The adjective rules-based is not one I read very much before about ten years ago. But since then it has crept into The Economist and other publications with increasing regularity, to describe ways that nations should conduct their affairs. I have read it so often by now that I was prompted to ask: what rules? Whose rules?
Rules matter. In sports, they determine who wins. The referee has a big impact on the game, and any rules change or even interpretation or guideline is hotly debated. The teams that respond most smartly to such changes tend to win.
Within a nation, there are many rules and protocols. The nations that prosper tend to have good rules and strong institutions to update and uphold them. They can apply to citizenship, property, commerce and behaviour.Some are codified, some not – the British constitution is famous for not being codified. Nations have written rules and unwritten rules about human partnerships: the best nations update these every so often as well.
The default, when there are no rules or no enforcement, is rule by power, which usually results in abuse of power, meaning corruption. Power can come from brute force, charisma or acquired wealth – even the last of these is worthless unless backed up by force.
What about between nations? Until the 1900’s, there were no rules and little need for them, because nobody travelled. The elite had their own rules, and exerted influence beyond borders by force and by tactics like marrying. Then we had colonisation, the first widespread corrupt abuse of power. Then came mass trade and transportation, and there arose the need for some rules, initially as a way for elites to protect what they had stolen.
Before 1914, these inter-national rules were little more than military alliances, and it was the inter-connected and inconsistent nature of these that cause the Great War. In 1919 came the League of Nations, a worthy attempt at some fairer rules, with Woodrow Wilson as midwife, but the rules were mainly written by and for the victorious and they collapsed in the 1930’s, and we had another war.
Then came the late 1940’s, when most of the current rules and protocols were initiated, mainly under the banner of the UN, but also with institutions like the IMF and the WTO. With thanks to Eleanor Roosevelt and many others, the centrepiece became the Geneva Conventions, and these were remarkable because they intended not just to govern how nations interacted, but how humans would be protected within any nation. The “four freedoms”, of speech and religion and from want and fear, remain a benchmark to this day.
I looked up what rules the rules-based order might encompass, and was impressed by the scope. In its early days, the UN did some great work. We have its own governance, with the Security Council and the General Assembly, and we also have many agencies and programs, covering science and health as well as finance and defence. We also have the international criminal court and international court of justice, and a host of UN-affiliated specialist organisations. It is a fine list.
Of course, the first problem with the list was that it was immediately undermined by the Cold War. While all these great institutions were being set up, the US and Russia were forming blocs and blockades. Quickly, other countries saw the need to form a “non-aligned” group, and the Security Council became powerless in any dispute where one of the superpowers had a strong interest. In some ways, it is a miracle that so many institutions have survived and even achieved things, and a testament to many professionals at the UN and elsewhere.
Looking back on the period of the early 1990’s, after communism had been discredited in Russia, the world missed a wonderful opportunity to update its institutions and rules. The EU was expanding and offering a template for potential extensions of rules, including the bulwarks of free movement of citizens, capital, goods and services. China was just starting to engage with the rest of the world, and could have bought in to well-designed principles. The US enjoyed a long boom under Clinton, and had a window for a smart congress. Sadly, Newt Gingrich (blameworthy) and then Monica Lewinsky (not) put a kibosh on all that, and the window closed.
Why? Well, as from time immemorial, rules were written by the powerful and winners in recent conflicts, and proved hard to change short of an atmosphere of reconciliation following a catastrophic war.
The result is that those who call for maintaining the rules based order are usually just asking for their own privileges to be retained. How can we defend a Security Council that offers France and the UK permanent seats but not India or any nation from Africa? How can we defend that the WTO is always led by someone from the US and the IMF by someone from Europe? How can anyone claim that China building bases in its neighbouring sea contravenes some global rule, when the US has bases in Guam and elsewhere that clearly seek to control China? How can we insist on Iran or North Korea sacrificing nuclear weapons when Israel, India and Pakistan are quietly allowed to ignore such so-called rules and existing nuclear powers expand their arsenals? How can we defend a global financial clearing system that relies almost totally on a single currency, offering one country the opportunity to hamstring the economy of any country they consider an enemy?
Of course Donald Trump has brought all of these injustices into sharp focus. By defying rules designed to suit his own nation, he weakens the rules, the institutions and any possibility of progress. But we should remember that all the injustices pre-dated Trump, and that the rest of us in the west were happy to go along with them so long as it suited us and so long as big brother America paid most of the bill and acted as a relatively fair referee. We can blame Trump, and indeed he is blameworthy, but he did not commit the original sin in this case.
So now, every time I read about the so-called rules-based order I take a sceptical step backwards. In as much as it exists, it is a construct of the elite for the elite, mainly for the west, and is hopelessly out dated. It may be the best we have, and better than chaos, and quite an achievement when we consider what came before, but it is not good enough, and not an acceptable stick to berate China and others with.
It is worth remembering this every time some article argues for or against intervention in Syria. Recently in the Guardian, Andrew Rawnsley, a brilliant and brave writer, condemned those who argued against any intervention as naïve and unwitting supporters of destruction. This prompted many letters from those pointing out that all recent interventions have only made matters worse. Both are right, but the failing is in international institutions, and it is all of us who have allowed those to be weakened. In the same way, we can condemn Russia in Ukraine, but only if we also condemn Saudi Arabia in Yemen and Israel in Gaza.
Any updated rules would have to rebalance the Security Council, and improve enforcement of protocols on defence. New protocols would be required for things like the environment and cyber-security. It is time that secret services came under more scrutiny. Military spending should require equivalent investment into international bodies. There is a lot to do.
The Trump presidency can have many possible legacies. Most of the direct ones will surely be negative. But maybe there can be some benefits from jolting the world out of complacency. The EU are already looking at how to side line the effects of Iranian sanctions or unreasonable trade practices. Eventually these institutions and rules will need renewal in order to be fit for purpose for today’s world. Undermining the current rules might be a necessary step to achieving this.
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