Creating a New 'Rules-based International Order'

And yet another holiday weekend. I hope you enjoy this Post on a difficult global order subject

We are stuck - well not exactly but pretty much. What I am referring to is assessing the state of the global order and where and how we need to advance to improve stability and avoid deadly great power conflict in the near future. Thanks to my colleague, Keith Porter, the President and CEO of the Stanley Center for Peace and Security he alerted me to a just published Report focused on exactly these issues.

Now I came to the above conclusion, however, after reviewing,   “A Logic for the Future: International Relations in the Age of Turbulence”. This is a Report, released on June 27th and prepared by the President and CEO of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), Stephen Heintz. It is a substantial Report but I think in a way it is a casualty in the face of the current state of US politics and policy and continuing leading power tensions. Let me explain.  

Let’s start here by summarizing briefly the Report. This is how Sarah Edkins of RBF described the President’s Report: 

A Logic for the Future: International Relations in the Age of Turbulence provides an in-depth analysis of the contemporary hurdles to global problem-solving facing the United Nations and other institutions of multilateral diplomacy. Heintz identifies the core logic underlying global affairs—rooted in the earliest international treaties and enshrined in the U.N. Charter—and finds them insufficient to address today’s unprecedented convergence of political, economic, social, technological, and environmental forces. He then offers a reimagined framework for international relations based on the equitable distribution of power and the primacy of global common interests in peace and security, economic prosperity, and environmental sustainability.

Like much that is being written today, and reasonably so, the Report turns to focus on the ‘what’ - or as expressed by Sarah Edkins “the core logic underlying global affairs” and what needs to change. We are required to know the nature of current global order if we are then, hopefully, going to be able to envision the changes required, or as described by Edkins, “the reimagined framework” we need. 

Unfortunately, the Report in the end lacks real bite and development when it comes to understanding the reimagined framework. It is not that Heintz doesn’t describe a rich reimagined framework, as you will see he does but how we get this rich reimagined framework, well it’s not there.  In other words the ‘how is missing. The ‘how’ is, of course, how do international actors - states most critically, but also international organizations, regional ones, substate and nonstate actors move to the new practices and institutions required to build: greater international stability and collaboration; achieve progress in critical transnational global governance issues; and uncover the practices and means to avoid deeply threatening great power conflict. 

Let’s just summarize both aspects of the Report. Heintz targets what he views as critical aspects of reform first looking at core elements that constitute the current system - and then turns to the ‘building blocks of a new global framework’ - the reimagined framework in other words. 

So quickly Heintz set out 12 critical aspects of reform: 

• Anthropocentrism vs Respect for the full community of Life; 

• National Sovereignty vs Collaborative sovereignty and human sovereignty;

• Primacy of national interest vs Focus on the global Commons;

• Great power dominance vs Equitable distribution of power;

• Internationalism vs Internationalism consistently upheld;

• Reliance on multilateral institutions and large bureaucracies vs A diverse ecosystem of institutions, networks, and processes

• Negative peace through military strength vs Positive peace through inclusive diplomacy, equitable development, and military capacity 

•  Zero-sum thinking, blocs, and alignment vs Positive-sum solutions and variable alignment 

• Strategic narcissism vs Strategic empathy

• Imperialism, racism, patriarchy vs Equity and cosmopolitanism 

• Neo-liberal economics vs Economics of human and planetary wellbeing

• Embrace of new technologies without restraint vs Selectivity, global norms, and regulation

And then Heintz tackles the 10 building blocks of a new global framework: 

• Cocreate the International System of the future

• Remake the United Nations 

• Supplement the United Nations 

• Improve, supersede, and devolve the nation-state

• Train, recruit, and deploy a new generation of diplomats

• Trade and investment to provide global public goods

• Strengthen democracy

• Establish a U.S.-China Secretariat

• Codify Rights of Nature and Rights of Future Generations

• Transformed U.S. Global Leadership

Heintz targets national sovereignty and national interest as undermining the international system. As he states: 

 For many international relations theorists and practitioners, the logic of national interest is unassailable— legitimate governments are expected to respond to the needs of their citizens. Yet there are three fundamental challenges to the utility of national sovereignty: …  

Evidently states interests conflict and states devised dispute settlement mechanisms to resolve differences but these means of resolution are often ignored and the result is conflict. National interest prevents equitable access to public goods. And the author targets state action that undermines the global commons - most starkly the burning of fossil fuels for economic growth. As he declares: 

The logic of the future must see human beings as a part of nature rather than apart from it. … Like the related concept of sovereignty, national interest will continue to be an element of the logic of the future. In this century, however, the primacy of national interest must be diluted and greater attention focused on the global commons.

Despite the many decades of efforts to constrain conflict and blunt aggressive national action, Heintz notes: 

Like the related concept of sovereignty, national interest will continue to be an element of the logic of the future. In this century, however, the primacy of national interest must be diluted and greater attention focused on the global commons.

Interestingly, Heintz leans on plurilateralism, the collective action of a select group of actors - states and others - to advance collective action: 

In the logic of the future, an ecosystem that complements institutions with networks, “mini-lateral” arrangements in which nations form coalitions to address common concerns or undertake time-limited missions, and perhaps most importantly, polylateral arrangements in which states, sub-national levels of government, private sector actors, and civil society join forces will prove to be more agile and effective at global problem solving.

This leaning on ‘mini-lateralism’, as Heintz describes, will be required after success in curbing the actions of a few great powers and their continuing reliance on the use of force. Heintz also calls for major institutional reform: 

This will require revisions to the governance of key international institutions, starting with the U.N. Security Council as well as the international financial institutions (e.g., the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and regional development banks).

And, finally, it will also require a rebalancing away from the extensive spending on the means of deterrence against the use of force by others:

However, the logic of the future demands that we vastly strengthen diplomatic capacity, support equitable development, and invest in critical human needs as well as planetary sustainability. We must seek a future in which defense investments do not deter increased domestic social spending or international development aid that can build greater global social cohesion. 

And Heintz underscores it all with a view that nations need to accept the legitimacy of all regimes as long as actors eschew the gross violation of human rights:

Now, 60 years later, countries should accept the pluralism within the community of nations and forswear active efforts toward regime change as long as borders are respected and governments do not engage in gross violations of the human rights of their own citizens, as expressed in the R2P doctrine laid out in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document.

The logic of the future must be based on universal human dignity, equality, pluralism, cosmopolitanism, tolerance, and justice. The legacies of discrimination and exploitation continue to breed conflict, and genuine peace will not be achieved or sustained for as long as these legacies remain. 

And how do we get there, then? This is reflected in the second part of this Report that focuses on the building blocks of a new global framework. As the summary above shows there are extensive steps required for the international system to move from here to there. Most notable are the reform of the critical international organizations:

But like a magnificent old house, the United Nations needs major renovations. Most of the needed renovations are well known. These include making the U.N. more democratic by expanding the number of permanent Security Council members and amending the veto privilege (perhaps requiring three members to jointly exercise vetoes) or by empowering the General Assembly to override vetoes with the support of two-thirds or three quarters of the member states.

It is also time to redesign other U.N. bodies and mechanisms, starting with the UNFCCC and the annual Conferences of the Parties (COPs), which have brought together the nations of the world to address the climate crisis since the first COP in Berlin in 1995.

Heintz also urges a more networked system and looks to link the effectiveness of the G20, the most important Informal in my mind to the formal international system. 

Heintz also believes that the building blocks to  a future global system requires the United States as a leading power to take steps to ensure greater collective collaborative action: 

As the world’s most powerful country, the United States should work with the U.N. secretary-general, Europe, and other important global major powers to launch an inclusive process to design a more equitable and effective distribution of power and a new global system

Without U.S. leadership, it would be impossible to embrace the logic of the future and build the international system needed to address the challenges of the 21st century. But the realities of this interdependent world require fundamental changes in the style and content of U.S. global leadership. We need a bold and fundamentally different vision of America’s role in the world.

Finally, Heintz urges that initiatives urged by the Secretary-General of the UN be implemented including, possibly, to replace “the U.N. Trusteeship Council with an Intergovernmental Council that offers rotating membership to subnational units of government (e.g., cities, states, provinces) and that, like the Trusteeship Council, answers to the General Assembly.”; and accepting the Secretary-General’s recommendation to name a Special Envoy for the Future.  

What is the rub here, then? Unfortunately,  it is all too evident. As good as many of the recommendations are, and there are many, Heintz simply fails to speak to two vital things. First, is the state of current US politics. The real prospect of a Trump presidential bid would make almost any of the actions outlined for the US in this Report, in my mind, impossible. But even avoiding this particular leadership outcome, it would still leave a US leadership highly unlikely to press forward on any of the major dimensions described as necessary by Heintz.

The same seems to me to be likely for US-China relations and their unwillingness to ease tensions between the two leading powers or to act in a collective way to advance major collective action. 

If actions to improve the current state of global order relations are possible, it will have to be done without - at least in the early stages - the leading powers. It is possible but it requires a sustained focus on several Middle Powers and the minilateral efforts to nudge the system forward. It will be arduous and slow and demand a lot of discussion. The ‘how’ is difficult, very difficult. I am not surprised that the Report is light on this. But such analysis - a focus on the ‘how’ - will ultimately be necessary.