The international system and the clash of world orders

Abstract

In 1945, humanity came together to create the Charter International System. It expressed the hope that after the most catastrophic war the world had yet seen, a superior system of international relations could emerge. The ‘spirit of 1945’ gave rise to the United Nations and its foundational Charter, reinforced subsequently by numerous declarations, protocols and conventions. The system delivers many public goods, including the system’s specialised agencies, but above all by establishing the normative and legitimate framework for the conduct of international politics. The Charter system today faces unprecedented challenges. The tension between the multilateralism and normative aspirations for peace and development represented by the Charter system and the competitive practices of international politics has become a contradiction and possibly an antinomy—an irreconcilable difference. The creation of competing blocs (world orders) in Cold War I prevented consensus on fundamental matters, however, all sides proclaimed their allegiance to the Charter system. When the Soviet bloc disintegrated in 1989–1991, the Charter system faced a new challenge—the quest for global hegemony of the remaining world order, the Political West led by the US. This bloc claimed certain tutelary privileges, formulated initially in terms of a ‘liberal international order’ and later in the form of the ‘rules-based order’, over the Charter International System. This resulted in conflicts and even wars, but is today countered by the emergence of a Political East. Cold War II today is more challenging and dangerous than the first, primarily due to the threat posed to the very existence of the Charter systems and its norms.