The global balance of power is being altered by the emergence of new powers, leading to a change from bipolarity to multipolarity. What are the implications for international law and human rights?
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| Beijing, China |
Turkey, Ukraine, and the Caucasus. The outbreak of violence signals the end of the era of American peacekeeping. As new powers emerge, the established order is being disrupted. Whether tomorrow’s world will be bipolar or multipolar remains an open question. Systemic competition between the United States and China has the potential to re-emerge as a cold war if tensions between the two countries continue to rise. The future of the globe is likely to remain multipolar if other centers of power can preserve their strategic independence.
The world order will be irrevocably altered as a result of this worldwide phenomenon. When Western liberal democracies lose their grip on power, does it spell the end of the liberal international order as well? What happens to the moral underpinnings of America’s multilateral institutions if the “world policeman” no longer has the power or motivation to guarantee them? Will there still be tomorrow’s global institutions that all governments may join and whose rules every nation must follow? Can competing civilizations with very diverse values ensure the continued existence of universal human rights?
Let’s analyze the role of ideology in the contest for the future of global governance. There are both internal and exterior threats to the liberal system, and the latter must be defended at all costs. Liberal universalism is under attack from illiberal particularisms even inside the West. It is being sought from the extreme right to dismantle the constitutional state and turn liberal republics with robust minority rights into illiberal majority democracies. The goal is to restrict democratic rights and the benefits of the welfare state to a predetermined ethnic majority. This illiberal reorganization requires the removal of the constraints posed by international law. Two prominent recent examples are the “America First” and “Brexit” movements.
The identitarian left, however, is not unfamiliar with particularistic tribalism either. The egalitarian spirit of the republic is threatened by incitement to conflict between groups defined by their race, ethnicity, religion, or gender identity. An illiberal mindset underlies efforts to stifle dissenting opinions, justify illegal behavior on the basis of cultural norms, or sidestep parliamentarism with political commissars. Finally, the universalist ideal of equal rights for all individuals is mocked by the selective criticism of human rights infractions.
The West’s commitment to universal principles would be weakened if these particularisms influenced official policy. Yes, the Global South’s complaints about the West’s double standards are being used by China and Russia to further their own agendas. However, the West’s own violations of international law at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have eroded its moral authority.
The West’s confidence is diminished as a result of its declining legitimacy and relative dominance. There is less political resolve to promote international law and human rights everywhere when isolationist or nationalist parties gain control. This bodes poorly for the liberal international order and the universalist values upon which it is built.
The Global South’s opposition to the neoconservatives’ use of force to promote democracy demonstrates that there are still advocates of American imperialism in the nation’s capital. Neo-imperial concepts of order, both defensive and aggressive, are gaining popularity, particularly in Russia and China. As a defensive measure, the liberal West is being asked to stay out of its own domestic affairs, while at the same time assertively claiming its place at the top of a global power structure based on its own colonial past.
By drawing a line between a vibrant Eurasian culture and the decrepit Western civilization, Moscow ideologically disguises Russia’s use of force to establish an exclusive zone of influence. These neo-imperialist illusions are, ironically, rather popular among “decadent West” nationalist groups. Recent interest in Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” theory may reflect a human need to make sense of a chaotic world by categorizing people into “they’re like us” and “they’re not like us” camps.
In contrast, China advocates for the “peaceful coexistence of civilizations” by highlighting the country’s own sophisticated culture, which dates back thousands of years. Beijing rejects the notion of universal human rights in favor of a “common idea of human rights” that must be interpreted culturally. China is pushing its interpretation of international law at the United Nations, which prioritizes economic and social growth above political civil rights. The ancient Tianxia system (“everything under heaven”) is mentioned by the philosopher Zhao Tingyang as the normative superstructure for a global order with Chinese features. Concerns have been raised that the motivation for China’s recent rediscovery of ideals from its imperial past is to provide cover for the country’s continued dominance in Asia.
The humanitarian operations of the West, which have exploited universal rights as a justification for interfering in domestic affairs, have sparked as much fury (and not only there) as the imperial endeavors to destroy the equality, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of neighboring nations. To combat the spread of imperial and liberal notions of order, the Global South is turning to the Westphalian ideals. The legal equality of independent nation states is stressed rather than a hierarchical structure in which vassal nations are clustered around imperial poles.
The goal of the concept of territorial integrity is to prevent imperial capitals from launching violent assaults. However, the ideal of non-intervention is defended in opposition to liberal internationalists’ humanitarian interventions and global governance organizations’ structural reform initiatives. The Western story of a structural conflict between democracies and autocracies in the Global South gets so little attention because of the resentment of outside involvement.
The Westphalian state system was never meant to have a centralized government. The United States’ selective “world policeman” position after the Cold War’s conclusion was always a poor stand-in. Washington, however, will likely lack the political will and military might in the future to condone the breach of universalist principles. Therefore, in a multipolar and therefore pluralistic world where civilizations with various values and views of order coexist, the central issue is whether a unilateralist minimum agreement can arise on a strictly voluntaristic foundation.
The future of global order hinges on the balance of power, which will determine which vision of order triumphs. If the West is serious about maintaining the liberal system, it must abandon the “imperialist” practices of excessive humanitarian involvement. Giving up on expanding democracy and human rights does not entail abandoning those principles, but it does include abandoning the use of force to achieve it.
How the West’s internal struggles between illiberal particularists and liberal universalists play out will be a key factor in determining whether or not it will be able to muster the willpower to change direction. The progressive solution to the never-ending zero-sum games between identitarian groups that bring society as a whole to a halt is the universalist commitment to equal rights for everyone.
And if every culture treats the laws of cohabitation as arbitrary, how can we avoid a worldwide battle of civilizations? If the Christian and natural law-inspired norm underpinning of the international order is no longer acceptable to everybody, then a fair discourse across civilizations will be required to determine whatever universal principles may be agreed upon in its place.
Unfortunately, the morally charged cultural wars threaten to drown out a rational discussion about the West’s well-understood self-interest in sustaining a rules-based international order with a universal basis of principles.
Supporters of a concert of the great powers point out that keeping tensions low during the Cold War (as in the Cuban Missile Crisis) was possible because of a mutual respect for each superpower’s sphere of influence.
The constant proxy conflicts on the periphery were the price that had to be paid for the relative peace in the imperial capitals. The unwillingness of most governments to accept the domination of one pole, for better or worse, is another factor contributing to the rejection of neo-imperial ideals of order.
The Global South as a whole, including influential figures in China and Eastern Europe, supports the revival of a Westphalian order of independent and equal nations.
Maintaining a global order based on the principles of equality, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of all states enshrined in the United Nations Charter is the best of all possible worlds if the West lacks the political will and assertiveness to maintain the liberal order with its universalistic foundation of norms.
The author Marc Saxer heads the FES regional office for Asia, based in Bangkok. Previously, he was FES country representative in India and Thailand, head of the Asia department at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Berlin and coordinator of the Economy of Tomorrow in Asia project .
Source: IPG