Multilateralism faces greater challenges

The world needs stronger multilateralism to tackle its toughest challenges, from climate change and poverty eradication to abuses of human rights and arms proliferation.

But some powers like America, under the pretext of universal values, are fomenting a new form of global division that recalls the worst moments of the cold war.

Using humanitarian reasons as a pretext to interfere in domestic affairs or to provoke regime change is deceptive and deceitful, he said, adding that increasingly serious threats to global security and the planet’s future are a direct consequence of weakening multilateralism.

Multilateralism is threatened by its own vain attempts to usurp State functions and return the world to the anarchy of the pre-war period preceding the United Nations.

The COVID‑19 pandemic has been a test, demonstrating that multilateral cooperation is the key to overcoming global challenges.

COVID-19 is a practice test that exhibits our weaknesses; we must build resilience now for whatever comes tomorrow.

Even though COVID‑19 has diverted attention and resources from such pressing challenges as conflicts, hunger and global warming, he said climate change still represents the greatest threat to humanity.

While the challenges facing the world are enormous, from nuclear disarmament to persistent gender inequality, he said, they can be overcome when the world works together.

After decades of globalisation and integration, the world seems to be fragmenting again, epitomised best, perhaps, by the return of geopolitics, protectionism, unilateral sanctions, treaty withdrawals, and even military and economic coercion.

Challenged by the United States, the return of old (Russia) and the growing assertion of new (China) antiliberal powers, the multilateral system is shaken both in its normative foundations and its operational capacity.

The multilateral system, however, remained a hybrid affair, combining universal aspirations such as human rights with a more prosaic system of managed competition in which major powers — including non-democratic and authoritarian ones — exert a prepondering influence, for instance at the Security Council.

With the end of the Cold War, the multilateral system gained a new momentum as global exchanges accelerated and more inclusive, multistakeholder approaches allowed for the participation of new actors, including civil society organisations and private businesses.

More recently, however, it seems that multilateralism has become more akin to a faltering hot air balloon, as it has entered a state of crisis or decline.

While previously major powers were at least paying lip service to the multilateral agenda, some leaders, like US President Donald Trump, are openly disavowing or contesting it.

Pursuing an aggressive “America first” policy, the Trump administration has relinquished the traditional role of the US as herald of the international liberal order and withdrawn from the Paris climate convention, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The stakes are high as the crisis of the liberal international order comes at a time when multilateralism and concerted global action seem more necessary than ever.

Pressing global issues such as major conflicts, climate change, migration flows, global economic shocks, arms control, and cybersecurity may indeed only be solved collectively.

As the current COVID crisis is illustrating, while existing multilateral mechanisms such as the WHO have excruciatingly shown their limits and shortcomings, alternative routes of unilateralism and uncoordinated action at the state levels have proven dead ends in containing the spread of the virus and are unlikely to address the global repercussions of the pandemic.

2020 will be a critical year for the European Union’s role in multilateral negotiations.

At a time of unprecedented global crisis, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and other threats, the secretary-general sees opportunities to shift course away from isolationism and toward common goals. Through global solidarity, the world can build back better and usher in a safer, more prosperous and more sustainable future for all.