Abstract
National sovereignty is often described as the ability to govern on one's own territory, but complete sovereignty has never existed in practice and there has always been cross-border trade and exchanges between local populations independent of state regulation. Climate change and global pandemics cross borders and challenge the ability of national governments to ensure security and that basic needs are met for their own populations. Joint action leads to better results and only multilateralism can foster effective sovereignty.
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In recent years, there have been major shifts in the global distribution of political and economic power that will have significant implications for a functional the global order. A new order for the twenty-first century is only just beginning to emerge. Though new world orders have regularly come into being throughout history, this process is challenging in the current environment because of the urgent issues currently affecting the entire planet. These global threats could have irreversible consequences and require swift action by the global community. While we urgently need bold international action, there are obstacles—not least because of the upheaval in the global order—that hinder this much-needed, collective response.
One of the most significant developments of recent decades in terms of the global reordering has been China’s rapid economic rise, which has lifted millions of people out of hunger and poverty. China’s ascent—and those of other former emerging economies—rightly calls into question the architecture of the international order, the essential design of which was shaped in the aftermath of World War II and the balance of power at that time. Although there have been partial adjustments since then, the current order has been in place for over seventy years.
Even while many bodies within the UN system make existentially important decisions on a daily basis, and thus ensure the functioning of global public goods, the emerging international reorganization is already plagued by conflicts. Predictably, a realignment means that the roles of both industrialized and emerging and developing countries will change. Moreover, what makes this recalibration so difficult is that it entails concrete responsibilities: While the West, which has been internationally dominant for decades, will lose influence, former emerging countries must assume greater responsibility, which will also involve significant expenditures by developing countries. Both represent an enormous challenge not only for the existing international system, but also for the governments concerned with their domestic political discourse. On the one hand, it should be self-evident that the West must recognize these new realities and support a fairer and more appropriate architecture, both in international organizations and the multilateral system as a whole. At the same time, however, former emerging and developing countries can no longer insist on maintaining their previous status when it is clear that their basic economic situation has changed.
Notwithstanding recognition of past colonial crimes, which continue to cause massive injustice and misery today, and despite the fact that Western states have historically emitted the lion's share of CO2, a state's sovereignty should be dependent on its government taking responsibility for the consequences of its own actions. This means, in concrete terms, that today's emitters must take responsibility, even if they have contributed little to the enormous CO2 emissions of the past. The principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,”Footnote 1 written into the UNFCCC climate framework agreement, leads us in the right direction. However, just as the international order needs readjustment, this agreement also needs to be adjusted to account for new distributions of power and to incorporate the “polluter-pays” principle.
It will likely take a few years for the contours of a new international order to emerge and gradually take shape on analytic and conceptual levels. This article attempts to present some preliminary considerations for discussion in this process.
In most textbooks, national sovereignty is described as the ability to govern on one's own territory. This refers to the exercise of legitimate state power, which is associated, among other things, with the obligation to provide for the population within one's own territory and to ensure its security.
It should be borne in mind here that complete sovereignty has never existed in practice: there has always been cross-border trade, including informal cooperation across borders, as well as exchanges between local populations that function independently of state regulation.
The fact that the concept of sovereignty is, in places, arbitrary, can also be seen in regard to some national borders: here we recall the borders of African states drawn with a ruler, as well as European borders that have shifted again and again over time. In addition to these examples of the arbitrariness of national borders and the associated limitations of the concept of sovereignty, today’s world poses another example. In times of weapons of mass destruction and environmental damage whose effects do not end at national borders; in times of increasingly visible climate change, loss of biodiversity and global pandemics; it is obvious that it is beyond the ability of national governments to ensure security and that basic needs are met for their own populations.
In this context, the processes commonly described as “globalization” also play a significant role. Worldwide trade and the international division of labor, global exchange of resources, international tourism, city partnerships, and the exchange of knowledge across borders have led to growing prosperity and progress, to increased knowledge of distant countries and cultures, and thus to greater interdependence on our planet. These processes have, at the same time, limited national capacity for governance. Most recently, the pandemic has shown just how closely interconnected humanity is, to the extent that the idea of trying to protect one nation from Covid-19 by means of isolation is doomed to failure.
In order for the international division of labor to function, multilateral structures have emerged in recent decades; specifically, a rule-based international order, codified in international law and embodied by permanent international organizations that promote and monitor compliance with this order.
This development has been accompanied by regional multilateralization, that is, the emergence of regional alliances, and has been supplemented by an ever-increasing specialization and density of regulations. For example, the number of specialized UN agencies and international legal agreements has increased exponentially in the post-World War II period.
Within such a system, it is obvious that multilateralism is not a contradiction of sovereignty, but rather a fundamental condition and prerequisite of it. Governments enter into international trade agreements to ensure the supply of goods to their populations, they join forces in security alliances, and they jointly fight pandemics or climate-related issues. Only by acting multilaterally in this way can a government fulfill its inherent obligations to society. And vice versa: with less international cooperation comes more limited provision of the global public goods that are of existential importance to nation states in the twenty-first century. North Korea may serve as a case study in this context: here, the most basic goods and services for individuals and society are not available, in part because the government in Pyongyang practices extensive international isolation.
If sovereignty and multilateralism are so closely interrelated, it is clear that a return to nationalism does not strengthen national sovereignty, as was proclaimed in the British Brexit campaign. The UK has not gained more independence after Brexit, as the slogan “Take back control” suggested, and the Government has not invested more money in the British health system, the NHS, as promised. Instead, London is sinking ever further into economic and political chaos, which has a negative impact on jobs, purchasing power, culture and, ultimately, on the national mood. The healthcare system is also suffering as a result of British re-nationalization.
If you consider that a car consists of more than 10,000 individual components, and a modern cell phone is made up of more than 60 parts that are produced in many different countries, the negative result of Brexit is not surprising. Multilateralism leads to a positive sum game in which everyone wins, while a return to nationalism leads to a zero-sum game in terms of power politics or even to a regression in the development of society as a whole. As in the second half of the twentieth century, a global interdependence came to be part of the core of sovereignty. I would therefore call this “reciprocal sovereignty.”
In my view, this conclusion has enormous implications for national governments. All those who want to visibly bring their national weight to bear in a future order would do well to strengthen multilateral structures! After all, combating climate change, sharing knowledge to contain pandemics, gaining insights into sustainable agriculture, refining transport or urban planning policies, and fighting poverty all serve to nurture not only the planet's ability to survive, but also the resilience of nations.
In addition, technological revolutions such as digitization, the rapid advance of artificial intelligence, and genetics urgently require global regulation. This is necessary to realize the positive opportunities of these innovations, rather than engender an environmental, social, cultural, and freedom-restricting step backward.
It is therefore urgent that emerging powers such as China, India, South Africa, and others present their blueprint for a global order. These and other countries, for understandable reasons, want a new order in which the Global South takes on a more important role.
Epochal groundwork has already been done that can serve as a substantive guide for such an order. Not only the universal UN human rights documents, but also the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015 and the Paris Climate Agreement of the same year have all formulated goals that are relevant for the survival of humanity in the twenty-first century.
How these goals are translated into a sustainable, cooperative, and resilient order is the task of our time. Indeed, the perspectives of particularly affected groups and of future generations, who are often not the originators of global problems but are the main victims, must be taken into account in this process. The agreement with the V20 (Vulnerable 20), which was reached at COP 27, shows how these ideas can be put into practice. A system that exclusively takes into account the interests of the large and central powers will not be resilient in the long run.
As much as universal institutions and global agreements are important to achieve equitable and sustainable regulations, the limits of such mammoth projects have also become clear. The 27th Climate Change Conference recently held in Egypt was largely a disappointment for all involved—even if the global umbrella against climate risks and the establishment of a fund to compensate for climate-related loss and damage was a bright spot in the negotiations. And despite the unexpected success of the Indonesian G20 Presidency in producing a joint final communiqué at the G20 Heads of Government Meeting in Bali, this was ultimately achieved by explicitly including geopolitical points of dissent in the statement. So, the question remains: how can we deal with the tensions that inhibit global institutions, as we have seen for decades in the UN Security Council, when vetoes by permanent members prevent binding resolutions?
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Is the solution a form of plurilateralism, in which the most powerful states are now called upon to quickly establish a new order to accelerate, and perhaps force, the urgently needed solutions to global problems? According to this logic, would the G20 then perhaps have to be replaced by a G3 or G4 format? But how would such a system take into account the interests of the vast majority of states, regions, and peoples who are not part of a superpower?
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Or would it be more beneficial to reform the existing UN systems in which largely all states and civil society sit at the table in negotiations, so that they can meet the challenges of the twenty-first century? For such an attempt, however, it is certainly not encouraging that for years not even the states so closely allied in the EU have managed to agree on a joint seat on the UN Security Council. The reform discussions in the United Nations to date have fallen far short of the standards they have set for themselves.
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Perhaps thematic ad hoc initiatives, such as the climate club recently proposed at the G7 summit in Elmau, can point to how, for example, the inertia of the Paris Climate Agreement can be made more dynamic? What is certain is that such “clubs” would have to be inclusive and, above all, must not amount to a backward step or greenwashing for already existing agreements. In concrete terms, this means that reporting obligations, effective monitoring, continuity in the meeting of signatories and, in the best case, a permanent secretariat would have to be built in to such alliances!
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Or are observers correct who say that the time for multilateral alliances in the twenty-first century is over, and that we are now facing a phase of re-nationalization? This would not only be an admission of international failure in the face of lethal threats to humanity as a whole, but it would also lead to a cynical system in which only the wealthy and strong survive in an increasingly hostile world.
It is certain that a world order is only stable in the long term if it manages to avert imminent danger and prevent war. It is equally obvious that with great power comes great responsibility. This must be taken into account by those who want to assume more international responsibility and claim a greater say. But it is also clear that some who use the words “multilateralism” and “human rights” in an inflationary manner are often themselves primarily pursuing their national self-interest and are looking out for their own advantage. One thing is certain: We live in an interconnected, interdependent world in which re-nationalization leads to enormous damage, at regional, national and international levels. That is why the “One Common World” project must now be implemented swiftly, not only with regard to various specific issues, but also institutionally. Time is running out!
At least there is broad agreement on the substantive challenges that affect humanity as a whole, and that can only be sustainably resolved internationally. For it is all too obvious that climate change and other environmental threats, obscenely unequal wealth distribution, weapons of mass destruction, and geopolitical conflicts, as well as many a disruptive innovation, are planetary threats that require coordinated, global collective action. A new international order will have to demonstrate that it can seriously address these challenges.
In Europe, after the catastrophe of World War II, we learned that only joint action leads to better results and that, as the title of this essay posits, only multilateralism can foster effective sovereignty. A similar lesson has been learned internationally, with the deepening of international law as mandatory law and with the creation of permanent international institutions. We should not forget this.
It is after all in the interest of all governments and supranational actors—and ultimately of everyone interested in globally sustainable development—to put forward proposals for an equitable international design.
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Engels, M. (2024). Multilateralism as a Prerequisite for Sovereignty. In: Wang, H.H., Miao, M.L. (eds) Enhancing Global Governance in a Fragmented World. China and Globalization. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-2558-8_2
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