Building pro-development multilateralism: Towards a “New” New International Economic Order

Abstract

This paper explains how a “New” New International Economic Order (NNIEO) may be emerging from the slowly crumbling neoliberal international economic order that came into being in the 1980s and 1990s. First, it examines how the neoliberal order has been fading and is being reshaped in the wake of the decline of the multilateral international trading system (embodied by the World Trade Organization (WTO)) and the 2008 global financial crisis. It then discusses how recent changes in the world economy and in prevailing ideas, together with a number of contingent factors—such as climate change, the rise of China and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis— are making the emergence of an NNIEO more likely, while recognizing that some factors may hinder progress towards it.