A New International System

February 18, 2004
By J. Orstrom Moller

Globalization heralds a situation where actions and policies of one single nation-state may threaten the very survival of other nation-states and/or the international community. Unless actions are put in motion to force a change of policies upon the nation-state in question, the international system unravels as self-interest is paying off. In self-defense, the international community may even take the hitherto unprecedented step to intervene inside the borders of a nation-state against its will, thus violating sovereignty. To rally the overwhelming part of the international community, decisions to intervene must follow a pattern of transparency and accountability, just like in a domestic political system. Otherwise, the world ends up with interventions, yes, but carried out by the strongest power(s) – or coalitions of powers – nursing the root of suspicion that the objective is not the safeguard of the international community but to feather one’s own nest. A more or less agreed upon set of values specifying what kind of misbehaviour warrants interventionism, in particular the use of armed forces, becomes the third, last and indispensable step in this new model.

Interventionism

Economic intervention. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has steadfastly, without hesitation or the slightest doubt, intervened in national economic policies with the consent of its board. The protagonists expounded it as (self) defense of the international economy against disrupting forces. The critics have labelled that posture hypocrisy.

There is growing discontent that interventions are controlled by the creditors, shifting the burden of adjustment squarely on to the debtors. Already in 1945, John Maynard Keynes foresaw this risk. He tried – in vain – to forge the IMF in a balanced way, opening the door for stimulating policies in creditor countries as well as restrictive policies in debtor countries. The debtor countries have certainly felt the heavy hand of the IMF, but not much daring has been shown to force international responsibility on creditor countries.

The need for economic interventionism may be more acute than ever in the beginning of 2004. The US economy, with about 25% of global gross national product, is haunted by historically unprecedented debt burdens auguring a day of reckoning not far away. The much-welcomed recovery stands on a crumpling mountain of debt. Behind the veil, a seminal shift in purchasing power between the established economic powers –  mainly the US – and the fast approaching new economic superpowers – mainly China and India - is taking place with very few pondering the impact on the world economic system.

Military intervention. Contrary to the preceding decades the 1990s stands forth as an era of international interventionism. Security policies were not swept under the carpet as an objective. Military instruments were openly brought into play. But neither objectives nor instruments were regularly inscribed in an orderly international decision-making process. Ad Hoc approaches were the order of the day.

The first Gulf War, Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor and Somalia illustrates what before 1990 and the end of the Cold War, would have been deemed totally unthinkable.

An interesting example took place in the beginning of 2000, when the European Union intervened in negotiations inside Austria to form a new government referring to the obligations in the preamble of the Treaty of Rome. The EU felt that the Austrian Freedom Party being invited to join the government called these principles into question.

The international community has gradually endorsed steps encompassing one or more of the five following measures:

Persuasion

Pressure

Economic measures

Isolation

Security policies including military actions

A close examination of the Iraq crisis shows that there was consensus among all major international actors that it was justified to take measures against Iraq, that the international community had the right to contest the Iraqi regime and that a whole string of measures could and should apply including, if necessary, military action.

The disagreement can be boiled down to one, albeit crucial, factor: whether it was justified to use force earlier or later.

The Iraq crisis demonstrates how far and how fast the international community has moved toward legitimizing intervention and not the other way around.

Institutionalization

Institutionalization appears as the logical successor to the demise of sovereignty. When nation-states abandon the right to exercise sovereignty, they stand naked unless or until another system emerges. And that other system could and should be the virtues of the rule of law propelled onto the international level.

Many nation-states, in particular those having recently achieved their independence, may be reluctant to follow this course of action. They confuse formal sovereignty with the power to shape the destiny of their nation-state.

In a global world, a nation-state has no, or at most limited, room for manoeuvre to introduce and implement legislation running counter to the path chosen by adjacent countries and the international community. It may do so and some have tried with the inevitable result that international investors shy them and steer trade and investment flows away towards other recipients.

To safeguard the domestic policies preferred by a nation-state, national legislation must fit into international rules and/or an international environment like a glove. In case of contradiction, two options obtrude themselves upon policymakers: either to change the international framework by negotiation or to abandon the proposed national legislation.

We may speak of a new kind of sovereignty. It is defined as the room for manoeuvre achieved by the nation-state to introduce national legislation in conformity with and not in contradiction to international rules and international norms. The more spacious room for manoeuvre achieved the more sovereignty that is encroached upon.

Different parts of the world may be in different stages of the development. The European Union is at the forefront. In the Western Hemisphere, steady development of NAFTA can be observed. In East Asia, ASEAN and various initiatives to establish Free Trade Agreements leap into the eye. The Asian-Pacific countries cooperate inside APEC and Asian- European countries inside ASEM.

What we glimpse is a picture of building blocks gradually – even reluctantly –taking shape but taking shape nonetheless. 

Set of values.

A viable international system worth defending for those inside the system and worth joining for those outside, should be built upon three key concepts:

1.  Self-discipline or self-restraint exercised by the powerful actors in politics, economics and business.

2.  Tolerance toward others and their values while giving prominence to shaping a consensus on most, if not all, major issues – even if the major player could force its preference through.

3.  Mutual respect and making room for alternative opinions – even if they run counter to the posture adopted by the powerful actors.

Restraint and self-discipline are called for because the more powerful and economically dominating a nation-state is, the more its behaviour radiates outside its own borders. Exactly the same goes for large multinational companies. Their decisions influence the daily life of ordinary people far away, offering those people little or no opportunities to raise their voice and state their case.

Tolerance is does not mean opening the floodgates for everybody to behave as they like. Tolerance constitutes the right to think and act differently from other people but within a mutually agreed framework. Tolerance defined in this way forces us to know precisely where we stand ourselves. Other opinions must be measured against our own opinion.  We must know what we think and why we think in the way we do – what is our mindset and why do we have it and why do we think it is the right one for us? Thinking in this way opens the door for realizing that, what is the best for us may not necessarily be best for others. And that gives birth to the crucial observation that the heart of tolerance is that we care for other people’s destiny even if we do not agree with them.

Understanding is the key to tolerance and discerning how other people think. Unless we communicate and try to understand each other, there is no hope of comparing the different ways of thinking and shaping values for all.  And without striving for that objective, there is not much hope for internationalism.

Mutual respect constitutes the unseen ties making a community or a nation stick together. It requires a common set of values. Nationally, a common set of values keeps the nation together and, if mutually agreed upon, and applied successfully, produces a solid nation-state. A common mindset presents an almost insurmountable obstacle to fragmentation, disintegration and disorganization. By upbringing and tradition, people react according to some kind of common denominator defined by the underlying set of values.

The question remains: is the world prepared to introduce a set of values on the international level to safeguard the identity of people irrespective of ethnicity and/or religion while neglecting nationality as a criterion for rights and obligations?

The first and indispensable step is to reject any kind of double standards. An international system in the true sense of the word must be based upon and reflect equitable rights and obligations. Equal to the law is not only a nice sentence but must also apply to the entire international system – otherwise it is not equitable and if it is not equitable, how can we expect it to be attractive for all nations, all races and all religions?

There is an iron lining to this silver plate. If an international model congruous with the principles mentioned above emerges, those not wishing to participate can choose to stay outside – and such a choice should be respected.

However, they cannot choose to attack or disrupt the international system chosen and built by others just because it does not reflect a set of values preferred by them. The justification of violence and destruction is very rarely supported by the large majority of members of the same culture, ethnicity and religion – far from it. Violence is contradictory to and not in conformity with the teachings of all major religions.

The model should respect the rights of minorities and prevent the majority from imposing its will on those having chosen to stand aside. At the same time, no minority can arrogate to itself the right to prevent the majority from living in peace and stability inside a cultural framework chosen by them and for them.

If minorities and/or groups of minorities, by acts of violence, seek to destroy wealth, undermine stability and engineer cultural upheavals, such violence has to be resisted and, if necessary, by force. It then becomes a question of defense of the trend making seen for centuries toward a more civilized mankind. War, terror and fear have gradually been replaced by negotiations, civility and a genuine rule of the law.

No country, no nation, no culture, no civilization, no religious or ethnic group has the right per se to use power be it politically, economically, militarily or culturally. The use of power must be justified by being weighed, measured and judged against the principles outlined earlier and the right to do so must be earned by self-discipline, self-restraint, respect and no double standards.

The Alternative

There is always an alternative. And the alternative to this new kind of internationalism may be found among the following models: The United States as a global empire, a coalition of the willing run by the US, some kind of “three block” system with North America, Asia and Europe governed by competing centers, a return to the rivalry among nation-states or sheer and outright international chaos.

None of them represent the rule of the law, negotiations, mutual respect or whatever most of us would prefer. Instead they augur a back-pedalling to some kind of power play in a more or less repulsive form, unless of course we end up with some nice kind of chaos sending civilization back to the jungle.

J. Ørstrøm Møller is Ambassador of the Kingdom of Denmark to Singapore and an Adjunct Professor at Copenhagen Business School.