions could be staked out and possible positive steps could be agreed by leaders that later translated into real progress. It might be ‘small ball’ but it could ultimately lead to progress. The informality is evident and such in-person gatherings could easily be missed but quietly and ‘below the radar’ such quiet conversations could provide  real opportunity to resolve the all too difficult and seemingly intractable moments of violence. This is informal, very informal ‘multilateralism’. But progress may be possible.

Image Credit: IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute)

This Post first appeared at my Substack Alan’s Newsletter

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The UN ‘Summit of the Future’ (SoTF) and the Enduring Weakness of Multilateralism

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In last week’s Post, with part of the same title as this week’s Post at Alan’s Newsletter, I began an examination into the weakening of multilateralism in the current global order. It is a particularly appropriate time to look at the state of multilateralism, and particularly a focus on the classic ‘Formal’ institution, the United Nations.  This is a key week in the life of the UN.

The UN General Assembly is gathering, as pointed to by Nudhara Yusuf from Stimson described to:

So, UNGA79 really stands for the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, which begins on September 10th, 2024 … UNGA79 this time of year though, we’re referring to the wonderfully energized chaos that is about to descend onto 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Ave New York during UNGA High-Level week [emphasis added] when the general debate is opened. This will be on the 24th of September and run through the end of the week. Of course, the key thing on all our minds are the days right before that, with the Summit of the Future Action Days from 20-21 September and the Summit of the Future itself from 22-23 September.

The gathering of heads of government and state at the special UN session is to complete and agree on the following:

Its agreed outcomes of the Pact for the Future and annexed Declaration on Future Generations and Global Digital Compacts should be priority areas for Heads of States in their statements.

Colum Lynch at Devex, examined recent UN developments including the SDG Summit in 2023 and now, at the doorstep, the Summit for the Future in 2024:

The roots of the future summit date back to 2020, when world leaders marked the 75th anniversary of the U.N.’s founding, issuing a declaration asking [Secretary General Antonio] Guterres to outline his vision for a modern multilateralism to better “respond to current and future challenges.” The following year, Guterres issued Our Common Agenda, which maps out a course for the U.N. over the next 25 years.

 

Many of Guterres’ original proposals — for instance, the creation of a Futures Lab to measure the impact of policies over the long haul and the reform of the trusteeship council established to manage decolonization to advocate on behalf of future generations — were scaled back or scrapped altogether. And there remains persistent skepticism that a decades-long push for the expansion of the U.N. Security Council — to include emerging powers from Asia, Africa, and Latin America that have emerged since World War II — will succeed this time around.

Clearly reform of the UN Security Council (UNSC) is at the absolute heart of urgent reform of the multilateral system. This was made clear with the very recent announcement by the US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenleaf  that added additional US proposed reforms:

  1. Create 2 permanent seats for Africa in the Council;
  2. A new elected seat for Small Island Developing States (SIDS); and
  3. Engaging in tech space negotiations in Council reform

The Pact for the Future, the key outcome document of the SoTF has now gone through 4 deeply negotiated revisions, with the 4th revision released just a few days ago (September 13th). In the first 3 revisions there was no agreed reform text and yet finally in this 4th revision we see at least the articulation of proposed ‘features of reform’ fo this key UN institution:

Action 41. We will reform the UN Security Council, recognizing the urgent need to make it more representative, inclusive, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable.

 

69. In response to the growing urgency to increase the effectiveness of the United Nations’ abilities to maintain international peace and security as set out in the UN Charter, we agree on the following guiding principles identified in the Intergovernmental Negotiations on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and other matters related to the Council (IGN) in accordance with decision 62/557 of the General Assembly as parameters for reform:

(a) Redress the historical injustice against Africa as a priority and, while treating Africa as a special case, improve the representation of the underrepresented and unrepresented regions and groups, such as AsiaPacific and Latin America and the Caribbean.

(b) Enlarge the Security Council in order to be more representative of the current UN membership and reflective of the realities of the contemporary world and, taking into account our commitments of Sustainable Development Goal 16.8, increase representation of developing countries and small- and medium-sized states.

(c) Continue discussions on the issue of representation of cross-regional groups, taking into account that Small Island Developing States, Arab States, and others, such as the OIC, have been mentioned in the discussions of the IGN.

(d) Intensify efforts to find an agreement on the question of the categories of membership taking into account the discussions held in the IGN process.

(e) The total number of members of an enlarged Council should ensure a balance between its representativeness and effectiveness.

(f) The working methods should ensure the inclusive, transparent, efficient, effective, democratic and accountable functioning of an enlarged Council.  (g) The question of the veto is a key element of Security Council reform. We will intensify efforts to reach an agreement on the future of the veto, including discussions on limiting its scope and use.

(h) As part of a comprehensive reform, the inclusion of a review clause should be considered to ensure that the Security Council continues over time to deliver on its mandate and remains fit for purpose.

As is evident this Action item, 41, does not describe actual agreed changes. For that one needs to turn to Action 42:

Action 42. We will strengthen our efforts in the framework of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Security Council Reform as a matter of priority and without delay.

 

70. We support the Member States driven nature of the reform of the Security Council, and will intensify efforts for the reform through the IGN in accordance with General Assembly Decision 62/557 and other relevant resolutions and decisions of the General Assembly, such as resolution 53/30. Building on the recent progress achieved in the IGN, including through more transparency and inclusivity and by enhancing its institutional memory, we decide to:

(a) Encourage the submission of further models and the revision of already presented models by States and Groups of States for the structured dialogues with a view to developing a consolidated model in the future based on convergences on the five clusters, and the models presented by Member States.

It is evident that this Action Item 42 is in UN-speak. I have had to rely on close colleagues much more schooled in the UN than I am. Indeed you can listen to valuable webinar on the subject: of “The UN Summit of the Future: What to Expect”, with several colleagues including Anne-Marie Slaughter CEO of New America and led by close Carnegie Endowment of International Peace (CEIP) colleague, Stewart Patrick. There I learned there will be an Intergovernmental Negotiation that would lead to a consolidated model of reform to ultimately be voted on. My colleagues believed that this was a significant step forward on reform. Looking at it I remain somewhat skeptical but will rely on my knowledgeable friends that something – that reform proposals – will advance at the UN and that reforms are in fact coming.

Finally, I couldn’t end without referencing my Substack colleague’s examination of the impact of the Summit of the Future. So Peter Singer at Global Health Insights recently posted a piece titled: “Will the Summit of the Future lead to a more results-based United Nations?” Peter examines all 60 action items and concludes:

On full display at the Summit is what’s wrong with the UN: a failure to execute on what’s already agreed.  In September, the only acronym the UN needs is GSD — Get Sh*t Done. (If you’re a diplomat, feel free to substitute “Stuff.”)

Peter is particularly frustrated over the failure of the Organization and its member states to advance the 2015 agreed Sustainable Development goals (SDGs), what the UN calls Agenda 2030:

The UN suffers from planning disease. Any successful real-world entity does 10% planning and 90% execution (and the planning is built on the results of execution).  In the UN, it’s the reverse.

Peter argues that the UN must first develop “better ways to translate data into results.” Then it must: “support countries to scale innovations that are already reaching millions to reach tens or even hundreds of millions of people.” And finally he urges:

It could look at countries that are performing well and those that are not and how the latter could be more like the former.  It could examine what the agency is doing to support countries to get on track, and how it could do it better, and how well it is working with other agencies to support countries.

I think the latter point is particularly critical because in the end in this case it is not so much the UN, and the UN agencies that are responsible  for achieving the SDGs but the Member countries that will make the SDGs happen – or not. And, unfortunately, it is the Member States that are only too evidently unwilling, or politically and administratively unable to make SDG progress. A too obvious example – the United States. This is a Member State where the SDGs never pass the lips of its leaders and their officials.

The questions surrounding the outcomes and implementation of the  SoTF lie as much, or more,  ‘at the feet’ of the national governments. It is not a heartwarming view. So, yes, we need to address the inadequacies of the international organizations. Reform and updating is required and little has occurred over the decades. But the heart of the system is states and their capacity and, or willingness to work together to achieve progress. As Sophie Eisentraut declared in her FP article, “Can the West Revive Multilateralism?”:

As world leaders descend on New York for the United Nations Summit of the Future this week, rules-based multilateralism is in a dismal state. Amid the international community’s failure to conclude a global pandemic treaty and the U.N. Security Council’s paralysis in the face of both Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict, it’s hard to recall the last success of multilateral cooperation.

Among governments, accusations of double standards and broken promises, from delivering COVID-19 vaccines to providing meaningful debt relief, are mounting. Against this backdrop, the summit looks like a desperate attempt to rebuild confidence—particularly among countries in the global south as they navigate a multilateral system that even the U.N. secretary-general describes as caught in “colossal global dysfunction.”

The ‘enduring weakness’ is ultimately laid at the feet of national governments. And from today’s perspective – and on the eve of the Summit of the Future – it is not a very pretty sight.

This Post originally appeared at my Substack Alan’s Newsletter. Comments are welcome as are free subscriptions

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The Enduring Weakness of Multilateralism: An Aspect

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Though it was heartening to see the Presidential debate this past week with a strong performance by Vice President Kamala Harris, it was disheartening to see that Donald Trump remains a major force in US politics and still a strong contender notwithstanding some of his wild statements and his conspiracy theory assertions. While the event highlighted the ‘weirdness’ of Donald J Trump, the candidate, the game is not yet won. We may yet see him reoccupy the White House. Such an outcome would threaten the alliance(s) system, global trade and continuing US presence in the current multilateral system driven by Trump’s transactional model of US foreign policy behavior.

Trump’s return would likely drive current US foreign policy ‘over the cliff’. But changes have been underway for some time and many of them are weakening the multilateral system built over many decades. Many foreign policy analysts have focused on the structural elements – notably the decline in the international measures of power of the United States and its impact as a result on the global order. I was struck by a letter titled, “Muster Global Majorities”  prepared by Mark Malloch-Brown. This is just one of nine requested by FP to greet a new US president. Now, Malloch-Brown was the former deputy secretary-general of the UN well aware of the multilateral system and he targeted the decline of the US:

But whoever prevails on Nov. 5—and congratulations, by the way—this will not change the much deeper shifts underway in the distribution of global power and values alignment that are now surfacing at the U.N. and its Bretton Woods cousins, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They have seen an approximate quadrupling of membership since their post-World War II founding; a more than tripling of global population; and a global GDP that is more than 10 times bigger.

 

But you must see there is a global shift underway, and the United States, more than ever, is not an unchallenged No. 1 but rather a precarious first among equals in a multilateral system and which in responding to wider intellectual and political change in the world resents any claim to monopoly leadership. As Shakespeare observed in his great play on succession and power, Henry IV, Part 2: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

Malloch-Brown in his letter, in fact, is pointing to two evident declines: the decline in power of the US in the context of the global system, the structural elements with the rise of China and with the emergence of a number of the Large Emerging Powers, the likes of India, Brazil, Indonesia and more.  But the decline is also evident from a diminishment in US leadership in the global order, the behavioral aspect of any analysis.

While there is a relative decline in the power dimensions for the United States, it is the decline in policy leadership that is in some ways most evident. Take trade. As Alan Beattie has written just recently in the FT article entitled, “Can Globalization Survive the US-China Rift”:

Multilateralism is weak. The US is undermining the WTO by citing a national security loophole to break rules at will. The EU won a case against Indonesia over its nickel export ban, but the WTO’s dysfunctional dispute settlement system has delayed compliance.

 

But this does not mean regional or geopolitical trading blocs will start setting the rules of trade instead. The US talks a good game about building alliances, but the political toxicity of trade deals in Washington stops it offering market access to incentivise countries to join. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, the US’s main initiative in the Asia-Pacific, is widely regarded as all stick and no carrot.

Rather than a continued reliance on the multilateral rules and the WTO, the multilateral trade institution – of which the US is one of the primary creators –  responsible for managing trade and trade friction, the United States has chosen to neuter the global trade rules by collapsing the trade dispute mechanism of the WTO. The US has turned away as well from promoting freer trade and free trade agreements and has come to rely more and more on protectionism. As pointed out by Bob Davis in his FT piece, “How Washington Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Protectionism”, he described the US turn to protectionism:

… the president [Biden] made a decision that upended decades of Democratic White House rule. He ordered heavy new tariffs on Chinese imports of high-tech items and continued the massive tariffs he inherited from his Republican predecessor.

 

The significance of the moves—and the challenge that it presents to Biden’s successor—was obscured by the roller-coaster news cycle. But it bears noting: The Biden administration is the first since at least President John F. Kennedy’s time to fail to negotiate a major free trade deal, instead embracing tariffs. Even Trump, the self-proclaimed “Tariff Man,” concluded a significant free trade pact when he replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement with a U.S.-Mexico-Canada deal (USMCA), which toughened rules on auto imports but established liberal rules on digital trade. He also negotiated a smaller digital agreement with Japan.

 

The turnabout is emblematic of a broader change in the U.S. economic and political thinking that is unlikely to be reversed under either a President Trump or Harris. The era of hyperglobalization, which began around 1990 and saw global trade jump by 60 percent in 20 years as supply chains spread across the earth like spiderwebs, has come to an end. We are now in an era of growing protectionism, and as trade growth has stalled, the United States and many other advanced economies have hiked tariffs and begun subsidizing industries that they view as critical to their well-being.

The turnabout with an increasing reliance on tariffs and a more full throated rise of US protectionism in fact ties the US, that is US economic policy to its political-security policy and actions. Davis makes the pointed linkage today between the two for US policy action:

Peter Harrell, the White House’s former senior director for international economics, said the change marks a fundamental rethinking of U.S. trade policy. “We are in an era of geopolitical competition with China,” he said. “That means we aren’t going to accord China the same trading privileges and rights” accorded to allies—despite World Trade Organization requirements to treat members equally.

 

It boils down to the fact that the economic juice [from cutting tariffs] was not worth the political squeeze,” said Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University China expert who had been an official on Obama’s National Security Council.

 

In the second part of its decision, the administration ramped up some tariffs to block Chinese imports in areas where the United States was spending billions of dollars on subsidies to create or strengthen a domestic industry.

Tariffs were quadrupled to 100 percent on Chinese electric vehicles this year, as [Lael] Brainard had advocated, doubled to 50 percent on Chinese semiconductors and solar cells, either this year or next, and tripled to 25 percent on EV batteries this year. Even low-tech Chinese syringes, which had previously been shipped duty-free, now face 50 percent tariffs as a spur to boost domestic production.

 

The primary reason for the U.S. turn to protectionism is the growing economic and military challenge from China. But it also reflects a profound change in ideology: The gains from trade—lower prices, overall improvements in living standards, greater competition—are no longer seen by many political leaders as worth the downsides in the loss of manufacturing jobs, dependence on imports from adversaries such as China and Russia, and political polarization. The Trump administration, packed with anti-free traders, gave a big push to this neo-protectionism; the Biden administration has confirmed and deepened the shift.

The bottom line is that geopolitical tensions, particularly the deep US-China competition, has undermined US commitment to a multilateral system that the US was a principal architect in creating and maintaining over many decades. This outcome to date is deeply troubling.

Image Credit: CNBC

The Troubles with Multilateralism: Two

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So this week’s Post may be ‘a bit lighter’ than usual. But I have an excuse: there is a celebration afoot in the family this weekend – my younger daughter is getting married – much activity is planned. Still here is this week’s thinking on global order matters on ‘Alan’s Newsletter’.

Now, where were we?  Ah yes, focusing on diplomacy and the difficulties of multilateralism, especially among the Formals. Now Richard Gowan recently wrote a piece examining the UN, especially in the light of the upcoming September UN Summit of the Future. Richard oversees the International Crisis Group’s advocacy work at the United Nations, liaising with diplomats and UN officials in New York. Richard also is a Research Associate and Associate Director for Policy at the Center on International Cooperation at NYU.

As Richard describes it in his article, “Redefining the UN’s Prime Purpose” there is a growing sentiment to diminish the UN’s role in peace and security matters. This seems to go all the way to the top of the UN chain. As Richard writes:

Even some of the organization’s leaders appear to think that the UN may be wise to take a lower profile on security concerns and focus its energies elsewhere. … In 2021, he [Antonio Guterres] published a report on the future of multilateralism entitled ‘Our Common Agenda’… In 2023, Guterres released a fuller New Agenda for Peace. This contained a frank assessment of the poor state of international relations, and urged states to reinvest in diplomacy. It included interesting passages on the security challenges posed by AI, new biotechnologies, and other scientific advances. Yet the document struck a humble note, emphasizing that the UN’s ability to address many conflicts is limited and that international interventions often backfire. Instead, one of its themes is that states should invest more in their domestic conflict prevention efforts.

And the bottom line, according to Richard, is reducing the UN role:

In line with the Common Agenda, the Secretary General has portrayed the summit as an opportunity for presidents and prime ministers to launch new ideas about global governance. Diplomatic discussions about the summit – and a Pact for the Future that is meant to come out of it – have further highlighted the difficulties of talking about security at the UN.

This stepping away from conflict abatement efforts seems to extend through a significant number of UN Members and somewhat surprisingly, or maybe not, depending on your point of view, it appears to be expressed by Members of the Global South. Richard has in fact picked up on this thread of thinking from the Global South:

Many UN members from the so-called Global South have made it clear that the summit and pact should focus on the economic problems that they face today. Scores of developing countries are now carrying unsupportable debt burdens, and want the summit to help them unlock affordable financing.

Many of these UN members from the Global South – what used to be referred to in the past as the Third World, or the developing world, or even as the NAM, the ‘Nonaligned Movement’  have made it clear that the upcoming Summit of the Future and the Pact for the Future should focus on their economic problems, especially in the light of significant and growing debt but also in financing the green transition that they all face today.

The dilemma of course is, if the UN backs away from conflict suppression, then who, or what, can the global order rely on. It is evident that there is a hard limit on what the UN can do in the face of great power conflict for the moment but there are many conflicts where the UN is, and has played a role in limiting, and in some instances ending, conflict. The problem has been that the efforts are slow and too often barely effective and these peace efforts can extend for far too many years. So new approaches are called for and likely include stronger immediate pressure and serious diplomatic actions backed possibly by strong sanctions and in some limited cases early intervention. As Richard concludes:

Even if the UN’s narrowly defined security role is shrinking, multilateral cooperation is still essential to addressing the security of states and individuals in a wider sense. So it is possible that the UN will see its traditional mediation and peacekeeping roles shrink, while still contributing to making the world a safer place through other strands of work.

Reliance on more active diplomacy needs to be considered especially in  a world where there is a growing threat of conflict, violent conflicts such as Ukraine and the Gaza wars. But there also needs to be a shift in thinking how, and when, to turn to force is warranted. Dan Drezner from Drezner’s World, and Tufts, and other things, points to the weakness of diplomatic thinking and action. In the case he discusses this is on the part of one of the leading powers, the United States. As Dan in this Foreign Affairs article titled, “How Everything Became National Security: And National Security Became Everything” points to US thinking and action in foreign policy and how it has become dominated for far too long by an overweening national security mindset:

Consider the history of the National Security Strategy, the report on current threats that the president is supposed to deliver to Congress annually, although in practice it is usually released less often. A review of post-1990 reports reveals a steady expansion of qualifying concerns: energy security, nuclear proliferation, drug trafficking, and terrorism, among many others.

 

In the 70 years since, the definition of national security has been stretched almost beyond recognition. New technologies have multiplied the vectors through which external forces can threaten the United States. Furthermore, because security issues command greater staffs and budgets, policy entrepreneurs have strong incentives to frame their interests as matters of national security. The forces that push issues into the national security queue are far more powerful than the forces that lead policymakers to exclude them. Nevertheless,even with this expansion, the United States has been blindsided by events: 9/11, the COVID-19 pandemic, the October 7 attacks. Simply having a longer list of threats hasn’t really helped prepare for the unexpected.

The need for strategic recalculation by the US and among the major powers is all too apparent today. What that recalculation is, and how to implement that, is a discussion for another day.

This Post was first posted at my Substack Alan’s Newsletter https://open.substack.com/pub/globalsummitryproject/p/the-troubles-with-multilateralism?r=bj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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The Trouble with Today’s Multilateralism: An Intro

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So in this week’s Post I was all set to hone in on the struggles over reenergizing faltering multilateralism in the current global order. Today’s  troubles encompass the formal institutions – the Formals – from the UN, and many of its specialized agencies to the international financial ones – the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. And the troubles extend to the Informals, the G7, the G20 to the BRICS+ and more. The struggles over multilateralism are the flip side of the return, seemingly ever more strongly power politics – the wars in the Ukraine and Gaza, and geopolitics, especially the rise in bilateral tensions between China and the United States.

But before I could go there, I couldn’t ignore the just excellent article – recommended by my colleague, and China expert, John Gruetzner – in Foreign Affairs by Zongyuan Zoe Liu, titled, “China’s Real Economic Crisis: Why Beijing Won’t Give Up on a Failing Model”. This very good piece leaned strongly into the discussion I had raised in my previous Alan’s Newsletter Post, ‘China, Seemingly, Stays the Course’. The Post chronicled the disappointment expressed by analysts and experts in the West primarily but in a rather more modulated form in China as well. The disappointment according to these experts emerged over the failure in the Third Plenum to initiate significant economic reform in the Chinese domestic economy and a clear determination to tackle domestic consumption.

Liu gets it right:

The Chinese economy is stuck. … But there is a more enduring driver of the present stasis, one that runs deeper than Xi’s growing authoritarianism or the effects of a crashing property market: a decades-old economic strategy that privileges industrial production over all else, an approach that, over time, has resulted in enormous structural overcapacity.

 

Simply put, in many crucial economic sectors, China is producing far more output than it, or foreign markets, can sustainably absorb. As a result, the Chinese economy runs the risk of getting caught in a doom loop of falling prices, insolvency, factory closures, and, ultimately, job losses.

 

Since the mid-2010s, the problem has become a destabilizing force in international trade, as well. By creating a glut of supply in the global market for many goods, Chinese firms are pushing prices below the breakeven point for producers in other countries. In December 2023, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that excess Chinese production was causing “unsustainable” trade imbalances and accused Beijing of engaging in unfair trade practices by offloading ever-greater quantities of Chinese products onto the European market at cutthroat prices.

 

Despite vehement denials by Beijing, Chinese industrial policy has for decades led to recurring cycles of overcapacity. At home, factories in government-designated priority sectors of the economy routinely sell products below cost in order to satisfy local and national political goals.

Now there continues to be some contention over whether in fact production is below cost but I I was pleased by Liu’s ‘recommendation’ that the two – the West and China – consider options other than just piling on the tariffs. Liu correctly points out the negative consequences of such trade policy:

A China that is increasingly cut off from Western markets will have less to lose in a potential confrontation with the West—and, therefore, less motivation to de-escalate. As long as China is tightly bound to the United States and Europe through the trade of high-value goods that are not easily substitutable, the West will be far more effective in deterring the country from taking destabilizing actions. China and the United States are strategic competitors, not enemies; nonetheless, when it comes to U.S.-Chinese trade relations, there is wisdom in the old saying “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

That is why I have suggested negotiating – and one aspect in this case could be Voluntary Export Restraints or VERS. VERS are not super policy  actions – I get that  but they do encourage bilateral discussions rather than just unilateral penalties. As Liu suggest:

The U.S. government should discourage Beijing from building a wall that can sanction-proof the Chinese economy. To this end, the next administration should foster alliances, restore damaged multilateral institutions, and create new structures of interdependence that make isolation and self-sufficiency not only unattractive to China but also unattainable. A good place to start is by crafting more policies at the negotiation table, rather than merely imposing tariffs. … If the government [China] also implemented voluntary export controls, it could kill several birds with one stone: such a move would reduce trade and potentially even political tensions with the United States; it would force mature sectors to consolidate and become more sustainable; and it would help shift manufacturing capacity overseas, to serve target markets directly.

While working through the WTO might be preferable, and many analysts suggest such an approach for multilateral trade frictions, realistically that course of action is out of reach for the moment.

So there you are on the Third Plenum and global trade.  Let me at least turn to the original subject for this Post; let’s at least open the discussion on multilateralism and its problems. I was particularly attracted to a piece published recently by Pascal Lamy. Pascal Lamy (pascallamy.eu) is currently the Vice-President of the Paris Peace Forum, and coordinator of the Jacques Delors Institutes (Paris, Berlin, Brussels). Importantly, Pascal Lamy served two terms as Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from September 2005 to September 2013. He is someone that is very familiar with critical aspects of the multilateral system. Recently his piece, ‘Reshaping the Global Order’ was published in a large edited volume by colleagues from the Center for China & Globalization, CCG,  Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao, Enhancing Global Governance in a Fragmented World: Prospects, Issues, and the Role of China. Now Lamy sets out the critical structural issues that impair today’s multilateralism efforts. As he says:

The main long-term, structural factors at play can be summarized by sovereignty as a founding principle of an international order, by the obsolescence of the previous order, and by the US-China rivalry.

It is not surprising that he identifies ‘sovereignty’ as the first key to multilateralism’s problems:

Sovereignty has been, is, and will remain the main obstacle to building a fully fledged international order as long as it is accepted as the core principle of international law.

So many analysts acknowledge the burst in new actors in the international system: substate actors, regions and cities and also non-state actors like NGOs, large public and private corporations but all struggle against dominant state actors. National sovereignty dominates international relations and often leads to unilateral actions that undermines wider cooperation.

Then there is ‘obsolescence’.  This focuses around the elements of the system, especially the Formals that were put in place at the end of World War Two at a time when the Global South that has had such a recent impact on international relations existed primarily as colonies of the West:

Obsolescence has to do with the origins of the current global system, the architecture of which dates from arrangements made after the Second World War. The ‘universal’ nature of these arrangements is increasingly seen as a product of a past pattern of Western dominance at a time when new nation states are now reshuffling the old power distribution …

Lamy then targets the impact of the evolving international order:

All in all, the previous international order is being shaken by increasing North-South and East-West tensions and frustrations, and by a change in the balance between geoeconomics and geopolitics, the former losing the force it had gathered in recent decades, and the latter regaining its past dominance over world affairs. We are thus moving toward less of a rules-based system, and more toward the use of force. This context obliges us to consider new paths, tentative as they may be.

And finally Lamy underlines the rise of geopolitical tensions, especially between China and the United States, and the impact that these tensions have had on the current multilateral order:

The intensification of the US-China rivalry is the third main factor shaping the demise of the international order, as this rivalry increasingly pits the two main world superpowers against each other. Indeed, they now believe they have become dangerously vulnerable to each other—hence a change of view on both sides about globalization. Whereas the US and China previously celebrated the benefits of increased economic interdependence in fostering development and reducing poverty, they are now trying to address what today they consider as overdependence and have embarked on a decoupling journey which challenges the rest of the world with hard binary choices and which permeates international life in the form a sort of ‘cold war 2.0.’

So what is to be done? How can a multilateral system be revivified and made effective – bringing greater stability to the global order and energizing transnational global governance efforts?

That’s where we will start in the next Post.

Image Credit: Geneva Interdisciplinary Centre for Economics and Law

This Blog originally appeared as a Substack Post at Alan’s Newsletter – https://open.substack.com/pub/globalsummitryproject/p/the-trouble-with-todays-multilateralism?r=bj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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What is Needed for MPD Success?

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It is really not possible to begin this Substack Post without a quick glance at the first US Presidential debate of 2024. It was ugly. It was a tough night, especially for President Biden but I will let the political pundits to have their say.

Now to the  subject of this week’s Substack Post at Alan’s Newsletter – a focus on Middle Power Diplomacy (MPD) and the capacity of Middle Powers to drive global governance activities. We start with an examination first on multilateralism. There is a strong logic to this starting point given we are beginning by targeting the institutional apex of the international multilateral system – the UN and its agencies. This introduction is also understandable given that the UN will, this September, complete a UN summit cycle which I have referenced in past Substack Posts. This UN summit cycle commenced in 2023 with the SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) Summit and it will complete with the critical Summit of the Future (SoTF) this September in New York with the finalization and issuing of the Pact for the Future. In preparation for the UNGA 79th edition, and its opening gathering of Heads of State and Government for  the SoTF, and as described by IISD, the UNGA has elected its newest President:

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has elected, by acclamation, Philemon Yang, former Prime Minister of Cameroon, to serve as President of its 79th session. His tenure will be guided by the theme, ‘Unity in diversity, for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for everyone everywhere.’

And with the usual optimism and urgency the new President declared:

I am convinced that through dialogue, through consensus, talking together and looking to the future together, we can solve problems,” Yang said speaking to journalists following the elections.

Yang underscored the continuing multilateral wish:

Outlining the thrust of his Presidency in his vision and mission statement, Yang describes the UNGA as the highest, most representative deliberative body at the global level, which serves as “the lone forum where, based on sovereign equality, States in their diverse opinions meet to jointly seek solutions” through the free expression of diverse convictions, opinions, interests, and  approaches.

To preserve peace, promote sustainable development and protect the planet,” Yang underscores, “the international community should ensure that the objectives jointly set by Member States… are achieved.” According to his statement, the need to fast-track the measures to be taken by the UNGA to ensure the effective implementation of mutual commitments will be one of Yang’s priorities.

The collective effort is heartfelt without question but after the last several decades it has to be accepted as wishful thinking, nothing more. I don’t know how else to describe the effectiveness of the UN.

If formal institutional multilateral action has faltered in the growing international disorder: the rising tensions between the two great powers US and China, and recourse to aggression in the Russian war on Ukraine,  and the Hamas-Israel Gaza war, then where can the global order firm up international stability and advance collective efforts?  Where can the  global order save the planet and improve collective efforts in critical areas of global finance, cybersecurity and AI just to mention three critical subjects?

In our discussions and work at the China-West Dialogue (CWD) we have examined MPD with growing positive reflection and a nod to Middle Power action in the face of weakened multilateral progress. The CWD lead Co-Chair, Colin Bradford has pivoted to an examination of MPD. He does this in a recent article, “Toward a New Era in Global Relations: The Potential of  Middle Power Diplomacy” in the 2024 Global Solutions Summit edition of  Global Solutions Journal. Now almost without exception raising the MPD configuration immediately encourages a discussion over what is, and what is not, a Middle Power. We found that out in one of our recent CWD gatherings. As fun as that discussion can be there is no real conclusion to it and I would note that Colin has avoided that seemingly inevitable discussion by targeting the G20. As Colin points out, the G20 consists of the following:

The 9 EMPs [emerging market powers] along with the 9 AIC [advanced industrial countries] MPs constitute a significant and diverse number of Middle Powers that have the potential to change the global landscape, if and as they choose to exercise global leadership in ways that cut across traditional groups, incorporate contradictory viewpoints and focus hard on practical policy issues and avoid ideological polemics and geopolitical theatrics.

From the start, then, Colin turns his MPD focus on the role of those Middle Powers in the G20 and more particularly the series of immediate G20 presidencies beginning with Indonesia in 2022, followed in 2023 by India, Brazil in 2024, and South Africa in 2025. As he writes:

The argument in this paper is that, as a result, 2024 could be a year of opportunity for advancing global governance in addressing global challenges by capitalizing on latent, underlying global political dynamics to tee up a new era in which global governance can advance, even as systemic competition continues between the US, China, and Europe. … The Brazilian and South African G20 presidencies during 2024 and 2025, with the US to follow in 2026, could become pivotal focal points for the transition to a new era in global relations in which middle-power diplomacy demonstrates the feasibility of advancing humanity’s quest for systemic sustainability, despite the necessary acceptance of geopolitical tensions as a reality.

What Colin then suggests is:

Middle Powers exist today and have agency and influence precisely because they are:

• Independently concerned with global threats and seek to play a role in addressing them rather than seeking a prominent role in international relations only as a projection of national strength and identity;

• Capable of self-interested contributions to global decision-making characterized by diversity of perspectives, competitive behaviors, and shifting coalitions of consensus rather than fixed allegiances based on normative values; and

• Basing their actions and behaviors in the international arena on national interests and pragmatic articulation rather than values which have resulted in ideological differences and confrontational tensions.”

And as he then concludes:

As these brief examples suggest, there could be a new global order based on secular interests, non-ideological formulations, and multiple sources of global leadership which interactively generate composite outcomes embodying contradictory but valid perspectives from different vantage points that move the world forward to addressing systemic global challenges in significant ways. This shift in the global political dynamic toward pluralism driven by middle power diplomacy does not inevitably lead to “a new global disorder”, but rather could become a more inclusive, integrated network of significant countries to drive global solutions, defining a new global order.

Middle power diplomacy is based on listening, learning, brokering, give and- get bargaining, inclusion, embracing diversity, being as comfortable with “difference” as with “like-mindedness,” understanding that “shifting coalitions of consensus” is better for global governance than fixed alliances and blocs, and adjusting pre-positioning by being open to enabling unexpected insights and different ways of seeing issues and opportunities to shift perceptions and change positions.

So Colin hones in on ‘pluralism’ and the impact of MIddle Power ‘coalitions of the willing’ in advancing global governance policies even in the face of geopolitical tensions. The diverse collective effort, it is presumed, can advance global governance policy.

This line of reasoning is underlined by Bob Carr and Gareth Evans, both former foreign ministers of Australia in an article titled, “Detente: Towards a balance of power between the USA and China”, identified by Colin and focused on Australian action in a competitive geopolitical environment. As these two former foreign ministers see it:

Lasting peace is always best achieved with others, not against them. Of course we have to prepare for worst-case scenarios, but it is in Australia’s interests to bring diplomacy back to centre stage, resist policies of containment and confrontation of China, and promote a political accord between the United States and China that could help ease tensions in the South China Sea and over Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.

Here then a further nuance of Middle Power action targeting Australia as an Indo-Pacific actor.  So it appears that there is a strong favoring of Middle Power action. It is a starting point but more needs to be fleshed out. While we can acknowledge pluralism and the construction of ‘coalitions of the willing’, where have we seen MPD in action especially in the face of great power interests that may not accord with the Middle Power goals. When does the dynamic of Middle Powers action draw together a coalition of the willing that ‘drives global solutions’? How does this dynamic gather and then advance policy? We need more on the mechanics of MPD.

More on that to come.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

 

Continuing the Middle Power Narrative

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In early February CWD highlighted, and I described in the Post at Alan’s Newsletter, “Are They All Middle Powers? Or, Are There None!” this emerging Middle Power narrative:

We hoped this session would be an opportunity to examine and critique “Asia’s Future at a crossroads: A Japanese strategy for peace and sustainable prosperity.” This very valuable Report was the outcome of years of work by the ‘Asia Future’ Research Group (Research Group)  co-convened by Yoshihide Soeya, Professor Emeritus of Keio University and Mike Mochizuki of the Elliott School of International Affairs of George Washington University. … The Research Group urged that Japanese policy not be reshaped by the rise in US-China rivalry and the growing geopolitical tensions in the international system generally and in the Indo-Pacific specifically. Alas, that may prove to be quite difficult.

The story of emerging Middle Powers is about to continue with a new Report, this by the Körber Foundation. As noted by Colin Bradford our lead co-chair at CWD in his invitation to CWD participants to join a coming session on March 28th:

Driven by demographic and economic factors and an increasingly self-confident presence on the world stage, emerging middle powers (such as Brazil, India and South Africa) are gaining international influence.

  • ​What foreign policy challenges do emerging middle powers face?  How do they position themselves vis-à-vis China and the war in Ukraine?    And, where do they find common ground with the West, particularly on reforming the international system?

The Report is, “Listening Beyond the Echo Chamber: Emerging Middle Powers Report 2024”. This Report, front and centre in our coming CWD session, presents an intriguing survey and various findings from the following:

The first Emerging Middle Powers Survey polled nearly 1,000 politicians, diplomats, journalists, researchers and private-sector representatives from

India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) as well as from Germany.

The CWD gathering has the good fortune of welcoming Julia Ganter, Programme Director Körber Emerging Middle Powers Initiative to introduce the Report to CWD. In addition we have remarks from:

  • Steven Gruzd, Head, African Governance and Diplomacy Programme, South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA), Johannesburg,
  • Manjeet Kripalani, Executive Director, Gateway House Indian Council on Global Relations, Mumbai, and
  • Paulo Esteves, Researcher & fmr. Director, BRICS Policy Center, Rio de Janeiro

The Report identifies the purpose of this research initiative on the part of the Korber:

The aim of our Körber Emerging Middle Powers Initiative (KEMP) is to promote dialogue between Germany and emerging middle powers, such as Brazil, India, and South Africa. With their growing political, economic and demographic weight they are key players for global problem solving and also form the G20 troika in 2024. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown that in Germany, among other places, geopolitical perspectives, foreign policy traditions, and national interests of emerging middle powers

are often not assessed in a realistic manner. To address this, the Körber initiative conducts an annual expert survey and facilitates various dialogue formats in cooperation with Gateway House India, the Brazilian BRICS Policy Centre and the South African Institute of International Affairs.

The initiative is valuable in part because it targets three quite important Middle Powers – India, Brazil and South Africa – all large democratic emerging market powers –  that formed IBSA with the Brasilia Declaration in 2003. While overshadowed by the BRICS and now BRICS+, IBSA remains a useful gathering of key EM powers. Moreover, India, last year, Brazil this year, and South Africa in 2025 will each host the G20 Summit. With the troika mechanism these three countries will be influencing the organization and policy initiatives of the G20.

Back to the current Körber Report. The Report opens with a rather surprising conclusion in its Executive Summary:

despite differences among the four countries, there is a common basis for more meaningful engagement and joint approaches for international reform.

The survey findings are varied and interesting.The broad conclusions:

respondents in India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) identify a different foreign policy challenge as most important for each country – climate change for Brazil, relations with China for India, the war in Ukraine and the Middle East for South Africa – as well as international trade for all three. These are global concerns and respondents in Germany share them.

The Report is particularly interesting in highlighting differences of view between IBSA experts and German ones.

These aspects divide [Germany] them from the IBSA respondents, who perceive international trade as a foreign policy challenge, prefer to mediate between Russia and Ukraine instead of supporting either, view the dollar’s dominance unfavourably and are optimistic about BRICS+. But even in IBSA, some are critical of the group’s expansion to include the likes of Iran.

Finally, the Report brings into focus  what Western interests, I suspect, need to understand and to advance more collaborative action:

Understanding the challenges of the West’s partners must begin with an examination of their specific concerns. Brazilian respondents most often cite climate change and the environment as the most challenging foreign policy issue for their country. Indian respondents see China, which their country has a ‘hot’ border with, as the biggest challenge. In South Africa, the most frequently cited issue is maintaining an autonomous foreign policy between the demands and pressures of different major powers, followed by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. … Taking their ideas seriously would show that the West is ready to include them as equals at the new global high table. Ultimately, this shift in thinking will transform the Western echo chamber into a symphony of voices.

The Report is very revealing and I suspect the CWD session will be lively and likely to advance our Middle Power thinking between and among the participants at the CWD.

More on that later I anticipate.

This Post first appeared at my Substack, Alan’s Newsletter. Comments are welcome and feel free to subscribe to receive new posts and support my work.

The First Informal Falters

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Yup, a little late in the weekend it is. But then for some Monday is a holiday. Mea culpa, but I was deep into completing a draft chapter for a yet to appear volume – which, in fact is scheduled to be released by 2025. The publication year, by the way, is important. My chapter will be part of a planned edited volume by Edward Elgar Publishing. There will be many chapters, so I am told, that will review and analyze the G7. It will do so on the 50th anniversary of the initiation of the G7 Leaders Summit. Yup, Rambouillet, the acknowledged first G7 Leaders Summit – it was actually, the G6 – France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US at that moment in time – met in 1975.  All the chapters, I suspect, will cover aspects of this ‘First Informal’, the G7, and, I suspect, the other Informals as well – that is the G20 and the BRICS.

Wow, the 50th anniversary of this First Informal! Certainly, I was interested in examining the role of the First Informal not to mention the Others.

Unfortunately, as you explore the Informals – indeed the promise of the Informals, you come face to face with the state of effectiveness of this leader-led summit. Has this multilateral instrument been effective?  It is hard not to assess that the Informals have not met the hopes of those initiating and managing this and all of these informal institutions.

The emergence of the Informals reflected in part the fading power of the Formals – the institutions of the UN, the IMF, the World Bank and some others – and the intent to advance collective global governance policymaking . A more cynical view would suggest that these major western powers – the US, UK, and Europeans, not to mention Japan, sought to resolve growing global economic problems in the 1970s impacting them and more broadly the global economy without interference of others in the global economy – newly emerging market economies and more broadly the Global South. As I wrote in the early paragraphs of the draft chapter:

“Beyond just a question of representation, however, there is the continuing question, quite crucial, of the effectiveness of all these Informals.” As I concluded: “… their structures and processes have not led to the desired policy leadership as was hoped by early leaders.

There are various explanations, I believe, in undermining the success of First Informal – and helping to explain the current weakness of it and all the Informals. These ‘forces’ are, I believe, hobbling global governance progress in the current global order. One element, of course, is the lack of  broad representation – this is after all just the G7. But there is more. Recently the United States has focused the G7 on like-mindedness and beyond that, at least in a US view – expressed in part by the statement of Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, that the G7 is:

… the steering committee of the world’s advanced democracies, demonstrating unprecedented unity of purpose and unity of action on the issues that are defining the 21st century.

This US “steering committee” focus on the G7 has arisen at the same time, or in part because of, the return of geopolitics, particularly the growing rivalry and competition between the US and China in international relations. While the US-China rivalry does create tensions in the G7, still these tensions are nothing like that in the G20 with the mix of developed and developing members and most obviously including the US and China and in fact the US and Russia.

The US-Russia tension speaks to the growing global disorder erupting with various regional conflicts. There is nothing more dramatic than in the past two years and more of the Russia-Ukraine war in the heart of Europe. Then there is a more recent but no less dramatic war between Hamas and Israel in the Mideast that is spreading regionally.

As described by the President and the CEO of the International Crisis Group (ICG), Ero Comfort and the ICG Executive Vice President, Richard Atwood (2024) in a recent FP post:

Worldwide, diplomatic efforts to end fighting are failing. More leaders are pursuing their ends militarily. More believe they can get away with it. … So, what is going wrong? The problem is not primarily about the practice of mediation or the diplomats involved. Rather, it lies in global politics. In a moment of flux, constraints on the use of force—even for conquest and ethnic cleansing—are crumbling.

And then there is uncertainty of US commitment to the multilateral order as we watch the possible return of a second Trump presidency. Even without that the current Biden Administration has too often exhibited a tepid commitment to a multilateral order.

All these forces have weakened the actions of the Informals and the broader multilateral initiatives. Multilateral weakness is a threat to the current global order and raises the prospects of growing harmful global disorder.

This Post first appeared at Alan’s Newsletter, a Substack Post – https://substack.com/@globalsummitryproject

Image Credit – Japan’s Office of the Prime Minister

‘The Decline of US Hegemony and its Consequences for the Global Order’ – A Roundtable at the International Studies Association

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ISA 2023: Exhibit, Advertise, and SponsorSo, the International Studies Association (ISA) just concluded in Montreal  after a visibly energetic in-person gathering following several years of virtual meetings only.

I was fortunate enough to chair the roundtable. All sorts of good folk attended including panelists: Arthur Stein, UCLA, Lou Pauly, University of Toronto, Yves Tiberghien, University of British Columbia, and Kyle Lascurettes, Lewis and Clark College. Unfortunately, our colleagues, Janice Stein could not join but I was fortunate enough to receive her speaking note and I have tried to reflect some of her thinking with the notes from other colleagues.

What didn’t surprise me, of course, during the session was the recognition from all that we have a fraught period of transition in the international system. There is the obvious Russian aggression against Ukraine and the challenge by Russia to some of the basic tenets of the current order – most notably territorial integrity and national sovereignty. There is also the obvious growing leading power tensions between the US and China and the growing threat of confrontation and conflict especially over Taiwan that currently stock the relationship. There was the obvious attention to US determination to sustain dominance even in the face of a dramatic power transition with the emergence of China and more broadly the Global South – India and other Indo-Pacific nations including Indonesia, etc. and other Southeast Asian states and then, of course, the return of Lula to Brazil.

But raw geopolitics did not dominate the discourse of the Roundtable. Equally significant in our discussions was the acknowledgement of the continuance of the intergovernmental institutions and collective actions of states to advance global order and achieve collective action within the framework of the current and evolving Order. While some decried the faltering of the global institutions, nevertheless, there was general acceptance that regional and other informal order-based institutions continued advance policies in various ways. AS one of my colleagues Kyle Lascurettes noted: “There is a truly global rules-based order that stands a good chance of outliving American hegemonic decline. But the so called “liberal” or “Western” rules-based order is and will be in trouble.” Indeed, the liberal order or the Liberal International Order (LIO) disappeared, I’d argue with the Global Financial Crisis” in 2008 but the Global Order does indeed remain. And, as Yves Tiberghien focusing on the dramatic power transition suggested: “today is a time of disruption and transition – a special phase. Major shocks, change, crises, innovation will take place over the next 1-2 decades … Also shift in awareness. Western dominated order was an anomaly of last 200 years, with a rise phase for 300 years before that. Return of multiple voices all over the world. Return to a diverse, polymorphic, poly polarity.” As Jagannath Panda recently wrote in an EAF blog on March 20, 2023:  “Obituaries of the US-led liberal international order may be exaggerated, but the shift towards multipolarity is in motion.”

And what then do we have as the Global Order, and how will it advance. Arthur Stein recalled the fragile nature of the Order, which he described for me in his opening chapter of my 2008 edited volume – Can the World be Governed? The global order, he wrote then, and repeated at our Roundtable was:  ‘a weakly confederal world’. As he said at the time (2008, 52) : ”In fact, one could argue not only that multilateralism is an existential reality but that weak confederalism is the nature of modern reality.”

So the LIO has faded,  and what remains is the global RBIO (rules-based international order). Weaker and less collaborative – indeed as Arthur pointed out, the low hanging fruit of cooperation has passed and it is and will be increasingly difficult to reach collaborative solutions . But as Yves points out that there is continuing support for aspects of the Order including with China where Yves notes the significant China support for COP15 the Conference on  Biodiversity where the multilateral conference came together to agree on a new set of goals to guide global action through 2030 and to halt and reverse nature loss and the recently concluded agreement on the text for the critical High Seas Treaty. The challenge for the leading powers is to maintain a forward collaborative thrust, and as Lou Pauly warned, it is critical for the US to accept: “The challenge is to overcome perennial tendencies toward either insularity or spasmodic over-extension, toward temporizing on necessary decisions, toward shifting the costs of adjustment to the relatively poor internally, and toward exporting the rest of those costs to other countries.” It will not be easy; and Arthur reminded us that American domestic politics has been a problem since 1919 and continues today with the failure to approve through the US Senate, international agreements and the often strained effort to use executive power.

As Janice Stein alludes to in her notes: “Plurilateral and minilateral institutions – from AUKUS to IPEF to Trade and Technology Councils will be the principal sites of innovation. I have called this process “taking it offsite.” New institutions are being stood up, led by the willing, who set rules and invite others to join if they wish. One could argue that we are entering a period of start-up innovation in the creation of new, smaller, more flexible, and more focused institutions.

Although Janice may be a touch pessimistic over multilateral collaborative action, the Global Order has its worked cut out for it to avoid great power conflict and achieve critical global governance policies in climate, global finance, global health and much more.

 

Image Credit: ISA

Indonesia’s G20 Win: behind-the-scenes gatherings and unity in a time when global governance needs it most – and now to India

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Dominating our smartphone screens, televisions, and front pages were photos of Justin Trudeau, Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, and Giorgia Meloni in traditional Indonesian attire, participating in a ceremonial mangrove tree planting event and gathering late night to discuss the missiles that killed two Poles, contemplating potential next steps using NATO’s Article 4. These leaders are – whether they want to be or not – celebrities. They are simultaneously praised and critiqued depending on who is watching them. Yet, what is not seen by mainstream audiences, perhaps even those more politically astute, is the intricate machine of behind-the-scenes work taking place throughout 257 meetings between December 2021 and December 2022 under Indonesia’s presidency of the G20 Summit.

In 2011, the Director of the Global Summitry Project, Alan Alexandroff, wrote about the notion of the G20 not being solely about its leaders, but rather surrounding the Leaders’ Summit an array of complementary “personal representatives, ministers, other officials, IFIs, IOs, [and] global regulators that make the G[20] system work – or not”. Whether the G20 is successful (a subjective term, in any case), is a different conversation.

Alexandroff’s Iceberg Theory of Global Governance positions the G20 Leaders’ Summit at its tip, but the vast bulk of the iceberg is situated below the surface, and often goes unnoticed by the majority of observers and experts.

This underwater all-encompassing mass is formed by numerous assemblies: from Ministerial meetings regarding health, environment and climate, women’s empowerment, trade investment and industry, the energy transition, development, labor, research and innovation, and tourism; to Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor meetings, Finance-Health Deputies meetings, joint Sherpa and Finance Deputies meetings, individual Sherpa meetings, Foreign Ministers meetings, G20 Digital Ministers meetings, and Education Ministers meetings; and lastly, engagement group gatherings (including the U20, B20 on climate/energy, integrity, compliance, and business leaders; the T20, with numerous recommendations from think tanks around the world, the Y20, with priority areas on digital transformation and youth empowerment, and the L20 Employment Summit).

It would be hard to contest that the G20 indeed has been a platform that has developed and advanced key collaborative actions toward policies and priorities, from the Leader Declaration identifying the Pandemic Fund, the Financial Intermediary Funds for Pandemic Prevention, which employs the World Bank and World Health Organization.

The incoming G20 Troika – Indonesia, India and Brazil – will mark a unique shift in global governance deliberations. It will be led by three Global South countries with emerging large market economies hosting the year-long activities. The hosting will pass from India in 2023, Brazil in 2024, and South Africa in 2025.

We anticipate this three-year spread of Global South presidencies will tackle issues that have been brushed to the side or missed in other G20 Summits. This is certainly a significant step in the effort to construct a multilateral network to seek mutually beneficial responses to growing challenges impacting all countries.

The Financial Times released an article following Indonesia’s Leaders’ Summit, deeming its outcomes “remarkable”. Russia, represented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, seemed isolated on the world stage as China put forth a more neutral stance in its support towards Moscow. Xi commented that his administration “resolutely opposes attempt[s] to politicize food and energy issues or use them as tools and weapons”.

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