Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience (The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy) 3031396707, 9783031396700

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THE SCIENCES PO SERIES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND POLITICAL ECONOMY

Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience

Edited by Auriane Guilbaud · Franck Petiteville · Frédéric Ramel

The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy

Series Editor Alain Dieckhoff, Center for International Studies (CERI), Sciences Po CNRS, Paris, France

Advisory Editor Miriam Perier, Center for International Studies (CERI), Sciences Po CNRS, Paris, France

The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy focuses on the transformations of the international arena and of political societies, in a world where the state keeps reinventing itself and appears resilient in many ways, though its sovereignty is increasingly questioned. The series publishes books that have two main objectives: explore the various aspects of contemporary international/transnational relations, from a theoretical and an empirical perspective; and analyze the transformations of political societies through comparative lenses. Evolution in world affairs sustains a variety of networks from the ideological to the criminal or terrorist that impact both on international relations and local societies. Besides the geopolitical transformations of the globalized planet, the new political economy of the world has a decided impact on its destiny as well, and this series hopes to uncover what that is. The series consists of works emanating from the foremost French researchers from Sciences Po, Paris. It also welcomes works by academics who share our methods and philosophy of research in an open-minded perspective of what academic research in social sciences allows for and should aim for. Sciences Po was founded in 1872 and is today one of the most prestigious universities for teaching and research in social sciences in France, recognized worldwide.

Auriane Guilbaud · Franck Petiteville · Frédéric Ramel Editors

Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience

Editors Auriane Guilbaud University Paris 8 Paris, France

Franck Petiteville Institute of Political Studies University of Grenoble Alps Grenoble, France

Frédéric Ramel Sciences Po Paris, France

ISSN 2945-607X ISSN 2945-6088 (electronic) The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy ISBN 978-3-031-39670-0 ISBN 978-3-031-39671-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Chapter 3 is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license information in the chapter. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © MirageC gettyimages This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to our colleague Guillaume Devin, Professor Emeritus in Political Science at Sciences Po Paris (France), who has accomplished so much in his career for the sociological study of multilateralism.

Acknowledgments

This book developed out of a collaboration among several of the authors within a research group on multilateralism (GRAM—Groupe de Recherche sur l’Action Multilatérale). This French-speaking international network of researchers specialized in the study of multilateralism and international organizations benefits from the financial support of the French CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) (https:// gram.cnrs.fr). It is hosted by the CERI-Sciences Po, whose Editorial manager Miriam Perier helped launch this book project—we deeply thank her for this.

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Praise for Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience

“This book is a goldmine for scholars and practitioners eager to understand and contribute to global cooperation. It dissects current challenges and suggests ways to strengthen multilateralism. An audacious and looking-forward exercise that boosts determination and creativity.” —Valérie Rosoux, Professor–Director of Research, FNRS and University of Louvain, Belgium “Multilateral institutions seem to be in crisis. As the editors of this important volume argue, crisis is normal and to be expected. The chapters demonstrate that, despite power rivalries, multilateral institutions are ‘more resilient, more reactive, and more effective than usually thought.’ A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary international relations.” —Lise Howard, Professor of Government and Foreign Service, Georgetown University, USA “This important book shows in spades that crisis is not antithetical to multilateralism, but constitutive of it. As its rich case studies illustrate, disagreement, struggle and conflict form the normal conditions of world politics–something that overhyped rhetoric about international crises often makes unnecessarily difficult to grasp.” —Vincent Pouliot, James McGill Professor, McGill University, Canada

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Contents

1

Introduction: Crisis as the Matrix of Multilateralism Auriane Guilbaud, Franck Petiteville, and Frédéric Ramel

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Part I Multilateralism Under Pressure 2

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Polarization and Plasticity at the United Nations Over the War in Syria Franck Petiteville, Manon-Nour Tannous, and Simon Tordjman A Stress-Test for Global Health Multilateralism: The Covid-19 Pandemic as Revealer and Catalyst of Cooperation Challenges Auriane Guilbaud Unpacking the “Mess” of Multilateral Crisis Management: NATO’s Defense Posture from Afghanistan to Ukraine Julien Pomarède The Enduring Crisis: Reclaiming the Normative Foundations of Multilateralism Thierry Balzacq and Frédéric Ramel

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CONTENTS

Part II Power Shifts in Multilateralism 6

The United States from Trump to Biden: A Fragile Return to Multilateralism Frédéric Charillon

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China: Supporter or Contender of Multilateralism? Camille M. Brugier

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The Post-brexit European Union and Multilateralism: Evolution and Challenges in the European Perception of Power Delphine Deschaux-Dutard

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Mobilizing the South: Pluralizing and Complexifying Multilateralism Delphine Allès and Elodie Brun

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Part III New Dynamics 10

Beyond the Failure of the WTO: Resilience of Trade Multilateralism Mehdi Abbas and Erick Duchesne

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Can UN Reform Be Successful? The Case of UN Women Marie Saiget and Simon Tordjman

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Secretariats of Intergovernmental Organizations and Multilateralism Under Pressure Bob Reinalda

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Regime Complexes as a Model of Multilateral Governance: The Case of the Environment Amandine Orsini

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Notes on Contributors

Mehdi Abbas is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Grenoble Alps (France) and a Researcher in the CNRS Pacte laboratory. He holds a Ph.D. in International Economics and teaches and researches on International Political Economy, multilateral trade policies in the context of WTO negotiations and international development issues for least developed countries. He also develops research on the climate-energy-trade nexus in the global economy. He is a Visiting Professor at Canadian, Arab and African universities. He is also an Associate Researcher at the CACID (Dakar, Senegal), at the CEIM of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). He was an external expert (2014–2020) at the Direction de la Francophonie Économique et Numérique of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF). Delphine Allès is Professor of Political science at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Inalco, Paris). Her research focuses on international relations in the Indo-Pacific region, with a focus on multilateralism and the confessionalization of IR and the elaboration of global international relations. She recently published: Paix et sécurité. Une anthologie décentrée (Peace and Security. A de-Centred Anthology), ed. with Melissa Levaillant and Sonia Le Gouriellec, CNRS, 2023 ; La part des dieux. Religion et relations internationales (Gods’ Share. Religion and International Relations ), CNRS, 2021.

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Thierry Balzacq is Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po and Professorial Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po, Paris. He was the 2022/2023 Susan Strange Professor in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and George Soros Visiting Chair and Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Public Policy at Central European University in Vienna (Spring, 2022). His most recent article is “International Rituals: A Framework and Its Theoretical Repertoires” (with S. Baele, Review of International Studies ). He is currently working on two books. Camille M. Brugier is a Consultant and an Associate Researcher on contemporary China at the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM) in Paris. She holds a Ph.D. from the European University Institute (Florence) and has since worked for the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation and the French Ministry of Armed Forces’ research center, IRSEM. She grew up in China and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. She specializes in Chinese economic and technology policy and their impact on China’s relations with the West. She has published in the Asia-Europe Journal and for French policy outlets such at Le Grand Continent. She teaches classes on contemporary China at Sciences Po Paris and the Grenoble Institute of Political Studies. Elodie Brun is Research Professor at the Center for International Studies of El Colegio de México, Mexico City. Her work focuses on South-South relations, the concept of (global) South in International Relations, Latin American foreign policies and Latin American participation in multilateralism. Her recent publications include: “Dissenting at the United Nations: Interaction Orders and Venezuelan Contestation Practices (2015–16)”, with Mélanie Albaret, Review of International Studies (Cambridge), 48(3), 2022, pp. 523–42 ; El cambio internacional mediante las relaciones Sur-Sur (International change through South-South relations), El Colegio de México, 2018. Frédéric Charillon is a Professor of political science at the Université Paris Cité. He also teaches at ESSEC Business School, Sciences Po Paris and the Euro-Mediterranean University of Fez (Morocco). He has been the director of the Institute for Strategic Research (IRSEM, Paris). Among his recent books: Guerres d’influence. Les Etats à la conquête des esprits, Odile Jacob, Paris, 2022 ; La France dans le monde (ed.), CNRS Editions, 2021 ; (with Th. Balzacq & F. Ramel (eds.), Global Diplomacy.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

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An Introduction to Theory and Practice, Palgrave, 2020 ; (with C. Belin, eds.) Les Etats-Unis dans le monde, CNRS Editions; 2021. Delphine Deschaux-Dutard is an Associate Professor in political science at the University Grenoble Alps. Her most recent publications entail: “A lamb in the jungle? The EU and the return of power politics” (with B. Nivet), in E. Baranets, A. Novo (eds.), Transatlantic Relations in an Era of Renewed Great Power Competition, University of Michigan Press, 2023; “European defence in an interpolar context: explaining the limitations of French-German contribution to European strategic autonomy”. Defence Studies, 2022, 22(4), 591–608; “EU Cyber Defence Governance: Facing the Fragmentation Challenge”, in C. Lavallée, R. Csernatoni, A. Calcara (Eds.), The European Governance of Emerging Security Technologies, Routledge, 2020. Erick Duchesne (Ph.D., Michigan State University, 1997), is Full Professor and Acting Chair of the Political Science Department and a member of the School of Advanced International Studies (ESEI) at Université Laval. His core research interest is in the field of International Political Economy. He previously taught at SUNY Buffalo (1998–2004), and he was a research fellow at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO), the University Western Ontario, the University of Calgary, Wuhan University and the Université de Grenoble Alpes. He was Norman Robertson Fellow at the Economic Policy Division (EET) of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT, now GAC). He is also the outgoing President of the Quebec Political Science Society. Auriane Guilbaud is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University Paris 8, a member of the Paris Center for Sociological and Political Research (CNRS, UMR 7217) and of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). Her research interests include global health governance, non-state actors in International Relations and a sociological approach to the study of International Organizations. She is the co-editor of the Canadian peer-reviewed journal Etudes internationales (edited by Laval University, Québec, Canada). She recently published: “Social Boundary Work in International Organizations: Taxonomy and Resistance”, Swiss Journal of Sociology (2023) and “Negotiating the

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Opening of International Organizations to Non-State Actors: The Case of the World Health Organization”, International Negotiation (2023). Amandine Orsini is Professor of international relations at the Université Saint-Louis—Bruxelles (USL-B). She specializes in global environmental politics. She is the Director of the Research Center in Political Science (CReSPo) at USL-B, Jean Monnet Chair EUGLOBALGREEN (2022– 2025), and the principal investigator of the FSR-FNRS funded “Youth Earth” research project (2021–2024) on youth participation in the international negotiations related to climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development issues. In 2020 she published Essential Concepts to Global Environmental Governance (Routledge, with Jean-Frédéric Morin), Global Environmental Politics. Understanding the Governance of the Earth (Oxford University Press, with Sikina Jinnah and JeanFrédéric Morin) and EU Environmental Governance: Current and Future challenges (Routledge, with Elena Kavvatha). Franck Petiteville is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Grenoble Institute of Political Studies (University of Grenoble Alps, France). He is the co-editor of the Canadian peer-reviewed journal Etudes internationales (edited by Laval University, Québec, Canada). He recently wrote a textbook on International Organizations (Les organisations internationales, La Découverte, Paris, 2021) and co-edited (with Guillaume Devin and Simon Tordjman) a book on the UN General Assembly (L’Assemblée générale des Nations unies, Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, 2020). He also published “International Organizations Beyond Depoliticized Governance”, Globalizations, 2018, 15:3, pp. 301–313. Julien Pomarède is Associate Professor of International Politics at the University of Liège (Belgium) and Researcher at the European Studies Unit. Prior to this position, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the University of Oxford (Wiener Anspach Fellowship). His work interrogates the historical trajectory of organized violence and security, through a sociological lens. His interest lies also in the sociology of international organizations. He published his works in journals such as the Review of International Studies, Critical Military Studies, the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding and Critique internationale. He recently published La fabrique de l’OTAN: Contre-terrorisme et organisation transnationale de la violence (Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2020).

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

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Frédéric Ramel is a Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po and Professorial Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po, Paris. He coordinates the CNRS Group on Multilateral Action (GRAM) and a research project on the influence of armed conflict databases on decision-making (DATAWAR). During the last decade, his research interests have included pedagogy, sensibility, music and aesthetics in world politics. He published recently with Anaëlle Vergonjeanne a paper on innovative evaluation (“Creative Pedagogy in IR Examination: When Fictions unleashes the Learning Process”, Journal of Political Science Education, 18, 1, 2022) and has edited a special issue dedicated to “Diplomacy, Audible and Resonant” with Damien Mahiet and Ahrendt Rebekah in Diplomatica. The Journal of Diplomacy and Society in 2021. His most recent book examines the importance of benevolence in international relations (La bienveillance dans les relations international internationales: Un essai politique [Paris: CNRS Editions, 2022]). Bob Reinalda is Fellow in the Department of Political Science, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He most recently wrote International Secretariats: Two Centuries of International Civil Servants and Secretariats (2020). He is also the author of the Routledge History of International Organizations: From 1815 to the Present Day (2009) among other publications. He edited the Ashgate Research Companion to Non-State Actors (2011) as well as the Routledge Handbook of International Organization (2013). He is an Editor of IO BIO, the open access Biographical Dictionary of Secretaries-General of International Organizations, see https://www.ru.nl/fm/iobio. Marie Saiget is an Associate Professor in political science at the University of Lille and a Researcher at CERAPS. She is currently conducting research on the “post-conflict” interventions carried out by international organizations in Côte d’Ivoire and Burundi. In this context, she is particularly interested in women’s collective actions and land rights. Her latest publications include “The UN: A (de) politicising third party? Mediations and conflicts in the establishment of the National Women’s Forum in Burundi (2012–2014)”, Critique internationale, n°94, 2022: 123– 145; (with Emmanuelle Bouilly and Virginie Dutoya) “Introduction: Gender Knowledge: Epistemological and Empirical Contributions from the Global South”, Journal of International Women’s Studies, 2022, 23(2): 1–11.

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Manon-Nour Tannous is an Associate Professor in political science at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (France) and associated at the chair of contemporary history of the Arab world at the Collège de France and the Centre Thucydide at the University Paris II. Her work focuses on the Syrian conflict in the field of international relations. She wrote Chirac, Assad et les autres. Les relations franco-syriennes depuis 1946 (PUF, 2017), La Syrie au-delà de la guerre (Le Cavalier bleu, 2022) and edited Fréquenter les infréquentables. Le choix des interlocuteurs en diplomatie (CNRS Éditions, 2023). She is also editor in chief of Mondes arabes, an academic journal on the Arab and Muslim worlds. Simon Tordjman is an Associate Professor in political science at the University of Toulouse (Sciences Po Toulouse/LaSSP). His works focus on transnational democracy support and the transformations of multilateralism, with a particular focus on the UN system. His latest publications include: “Multipositionality”, in Badache, Fanny, Kimber, Leah R., Maertens, L., International Organizations and Research Methods: An introduction, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2023; (with Guillaume Devin et Franck Petiteville), eds., L’Assemblée générale des Nations unies : une institution politique mondiale. Presses de Sciences Po, 2020.

List of Figures

Chapter 2 Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Syria-related General Assembly resolutions: voting patterns, 2011–2022 Syria-related Human Rights Council resolutions: voting patterns, 2011–2022

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List of Tables

Chapter 4 Table 1

Evolution of troops contribution among ISAF main contributors, 2007–2012

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Chapter 7 Table 1 Table 2

China’s vetoes in the Security Council Responsibility to protect and its three pillars

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Chapter 8 Table 1

Evolution of the EU’s strategic thinking, 2003–2022

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Chapter 10 Table 1 Table 2

Doha Development Agenda from one ministerial conference to the next, 2001–2022 Doha Development Agenda stalemate and WTO achievements

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Chapter 12 Table 1

Intergovernmental organizations numbers by type, 1985–2020

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Crisis as the Matrix of Multilateralism Auriane Guilbaud , Franck Petiteville, and Frédéric Ramel

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Introduction

The twentieth century was marked by world wars, totalitarian regimes, genocides and the use of nuclear weapons. But it was also characterized by an unprecedented movement toward multilateralism (Ruggie, 1992). As a means of cooperation between several states to achieve common goals and interests, multilateralism has led to the creation of an impressive

A. Guilbaud (B) University Paris 8, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] F. Petiteville Institute of Political Studies, University of Grenoble Alps, Grenoble, France e-mail: [email protected] F. Ramel Sciences Po, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_1

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number of international organizations (IOs), which have been conducive to a remarkable institutionalization of world politics (Cogan et al., 2016; Hurd, 2020; Park, 2018; Pease, 2018). However, multilateralism has not evolved in a consistent manner and each step forward seems to have been accompanied by a destabilizing or regressive move. This often leads to a diagnosis of a “crisis” of multilateralism and an emphasis on its dysfunctions. But one should not let the term of “crisis”, often politically charged, obscure the analysis. It is the objective of this book to analyze the current challenges faced by multilateralism and its evolutions in order to look beyond the crisis qualification. The latter presupposes that there would be such a thing as a “stable” or “normal” state of multilateralism where “crises” would be destabilizing anomalies. In this introduction, we initially suggest a rearticulation of the dichotomy “crisis vs. normal” states of multilateralism. Specifically, we propose integrating crises as permanent components of multilateralism, before presenting the scope and structure of the book.

2 The Historical Dynamic of Multilateralism “Crises” A history of multilateral cooperation goes beyond the scope of this book, but it is important to emphasize that multilateral diplomacy existed long before multilateralism was made permanent in IOs.1 For instance, European states regularly organized multipartite peace conferences to settle disputes after the treaties of Westphalia put an end to the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), a process which culminated in the creation of the Concert of Europe in Vienna in 1815. The limits of the Concert’s diplomacy are well known, as rivalries between Europe’s great powers prevented constructive conferences from being held (Schulz, 2015), but it also has been rehabilitated by historians as a valuable contributor to the emergence of multilateral cooperation (Grosser, 2022). Multilateralism started to burgeon in the late nineteenth century through the creation of “technical” international unions (such as the International Telecommunication Union founded in 1865 or the International Meteorological Organization created in 1873) and the holding of 1 While the adjective multilateral and the noun multilateralism nowadays refer to the same phenomenon, the term “multilateralism” finds its origins in the political project for a new international liberal order after World War II (Devin, 2022: 39).

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the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907. The latter were open to the participation of non-European states to negotiate instruments aimed at limiting and preventing wars—among them the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the first international organization to provide states with the possibility to find a legal solution to their disputes (Abbenhuis et al., 2017). These developments paved the way for the era of institutionalized multilateralism, an innovation which should not be “trivialized” (Badie & Devin, 2007: 8). However, each advance toward a wider, more stable and permanent multilateral cooperation seems to have been followed by a destabilizing crisis or regressive move. Having barely begun as the first international organization to guarantee peace and collective security, the League of Nations was crippled from the outset by the defection of the United States (US) and was soon wrecked by totalitarian states’ imperialistic behavior in the interwar period (Cottrell, 2017). The United Nations (UN), which took over from the League in 1945, was also very much constrained by the Cold War. While the UN adapted to some international changes (such as decolonization), the subsequent Cold War international crises and conflicts almost completely eluded effective UN monitoring as the Security Council remained paralyzed by the East–West confrontation. The post-Cold War era seemed to herald a new dawn of multilateralism. The Gulf War (1991) appeared to offer a return to the “spirit” of collective security enshrined in the UN Charter. The organization’s peacekeeping missions proliferated in an unprecedented manner in the early 1990s. International justice also made a big leap due to the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was achieved after 120 states signed the Rome Statute in 1998, followed by its very fast implementation in only four years. At the same time, the acceleration of globalization led to the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 and was accompanied by a worldwide wave of neo-regionalism: the European Union (EU), Mercosur, NAFTA, the reform of ASEAN, etc. The adaptation to globalization also required the UN to adapt to the rise of non-state actors (private firms, NGOs, philanthropic foundations…) in world politics. Under the mandates of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (1997–2006), the UN engaged in a “bottom-up” strategy to renew multilateralism, with an opening toward both civil society and the for-profit private sector. The launch of the Global Compact, an initiative aiming at developing a partnership between the UN and companies based on the ideas of corporate social responsibility, embodied this new strategy.

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However, the initial period of the post-Cold War era was also characterized by a number of setbacks and crises: the impotency of both the UN and the EU in the face of the “ethnic cleansing” crimes perpetrated in Bosnia in the early 1990s, the failure of the UN to stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the hostile attitude of the Bush administration toward the ICC in 2002–2003 and the unilateral invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the US, which severely undermined the UN Security Council’s authority.

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The Contemporary “Crisis” of Multilateralism

In more recent times, the Trump US presidency (2017–2020) challenged multilateralism to an unprecedented degree. Admittedly, the US has always favored international organizations that suit its own interests (NATO and the World Bank rather than many UN bodies for instance). Nevertheless, no US president before Trump had gone so far in destabilizing the foundations of multilateralism. In the space of four years, Trump performed a systematic “withdrawal diplomacy” (US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, the Vienna agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, UNESCO, the UN Council of Human Rights, the WHO). These unilateral gestures were also accompanied by an ongoing rhetoric that constantly demeaned international organizations, such as the UN, NATO, the WTO, the WHO, the EU and the ICC. At the time, Trump’s anti-multilateral stance even cast doubts on the survival of the post-1945 US-guaranteed “liberal international order” (Ikenberry, 2018). Although Joe Biden has renewed most US multilateral commitments since then—from the Paris climate agreement to WHO membership and to reengaging into NATO in the context of the war in Ukraine—the Trump presidency has set an alarming precedent and raised an “existential” question about whether multilateralism can survive long without the US. Looking beyond the Trump populist experience, multilateralism looks nowadays threatened by the worldwide democratic backsliding. Obviously, multilateralism is best defended and served by liberal democracies when it comes to respecting and applying norms and practices such as collective legitimacy through negotiation (rather than by the display of power politics), the sense of deliberation and compromise (instead of hegemony and unilateral intimidation) and institutionalized decisionmaking processes and resort to the law (in the place of coercion)

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(Keohane et al., 2009). Yet, authoritarian states and illiberal democracies now represent the majority of governments. Democracy worldwide is even down to levels last registered in 1989, as if the last 30 years of democratic advances following the end of the Cold War had been erased (V-Dem, 2022). This spread of undemocratic rule is an issue of concern for the strength of multilateralism since there is no reason to assume that autocracies behave “better” in international organizations than they do in domestic affairs. Regimes, which crack down on political opponents and peaceful demonstrators, suppress the freedom of the press and disregard checks and balances, are very likely to also ignore international rules. The way Putin’s Russia has violated the UN Charter to invade Ukraine in February 2022 and then the Geneva Conventions to conduct its military operations is a case in point. By the same token, we can expect neither North Korea’s dictatorship to come back to the Non-Proliferation Treaty nor Iran’s and Myanmar’s bloody regimes to respect international human right treaties. Overall, multilateralism is under strain in many fields of global cooperation. The crisis in trade multilateralism has been going on for a long time. The Doha agenda of the WTO set up in 2001, initially focused on the needs of developing countries, is often deemed dead. The governments of industrialized countries, which used to be the major drivers of trade liberalization during the GATT negotiations, now mainly fear the growing economic and technological power of China. They themselves have lost a great deal of confidence in the value of free trade and globalization. Trump went so far as to declare trade wars with China. As a result, the WTO, once supposed to be the cornerstone of the multilateral trade system, seems in limbo. In the realm of global health governance, the disruption of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the centrifugal trends within multilateralism (Hosli et al., 2021). Amid the crisis, states have reasserted their “health sovereignty” by unilaterally enforcing lockdowns and border closures. In doing so, they have dramatically weakened global health cooperation and the WHO mandate, which was also taken hostage by Sino-American tensions. In the field of the environment, the speed of events such as global warming, biodiversity loss and ocean pollution is so alarming that it casts doubt on whether the international agreements adopted to curb them (the 2015 Paris climate accord, the Montreal agreement on biodiversity

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signed in December 2022, and the High Seas Treaty reached in March 2023 at the UN) will be timely and effective. Last but not least, the regime of collective security and conflict resolution built up within the UN system is also being seriously undermined. The UN has been unable to prevent the conflict in Syria, which began as political unrest during the 2011 “Arab springs”, from turning into an internationalized deadly civil war which caused the death of half a million people in one decade. In Europe, the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has triggered a conventional war of unprecedented magnitude since 1945, resulting in the paralysis of the UN Security Council due to the actions of the invader itself, Russia, which wields its veto power as a permanent member. While some observers still hope that the UN could play a future role in the de-escalation, mediation and ending of the war, widely read pundits comment on the return of a great power competition opposing the West as Ukraine’s supportive block, on the one side, Russia and China, on the other, while the Global South refuses to take sides (Ashford, 2023; Kausikan, 2023). From this perspective, it seems like international institutions once again cannot hold on to their peace and security “promises”in the face of great power politics (Mearsheimer, 1994–1995).

4 The Current State of Research on the “Crisis” of Multilateralism In spite of its recent setbacks, multilateralism has remained an issue of interest in the discipline of international relations (IR). It is still mostly analyzed along conventional historical, theoretical and/or prospective perspectives (Lavelle, 2020; Lopez-Claros et al., 2020; Meyer et al., 2021; Muldoon et al., 2018). Amid this literature, only a limited number of scholars are willing to tackle the task of discussing the current “crisis” of multilateralism. Among those who have taken up this challenge, some have coined the expression of “contested multilateralism” to account for situations where states invest in international organizations that narrowly suit their national interests, play one organization against the other and cause them to compete with one another in a counterproductive fashion (Morse & Keohane, 2014). Others have pointed out to the rampant substitution of “minilateralism” when states prefer to engage in informal, non-binding, purpose-built coalitions (such as the BRICS) rather than

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in existing universal, formal and rule-based multilateral organizations (Patrick, 2015). In such minilateral configurations, minimal state commitment, transactional calculations and forum shopping become the standard behaviors. A third diagnosis is the advent of “messy multilateralism” through a proliferation of ad hoc, overlapping and multi-stakeholder arrangements (Haas, 2010). Additionally, some of these arrangements operate based on “market multilateralism” principles (Bull & McNeill, 2007) which compete with other established multilateral norms. Finally, other analyses point to the dysfunctionalities of the model of “exclusive executive multilateralism […] characterized by nonpublic negotiations and bargaining between national governmental representatives” (Kruck & Rittberger, 2018: 53), which is contested by proponents of a more open or inclusive multilateralism. Under all four analytical perspectives, states, by prioritizing domestic and short-term interests, circumvent and undermine historic international organizations, sap multilateralism of its core values and erode its legitimacy as a universal form of cooperation. Many of these analyses about the crisis of multilateralism are relevant and must be taken seriously. However, the very idea of “crisis” must be discussed, even more the idea that multilateralism would be in decline due to the “return” of great power politics. As mentioned before, the history of multilateralism has always been a mix of institutionalization, collective action, inclusiveness, but also calculations of national interest, hegemonic moves by great powers and harsh competition between them. Constantly modeled by these contradictory pressures, international organizations have been able to adapt to renewed challenges since 1945: the Cold War, decolonization, globalization, the transformation of wars, the recurrence of mass crimes, climate change, pandemics, global financial crises, the emergence of new economic and technological powers, etc. The main argument of this book is that although multilateralism may be currently under serious pressure, international organizations (which form the core of institutionalized multilateralism) are more resilient, more reactive and more effective than usually thought. To demonstrate this, the following chapters open the black boxes of these organizations, document the decision-making processes and trace back their most crucial decisions pertaining to some of the global challenges of the recent years: the return of major wars, the Covid-19 pandemic, the Trump presidency, the global rise of China, Brexit, the WTO crisis, environmental threats, etc. In the end, the book shows that multilateralism, when confronted with these challenges, is able to mobilize various resources such as institutional

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plasticity, pluralism and adaptive capacities within international organizations, their openness to non-state actors, their bureaucratic creativity and resilience and their receptivity to new international balances of power and shifting diplomatic coalitions.

5

Structure of the Book

The first part of this book, “Multilateralism Under Pressure”, explores the main expressions of the current crises faced by multilateral organizations. This analysis covers various areas to demonstrate the nature of challenges within each specific context. This part opens with military and strategic issues and the example of the war in Syria. The tensions between the permanent members of the Security Council explain the paralysis of the United Nations in the face of behaviors that undermine not only the rule of law during armed conflict but also the San Francisco Charter. Veto power is one of the main stumbling blocks in international security, revealing both the obsolescence of the institutional model inherited from 1945 and the eroding credibility that the Council still aspires to maintain as the “primary” body responsible for international security. Nevertheless, Manon-Nour Tannous, Franck Petiteville and Simon Tordjman highlight the normative vitality and role of other bodies such as the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. In his chapter, Julien Pomarède focuses on NATO’s crisis management since the early 2000s and the war in Afghanistan. While every intergovernmental organization weaves its own path based on the varying interests of its members, NATO must deal with the inherent ambivalence underlying cooperative behavior. The two cases analyzed, namely Afghanistan and the current war in Ukraine, refer to two different situations. The first is a high-intensity war with the death of numerous soldiers, while the second is a strategic response to aggression against a third-party state on the Alliance’s direct border. But the respective management of these two strategic events, which profoundly shaped the perception of warfare in our new century, allows us to see how ambiguity is at the heart of any multilateral operation, both “a key condition of multilateral crisis management and its limits”. The Covid-19 pandemic crisis exposed the flaws of multilateral cooperation in the realm of global health. But beyond the “Chinese Chernobyl”, which Beijing tried to avoid by implementing a very aggressive policy including the supply of various goods to fight the virus, this crisis

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reveals some salient phenomena. Mobilizing Kalevi Holsti’s terminology (2004) in order to grasp the particularities of global health multilateralism, Auriane Guilbaud shows in her chapter that this pandemic can be understood “both as a ‘great event’ (a marked interruption in a typical pattern) and as the result of cumulative ‘trends’ (an accumulation of many little acts)”. Global health multilateralism proved resilient because it was already subjected to “permanent dynamics of change”. Moreover, these evolutions, reinforced by the Covid-19 pandemic, are driving debates on the renewal of governance structures, both at the institutional and normative levels. The last chapter of this part aims at providing a general diagnosis of the current crises of multilateralism. While it is important to distinguish between the specific frameworks through which these crises manifest (they are not of the same nature depending on the organization), it seems that a groundswell is emerging. The crisis is not only institutional or functional in nature. It is also and above all normative. The multilateral way of life, which is closely associated with the planning of issues and ways of responding to them (from the representation of solutions to their implementation), is the subject of a new wave of debate. In other words, the normative capabilities to produce regulations that conduct international interactions are clearly called into question: the strong divide between the West and the Non-Western actors and the fragility of democracies are the main vectors of such critics. Thierry Balzacq and Frédéric Ramel propose a new reading of these trends by coming back to the notion of trust and the logic of relationality in order to understand but also to go beyond the current normative tensions of multilateral configurations. The second part, “Power Shifts in Multilateralism”, deals with more traditional issues in order to describe the origins of multilateral crises, i.e., the role of states in general and the more powerful in particular. Indeed, if multilateral organizations are creatures shaped by states, then isn’t their fate closely tied to what their creators want? The first chapter looks back at one of the key players in global governance, even though the international system is no longer unipolar. The United States helped shape multilateralism after both World War I and World War II. The revival of the United Nations at the beginning of the post-Cold War era owes much to its re-investment. Nowadays, the repercussions of Trumpism—reflecting more than just a disdain for multilateralism—are being felt beyond US borders. A cleavage has crystallized that broadens the spectrum of US positions and doctrines with regard

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to international organizations: from the promotion of a liberal order to selective, plastic multilateralism, or even to the expression of open and frank opposition. Frédéric Charillon explores this domestic tension and how the Biden Administration seems hostage to the robustness of this critical movement toward multilateralism. To understand the influence of power dynamics on multilateralism, it is crucial to acknowledge the significant role played by China. The second chapter in this part focuses on Beijing’s engagement with multilateral practices. The Chinese authorities adopt a strategic approach that walks a fine line: simultaneously denouncing the liberal international order and using the tools inherited from 1945 to secure positions of responsibility within the UN’s specialized institutions. Camille Brugier concludes that China does not fully push for an alternative multilateral system but strongly aims at being “considered as a legitimate potential first world power in the current order despite the nature of its regime”. Amidst this “emerging new bipolarity” between China and the United States, the European Union (EU) questions its approach to multilateralism. The consequences of Brexit are not limited to the promotion of a “Global Britain”. They lead to a re-anchoring of the European Union within the continent. In such a context, the idea of European strategic autonomy has gained prominence. This autonomy includes not only military components but also an energy dimension, especially in light of the war between Russia and Ukraine. But what are the depth and scope of these avowals? Delphine Deschaux-Dutard analyzes this claim of a rebooting but also its intrinsic limits. Her chapter thus revisits a very classic debate regarding the EU as a global actor, its agency and the nature of its power. The EU is not the only actor whose vision and practices toward multilateralism have evolved. The contribution from actors of the “Global South” to multilateral institutions has undergone major transformations since they started to organize their claims for greater representativeness in international organizations in the early 1960s. In their chapter, Delphine Allès and Elodie Brun carefully recall the “plurality of the South” and analyze how Southern states (from Latin America, Africa and South or Southeast Asia) relate differently to multilateralism and diversify their involvement in multilateral forums. In some instances, Southern states were able to weigh on the content of crucial negotiations and to influence the working practices of international organizations. The authors argue that the issue of unbalanced representation and structural

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inequality led to some “empirical adaptation” from states from the South (such as ad hoc formulas, institutional adjustments, minilateral initiatives). Thus, their influence on multilateralism is, in part, systemic. However, this chapter shows that the overall effect of this greater “practical and ideational inclusion” is “anything but straightforward” and can fuel seemingly contradictory dynamics of political integration and institutional fragmentation. The third part of the book, “New Dynamics”, considers the potential of multilateralism for renewal. International organizations not only develop resilience mechanisms, they also display adaptive capacities, especially through the design and implementation of institutional reforms. These evolutions of multilateralism go along with the theoretical challenge to elaborate new concepts and adapt existing ones to understand these new dynamics. In the first chapter, Mehdi Abbas and Erick Duchesne analyze the resilience of trade multilateralism, despite the numerous setbacks experienced by the World Trade Organization (WTO) since its creation in 1995 (deadlock of the Doha round negotiations, trade wars between the US and China, paralysis of the WTO Appellate Body, etc.). They challenge the WTO crisis narrative to show that the organization is going through a phase characterized by conflictual or antagonistic multilateral cooperation. But this conflictuality is constructive, and far from hindering the vitality of trade multilateralism, the authors argue that it demonstrates WTO’s capacity to evolve and adapt to the new balances of wealth and power and to the systemic challenges that affect the global economy. Thus, the WTO is “engaged in a ‘learning by doing’ process” and the reform agenda advocated by some for the organization is actually already being implemented. However, institutional reform can also be a definite and assertive political process. In the second chapter, Marie Saiget and Simon Tordjman explore the case of UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Created in 2010 as an “act of institutional reform” to replace its predecessor UNIFEM, it is entrusted with the aim to “strengthen the overall institutional coherence of the United Nations” on gender equality and women’s rights. UN Women faced many challenges to fulfill its mandate: limited resources, a competitive environment, different views regarding the agency normative or operational role, etc. The authors show how the organization adapted to these difficulties and demonstrate that reform, far from being limited

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to institutional innovations, becomes effective when it is “(re)invested in practice” by UN officials, activists or diplomats. Processes of incremental change and actors’ practices are crucial to the persistence and renewal of multilateral organizations. This issue is further tackled in the third chapter, where Bob Reinalda examines to what extent International Organizations (IOs) Secretariats are agents of multilateral renewal. Starting with the classical IR problem of IO agency, the chapter goes on to identify two major moments when IOs secretariats were able to react to “multilateralism under pressure” situations: the early 1970s and the early 1990s. Since the end of the Cold War, the IO landscape has been more “dynamic” than expected, with a higher rate of IOs dissolution and the creation of new structures. Nevertheless, dissolving an IO remains difficult, in part thanks to the “activism” of their secretariats. IOs secretariats are masters of institutional resilience: through “mandate expansion, organizational progeny and the creation of new structures, based on inter-organizational relations, joint ventures, and networks”, they adapt to the fluctuating nature of multilateral cooperation. This proposed framework of analysis is then applied to two case studies: the WHO bureaucracy and the UN Secretariat in the context of the US-China competition. Thus, this chapter shows that IOs secretariats can participate in the renewal of multilateral cooperation in two main ways: by institutional adaptation and by helping shape the new multilateral landscape. Various concepts have been developed in IR to describe and analyze the evolving landscape of multilateralism, such as “governance architecture”, “institutional fragmentation”, “inter-organizational cooperation”, or “complex systems”—to name just a few. They take into account the fact that several institutions and different kinds of actors now develop norms and rules on the same topic, without clear hierarchical relations among them. In this context, the concept of “regime complexes” took preeminence in the 2000s in the global environmental field. In her chapter, Amandine Orsini broadens the perspective and analyzes what the concept of regime complexes can tell us about multilateral governance. She traces back the origins of the concept to early work on international regimes and explains its specificity and added value, before showing how it has been used empirically to identify key features of multilateral environmental governance, such as actors’ strategies or power patterns. She then reflects on how it has informed the analysis of some other fields of multilateral cooperation (such as trade, intellectual property rights, and, to some

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extent, security). She concludes that the concept of regime complexes could offer a renewed perspective on multilateralism if it were to be applied more constantly to all fields of global cooperation. We hope that this book, with its diverse contributions, will encourage such endeavors and open new research perspectives on multilateralism.

References Abbenhuis, M., Barber, C. E., & Higgins, A. R. (Eds.). (2017). War, peace and international order? The legacies of the Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907 . Routledge. Ashford, E. (2023, February 20). The persistence of great-power politics: What the war in Ukraine has revealed about geopolitical rivalry. Foreign Affairs. Badie, B., & Devin, G. (Eds.). (2007). Le multilatéralisme: Nouvelles formes de l’action internationale. La Découverte. Bull, B., & McNeill, D. (Eds.). (2007). Development issues in global governance: Public-private partnerships and market multilateralism. Routledge. Cogan, J. K., Hurd, I., & Johnstone, I. (Eds.). (2016). Oxford handbook of international organizations. Oxford University Press. Cottrell, P. (2017). The league of nations: Enduring legacies of the first experiment at world organization. Routledge. Devin, G. (2022). Les Organisations Internationales. Armand Colin. Grosser, P. (2022). Prémices du multilatéralisme au XIXe siècle. In J. V. Holeindre & J. Fernandez (Eds.), Nations désunies? La crise du multilatéralisme dans les relations internationales (pp. 43–62). CNRS Editions. Haas, R. (2010, January 5). The case for Messy multilateralism. Financial Times. Holsti, K. J. (2004). Taming the sovereigns: Institutional change in international politics. Cambridge University Press. Hosli, M. O., Garrett, T., Niedecken, S., & Verbeek, N. (Eds.). (2021). The future of multilateralism. Rowman & Littlefield. Hurd, I. (2020). International organizations: Politics, law, practice (4th ed.). Cambridge University Press. Ikenberry, J. (2018, January). The end of liberal international order? International Affairs, 94(1), 7–23. Kausikan, B. (2023, April 11). Navigating the new age of great-power competition: Statecraft in the shadow of the U.S.-Chinese rivalry. Foreign Affairs. Keohane, R. O., Macedo, S., & Moravcsik, A. (2009). Democracy-enhancing multilateralism. International Organization, 63, 1–31. Kruck, A., & Rittberger, V. (2018). Multilateralism today and its contribution to global governance. In J. P. Muldoon, J. A. Fagot Aviel, R. Reitano, & E.

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Sullivan (Eds.), The new dynamics of multilateralism: Diplomacy, international organizations, and global governance (pp. 43–65). Routledge. Lavelle, K. C. (2020). The challenges of multilateralism. Yale University Press. Lopez-Claros, A., Dahl, A., & Groff, M. (2020). Global governance and the emergence of global institutions for the 21st century. Cambridge University Press. Mearsheimer, J. (1994–1995). The false promise of international institutions. International Security, 19(3), 5–49. Meyer, T., de Sales Marques, J. L., & Telò, M. (Eds.). (2021). Towards a new multilateralism. Routledge. Morse, J., & Keohane, R. O. (2014). Contested multilateralism. The Review of International Organizations, 9(4), 385–412. Muldoon, J. P., Fagot Aviel, J. A., Reitano, R., & Sullivan, E. (Eds.). (2018). The new dynamics of multilateralism: Diplomacy, international organizations, and global governance. Routledge. Park, S. (2018). International organizations and global problems. Cambridge University Press. Patrick, S. M. (2015). The ‘new multilateralism’: Minilateral cooperation but at what cost? Global Summitry, 1(2), 115–134. Pease, K. K. (2018). International organizations: Perspectives on global governance (6th ed.). Routledge. Ruggie, J. G. (1992). Multilateralism: The anatomy of an institution. International Organization, 46(3), 561–598. Schulz, M. (2015). Paradoxes of a great power peace: The case of the concert of Europe. In T. Hippler & M. Vec (Eds.), Paradoxes of peace in nineteenth century Europe (pp. 131–152). Oxford University Press. V-Dem Institute. (2022). Democracy worldwide in 2021 (Democracy Report 2022). University of Gothenburg.

PART I

Multilateralism Under Pressure

CHAPTER 2

Polarization and Plasticity at the United Nations Over the War in Syria Franck Petiteville, Manon-Nour Tannous, and Simon Tordjman

1

Introduction

Although the United Nations (UN) embodies and undergirds multilateralism in the realm of peace and international security, it has regularly failed to prevent and to respond to major crises, as the genocide in Rwanda (1994) and the US unilateral invasion of Iraq (2003)—not to mention the numerous conflicts of the Cold War era—have proven in the past.

F. Petiteville (B) Institute of Political Studies, University of Grenoble Alps, Grenoble, France e-mail: [email protected] M.-N. Tannous University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France e-mail: [email protected] S. Tordjman Sciences Po Toulouse, Toulouse, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_2

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Now, the war in Syria (started in 2011) and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine (started in February 2022) have confronted the UN with the “return” of harsh power politics in international relations. In 2016, the war in Syria had already been depicted as the UN’s “grave” (Atlani-Duault & Delattre, 2016). The conflict in Syria, which started as a popular uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian rule within the context of the “Arab Springs” in 2011, has turned into one of the most violent civil wars of the post-Cold War era (Baczko et al., 2018). The repression implemented by Assad’s army and security services against any opponents has known no limits. As from 2013, the so-called Islamic State and numerous other jihadist militias spread their own violence. The conflict also quickly became internationalized as a result of the armed interventions of many external powers and actors, especially Russia, Iranian and Hezbollah militias (all on the side of Assad’s regime), Turkey (focused on the fight against the Kurdish forces along its border with Syria), the US-led international coalition against the “Islamic State”, and Israel (involved against the Hezbollah and pro-Iranian militias) (Hinnebusch & Saouli, 2019). In a nutshell, the Syrian conflict has generated a multiplication of wars within the war (Droz-Vincent, 2020; Philips, 2019). As a consequence, numerous violations of humanitarian international law—mass killings of civilians by systematic bombardments of populated cities, torture, use of chemical weapons, organized famines in besieged cities, etc.—have been perpetrated in Syria. Estimations of the death toll range from 350,000 casualties between 2011 and 2021 according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights1 up to 470,000 according to the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2019 (ICRC, 2019). The war has also caused 13 million Syrians to be displaced, half of whom have been forced to emigrate. The UN has not been able to bring an end to the conflict at any stage. As its diplomatic mediations early proved to be ineffective (Tannous, 2014), the non-intervention policy of the West (apart from its air strike campaign on the strongholds of the “Islamic State”) created a geopolitical vacuum that was filled by a growing and decisive Russian interference in the conflict. Indeed, from 2015 onward, Russian military support (i.e., systematic bombing of “rebel” zones) succeeded in rescuing Assad’s

1 A/HRC/50/68, p. 6.

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regime and in helping it to regain control of its lost territory. Meanwhile, Russia’s propaganda has consistently framed its intervention as an effort to safeguard a legitimate and sovereign government from terrorist attacks and as a way to obstruct any attempts by the US and its allies to instigate a regime change (Magdin, 2021). We take the war in Syria as a case in point to study how the UN reacts to a contemporary conflict where a permanent member of the Security Council is involved (more than any others) both diplomatically and militarily, namely Russia. The methodology we use borrows from both legal research and discourse analysis (Badache et al., 2023), looking at the contents of the resolutions, the minutes of the diplomatic debates and the results of numerous votes over Syria held in the Security Council, the General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council from 2011 to 2023. Our argument is twofold. First, since the war in Syria never left the agenda of the UN Security Council, the internal diplomatic polarization over this conflict has reflected renewed international tensions, especially between the “P3” (the United States, France and the UK) on the one side, and Russia and China, on the other. From this perspective, the numerous votes, vetoes and diplomatic battles of narratives over each issue at stake—from the legitimacy of the conflicting parties in Syria to the responsibilities for the violence—have mirrored these growing international tensions. Second, although the Security Council has remained globally ineffective as a conflict manager in Syria, the mobilization of the UN General Assembly and its Human Rights Council have displayed a pattern of institutional pluralism which calls into question the diagnosis of the global “demise” of the UN over Syria. In this respect, we have observed a shift of UN activity toward these two alternative diplomatic fora which have both been dedicated, in the name of the “international community”, to condemning the mass crimes committed in Syria.

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The Security Council on Syria: Over Ten years of Polarization

Between 2011 and 2023, the Security Council adopted more than 50 resolutions on Syria. Mostly based on laborious compromises among the members of the Council and poorly implemented, these have not changed the course of the war, helped resolve the conflict diplomatically or really

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mitigated the violence on the ground. During the same period, Russia, often together with China, vetoed no fewer than 18 draft resolutions pertaining to Syria. All of these adopted and rejected resolutions deserve close attention. They illustrate a polarization in the Council—especially between the US, France and the UK, on the one side, and Russia and China, on the other—which has grown dramatically over time regarding all dimensions of the conflict: the legitimacy of the conflicting parties in Syria, attempts at international diplomatic mediation, terrorism and terror tactics, responsibilities for the mass crimes committed, use of chemical weapons and even negotiations on humanitarian aid. 2.1

Supporting the Syrian Democratic Movement Versus Assad’s Regime

The Security Council started to debate on the situation in Syria in 2011 when the government cracked down on demonstrators who were lobbying for democracy. More than six months after the beginning of the uprising, a draft resolution was introduced on 4 October 2011 by France, Germany, Portugal and the UK. This text stated that the Security Council “strongly condemns the continued grave and systematic human rights violations and the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities”.2 There were 9 votes in favor, 2 vetoes—Russia and China—and 4 abstentions (Brazil, India, South Africa and Lebanon). After the vote, the French representative said that France’s objective was “to stop the brutal crackdown by the Syrian regime against its own people, who are legitimately demanding to exercise their most fundamental rights”. He also warned that “no veto can give carte blanche to the Syrian authorities, who have lost all legitimacy by murdering their own people”.3 Standing alongside their French counterpart, the US representative condemned the “unleashed violence, torture and persecution against peaceful protesters”, the UK representative denounced the perpetration of “crimes against humanity”, and the German representative observed that while “Syrians from all segments of society were demanding their basic rights, their aspirations were met with tanks, bullets and mass arrests, as well as murder,

2 S/2011/612. 3 S/PV.6627. All following quotations pertaining to this veto are extracted from this

document.

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forced disappearance, torture, deprivation of liberty and persecution”. For his part, the Russian representative considered the “logic of respect for the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria as well as the principle of non-intervention, including military, in its affairs” to be of “vital importance”. Interestingly, the Russian representative drew a comparison with the situation in Libya where NATO backed a FrenchBritish-led military operation to prevent Gadhafi’s army from military repression, an intervention based on Security Council resolution 1973 adopted in March 2011. Indeed, Russia’s stance on the war in Syria has been very much determined by the Libyan precedent. In Moscow’s eyes, the humanitarian cause of the “responsibility to protect” has been used as a pretext for a vast NATO-led offensive that ended with the toppling of the Libyan government and the violent killing of its leader (Akbarzadeh & Saba, 2019). A new draft resolution was submitted by 19 UN member states on 4 February 2012, almost one year after the beginning of the unrest and repression in Syria.4 This text stated that the Security Council “condemns the continued widespread and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities, such as the use of force against civilians, arbitrary executions, killing and persecution of protesters and members of the media, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, interference with access to medical treatment, torture, sexual violence and ill-treatment, including against children”. There were 13 votes in favor and 2 against: China and Russia. Commenting on these two vetoes against a strong majority of 13 Council members, the French representative lamented the fact that while the UN Secretary-General has “called tirelessly on the Council to act to stop the crimes against humanity being committed in Syria, the Council has remained silent”.5 Bluntly criticizing Russia and China, he added that these countries “have without scruple aligned themselves with a regime [that] slaughters its own people”. The US representative expressed her country’s “disgust” in the face of this new dual veto, stating that “for months, this Council has been held hostage by a couple of members”

4 S/2012/77. 5 S/PV.6711. All following quotations pertaining to this veto are extracted from this

document.

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whose constant objective has been “to strip bare any text that would pressure Al-Assad”. The UK representative declared that “Russia and China have today made a choice to turn their backs on the Arab world and [to] support tyranny rather than the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people. They have failed in their responsibility as permanent members of the Security Council”. For his part, the Russian representative explained that the draft resolution did not take into account his proposed amendments “to the effect that the Syrian opposition must distance itself from extremist groups”. Similarly, the Chinese representative refused to put “undue emphasis on pressuring the Syrian Government” and backed the Russian amendments. A new draft resolution, submitted by France, Germany, Portugal, the UK and the US, was debated on 19 July 2012.6 It stated that the Security Council “expresses grave concern at the escalation of violence” in Syria and, acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, it included a threat of sanctions on the regime. There were 11 votes in favor, 2 votes against—China and Russia—and 2 abstentions. The reactions of the Western diplomats to this third dual veto were again very critical. The French representative said that while Russia and China continue to support Assad’s regime, it “sends its terrifying militias to cut throats, kidnap, rape and generate inter-communal fear among the civilian population”.7 For his part, the Russian representative justified its veto on the grounds that Russia “cannot accept a document, under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, that would open the way for the pressure of sanctions and later for external military involvement in Syrian domestic affairs”. The Chinese representative also criticized the draft as “flawed and unbalanced” because it aimed to put the main pressure on the Syrian regime. 2.2

Sidelining of the Security Council in the Political Resolution of the Conflict

About one year after the beginning of the crisis in Syria, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2042 on 14 April 2012. Faced

6 S/PV.6810. 7 S/PV.6810. All following quotations pertaining to this veto are extracted from this

document.

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with an increase in violence, Kofi Annan had just been appointed Joint Special Envoy of the UN and the Arab League (February 2012) and had drawn up a six-point plan (14 March 2012), which provided for the establishment of a political dialogue, an end to the violence, access to humanitarian aid for the population, an end to arbitrary detentions and freedom for journalists and Syrians. Resolution 2042 supported this plan and aimed at facilitating a Syrian “political transition leading to a democratic, plural political system”. The Western powers deplored that the resolution came too late, after 10,000 people had died and the city of Homs was being bombed by the regime. A subsequent resolution (2043) also adopted unanimously on 21 April 2012 after further escalation of violence in Syria, allowed for the establishment of a United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), for an initial period of 90 days, to support the full implementation of the envoy’s six-point proposal. It is worth noting that Russia—one of the co-sponsor states of this resolution—promoted the idea that the Security Council was the only forum for resolving the crisis. This allowed Moscow to discredit the “Friends of Syria”, a group that had begun to meet in February 2012 and to relay the discourse carried by the Syrian opposition. Extended for 30 days by resolution 2059 (July 2012), UNSMIS ended on 19 August 2012,8 because the conditions were not met for the mandate it was given. A few weeks later, following the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, which, since August 2011, has been acting on a mandate from the UN Human Rights Council, and which had noted an escalation of violence since May 2012 (marked in particular by the Houla massacre), Kofi Annan convened an “Action Group for Syria”. Comprised of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the Secretaries-General of the UN and the Arab League, Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait (in the context of their rotating functions within the League) as well as Turkey and the EU High Representative, the action group was tasked with finding ways to ensure the implementation of the six-point plan as well as resolutions 2042 and 2043. On 30 June 2012, the group adopted the Geneva Declaration, which agreed

8 https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/past/unsmis/.

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principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led transition “that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people and enables them independently and democratically to determine their own future”.9 It was not until December 2015 that a new resolution was adopted setting out the framework for putting an end to the crisis. In the meantime, the UN sponsored in vain the Geneva II negotiations of January 2014, the first discussions between the regime and the opposition. On 18 December 2015, resolution 2254 was unanimously adopted. SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon’s opening remarks set the tone: “The Syrian conflict began with peaceful popular demands for political change, but it soon became defined by internal, regional and international divisions, including in this very Council. Almost five years later, we see a country in ruins, with millions of its people scattered across the world and a whirlwind of radicalism and sectarianism that challenges regional and global security”.10 The recent evolution of the local situation and alliance games had made it possible to grasp this one-off unblocking. In July 2015, the Iranian nuclear agreement had been signed, making Iran no longer just a player on the ground, supporting the Syrian regime, but a partner in the discussions, already invited to the discussions in Vienna in November. Moreover, since September 2015, Russia had been intervening militarily in Syria. In November, the Paris attacks accentuated the notion of urgency (the word appears three times in the resolution), revealing the porosity between the Middle East and the European stage. From then on, political action had to be reinserted into the Syrian-Iraqi equation. Finally, on 10 December 2015, an agreement between members of the Syrian opposition and certain armed groups was concluded in Riyadh, providing for the formation of a delegation to open talks with the Syrian regime. At the initiative of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), defined by resolution 2254 as “the central platform to facilitate the United Nations’ efforts”, and in particular those of the United States and Russia, which were then managing the crisis as a duopoly, the resolution endorsed the idea of a transition process. More than the content or principles of this transition, it set the timetable: to “establish credible, inclusive and

9 A/66/865–S/2012/522. 10 S/PV.7588.

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non-sectarian governance” within 6 months and organize “free and fair elections” within 18 months. The speeches justifying the various favorable votes, however, revealed significant differences in interpretation and explained the lack of substance of the resolution. On either side of the spectrum, Serguei Lavrov saw in the unanimity of the Council the constitution of an anti-terrorist front, while Laurent Fabius recalled the need to keep Bashar al-Assad, whom he regarded as the main actor of violence in the country, out of the political transition. As a result of this disagreement, while the 2012 Geneva text evoked a “transition that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people and enables them independently and democratically to determine their own future”,11 the term “democratic” disappeared in favor of a “Syrian-owned political transition” and a “credible, inclusive and nonsectarian governance”. Moreover, this “road-map resolution” was silent on the constitutional arrangements required and did not mention the legislative change necessary for this transition.12 A year later, however, the military investment of Russia, Turkey (which launched its first intervention “Operation Euphrates Shield” in northern Syria in August 2016) and Iran gave these countries the advantage on the political field. The very short resolution 2336 (31 December 2016), submitted by Russia and Turkey and adopted unanimously, initiated the sidelining of the UN, legitimizing and endorsing the Astana process (§3: “Looks forward to the meeting to be held in Astana”), a few hours before Kazakhstan joined the Security Council as a non-permanent member. The vote took place a few days after the surrender of the rebels in East Aleppo, after months of intense bombing. Despite the reluctance of Western countries, this resolution marked a shift that would be confirmed later on. While during the first round in Astana, Russia, Turkey and Iran invoked the implementation of Security Council resolution 2254 in its entirety13 as the only solution to the Syrian conflict, the discussions that took place there became autonomous. From this format, the establishment of four de-escalation zones emerged in May 2017. The process, which ultimately 11 A/66/865–S/2012/522. 12 The Carter Center, “Syria’s Transitional Governance & Constitutional Options

Under UNSC Resolution 2254”, Working paper, June 2016. 13 Statement: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/1/24/astana-joint-statementby-iran-russia-turkey-in-full.

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allowed the Syrian regime to gradually reclaim these territories, was not taken into account by the Council’s resolutions, despite the submission of a draft resolution by Russia on 8 May 2017. Five years had passed since Russia asserted that the Security Council should be the sole forum for resolving the crisis. The gradual marginalization of the Council allowed Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem to assert the regime’s refusal to allow the UN to monitor the implementation of the Astana agreement.14 2.3

Widening the Narrative Gap About Responsibilities for the Crimes in Syria

From 2013 onward, the conflict in Syria further disintegrated. Indiscriminate violence escalated as extremist armed groups proliferated, including the Islamic State, while Bashar al-Assad’s regime mobilized all means at its disposal to crack down on urban areas controlled by rebel forces. In the Security Council, qualifying the violence and debating the responsibilities for the crimes committed became the focus points for controversy. Against this backdrop, a draft resolution submitted by a large group of 65 UN member states was debated in the Security Council on 22 May 2014.15 According to this text, the Council intended to reaffirm its “strong condemnation of the widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the Syrian authorities and progovernment militias, as well as the human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law by non-State armed groups”. The text also stipulated that the Security Council refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in conformity with recommendations made by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in Syria, see below).

14 The Security Council was simply “informed” of the Sochi negotiations through a “Letter from the Permanent Representatives of the Russian Federation and Turkey to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council”. 15 S/2014/348.

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During the debate on the draft resolution, mentioning the “Caesar report”16 and qualifying the level of violence as “barbarity”, the French representative stated: “Killing, torture and rape occur today in Syria not just as atrocious consequences of a civil war, but as part of a deliberate policy to terrorize and punish. (…) The Government bombs civilian neighborhoods with explosive barrel bombs, missiles and chemical weapons. Terrorist groups carry out indiscriminate attacks. Tens of thousands of people have been disappeared. Torture and starvation are carried out on a large scale”.17 The result of the vote on this Security Council draft resolution was 13 votes in favor and 2 votes against—China and Russia. The US representative asked: “Why should the International Criminal Court pursue accountability for the atrocities in Africa but not those in Syria, where the worst horrors of our time are being perpetrated?”. Alluding to the Russian and Chinese vetoes, she added: “The history books may well depict photographs taken by Caesar of emaciated, acid-scarred corpses juxtaposed with a photo of the two members of the Council that prevented justice for the victims”. The UK representative concluded: “It is to Russia and China’s shame that they have chosen to block efforts to achieve justice for the Syrian people”. For his part, the Russian representative tried to disparage the Caesar report as “based on unconfirmed information obtained from unverifiable sources”. Regarding the ICC, he accused the US and the UK of double standards, underscoring that both countries never tried to refer to the ICC the war crimes committed during their occupation of Iraq. The Chinese representative used rather legal arguments to express China’s dissent with the concept of supranational criminal justice embodied by the ICC: “China believes that any action to seek recourse to the International Criminal Court (…) should be conducted on the basis of respect for State judicial sovereignty (…). China is not a State party to the Rome Statute. China always has reservations concerning the referral by the Security Council of particular country situations to the ICC”.

16 “Caesar” is the alias of a former member of the Syrian military police who left Syria in 2013 with photos of thousands of tortured bodies of dead Syrians. The members of the Security Council were briefed on this testimony report on 15 April 2014. 17 S/PV.7180. All following quotations pertaining to this veto are extracted from this document.

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The other field through which the Security Council continued to be invested in the Syrian issue was the fight against terrorism. The first resolution on this was taken in the summer of 2014. The Islamic State, in territorial expansion, had proclaimed the caliphate in June 2014 and was guilty of exactions in Iraq and Syria, prompting a unanimous international condemnation. Based on a vote on 15 August 2014, resolution 2170 was adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. By this date, the US had already carried out (on 8 August) strikes against jihadist targets in Iraq (and in Syria in September), before creating an international coalition against the Islamic State. A few days after the Paris attacks, resolution 2249 of 20 November 2015 referred to an “unprecedented threat to international peace and security”. Although these resolutions were adopted unanimously, the rhetoric of the fight against terrorism led to very different uses in the Security Council. On the one side, Russia constantly backed the Syrian government’s strategy consisting in stigmatizing all its opponents as “terrorists” and in justifying the resort to extensive force against them (Martini, 2022). In that respect, the ambassador of Syria, who was regularly invited by the Security Council to express the views of its government, never failed to advocate the contribution of Damascus to the “global war on terror”. On the other side, Western countries were very prompt at condemning the “state terrorism” in Syria and at holding it responsible for the proliferation of terrorist groups.18 With the growing involvement of Russian aircraft alongside Assad’s forces from fall 2015 onward, the diplomatic debate in the Council led to sharper accusations by France, the UK and the US of Russia’s responsibility in the perpetration of indiscriminate violence in Syria. This was especially the case for the Battle of Aleppo in the fall of 2016, when the city’s eastern part held by rebel forces was targeted by massive bombardments for months by Assad’s forces with the support of Russian aircraft. A draft resolution submitted by 46 UN member states was debated on 8 October 2016 during the final stage of the assaults on Aleppo.19 Describing in detail the numerous crimes committed against Syrian civilians in Aleppo, the text stated that the Security Council “demands that all

18 Ibid. 19 S/2016/846.

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parties to the Syrian conflict, in particular the Syrian authorities, immediately comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law”. There were 11 votes in favor, 2 votes against—Russia and Venezuela—and 2 abstentions—Angola and China. This time, Russia had exclusive responsibility for the rejection of the draft resolution. In the debate following the vote, the French representative mentioned “the unbearable horror of Aleppo’s martyrdom”, which he compared to Guernica and Srebrenica, adding: “Bashar Al-Assad does not fight terrorism; he feeds it”.20 Reacting to this speech, the Russian representative blamed the Western permanent members of the Council for trying to enforce again an “ill-conceived policy of regime change” in Syria that already led to the military interventions in Iraq and Libya. For his part, the US representative, endorsed the UN Secretary-General’s comment of the situation in Aleppo as “worse than a slaughterhouse”, adding that, by committing “war crimes”, “Russia has become one of the chief purveyors of terror in Aleppo”. Another draft resolution submitted by Egypt, New Zealand and Spain was debated on 5 December 2016 at the apex of massive bombardments in the final stage of the offensive on Aleppo.21 It called for an immediate cease of all attacks on Aleppo: there were 11 votes in favor, but 3 votes against—including Russia’s and China’s vetoes again—and 1 abstention. 2.4

The Unfinished Investigation on the Use of Chemical Weapons

The deadly use of chemical weapons on civilians on 21 August 2013 in the suburbs of Damascus (the Ghouta) illustrated a new step in the atrocities perpetrated in Syria. The political speeches following the event reflected the shock provoked by the images, such as François Hollande’s Declaration that “France is ready to punish those who took the infamous decision to gas innocent people”.22 Western chancelleries were busy preparing a military response to the crossing of the “red line” set by President Obama a year earlier.

20 S/PV.7785. All following quotations pertaining to this veto are extracted from this document. 21 S/PV.7825. 22 François Hollande, Ambassadors conference, 27 August 2013.

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The issue only came back up in the Security Council after these initiatives failed, in favor of an American-Russian agreement for the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons. Against this backdrop, resolution 2118 was unanimously adopted on 27 September 2013. The text endorsed the Russian-US agreement, the establishment (by the UN Secretary-General) of the United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic, and the decision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to set up special procedures for the expeditious destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons program. However, while the Security Council members said that they were “deeply outraged by the use of chemical weapons”, they cautiously eluded the question of the responsibility for the massacre. The voting justifications showed that the text was a laborious compromise between positions at opposite ends of the spectrum. The Russian representative blamed “those who back and sponsor the opposition; they have to ensure that chemical weapons do not fall into the hands of extremists”, while the US representative held “the Al-Assad regime publicly accountable for its horrific use of chemical weapons against its own people”.23 The resolution, therefore, focused on the prohibition of the use of weapons of mass destruction by any party in Syria, and on the destruction of the regime’s chemical arsenal. It thus placed the OPCW, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, at the center of international action on Syria. The investigations of the OPCW Fact Finding Mission (FFM), set up in 2014 in response to persistent allegations of chemical weapon attacks, pointed to the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon “systematically and repeatedly”, but the FFM was not mandated to attribute responsibility for chemical weapons use. The issue of impunity then became central to the debates in the Security Council, leading to the creation of the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism by resolution 2235 (7 August 2015), which was mandated to identify the individuals, entities, groups or governments involved in the use of chemicals as weapons (§5). Eventually, the fact-finding mission indicated the responsibility of the Syrian regime’s

23 S/PV.7038.

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forces in the use of chemical weapons in three cases in 2014 and 2015 and that of Daesh in one case.24 Following the results of this fact-finding mission, a draft resolution submitted by 42 UN member states was debated in the Security Council on 28 February 2017.25 It stated that the Council “condemns in the strongest terms the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic by the Syrian Arab Armed Forces and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”. Referring to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the text included targeted sanctions against Syrian military officials and other individuals and entities suspected of having responsibilities in the management of chemical weapons in Syria. Speaking before the vote took place, the UK representative said that this session of the Security Council was “about taking a stand when children are poisoned. (…) It is about taking a stand when civilians are maimed and murdered with toxic weapons”.26 The result of the vote was 9 votes in favor of the draft resolution, 3 against—including China’s and Russia’s vetoes—and 3 abstentions. Reacting to the vetoes, the US representative said that Russia and China had “turned away from defenseless men, women and children who died gasping for breath when Al-Assad’s forces dropped their poisonous gas”. In reply, the Russian representative talked about “unconvincing findings” by the Joint Investigative Mechanism and, hence, saw “no justification for concluding that Damascus has failed to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention”. For his part, the Chinese representative indicated that investigations into the use of chemicals as weapons were “ongoing”, and it was, therefore, “too early to reach a final conclusion” about the responsibilities for their use. After a new chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, near the city of Idlib, on 4 April 2017, the process of cooperation in the Security Council regarding the fight against chemical weapons broke down completely. The US representative held up photos of dead children at the emergency meeting of the Security Council on 5 April 2017. On 7 April 2017, on Trump’s decision of retaliation, 59 US “Tomahawk” cruise missiles hit the Shayrat airbase. Russia immediately condemned these 24 S/2016/888 (Fourth report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism, 21 October 2016). 25 S/2017/172. 26 S/PV.7893. All following quotations pertaining to this veto are extracted from this

document.

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strikes. The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, declared that “President Putin considers the American strikes against Syria an aggression against a sovereign government in violations of the norms of international law”.27 A draft resolution submitted by France, the UK and the US was debated in the Security Council on 12 April 2017. It stated that the Council “expresses its outrage that individuals continue to be killed and injured by chemical weapons” in Syria.28 The French representative talked about “crimes against humanity”.29 The US representative referred specifically to children victims of the “Assad regime’s vicious and barbaric chemical attack”. In reply, the Russian representative denounced again an anti-regime biased draft resolution. There were 10 votes in favor, 2 against—including Russia—and 3 abstentions—including China. New draft resolutions regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria were debated on 16 and 17 November 2017.30 On 16 November 2017, 11 members of the Security Council voted in favor of a draft whose aim was simply to renew the mandate of the Joint Investigative Mechanism for a further period of 12 months. Russia vetoed it while China abstained. The US representative accused Russia of having once again “actively obstructed the international community’s ability to identify the perpetrators of chemical-weapon attacks” and of having “killed” an international investigative procedure that had “the overwhelming support of the Council”.31 She concluded sharply: “Russia accepts the use of chemical weapons in Syria. How then can we trust Russia’s supposed support for peace in Syria?”. The UK representative echoed: “Russia has failed in its duties as a permanent member of the Security Council. It has failed as a State party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. It has failed as a supposed supporter of peace in Syria”. On 17 November 2017, a new draft resolution was submitted by Japan to allow for further discussions

27 “Russia condemns U.S. missile strike on Syria, suspends key air agreement”, The Washington Post, 7 April 2017. 28 S/2017/315. 29 S/PV.7922. All following quotations pertaining to this veto are extracted from this

document. 30 S/2017/962. 31 S/PV.8105. All following quotations pertaining to this draft resolution are extracted

from this document.

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in the Council to consider the future of the Joint Investigative Mechanism.32 The draft received 12 votes in favor, but was vetoed by Russia while China abstained. The failure of the Security Council to approve the renewal of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism led to its demise. This was not the end of the controversy over the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Following a new alleged chemical attack in the Duma area on 7 April 2018, a draft resolution was debated in the Council on 10 April 2018.33 The text expressed the Council’s condemnation of the continuing use of chemical weapons in Syria and the Council’s decision to create a new UN Independent Mechanism of Investigation on the use of chemical weapons. Before the vote, the Russian representative announced his clear opposition to the text, which, according to him, would reproduce the experience of the Joint Investigative Mechanism, which he called “a puppet in the hands of anti-Damascus forces” that “covered itself with shame when it issued a guilty verdict for a sovereign State without credible evidence”.34 He also stated that “Russia is in Syria at the invitation of its lawful Government in order to combat international terrorism (…) while the United States is covering up for militias and terrorists”. Unsurprisingly, the draft resolution received 12 votes in favor but was vetoed by Russia while China abstained. The UK representative reacted to the Russian veto by concluding that Russia’s decisions were “a step against humanity”. The debate was prolonged by two Russian “counter” draft proposals aiming at creating an alternative mechanism of inquiry on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.35 Both drafts failed to reach the majority threshold with only 6 votes in favor of the first draft and 5 for the second (France, the UK and the US used their veto in both cases). The opponents of the Russian draft resolutions expressed their distrust in the lack of independence of the mechanism put forward by Russia. Activism on the use of chemical weapons was then symbolically deployed in other forums without decision-making power. On 23 January 2018, France launched an International Partnership Against Impunity for

32 S/2017/970. 33 S/2018/321. 34 S/PV.8228. All following quotations pertaining to this draft resolution are extracted from this document. 35 S/2018/175 and S/2018/322.

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the Use of Chemical Weapons, a forum of states and organizations whose aim was to collect and share information so that the perpetrators of chemical attacks can be held accountable for their actions. At the same time, the most active states on this issue took action. After the new attack in Duma, in April 2018, the Americans, British and French carried out one-off strikes against Syrian regime positions. 2.5

Intractable Negotiation on Humanitarian Aid

A number of resolutions dealt with the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians. Of the 115 convoy requests submitted to the Syrian government in 2013, only 50 were approved by the regime. Moreover, in November 2013, Syrian specialists were increasingly concerned about the new strategy mobilized by the Syrian regime—to reduce populations to starvation. While the Geneva talks in January 2014 were stalled, resolution 2139, adopted unanimously on 22 February 2014, demanded “that all parties, in particular the Syrian authorities, promptly allow rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access for United Nations humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners” (§6). Six months later, resolution 2165, adopted on 14 July 2014, authorized direct humanitarian access through four border crossings from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan.36 The “cross-border” convoys needed a simple “notification to the Syrian authorities” (§2), meaning they were not subject to their goodwill. The resolution also reaffirmed the obligation of the belligerents to let humanitarian convoys cross the front lines inside Syria. The Security Council also claimed that it would act in a neutral humanitarian perspective “devoid of any political prejudices and aims” (§6). While the Security Council was concerned with the issue of humanitarian aid, it was also criticized for the de facto centrality of the Syrian regime in the reception, distribution and diversion of this aid.37 The follow-up report on resolutions 2139 and 2165 presented to the Security Council on 19 February 2015 described the refusal or delay of government approvals, making the passage of convoys impossible.38 A year later, 36 Natasha Hall, “The implications of the UN cross-border vote in Syria”, CSIS Briefs, June 2021. 37 Nick Hopkins and Emma Beals, “UN pays tens of millions to Assad regime under Syria aid programme”, The Guardian, 29 August 2016. 38 S/2015/124.

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a pro-opposition advocacy group, The Syrian Campaign, published a report accusing the UN in Syria of “taking sides” by putting the Syrian government in charge of aid from Damascus. It added: “UN agencies did not unite or set out red lines or conditions for their cooperation with the Syrian government. Rather, they chose to accept the government’s constraints on their operation. As a result, a culture of compliance was born”.39 The issue of sovereignty was at the heart of the debate on the delivery of humanitarian aid. Resolution 2165 was renewed several times, but its very principle was challenged by Russia after the fall of Aleppo. Supporting indeed the military recapture of their ally, Russia put pressure to close the crossing points and to impose Assad’s regime as the only interlocutor on the delivery of humanitarian aid. On 20 December 2019, the Security Council held a debate on a draft resolution that aimed at facilitating the UN humanitarian aid delivery through the opening of different points at the Syrian borders.40 Before the vote, the Russian representative stated that since “the Syrian authorities have now restored control over the greater part of their territory”, “cross-border assistance to those areas is no longer necessary”.41 The draft resolution received 13 votes in favor but was vetoed by China and Russia. The French representative said that Russia and China “jeopardize (…) the survival of millions of people” in Syria, a decision he called “irresponsible and sinister”. Echoing the position of Russia, the Chinese representative argued that “the Syrian Government has the primary responsibility for improving the humanitarian situation in Syria” and that “relief operations must be coordinated with the Syrian Government”. The US representative called Russia’s and China’s decision “reckless, irresponsible and cruel”. A counter draft proposal submitted by Russia (with much more restricted access to cross-border points for humanitarian aid delivery) was only supported by 5 votes.42 Resolution 2504 adopted on 10 January 2020 reduced the number of crossing points from four to two and for a period of 6 months instead of 39 http://takingsides.thesyriacampaign.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/takingsides.pdf. 40 S/2019/961. 41 S/PV.8697. All following quotations pertaining to this draft resolution are extracted

from this document. 42 S/2019/962.

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12. Russia then proposed an amendment reasserting the sovereignty of states in the coordination of humanitarian aid. On 7 July 2020, a draft resolution authorizing two crossing points in the northwest of Syria for the delivery of humanitarian aid for 12 months again received 13 votes in favor but was blocked by Russia and China.43 The US representative said she held “Russia and China accountable as an accomplice to Al-Assad’s reign of death and destruction”.44 The same scenario was repeated on 10 July 2020 when another similar draft, supported by 13 members of the Security Council, was vetoed by Russia and China.45 Since 2021, laborious debates have resumed in the Security Council on the conditions to allow cross-border humanitarian aid from Turkey. In spite of short term and fragile compromises,46 the dispute has arisen again on whether the humanitarian corridors should be opened for six months (the Russian demand) or one year (the demand of a majority in the Council). On 8 July 2022, Russia used its 17th veto to block a draft resolution supported by 13 of the Council members (China abstained), whose aim was to renew the humanitarian corridor toward Idlib for one year.47 After this vote, Russia submitted its own draft resolution in an attempt to limit the humanitarian cross-border mechanism to six months, but only Russia and China supported it in the subsequent vote.48 Eventually, on 12 July 2022, draft resolution 2642, limiting the mechanism to six renewable months, was adopted by 12 votes with the abstentions of France, the UK and the US. On 9 January 2023, resolution 2672, adopted this time unanimously, authorized the opening of the humanitarian aid transport route via the Bab al-Hawa crossing for another period of six months. However, in July 2023, a draft submitted by Brazil and Switzerland (which would have extended use of the Bab al-Hawa crossing for another nine months) received 13 votes in favor but was vetoed again by Russia (while China abstained). But taking advantage of the even more urgent humanitarian situation following the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria in February 2023, the Syrian regime reappeared as a 43 S/2020/654. 44 S/2020/661. 45 S/2020/667. 46 See resolution 2585 adopted on 9 July 2021. 47 S/2022/538. 48 S/2022/541.

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legitimate interlocutor (as illustrated by its comeback to the Arab League in May 2023). Eventually, a deal between the UN and the Syrian government (not based on a Security Council resolution) led to the opening of the Bab al-Hawa border crossing for a further 6 months (and two other crossing points for 3 months), making humanitarian aid more dependent on Damascus’s goodwill. Another group of resolutions also dealt with the cessation of hostilities and the evacuation of civilians, following the intensity of the fighting in Syria. On 26 February 2016, the unanimous adoption of resolution 2268 established the modalities for the cessation of hostilities in order to create space for a discussion about the political transition. On 19 December 2016, resolution 2328 was devoted to the situation in Aleppo, bombed by the regime and its Russian ally, and focused on carrying out “evacuations of civilians and fighters from the districts of the city of Aleppo affected by the conflict”. Minimalist, this resolution was adopted unanimously and without debate or justification of the votes. On 28 February 2018, concerned by the situation in Idlib Governorate and Eastern Ghouta, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 2401, which demanded “that all parties cease hostilities without delay, and engage immediately to ensure full and comprehensive implementation of this demand by all parties, for a durable humanitarian pause for at least 30 consecutive days”. The resolution also specified “that the cessation of hostilities shall not apply to military operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra Front”, and (at the request of Moscow) to “all other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with Al Qaeda or ISIL, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the Security Council”. As we know, the problem is that the Syrian regime and Russia deemed any Syrian opposition group “terrorist”. In any case, the cease-fire was not implemented. Indeed, in 2019, Assad’s forces resorted to an intensified campaign of aerial bombings in the last areas under the control of anti-regime groups, especially in the city of Idlib, causing numerous civilian casualties. In this context, a draft resolution was debated on 19 September 2019.49 It stated that the Security Council had decided “that all parties shall immediately cease hostilities to avoid a further deterioration of the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in Idlib Governorate”. Speaking before the vote,

49 S/2019/756.

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the Russian representative announced his opposition to the text whose objective was “to save the international terrorists who are entrenched in Idlib from their final defeat”.50 The draft resolution received 12 votes in favor, but was vetoed by Russia and China. The US representative declared that Russia’s veto represented “another attempt to absolve itself and the Al-Assad regime of their culpability in the deaths of thousands of Syrian men, women and children”. Russia and China then submitted an alternative draft proposal on the situation in Idlib that only the two of them supported.51 From 2011 to 2022, the war in Syria never left the agenda of the Security Council. Rather, the Security Council has remained constantly mobilized, either by adopting more than 50 resolutions (poorly implemented on the ground) or by being blocked by 17 Russian (and often Chinese) vetoes, which came each time with harsh diplomatic standoffs. However, contrary to representations of the UN as a hierarchical and centralized institution, we argue in this chapter that the reaction of the organization to the Syrian crisis reveals a trend toward a polycentric architecture in which the paralysis of the Security Council does not overshadow the initiatives taken by other UN organs. In this regard, the mobilization of both the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council over Syria provides insightful examples of the institutional ingenuity of the organization.

3

The Mobilization of the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council Over Syria

From 2011 onward, the UN General Assembly did not abstain from taking stances and significant decisions over the conflict in Syria. It adopted, at least on a yearly basis, a total of 16 resolutions from 2011 to 2021. The vast majority of these expressed the regular and deep concern of UN members over the escalation of violence, large-scale human rights violations and the global deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Syria, sometimes mirroring the texts of vetoed draft Security Council

50 S/PV.8623. All following quotations pertaining to this draft resolution are extracted from this document. 51 S/2019/757.

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resolutions,52 or asking the Council to exercise its responsibility and take stronger actions.53 All of the resolutions were adopted by a vote (often requested by Syria) and the General Assembly displayed stable voting patterns with clear majorities of usually more than a hundred votes (the highest passed with 137 votes on 16 February 2012,54 the lowest with 92 votes on 15 December 202255 ). Yet, the increase in the level of abstentions since 2016 (see Fig. 1) may be interpreted as a sign of fatigue and de facto recognition of the military victory of the Syrian regime for an increasing number of member states. Also, the General Assembly has been acting through its institutional power. Faced with the stalemate of both the Security Council and the ICC over Syria, it displayed institutional creativity with the establishment, on 21 December 2016, of an International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution Syria-related General Assembly Resolutions: voting patterns 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 2011 2012 2012 2012 2013 2013 2014 2015 2016 2016 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 In favour

Against

Abstentions

Fig. 1 Syria-related General Assembly resolutions: voting patterns, 2011–2022

52 See, for instance, A/RES/66/253 A. 53 A/RES/71/130. 54 A/RES/66/253. 55 A/RES/77/230.

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of Those Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 201156 (Wenaweser & Cockayne, 2017). Although fragile and ambiguous, the creation of this body underscores the creativity of the General Assembly in advancing international criminal law. Since the Security Council has the sole authority to establish international criminal tribunals, this mechanism is only tasked “to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyze evidence of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights violations and abuses”, on the basis of information voluntarily shared by States parties to the conflict as well as civil society groups. While its creation triggered harsh criticism and opposition, notably from the delegations of the Syrian Arab Republic itself and the Russian Federation, which questioned its mere legality, it has issued and submitted eight reports to the General Assembly in which it has exposed the advances that have been made as regards the advancement of its mandate and its practical implementation. Despite (or thanks to) its founding ambiguity, the mechanism has been viewed as “a bridge, or perhaps a temporary Band-Aid” for accountability in Syria, by collecting and preserving evidence for future prosecutions (Whiting, 2017). Similarly, the UN Human Rights Council (composed of 47 States elected for three years by the UN General Assembly) constantly kept Syria on its agenda, with at least one resolution adopted per (annual) session of the Council which expressed regular and public condemnation of human rights abuses committed in Syria. Since 2011, at least one resolution per session has specifically focused on Syria. Yet, the changing composition of the Council, “political fatigue” (Jabbour et al., 2021) and/or possible de facto recognition of the regime victory may explain the shrinking majority through which the resolutions have been adopted since 2016 (see Fig. 2). Like the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council took a more proactive role with the establishment of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic on 22 August 2011.57 Contrary to the specific scope of the General Assembly mechanism, the mandate of this commission is to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in Syria since March

56 A/RES/71/248. 57 Resolution S-17/1.

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Syria-related HRC Resolutions: voting patterns 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

In favour

Against

Abst

Fig. 2 Syria-related Human Rights Council resolutions: voting patterns, 2011– 2022

2011. Since its establishment, the commission’s mandate has been repeatedly extended, most recently until 31 March 2023. The commission has also been tasked to investigate critical situations of human rights violations such as occurred in Houla in 2012, in Aleppo in 2016, in eastern Ghouta in 2018 and in the region of Idlib in 2020.58 Given that the Syrian government is not allowing the commission to undertake investigations inside the country, the commission’s investigations rely primarily on first-hand accounts to corroborate incidents. To date, the commission has issued policy and thematic papers on issues including sexual and gender-based violence, detention and child rights in Syria. It has also orally briefed the Human Rights Council three times per year on the conflict in Syria, as well as the Security Council during “Arria” Formula sessions. Yet, the extent of human rights violations and the limitations of the commission have nurtured increased calls to strengthen the international mechanisms to address the challenges of the tens of thousands

58 See resolutions A/HRC/RES/S/19-1; A/HRC/RES/S-25/1; A/HRC/RES/37/ 1; A/HRC/RES/43/28.

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of missing and forcibly disappeared Syrian people. The March 2021 and 2022 reports of the commission on detention call for “the creation of an independent mechanism with an international mandate to coordinate and consolidate claims regarding missing persons, including persons subjected to enforced disappearance”. The General Assembly echoed these demands through its resolution 76/228 (10 January 2022), in which it requested “a study on how to bolster efforts, including through existing measures and mechanisms, to clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing people, identify human remains and provide support to their families”.

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Conclusion

The failure of the UN in Syria is undeniable. In spite of a body of formal resolutions, the Security Council was never able to prevent the 2011 Syrian political crisis from escalating into a more than decade-long, bloody and internationalized civil war. The special UN envoys could not perform effective mediation for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict. Even on apparently consensual issues—the fight against terrorism, the prohibition of chemical weapons and the delivery of humanitarian aid— negotiations in the Security Council proved biased and tricky while most resolutions adopted on these issues were poorly implemented. As the Security Council was steadily sidelined, major powers such as Russia, Iran and Turkey skillfully imposed their geopolitical agenda in Syria. Now, in more than ten years’ time, Syria has never left the agenda of the UN. The diplomatic standoff between Russia and China, on the one side, and the majority of the Security Council, on the other, materialized irreconcilable visions of the conflict. Russia’s, and to a certain extent China’s, overuse of its veto power prompted blunt exchanges of arguments and accusations that illustrated the irreducible polarization of the Security Council. These diplomatic exchanges dealt with crucial topics such as state sovereignty and its limitations, the responsibility of the international community to protect endangered and harmed civilians, the non-use of chemical weapons, the protection of human rights, the enforcement of humanitarian law and the (non-)prosecution of international crimes. Besides, the relative paralysis of the Security Council was not the end of the story about the UN and Syria. Boldly illustrating the UN’s “institutional pluralism”, the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council never fell short of a constant mobilization for condemning the crimes

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committed in Syria and trying to document them. Relatively strong diplomatic majorities were regularly secured in both institutions to name and shame most human rights abuses and atrocities perpetrated in the course of the war. Interestingly, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia since 24 February 2022, similarities in the way this new major war is affecting the UN can already be observed, with maybe the difference that the polarization between Russia and the Western powers in the Security Council was quite predictable and immediate. Indeed, the day after the invasion of Ukraine, the Security Council was hindered by a Russian veto to a draft resolution which “deplored in the strongest terms” Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine”.59 On 30 September 2022, Russia also vetoed a draft resolution aimed at condemning Moscow’s claimed annexation of the Donbass regions following the results of so-called referendums. Here again though, the UN’s institutional pluralism has been noticeable since the outbreak of the war. As if to compensate for the paralysis of the Security Council, the UN General Assembly has taken several significant initiatives, starting with a resolution adopted on 2 March 2022—with a clear majority of 141 UN members—that “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine”.60 On 7 October 2022, the Assembly passed another major resolution—by an even stronger majority of 143 votes—which condemns the “illegal annexation” of the regions of the Donbass by Russia.61 And on 23 February 2023 again, the Assembly, by a remarkably stable majority of 141 votes, reiterated “its demand that the Russian Federation immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine”.62 The numerous civilian casualties caused by the Russian military campaign in Ukraine have also prompted important reactions on the UN side. On 4 March 2022, the Human Rights Council passed a resolution that “condemns in the strongest possible terms the human rights violations and abuses and violations of international humanitarian law resulting

59 Draft resolution S/2022/155 debated on 25 February 2022. 60 While 35 States abstained (including China and India), only 4 UN members voted

against the resolution alongside Moscow (Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, Syria). 61 A/ES-11/L.5. 62 A/ES-11/L.7.

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from the aggression against Ukraine by the Russian Federation”.63 The same resolution created an “independent international commission of inquiry” to investigate “all alleged violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law, and related crimes in the context of the aggression against Ukraine”. On 24 March 2002, the UN General Assembly itself condemned “the indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks” of the Russian military against civilians64 and decided on 7 April to exclude Russia from the Human Rights Council.65 From the war in Syria to the war in Ukraine, these initiatives demonstrate the institutional pluralism and plasticity of the UN system beyond the blatant stalemate of its Security Council. They also reveal how various temporalities may overlap, from the mainly reactive and constrained nature of the Security Council to longer-term initiatives that other organs may take in the pursuit of future accountability for violations of human rights and international crimes perpetrated in Syria, in Ukraine and in other major violent conflicts.

References Akbarzadeh, S., & Saba, A. (2019). UN paralysis over Syria: The responsibility to protect or regime change? International Politics, 56, 536–550. Atlani-Duault, L., & Delattre, F. (2016). Is Aleppo the grave of the United Nations? The Lancet, 388(10059), 2473. Baczko, A., Dorronsoro, G., & Quesnay, A. (2018). Civil War in Syria: Mobilization and competing social orders. Cambridge University Press. Badache, F., Kimber, L. R., & Maertens, L. (Eds.). (2023). International organizations and research methods: An introduction. University of Michigan Press. Droz-Vincent, P. (2020). The renewed ‘struggle for Syria’: From the war ‘in’ Syria to the war ‘over’ Syria. The International Spectator, 55(3), 115–131. Hinnebusch, R., & Saouli, A. (Eds.). (2019). The war for Syria: Regional and international dimensions of the Syrian uprising. Routledge. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). (2019). Conflict in Syria. Internal Review of the Red Cross, 99(906). Cambridge University Press.

63 A/HCR/RES/49/1. 64 A/RES/ES-11/2. 65 A/ES-11/L.4.

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Jabbour, S., Leaning, J., Nuwayhid, I., et al. (2021). 10 years of the Syrian conflict: A time to act and not merely to remember. The Lancet, 397 (10281), 1245–1248. Magdin, R. G. (2021). Russian propaganda in the context of the Syrian crisis. In D. Koleilat Khatib (Ed.), The Syrian crisis: Effects on the regional and international relations (pp. 213–233). Springer. Martini, A. (2022). Debating Syria in the Security Council: The discursive processes of legitimisation and deligitimisation of actors involved in the Syrian war. The International Spectator, 57 (2), 18–35. Philips, C. (2019). The international and regional battle for Syria. In R. Hinnebusch & A. Saouli (Eds.), The war for Syria: Regional and international dimensions of the Syrian uprising (pp. 37–49). Routledge. Tannous, M. N. (2014). Geneva II: Dealing with the Devil. Singapore Middle East Papers. Wenaweser, C., & Cockayne, J. (2017). Justice for Syria? The international, impartial and independent mechanism and the emergence of the UN General Assembly in the realm of international criminal justice. Journal of International Criminal Justice, 15(2), 211–230. Whiting, A. (2017). An investigation mechanism for Syria: The General Assembly steps into the breach. Journal of International Criminal Justice, 15(2), 231– 237.

CHAPTER 3

A Stress-Test for Global Health Multilateralism: The Covid-19 Pandemic as Revealer and Catalyst of Cooperation Challenges Auriane Guilbaud

1

Introduction

In December 2021, Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) convened for a special session of the World Health Assembly and officially opened multilateral negotiations aimed at drafting a “Pandemic Treaty”: a new legal instrument for preventing, preparing for and responding to pandemics. This multilateral impulse came after the worldwide spread of Covid-19 in 2020 severely challenged multilateralism in general and in the global health field in particular. From the withdrawal of the United States from the WHO, to the race for vaccines and questions about China’s role in international health, the 2020 Covid-19

A. Guilbaud (B) University Paris 8, Saint-Denis, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_3

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pandemic acutely tested the strength and scope of multilateral cooperation in global health. Because of its multidimensional nature, its global scale and the magnitude and diversity of measures taken by governments and international organizations (IOs) (including the stockpiling of vaccines, the implementation of lockdowns, and exceptional spending aimed at stimulating economic recovery), the Covid-19 pandemic can at first sight appear as a “great event”, a “critical juncture” and a crisis with the potential to reorder significant aspects of the global health order. This perception was certainly reinforced by the controversies that emerged regarding the role of the WHO in 2020 and by the repeated calls from governments to improve global mechanisms for preventing and responding to pandemics. However, even a brief look over the recent past reminds us that while epidemics are experienced and perceived as exceptional, they are in fact both common and recurrent. Global health crises and controversies around their management also occur repeatedly, as well as the institutional innovations that follow after them. For instance, in 1996, the WHO was deprived of its leading role in the international coordination of the response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which was then entrusted to a dedicated organization, UNAIDS, which was considered better suited to providing the necessary multisectoral response (including, for example, that pandemic’s economic, human rights and gender dimensions). In 2003, the WHO was criticized for its delay in proving that a SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic was underway, owing to the Chinese authorities’ concealment of the earliest cases, which had the consequence of accelerating the adoption of a revised version of the International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2005. In 2014, the failure of the international community to act quickly during the Ebola epidemic in West Africa resulted in the creation of a WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies. Thus, on the one hand, as Tana Johnson puts it, the “political patterns [of Covid-19] are quite ordinary” (Johnson, 2020: E150). But, on the other hand, the pandemic saw not only a continuation, but in some cases an “expansion” of cooperation (Davies, 2022: 236), and health initiatives proliferated, often with the help of non-state actors. In this context, how can we understand the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on global health multilateralism?

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Defining and Analyzing Global Health Multilateralism: An Overview

Multilateralism in health can be defined as a form of institutionalized cooperation between several actors, including both state and non-state actors, aimed at solving common problems related to health. Multilateralism is part of the institutional framework of global politics, that is, in the words of Kalevi Holsti, of the “context and arrangements in which states conduct their mutual relations” (Holsti, 2004: 305). Cooperation in global health increased enormously at the turn of the twenty-first century and gave rise to a proliferation of institutions of various forms (IOs, ad hoc alliances, public–private partnerships, etc.), which may in practice duplicate roles, enter into competitive relationships, work in silos, etc. Global health multilateralism appears fragmented, with a great number of actors, who sometimes have divergent interests, and who interact in an ill-defined architecture of global health governance that is plagued by “chaotic pluralism” (Van Belle et al., 2018: 1). As a result, it tends toward a dynamic of permanent reforms. In this context of institutional proliferation, academic literature on global health in the field of international relations (IR) has been developing rapidly.1 Research before the 1990s rarely focused on global health cooperation. This field of international action was largely perceived as being technical and of secondary importance, belonging to the domain of “low politics” or even being a-political in nature, and therefore lying outside the field of interest of political science and IR. The integration of health issues in the study of IR was achieved through the development of three main lines of research. The first of these involves linking health issues to the process of globalization. The proliferation of globalized interdependencies affects both the systemic determinants of health and the health of individuals, while facilitating the circulation of diseases and the involvement of non-state actors (Lee, 2003). This line of research analyzes in particular the transition from international dynamics of health governance to global ones, and links health issues to other fields of global cooperation (development, trade, security, etc.). Recent academic publications in this field also tackles the issue of decolonizing global health (Richardson, 2020). The second line 1 Owing to the focus and scope of this chapter, only a few selected works are cited here, but there is a much larger academic literature available.

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of research analyzes health issues in terms of foreign policy and diplomacy. It was initially linked to the question of the securitization of health issues (Elbe, 2010) and their integration into national defense policies, and, by extension, into foreign policies (McInnes & Lee, 2006), but it later developed through the study of the foreign policies of individual countries or regional blocs, as well as through the study of global health negotiations and diplomatic practices (Kickbusch et al., 2021). Finally, the third line of research deals with global health governance and the role of IOs. The “architecture” of global health governance—and its complexity— lies at the heart of these debates, owing to the proliferation of actors, the increasing number of identified health problems and objectives, the overlapping of mandates and the successive relocations of authority (Buse et al., 2009; Fidler, 2007). Different approaches and concepts are used to account for these phenomena: for example, variously treating them in terms of interfaces, networks, regimes and complexity theory. Some works focus on the competing visions that can develop (which may be dominated, for example, by biomedical, economic, human rights, security, or neoliberal perspectives), and which can be endorsed by various kinds of actors (Kay & Williams, 2009; Rushton & Williams, 2011). The analysis of global health multilateralism cuts across these three lines of research. As an institutionalized form of cooperation between numerous actors, it is implicated in globalization, foreign policy and diplomatic practices, as well as governance systems. But multilateralism is also an international institution, that is, “a set of practices and rules that define appropriate behavior for specific groups of actors in specific situations” (March & Olsen, 1998: 948). This means that multilateralism rests on a normative basis (see also Chapter 5 in this book): in order to be functional, it requires agreement on some foundational principles (universality, equality, reciprocity, support for legal rules and respect for international commitments, solidarity, etc.). The fragmentation that characterizes contemporary global health is not only institutional but also normative. Finally, as with every institution, multilateralism is subject to dynamics of institutional change. 1.2

Dynamics of Change in Multilateralism and the Covid-19 Pandemic

The scope and nature of these changes, and indeed the type of change in question, are the subject of major and recurrent debates in IR. Scholars

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often disagree on the significance of empirically observed changes, and in particular on whether or not they are transformational, and amount to either minor or major change. For instance, a large number of studies build on the punctuated equilibrium model and tend to see significant change in the form of historical ruptures: they accordingly conceptualize major, transformative change as being “abrupt and discontinuous”, while minor, incremental change is seen as supporting “institutional continuity through reproductive adaptation” (Streeck & Thelen, 2005). For example, the study conducted by Lundgren et al. (2018) finds that the multilateral agenda, as defined by the policy agenda of IOs, is stable most of the time, apart from periodic interruptions marked by abrupt change— a view that is coherent with an understanding of IOs as institutions that are generally resistant to change. To better analyze the scope of change, Holsti (2004) identifies “markers of change”, which are supposed to signal when change takes place: this pertains both to “trends” (quantitative change, an accumulation of many little acts) and to “great events” (a huge interruption in a typical pattern, including significant social change or technical innovation). Holsti does not attribute any specific significance to technical innovation, unlike others, such as the French sociologist Marcel Merle (1986), who considers that other factors of change in IR (such as demography, geopolitics, trade, the economy and culture) are “overdetermined” by technical progress, which is “the main agent of world transformation”. Views are also divided with regard to the impact of Covid-19 on international relations in general (and not only on global health). For example, whereas Drezner (2020: E19) argues that the Covid-19 pandemic “is unlikely to have […] transformative effects on international relations” and “is likely to be relegated to a footnote in international relations scholarship”, Kaplan (2020) asserts that it is a “historical marker between the first phase of globalization and the second”, while McNamara and Newman (2020) contend that “the pandemic exposes underlying trends already at work and forces scholars to open the aperture on how we study globalization”. But rather than the scope and nature of change and the factors enabling it, it might be more enlightening to focus on the form or type of change itself. For example, Holsti (2004) differentiates between six main “concepts or types of changes”: change as novelty or replacement, change as addition or subtraction, change as increased or decreased complexity,

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change as transformation, change as reversion and change as obsolescence. Focusing on gradual change only, Streeck and Thelen (2005) propose to distinguish between five types: displacement (close to Holsti’s change as subtraction), layering (close to Holsti’s addition and growing complexity), drift, conversion and exhaustion (close to Holsti’s obsolescence). More typologies could be mentioned, but what is interesting here is that these attempts to differentiate between forms of change underline that significant change often “results from an accumulation of gradual and incremental change” (Streeck & Thelen, 2005) and through processes of “addition or growing complexity” rather than novelty or replacement (Holsti, 2004). Consequently, great care should be taken when undertaking an analysis aimed at defining what sort of marker of change pertains to a “great event”. And, most importantly, what is interesting is to analyze how that “great event” relates to previous dynamics. In light of the definitions mentioned above, and building on the findings of the academic literature on institutional change, our goal here is not to determine whether the Covid-19 pandemic was a “great event”, or a “critical juncture”, or will be perceived as one in the future, nor to consider whether it will trigger significant change in global health. The aim of this chapter is to show that while the Covid-19 pandemic appeared as a crisis with the potential to reorder global health multilateralism, it did so precisely because it occurred in an environment marked by fault lines and an accumulation of incremental change. This chapter will show that the Covid-19 pandemic acted both as a revealer of long-term trends in global health cooperation and as a catalyst of the changes that it precipitated. Through this perspective, it will provide a broad overview of the dynamics of health multilateralism and help identify the challenges created by this specific crisis. I will first briefly analyze the historical dynamics of global health multilateralism that led to a fragmented cooperation both at the organizational and normative levels. I will then focus on the tensions and challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic, which partly explain why it is often perceived as a major crisis. Finally, I will address new developments in global health multilateralism, and how they relate to previous dynamics.

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Global Health Multilateralism as a Fragmented Institution

The Role of Epidemics and Organizational Fragmentation in the Development of Multilateral Cooperation

The fight against contagious diseases and the organization of the response to epidemics were central to the development of multilateral cooperation in the field of health. It started to develop in the nineteenth century, when the plague and cholera epidemics that threatened Europe, combined with the development of international trade, encouraged states to cooperate on matters of health. From 1851 to 1938, fourteen international health conferences were held, aimed at harmonizing measures to fight epidemics, such as quarantine procedures for ships entering ports. These efforts also gave rise to the earliest permanent intergovernmental health organizations: the Pan American Sanitary Bureau in 1902, the International Office of Public Hygiene in 1907 and the Hygiene Organization of the League of Nations in 1920. Multilateral cooperation increased after World War II, when all these organizations were integrated in 1948 into the World Health Organization (WHO), the agency of the United Nations system that assumed overall directing and coordinating authority in the field of international health. Previous measures aimed at fighting contagious diseases were unified under the auspices of the WHO, as defined in 1951 in a new normative document, the International Health Regulations (the IHR, which were later revised in 1969 and 2005, and are undergoing new modifications in 2023). Since the end of the twentieth century, the acceleration of globalization and the rediscovery of the threat of epidemics (in light of the discoveries of the Ebola virus in 1976 and of HIV/AIDS in 1983 in particular) have increased awareness of the possibility of a truly global epidemic, which has, therefore, reactivated a sense of vulnerability that had been obscured by scientific progress (Guilbaud & Sansonetti, 2015). The renewed imperative to bring about universal cooperation in order to respond to epidemics and prevent pandemics can be summarized by the increasingly popular motto “no one is safe until everyone is safe”. However, since the nineteenth century, there has been a significant enlargement of the global health agenda. This reflects both the fact that there is a huge need to tackle other health problems and also an understanding that the response to and prevention of epidemics is linked to larger health issues. It is worth noting that the WHO has a very broad

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mandate: its Constitution defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”, and its goal is to provide every human being with “the highest attainable standard of health”. Although the interpretation of this mandate is subject to political battles, the WHO’s normative activity touches on a wide range of topics, including smoking reduction, mental health, universal health coverage and the strengthening of health systems. The reduction of health inequalities between developed and developing countries is also an important global health goal, especially since the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration. The field of global health has undergone major transformations since the end of the twentieth century, particularly following the global mobilization against the HIV/AIDS pandemic and the inclusion of health objectives in the United Nations development goals (the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and then the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015). Between 1999 and 2019 there was a spectacular increase in funding for health interventions at the international level (in total, this increased from about US$10 billion per year to US$40 billion per year, amounting to a fourfold increase in 20 years), coming mainly from state donors (the United States, the UK, Germany, France, Canada, etc.) and philanthropic foundations, especially the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.2 These funds are increasingly devoted to projects of multilateral cooperation—although not to the work of the WHO, whose budget for 2019 was only US$2.8 billion. They are mostly channeled instead to new multilateral cooperation forums in the field of health, such as public–private partnerships, or vertical funds that provide funding targeted at specific diseases. This is the case, for example, of GAVI (the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization), which finances immunization programs in developing countries, and whose members are both public (states and intergovernmental organizations) and private (companies, philanthropic foundations and civil society organizations). Another example is that of CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), which was launched in 2017 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, with the support of Norway, India, the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust

2 Data on global health financing can be found at: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation: https://vizhub.healthdata.org/fgh/ (Accessed 28 April 2023).

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(another philanthropic foundation), and which aims to fund the research and development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases. Furthermore, intergovernmental organizations primarily devoted to other domains have come to exert a major influence in the field of global health, such as the World Bank, which grants loans to finance health systems, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), which defines the regime of intellectual property rights and therefore determines the price of drugs and access to medicines. This has led to dynamics of competition between multilateral organizations, including some overlapping of roles and above all a greater complexity in their relations. The architecture of global health governance, therefore, appears both complex and nebulous, which hinders multilateral cooperation, and is the object of recurrent calls for “reforms” to enhance both its effectiveness and its legitimacy. 2.2

The Normative Fragmentation of Global Health Multilateralism

This organizational fragmentation of global health multilateralism has gone hand in hand with a process of normative fragmentation.3 Divergent visions of health multilateralism have developed over time, which vary in the importance that they attribute to certain principles, such as universality, effectiveness, trust, or reciprocity (Guilbaud, 2022b). The first such division can be seen between, on the one hand, the perspective of universal multilateralism, which prevails within international intergovernmental organizations such as the WHO, and, on the other hand, the perspective of restricted multilateralism, which characterizes new forms of multilateral cooperation, notably the public–private partnerships and vertical funds described above. The WHO’s universal mission stems from the fact that it aims to bring together all states that are recognized by the international community (including both developed and developing countries) based on the principle of “one state, one vote”. It also stems from its very broad mandate, which means that it intervenes in a multidimensional way in many fields, which allows for a certain reciprocity between members of the organization. Reciprocity is key for multilateral cooperation: it means that states do not need to be treated in a strictly equal way during each negotiation, but only over the long 3 The section of this chapter on normative fragmentation is based on work published in French by the author: see Guilbaud (2022b).

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term, and this is made possible thanks to mechanisms such as equality in terms of votes, and inter-temporal and inter-sectoral bargaining. All of these factors give the WHO the legitimacy for facilitating global cooperation, even if it does not erase the differences in terms of governmental resources and capabilities. Public–private partnerships and vertical funds, on the other hand, are restricted forms of multilateral cooperation: they are organized around a specific sectoral objective, although this may be ambitious in its scope (such as the objective of providing funding to developing countries to buy drugs for treating HIV/AIDS), they bring together a limited number of actors, and their legitimacy is based above all on their effectiveness in achieving the objectives they set themselves. Donors occupy a specific and influential place in such organizations, although in some cases they allow for representation from the countries receiving the funding or from the target population for the health intervention. However, this division between the perspectives of universal and restricted multilateralism can also be seen within IOs that have a universal vocation. Indeed, their budgets are also dependent on their donors. In 2020, 80% of the WHO budget was made up of so-called voluntary contributions, that is, contributions that are earmarked according to the priorities of the donors (Member States and private organizations).4 Devi Sridhar and Ngaire Woods (2013) call this situation “Trojan multilateralism”, where donors’ contributions to the budget of IOs create the illusion of support for multilateralism, whereas they are really using voluntary contributions as a tool to impose their national priorities on multilateral bodies. At the WHO, this state of affairs has been identified as a crucial problem for decades, prompting member states in 2022 to commit to gradually increasing their “assessed” contributions, which are not earmarked for any particular use (the goal is to reach a situation by 2030–2031 in which 50% of the approved program budget will be financed through assessed contributions). However, this commitment was followed a few months later, in early 2023, by a suggestion to establish a “replenishment fund” for the WHO, that is, a special fund financed by donors, on a voluntary basis, aimed at supporting certain actions of the organization. This measure would effectively perpetuate the cycle of donor-dependency. 4 The WHO website provides details of its budget: http://open.who.int/2018-19/con tributors/contributor (Accessed 6 March 2023).

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Since the end of the twentieth century, new principles have also come to guide multilateral cooperation in the domain of health: those based on market mechanisms and those based on the multi-stakeholder model. The former refers to the inclusion within universal or restricted multilateral organizations of instruments and constraints that were previously limited to the for-profit market sector, such as the omnipresence of costeffectiveness calculations (Bull & McNeill, 2007). The latter refers to mechanisms allowing the participation of individuals or groups who have an interest in a particular issue, on the grounds that they may either affect or be affected by decisions on that issue (Guilbaud, 2022a). In both cases, this is a consequence of the opening up of multilateral cooperation to the participation of non-state actors, including for-profit ones, thereby moving multilateralism toward either multi-stakeholder multilateralism or market multilateralism. This change can have consequences on how multilateral organizations understand values such as effectiveness or solidarity. And, once again, this additional line of normative fragmentation can be seen within both universal and restricted multilateral organizations. Although the latter have seemed to be more keen to embrace these new instruments of cooperation, IOs with a universal vocation are not immune to them. Coordination between universal and restricted multilateral organizations, as well as consistency in the various principles underlying multilateral action, are crucially important for avoiding the duplication of actions, or even actions that counteract one another, as well as for preventing actions that are deemed to be illegitimate. This fragmentation of health multilateralism leads to a number of tensions, such as those that came to a head in the difficulties encountered by the WHO in fulfilling its role, in this context, as “the directing and coordinating authority in matters of international health” (as defined in its Constitution), including with regard to restricted multilateral cooperation organizations. Those issues have resurfaced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, whose impact can be analyzed through the perspective of the pre-existing dynamics of global health multilateralism.

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3 The Covid-19 Pandemic as a Revealer of Pre-Existing Tensions and Challenges in Global Health Multilateralism The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has often been described as a “great event” or a “major crisis” owing to its multidimensional nature (affecting human health, the economy, travel flows, gender inequalities, etc.), its global scale (every country experienced Covid-19 cases),5 the magnitude and diversity of measures taken by governments and IOs (including lockdowns, the stockpiling of vaccines and exceptional spending aimed at stimulating economic recovery), as well as the rapidity of scientific and technological innovations to which it gave rise (the virus’s genetic sequence was decoded almost instantly, new diagnostics and vaccines were developed quickly, etc.). Although the Covid-19 pandemic brought about a major interruption in existing arrangements in various domains, the following section focuses on three main sets of problems that it brought to the fore in global health multilateralism, and which are linked to the organizational and normative fragmentation analyzed above: the limited authority of the WHO, geopolitical tensions and issues of equity and solidarity. 3.1

The WHO’s Limited and Contested Authority in the Coordination of the Response

Despite the proliferation of institutions in the global health field, during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic the WHO found itself alone on the front line. Other IOs that had sometimes been seen as competitors to the WHO’s leadership were unable to step up. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was unable to agree on an ambitious resolution, whereas it had done so for the HIV/AIDS pandemic and for the Ebola epidemics in West Africa, which had been declared “threats to international peace and security” (the UNSC only managed to adopt a very limited resolution in July 2020 calling for the “cessation of hostilities” to enable humanitarian efforts against Covid-19). This stalemate was the result of the power play between two UNSC members with a veto power the United States and China (see also Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 5 Every country except Turkmenistan and North Korea reported Covid-19 cases to the WHO, although it is generally recognized that these two countries did in reality experience cases of Covid-19. https://covid19.who.int (Accessed 22 February 2023).

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in this book). The Trump administration demanded that a UNSC resolution should contain a reference to the supposed “Chinese” origin of Covid-19, which the latter could not accept. To get around this political stalemate, the United Nations tried to develop a humanitarian response, with a “Global Humanitarian Response Plan” launched by UN SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres aimed at helping the world’s poorest countries, but this plan ultimately failed to attract sufficient funding and political attention. The World Bank, whose role in global health had grown substantially since the 1980s, mobilized to respond to the economic crisis, but as for its response to the health crisis in particular, its efforts were initially hampered by the failure of its own instruments that were intended to provide funds in the event of a pandemic. In 2017 it had developed “pandemic catastrophe bonds”6 in preparation for such an event, but it was only revealed at the end of April 2020 how much funding could finally be released: US$195 million for 64 of the world’s poorest countries, which was too little too late. It is worth noting, however, that the World Bank later returned to the forefront of global action, when countries of the G20 launched a “Pandemic Fund” in 2022, hosted by the World Bank, aimed at providing financing for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The WHO, therefore, appeared in early 2020 as the organization with the clearest mandate to coordinate the global response to the pandemic by analyzing countries’ responses to Covid-19. It drew on its normative mandate and its technical expertise to regularly publish guidelines (how to manage sick travelers, how to test, etc.). This expert role gives the WHO a “competitive advantage” and is a powerful factor of legitimation (interestingly, Dellmuth et al. (2022) show that, right before the Covid-19 crisis, the WHO benefited from a high degree of legitimacy among elites and citizens). However, despite its resources and its leading role at that time, the WHO was not in a position to compensate for the dynamic of fragmentation that already existed in global health multilateralism, which led to it being criticized for several shortcomings and for the apparent limits of its capacities (see also Chapter 12 in this book).

6 Investors who buy these bonds run the risk of no longer receiving interest or of losing part of their capital if an epidemic breaks out. However, as long as no epidemic breaks out, they receive a very high return.

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The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the WHO’s political and legal constraints in relation to its member states. For example, the need to respect state sovereignty constrains the WHO’s responsibilities in the event of an epidemic. These responsibilities are codified in the IHR, which detail reciprocal obligations aimed at “prevent[ing] the international spread of disease”. On the one hand, states are obliged to prepare for epidemics by developing certain minimum capacities in the field of health, particularly in the area of disease surveillance, and must notify the WHO of public health events that occur on their territory. On the other hand, it falls to the WHO to coordinate the notification mechanism, to determine whether the event constitutes a public health emergency or not, and to issue recommendations. However, there is no binding mechanism (the WHO possesses no power of investigation or sanction mechanism). For instance, the WHO had to wait for months for the Chinese authorities’ approval to send a team to investigate the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. The composition of the team was subject to intense bargaining, and once it was on Chinese soil its access was restricted. In 2023, “ongoing challenges over attempts to conduct crucial studies in China” prompted the WHO to rethink their plans on how to proceed with their investigation (Mallapaty, 2023). The Covid-19 pandemic also confirmed what previous epidemics and subsequent investigations had already shown: that states do not respect their commitments specified in the International Health Regulations (IHR). For example, a report published in September 2019 by a joint WHO-World Bank council noted that only 59 states (out of 194) had developed an adequate preparedness and response plan, as required by the IHR, and even among those 59 none had provided sufficient funding for its implementation (Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, 2019). The IHR were, therefore, not able to break the well-known circle of “panic and neglect” in relation to pandemic financing (whereby states spend considerable sums at the height of the pandemic panic but fail to invest once this moment has passed). The IHR also require that the response to an epidemic be “proportionate, […] avoiding unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade”. States are still allowed to take any measures they wish, even if these diverge from the WHO’s recommendations, provided that they notify the organization within 48 hours and justify them. However, even this requirement was overlooked in more than a third of the border closures implemented by governments in response to Covid-19.

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Furthermore, coordinating the international response involves not only disseminating good practices, but also pooling resources. Although most countries were not sufficiently prepared to respond to the pandemic, some of them responded well in certain respects, such as testing treatments, procuring personal protective equipment, and securing supplies of oxygen, while certain countries also had experience from managing previous epidemics. However, the WHO proved to be largely unable to play a role in this regard. For example, a mechanism aimed at pooling technological developments, known as the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool or C-TAP, which was launched by the WHO following prompting from Costa Rica, went largely unused. In order to raise political awareness and political accountability to help prepare for future pandemics, a group mandated by WHO member states (the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, co-led by Helen Clark and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf) proposed the creation of a Global Health Threats Council with a rotating membership of heads of state and governments, and with expert panelists from civil society, academia, and the private sector, which would be independent from the WHO—which, unsurprisingly, resisted the proposal (Horton, 2023). 3.2

Geopolitical Tensions, from Power Struggles to Vaccine Nationalism

The WHO’s authority was also diminished by broader geopolitical tensions. For example, in early 2020, the WHO was criticized for having adopted an overly conciliatory attitude toward China, and in particular for failing to publicly condemn the Chinese government’s lack of transparency and diligence at the beginning of the epidemic. It can be considered that this was a strategic, diplomatic choice on the part of the WHO Director-General, aimed at seeking China’s cooperation through conciliation rather than confrontation. This politically cautious approach is fairly typical of intergovernmental organizations, which rarely seek confrontation with one of its member states, although it can happen. In April 2003, after six months of frustration with China’s uncooperative attitude in relation to the SARS epidemic, and as international media pressure mounted on the WHO, the organization’s Director-General, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, publicly criticized the Chinese authorities, stating that “it would certainly have been helpful if the WHO had been called upon to help more quickly” (Crampton, 2003). The Covid-19 pandemic

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reinforced political tensions between China and other countries, especially Taiwan (who lost its observer status at the WHO in 2016, as a consequence of China’s response to the election of a new pro-independence president on the island) and the United States. The conflict between the US and China was largely transposed into the organization, and was further aggravated by the context of strong criticism in the United States of the Trump administration’s unpreparedness in dealing with the epidemic. The US president then sought not only to deflect the blame onto the WHO (King & Luug, 2023), but also to make his confrontation with China one of the central elements of his strategy for the November 2020 US presidential election. This US withdrawal from the WHO in summer 2020 (a decision of the Trump administration, which was reversed by the Biden administration once it was elected in November 2020) prompted the European Union (EU) to step in to defend the WHO and global health multilateralism. The EU hosted a “Global Pledging Summit” in June 2020 in order to support access to Covid-19 vaccines and treatment via the ACT-Accelerator initiative. The President of the EU Council, Charles Michel, proposed to draft a new Pandemic Treaty, which received enthusiastic support from the WHO Director-General (see below). These were strategic decisions from the EU, which saw an opportunity to assert its place on the global scene. It found allies in some countries from Latin America, Asia and Africa (some of which belonged to the “Friends of the Treaty” group, which formed with the aim of supporting the negotiation of a new Pandemic Treaty), but many developing countries also condemned the inequities in access to Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. Although these were being developed rapidly, access was restricted to countries that were able to pay and to negotiate bilateral deals with pharmaceutical companies. A global vaccine race took place, in which developed countries had an unassailable advantage. In September 2021, only 3% of people in low-income countries had been vaccinated with at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, compared to 60% in high-income countries(Kaizer, 2022). This call for more equity in the distribution of vaccines and treatments was put forward at the World Trade Organization (WTO), where countries led by India and South Africa requested a “TRIPS waiver”, that is, a suspension of intellectual property rights (which are governed by the TRIPS Agreement overseen by the WTO) relating to treatments and vaccines against Covid-19. Other countries, such as the United States,

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Japan, Canada, Brazil and Mexico, as well as the EU, initially opposed it, thereby replaying a classic situation of fragmentation that has existed in health multilateralism since the late 1990s, when divisions were particularly concerned with the fight for access to anti-HIV/AIDS drugs. A first compromise for a limited waiver (only for vaccines and for a period of five years) was reached in June 2022, but this was still seen as insufficient by many (Kohler et al., 2022). 3.3

Solidarity at Stake: The ACT-Accelerator as an Attempt to Bridge the Gaps Caused by Fragmentation

These shortcomings in the coordination of the global response and in handling geopolitical tensions resulted in a lack of solidarity—whereas fostering solidarity is one of the main raisons d’être of multilateral organizations and a crucial component in the fight against pandemics. This is why in 2020 the WHO, through the voice of its Director-General, made a plea for scientific, financial and political solidarity. This resulted in the creation of a new mechanism, the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (known as the ACT-Accelerator or ACT-A) in spring 2020. This mechanism, which was supported from its inception by the EU, aims to ensure “the equitable distribution and delivery of vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tools on a large scale”.7 It is a collaborative framework involving the “usual global health power brokers” (Horton, 2023): philanthropic foundations (the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust), vertical funds and public–private partnerships (CEPI, FIND, GAVI, the Global Fund, Unitaid) and intergovernmental organizations (the WHO and the World Bank). These nine organizations “co-lead” workstreams in four areas: diagnostics, treatments, health systems strengthening and vaccines. The workstream devoted to vaccines, which was also known as COVAX and was co-led by GAVI, CEPI and the WHO, set up a mechanism for the pooled advance purchase of vaccines (using donor funding), with the intention that the purchased doses would be distributed to countries according to certain priorities, in a way that would include poor countries that were unable to buy vaccines with their own resources. In order

7 https://www.who.int/initiatives/act-accelerator/faq (Accessed 6 March 2023).

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to do that, the WHO has developed an equitable and universal vaccine allocation scheme (e.g., its initial aim was to distribute doses until the point when all countries would possess sufficient quantities to cover 20% of their population) (WHO, 2020). The WHO, as a universal health organization, is specifically responsible for the issue of access within the ACT-Accelerator. It is also very strongly involved in the ACT-Accelerator in general: in addition to co-leading two of its axes, it participates in the other two, leads a cross-cutting axis on “access and allocation” and hosts the ACT-Accelerator’s administrative structure. However, the governance structure chosen places other actors, including restricted multilateral organizations, on an equal footing with the WHO in terms of their responsibilities, leadership and coordinating roles. This mechanism was criticized on the grounds that it is donor-lead, that it limits low- and middle-income countries to the role of beneficiaries, and that it has an ill-defined mechanism for accountability (Horton, 2023). The ACT-Accelerator governance structure reflects the forms of fragmentation, inequalities and coordination difficulties in health multilateralism that were analyzed above. It could be argued that the ACT-Accelerator design, which acknowledges the role played by powerful actors without establishing a clear hierarchy between them, is unlikely to provide a model capable of resolving the above-mentioned problems. Furthermore, this attempt at vaccine multilateralism encountered three particular obstacles: first, the approach of “vaccine nationalism”, which left few doses available to COVAX; second, the unilateralism of some countries that initially refused to join the initiative, such as the United States under President Donald Trump; and third, the bilateral strategies adopted by some other countries, which preferred to instrumentalize vaccines and conduct a form of vaccine diplomacy by making bilateral deals, such as China and Russia. Yet, even if the ACT-Accelerator mechanism was far from successful in many aspects (such as the low vaccination rates that were achieved in developing countries), it is important to recognize the symbolic significance of the WHO’s decision to devise an equitable and universal distribution mechanism, at a time when national public opinions were primarily concerned with their own security. It serves as a reminder that, in order to survive, multilateralism has to find ways to address the challenge of solidarity.

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4 Burgeoning Multilateralism: The Covid-19 Pandemic as a Catalyst for Future Directions in Global Health Cooperation Although the Covid-19 pandemic did not immediately change the architecture of global health governance (pledges were made to strengthen the WHO and member states agreed on new financing objectives for the organization, restricted multilateralism organizations were acknowledged as playing a co-leading role, the World Bank remains the financial organization hosting the newly created Pandemic Fund, etc.), it nonetheless led to a major revival of multilateral negotiations and to the opening of official discussions on topics that had been debated for years in smaller and less visible areas. Some principles of global health multilateralism are being “reworked”, as we see debates emerging on the role of international law, solidarity and equity, integrated approaches to multilateral cooperation and the intangibility of sovereignty. 4.1

International Law: A Powerful Instrument for the Revival of Multilateralism

Although global health multilateralism is not restricted to the production of legally binding instruments, the negotiation of such instruments nevertheless plays a crucial role in the strength and vitality of multilateralism, as this forum provides an opportunity to define common goals and make commitments to achieve them. The launch of multilateral negotiations in 2021 to draft a new treaty under the auspices of the WHO aimed at preventing pandemics is in itself remarkable. It was recommended by evaluation panels set up to investigate the response of the international community to the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet the WHO, over its 75 years of existence, had previously only negotiated one treaty as permitted by article 19 of its Constitution: the 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The idea for a Framework Convention on Global Health, put forward in 2007 by some experts and civil society organizations (Gostin, 2007), never came to fruition. Most norms adopted by the WHO are recommendations (as permitted under article 23 of the WHO Constitution). The regulations detailed in the IHR, which constitute the

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WHO’s legally binding instrument for preventing the spread of contagious diseases, are a specific kind of norm permitted by articles 21–22 of the WHO Constitution, which does not require ratification by member states. Following the Covid-19 pandemic, two negotiation processes unfolded in parallel. First, the IHR are being amended—a process favored and heavily invested in by the United States, since amendments to the IHR enter into force for all states simultaneously unless they explicitly reject them. Second, a new Pandemic Treaty, which was initially an EU initiative before gathering wider support, is being drafted (the initial hope is that it will be adopted in May 2024). After some reluctance, the United States also invested in this process—their initial lack of enthusiasm for a Pandemic Treaty can be explained by the fact that the ratification of international agreements is always a challenge for US Administrations owing to US domestic constraints. The rationale is that, even if certain states, such as the US or China, do not ratify the treaty, the visibility of the negotiation process and the political commitment that it generates, as well as the symbolic force of the final treaty, will exert pressure on every government to invest in the prevention, preparedness for and response to pandemics. There is also the expectation that a specific governance or even monitoring mechanism of the treaty (such as a Conference of the Parties (COP)) will sustain multilateral cooperation in the long term. Finally, there is the hope that a treaty will widen the scope of multilateral cooperation, as it can address in the form of a legal instrument certain issues that are not covered by the IHR, such as the sharing of pathogens and vaccines, and the links between health and climate change (Nikogosian, 2021). In any case, it is interesting to note that some low- and middle-income countries are taking some of the issues being discussed during the Pandemic Treaty negotiations (such as equity or compliance) back into the IHR negotiations (Third World Network, 2023). These transfers between the two negotiation processes show the importance of the negotiation of legal instruments for the revival of multilateralism. 4.2

One Health: A New Global Principle for Multilateral Cooperation

The Covid-19 pandemic focused particular attention on the fact that pandemics emerge from an “animal-human–environment interface” (Le Moli et al., 2022: 7). Consequently, the “One Health” approach, which

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promotes an integrated approach to human health, animal health and the environment, gained momentum and is now being discussed in the Pandemic Treaty negotiations. This approach is not new: the interconnection between human and animal health was being studied as early as the beginning of the twentieth century. The concept of “one medicine” was used to link human and animal health, before the concept of One Health was formulated in the early 2000s (Zinsstaga et al., 2011). The recognition that climate change is now under way, which increases the proximity between human habitats and animals (since animals see their natural habitats shrinking) and therefore increases the occurrence of zoonoses (diseases transmitted from animals to humans, which is the case for three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases in humans), has played an important role in the dissemination of the concept. As a result, the Office International des Epizooties (OIE), created in 1924—and which, in the 1940s, seemed destined to be dissolved in the wake of the creation of the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which took over the transmission of information on animal diseases and zoonoses—came to be revitalized, becoming the World Organization for Animal Health in 2003 (while keeping the same acronym, OIE). In 2010, a tripartite collaboration between the WHO, the FAO and the OIE was established, which was later joined by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). This “Quadripartite” launched the One Health High Level Expert Panel in 2020 (Le Moli et al., 2022: 10) in order to implement the concept, which until then had remained a rather theoretical approach, used for describing mechanisms or analyzing situations. What is interesting is that One Health is not only an epistemic or scientific approach, but also an organizing principle for multilateral cooperation. Its operationalization promotes an approach that is trans-sectoral (highlighting the importance of the science-policy interface, links with multilateral negotiations on biodiversity, etc.), trans-organizational (it can be implemented by a myriad of organizations, even beyond the Quadripartite, and it is already used by the World Bank, for instance (Berthe et al., 2018)), and trans-level (there is no separation between the local, national and international levels). Thus, One Health appears as a global approach with the potential to play a revitalizing role for multilateral cooperation.

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Sovereignty: Non-State Actors and the Protection of Populations Beyond States

States are at the core of the international system of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (PPPR). The international instruments that already exist and those that are in development are designed by states and also take states as their primary target. Health in general and PPPR in particular are sensitive areas with regard to state sovereignty, as any health issue or intervention affects the three defining elements of statehood: a state’s population (its perpetuation and well-being), a state’s territory (the surveillance and control of epidemics require actions on the state’s territory and at its borders), and a state’s government (the provision of health services to and protection of the population is a means of legitimation for the state authorities). Yet the Covid-19 pandemic was a reminder of the importance that has been assumed by non-state actors in global health governance and the response to pandemics: private pharmaceutical companies developed tests, treatments and vaccines; NGOs distributed medical and food supplies and drew attention to human rights violations during the pandemic; philanthropic foundations funded initiatives, etc. NGOs and charities also stepped in to care for populations that were not protected by states and were, therefore, particularly vulnerable to pandemics, such as people living in areas outside state control (such as in conflict zones) or populations that were disadvantaged or discriminated against (such as migrants). Beyond these “orthodox” non-state actors, the Covid-19 pandemic also saw interventions from “heterodox”, (or “unusual and unconventional”) ones, such as rebel groups or vigilante movements (Elbe et al., 2023). The contribution of non-state actors in global health and in PPPR is not only recognized in practice, but also embedded in international law. NGOs can make use of certain aspects of humanitarian law to help them reach vulnerable populations. Since the 2005 revision, the IHR recognize that, in the case of an epidemic, non-state actors can play a role in raising the alert. This development followed the cover-up by China in 2002–2003 during the SARS crisis, when the country’s authorities were very slow to cooperate with the WHO. States that are parties to the IHR are obliged to notify the WHO of events likely to constitute a public health emergency, but the WHO can also rely on unofficial

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sources, including non-state sources to declare it. In 2016, more than 60% of initial reports of outbreaks came from “informal sources”, such as Internet sites and forums, social networks and Internet surveillance programs (Davies, 2018). This is the culmination of a process begun in the 1990s, which has seen the WHO consolidate its use of non-governmental sources in epidemiological alerts (Kamradt-Scott, 2015: 84). ProMED (the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases), created in 1994 and managed by the International Society for Infectious Diseases, is an example of a system monitored by the WHO, which uses both big data algorithms and human analysis to detect emerging infectious diseases. It was through ProMED that information about the existence of the MERS coronavirus was first disclosed in 2012 (Davies, 2018). Then, in 1998, the WHO established the Global Public Health Information Network with the Canadian Ministry of Health as its host. In 2000, the WHO created its Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, linking various governmental and non-governmental actors and networks whose tasks include the collection and analysis of epidemiological surveillance data. During the Covid-19 pandemic, GISAID (Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data), a scientific platform created in 2006 by individuals as a not-for-profit association devoted to sharing access to genomic data from influenza viruses, which then received support from the WHO, the German government and the EU, became the platform hosting the largest number of genomic sequences of SARS-CoV-2 (Elbe et al., 2023: 17). The example of GISAID shows how some non-governmental initiatives can be co-opted by traditional actors in the global health field. Non-state actors make various contributions to PPPR, and despite the will of some states to strongly limit and control their roles, they are present in current negotiations in global health multilateralism. 4.4

Equity Measures: Renewing Solidarity and Ensuring the Effectiveness of Multilateral Cooperation

As mentioned above, one of the most crucial and contentious issues that the Covid-19 pandemic brought to fore is that of equity between countries, and of the mechanisms that are needed to bring it about. Equity is necessary for creating a sense of solidarity, which is at the core of multilateralism, as it ensures both its universality and its effectiveness. For example, without any acknowledgment of the inequalities between

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states and of the differences in their capacities, and without mechanisms to correct those inequalities, states are less likely to comply with multilateral treaties. This is why such treaties often provide for specific measures aimed at low- or middle-income countries. For example, the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control provides for technical and financial assistance specifically aimed at developing countries, the WTO provides for “special and differential treatment” for lower-income countries, and environmental law recognizes the principle of “Common But Differentiated Responsibility” (Yu III, 2023). This last principle, whereby developed countries agree to undertake higher obligations to combat environmental challenges, is enshrined—among others—in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Some developing countries (such as Pakistan, South Africa, Namibia and Malaysia) advocate for the inclusion of the principle of “Common But Differentiated Responsibility” in a Pandemic Treaty (Third World Network, 2022). In global health multilateralism, the issue of equity has crystallized since the 2000s around the sharing of pathogens and access to treatments and vaccines (sometimes called “pathogen sample- and benefit-sharing” (PBS) or “access and benefit-sharing” (ABS)). Human pathogens (viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi, etc.) are shared between laboratories with the aim of developing so-called countermeasures or “benefits”, such as diagnostics, treatments and vaccines. As a result of scientific progress in this area, not only physical samples but also data are now shared (metadata and genetic sequence data, which can be shared via electronic files). There is no comprehensive framework of regulation organizing this sharing of pathogens and subsequent benefits. Historically, it was organized by communities of scientists working on a specific disease, and the most formalized and regulated such network was the one devoted to sharing influenza viruses (Aranzazu, 2013). However, developing countries have complained that pathogens were obtained unfairly by developed countries and/or pharmaceutical companies, which then produced treatments that were protected by intellectual property rights and sold at high prices, which were unaffordable to developing countries. In 2006–2007, a major crisis occurred when Indonesia decided to stop the sharing of H5N1 viruses with the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network for that very reason (Burci & Perron-Welch, 2021). Negotiations took place to solve this issue, but these resulted in a complex and incomplete “patchwork of arrangements” for pathogen and

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benefit-sharing (Strobeyko, 2023). There are two main legal arrangements in place: first, the 2011 Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework, a system based on multilateralism and reciprocity (countries share influenza viruses within the WHO-led network, and in exchange companies provide some access to vaccines), but which applies only to pandemic influenza viruses; and second, the 2010 Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which is based on a bilateral and transactional approach. The Nagoya Protocol is centered around the recognition that pathogen samples are biological resources governed by national sovereignty, and that the sharing of those samples must respect national sovereignty—meaning that Prior Informed Consent and Mutually Agreed Terms have to be negotiated in each case. This means that bilateral and transactional negotiations must take place, which might take too long to allow an effective response to an epidemic outbreak. One of the main challenges for the future of global health multilateralism is to develop an equitable pathogen sample- and benefit-sharing system. A first step in that direction was taken by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in December 2022, which decided to establish a multilateral mechanism for benefit-sharing resulting from the use of digital sequence information (this includes genetic-data sequences, which until then were not explicitly governed by any arrangement) (Burci, 2022). But there is still a need for a more comprehensive framework for global health and pandemic response, which is why the topic is on the negotiating table of the Pandemic Treaty. Many challenges remain—especially since one underlying issue is that of intellectual property rights, which is governed by the TRIPS Agreement of the WTO. But taking into account the issue of equity, with enforceable measures, is key to strengthening solidarity and ensuring the effectiveness of multilateral cooperation.

5

Conclusion

These debates and ongoing multilateral negotiations attest, despite the challenges posed by fault lines and fragmentation, to the resilience of global health multilateralism. Several initiatives to improve multilateral cooperation were undertaken in 2020 (such as the creation of the ACTAccelerator, demands for a TRIPS waiver, etc.). Subsequent multilateral negotiations have addressed foundational principles of multilateralism (equality, reciprocity, support for legal rules and respect for international

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commitments, sovereignty, etc.). These discussions are rooted in previous developments in global health governance, as the topics on the table are not new. However, the emerging forums, frameworks and linkages between them are more novel. The results of the ongoing negotiations remain to be seen, but the strength and vitality of the processes are as important as the results (the production of new agreements or institutions, for instance, which will ultimately be put to the test by future crises and changes to the environment). Using Kalevi Holsti’s terminology, mentioned above, if the Covid-19 pandemic is to be seen as a marker of change, it is both a “great event” (a marked interruption in a typical pattern) and the result of cumulative “trends” (an accumulation of many little acts). But what is more important is that the resilience of global health multilateralism can be explained in part by its permanent dynamics of change. Despite a political emphasis on the “special moment” of the Covid-19 crisis, the proliferation of new directions in global health cooperation results from an accumulation of gradual change, on which the Covid-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst by bringing about new linkages in the global health field.

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Kaizer, U. B. (2022). UN analysis shows link between lack of vaccine equity and widening poverty gap. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/ 1114762 (Accessed 6 March 2023). Kamradt-Scott, A. (2015). Managing global health security: The world health organization and disease outbreak control. Palgrave McMillan. Kaplan, R. D. (2020, March 20). Coronavirus ushers in the globalization we were afraid of. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/ 2020-03-20/coronavirus-ushers-in-the-globalization-we-were-afraid-of#xj4 y7vzkg (Accessed 6 April 2023). Kay, A., & Williams, O. D. (Eds.). (2009). Global health governance crisis: Institutions and political economy. Palgrave Macmillan. Kickbusch, I., Nikogosian H., Kazatchkine M., & Kökény M. (2021). A guide to global health diplomacy. Global Health Center/Graduate Institute. King, J., & Luug, A. (2023). Politicizing pandemics: Evidence from US media coverage of the World Health Organization. Global Policy. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/1758-5899.13187(Accessed28March2023) Kohler, J., Wong, A., & Tailor, L. (2022). Improving access to COVID-19 vaccines: An analysis of TRIPS waiver discourse among WTO members, civil society organizations, and pharmaceutical industry stakeholders. Health and Human Rights, 24(2), 159–175. Le Moli, G. et al. (2022). The deep prevention of future pandemics through a one health approach: what role for a pandemic instrument? Global Health Center. Lee, K. (Eds.). (2003). Health impacts of globalization: Towards global governance. Palgrave Macmillan. Lundgren, M., Squatrito, T., & Tallberg, J. (2018). Stability and change in international policy-making: A punctuated equilibrium approach. The Review of International Organizations, 13(4), 547–572. Mallapaty, S. (2023). WHO abandons plans for crucial second phase of COVIDorigins investigation. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00283y.(Accessed6March2023) March, J. J., & Olsen, J. P. (1998). The institutional dynamics of international political orders. International Organization, 52(4), 943–969. McInnes, C., & Lee, K. (2006). Health, security and foreign policy. Review of International Studies, 32, 5–23. McNamara, K., & Newman, A. (2020). The big reveal: COVID-19 and globalization’s great transformations. International Organization, 74(S1), E59–E77. Merle, M. (1986). Facteurs et Acteurs dans les relations internationales. Economica. Nikogosian, H. (2021). Things you must know to help you make a decision on a pandemic treaty. Global Heath Center.

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Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

CHAPTER 4

Unpacking the “Mess” of Multilateral Crisis Management: NATO’s Defense Posture from Afghanistan to Ukraine Julien Pomarède

1

Introduction

Since the end of the Cold War, the development of crisis management operations has been central to multilateralism. Crisis management covers a wide range of civil-military activities (logistical support, development programs, low-intensity peacekeeping, warfighting), which aim at stabilizing conflict-torn countries from the Global South. The most important international organizations, such as the UN, NATO and the EU, have been involved, through their member states, in such missions in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa. In spite of its important rise on the contemporary international security agenda, crisis management remains

J. Pomarède (B) University of Liège, Liège, Belgium e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_4

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an immense challenge to multilateralism. The reason lies in the multiplicity of its objectives and underlying national interests. The overarching goal of crisis management being the peaceful stabilization of conflict-torn societies, various civil and military tools, as well as objectives, are needed to be deployed and coordinated, which constitutes the main difficulty of multilateral operations. A well-developed literature shows that most of the crisis management missions conducted from the early 1990s to nowadays are characterized by strongly competing objectives, motives or institutional cultures among the states’ diplomacies, armed forces and agencies (Fassin & Pandolfi, 2013). Therefore, the multilateral organizations are subject to fierce disagreements among their member states, which often result in a fragmentation of crisis management operations into poorly coordinated, contradictory and inefficient civil and military initiatives. The obstacles of international crisis management have been largely commented, but the question of how it works in practice remains opened. It is certain that the contemporary interventions display significant contradictions but their longevity indicates that a consensus is at work. Without a minimal consensus, crisis management missions could not even exist. How is multilateral consensus in crisis management built and how does it stand in spite of the disagreements inhabiting the negotiations? What makes the so-called mess of international operations work? To answer these questions, the chapter argues that the “constructive ambiguities” at play in multilateral negotiations has a substantial role in maintaining crisis management alive. The categories used to qualify and coordinate the interventions, such as “comprehensive approach”, “counterinsurgency” or “counterterrorism”, are often vague, ambiguous and unclear in their definition, given the variety of the interests at stake. Rather than seeing this vagueness as a pathology of crisis management, I conceive this semantic flexibility as a constructive component of both power relations and consensus building. As it has been demonstrated in a recent sociological literature in international relations, the functionality of ambiguities is to facilitate consensus but their core logic lies in (the mitigation of) conflicts. Constructive ambiguities facilitate the meaningful aggregation of different and potentially incompatible views (Jegen & Mérand, 2014; Rayroux, 2014). They are individually strategic (serving political influence) and collectively functional (making consensus possible). They catalyze the structuration of political relationships among players involved in the disputed game of multilateral crisis management.

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To illustrate the hypothesis, the chapter focuses on the trajectory of NATO’s crisis management. Crisis management has been a central component to NATO’s post-Cold War transformation into a security organization mainly directed against risks to the stability of the EuroAtlantic era rather than against existential threats (the USSR during bipolarity). It is part of NATO’s “three core-tasks”. The two others being collective defense, the main legacy of the Cold War era, entrenched in the famous Article 5 of the Washington Treaty1 and cooperative security, which consists in partnerships with non-member countries. NATO has conducted an important quantity of crisis management missions, in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Libya and is now reacting to the threat of Russia’s invasion warfare at its border, in Ukraine. I will pay a specific attention to NATO’s deployment in Afghanistan and I will open the debate to the context of the conflict in Ukraine. In comparing the two cases, my intention is to extend the reflexions I have been conducted about the central role of ambiguities in NATO’s crisis management. The Afghan part of the chapter results from an extensive PhD fieldwork on NATO’s counterterrorism after 9/11, conducted between 2015 and 2018. This is why I rely on anonymized interviews with officials working for the Alliance, such as members of NATO’s International Staff and International Military Staff, diplomats and military officers from national delegations. NATO’s reaction to the war in Ukraine is the object of a more recent research. For that reason, it is explored through publicly available sources whose analysis echoes my conclusions drawn from the Afghan case. NATO’s operation in Afghanistan, the International Assistance Security Force (ISAF), is a typical case of the strong tensions inhabiting crisis management. Launched as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks and aiming at stabilizing Afghanistan “to ensure [that it] would never again become a safe haven for terrorists” (NATO, 2022),2 NATO’s mission endured extreme tensions among the member states over the implementation of this common objective and resulted in a dramatic escalation of violence 1 As such, NATO’s reaction to the Ukraine war can be seen as a mix between crisis management and collective defense. The Article 5 has not been formally evoked (Ukraine is not a NATO member) and the Alliance is officially responding to a “crisis” at its boarder. But the spirit of NATO’s reaction—the reinforcement of its deterrence posture against Russia to prevent an aggression against the Alliance’s Eastern members—is often associated with collective defense. 2 The ISAF lasted from 2001 to 2014. For reasons of word length, I will stop to 2012, from when NATO’s military effort significantly decreased.

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(Dorronsoro, 2021). Therefore, NATO’s ISAF is an interesting case to explore how crisis management consensus lives in spite of the failures it led to in Afghanistan. On the contrary, the Alliance’s reaction to the war in Ukraine revitalizes NATO’s crisis management after the Afghan quagmire. Russia’s aggression strengthened NATO’s cohesion by redirecting the Alliance to its historical task: deterring a major and conventional attack from Russia. Even if the rapid and significant consolidation of NATO’s dissuasion on the Eastern flank indicates that crisis management might live on more stable and less disputed bases, an attentive analysis of the multilateral debates in the Alliance about the situation in Ukraine since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 also shows significant divergences. Therefore, the comparison between the ISAF and NATO’s reaction to the war in Ukraine is an interesting case to demonstrate that the ambiguity of consensus constitutes an inescapable property of crisis management.

2 NATO in Afghanistan: The Rationality of Violence Escalation In response to 9/11, the US-led coalition Enduring Freedom intervened in Afghanistan, resulting in the fall of the Taliban regime, which provided a safe harbor to the Al-Qaeda operatives responsible for the attacks. To ensure a peaceful transition, the UN quickly created a stabilization force, the ISAF. Under the pressure of the Bush administration, desiring a more substantial military implication from the other contributing countries, ISAF’s command was transferred to NATO in 2003. From 2003 onwards, NATO’s collective leitmotiv about the ISAF was to make sure that “Afghanistan would never become again a safe haven for terrorists”. Nevertheless, this consensual objective covered important diplomatic struggles, especially about the use of force. A fracture emerged between the member states heavily involved in combat missions (the US, Great Britain, Canada) in the Southern and Eastern provinces of Afghanistan and the NATO states deployed in the more stable Northern and Western regions (Germany, Italy, Spain) (Rynning, 2012: 125–127). The first ones pleaded for an increased involvement of the second ones in the fights. Consequently, NATO’s diplomatic and military players struggled to define ISAF through the prism of counterinsurgency, comprehensive approach or counterterrorism. At NATO, between 2003 and 2009, the US insisted on the qualification of the ISAF as a counterterrorist and/

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or counterinsurgency operation in order to encourage a greater participation of European countries in combat missions (Rynning, 2012: 95–97). The latter were nevertheless “opposed to the adoption of these terminologies because it associated ISAF with a war force that would have pushed them to reinforce their presence. This is why European allies preferred to use the term comprehensive approach, through which the use of force was understood as one tool among other non-military means. It was also the case for counterinsurgency of course, but the comprehensive approach had the virtue of being a political euphemism concerning violence” (Interview, September 2015). The comprehensive approach was, therefore, the consensual notion agreed upon by the allies between 2003 and 2009 to conduct the ISAF. It struck a balance between the US and European diplomatic positions concerning the use of force. Due to these tensions, the comprehensive approach became a vague terminology. For most of the European contributors, the comprehensive approach meant a limited military engagement, in support of the US leadership, to be combined with a development effort coordinated by civil agencies (Pomarède, 2021: 78–19). For the US, the comprehensive approach was a euphemism for what they considered as a conflict of strong intensity in which the priority is to get larger military resources from the allies (Pomarède, 2021: 80). The US diplomacy played on this plasticity to forge its domination. Being by far the predominant provider of troops and combat forces (see Table 1), the US used the comprehensive approach “to maintain an apparent consensus among NATO allies about the overall orientation of ISAF, while working at the same time to persuade the Europeans about the added-value of a more aggressive counterinsurgency approach” (Interview, April 2015). Consequently, even if the US progressively dominated the campaign, the ISAF was ambivalent in its objectives. The elusive nature of the counterinsurgency/comprehensive approach shows that the political negotiations resulted in a US-European compromise. The US did not monopolize the significance of the ISAF but, on the contrary, had an interest in maintaining the ambiguity to secure a minimal political-military support of the European allies. The effects of the counterinsurgency/comprehensive approach ambivalence on NATO’s power dynamics were also visible at the military level. The composition of the multilateral chain of command, a central element in states’ strategies to influence the conduct of operations, is an interesting example. The diplomatic ambiguity over the CA

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Table 1 Evolution of troops contribution among ISAF main contributors, 2007–2012

January 2007 December 2007 December 2008 January 2009 November 2010 Decembre 2010 July 2011 Decembre 2012

US

Great Britain

France

Germany

14000 15038 19950 31855 90000 90000 90000 68000

5200 7753 8745 9000 9500 9500 9500 9500

1000 1292 2785 3070 3850 3916 3935 543

3000 3155 3600 4245 4341 4818 4812 4318

Source NATO ISAF placemats (https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/107995.htm)

was articulated to the US military domination in the chain of command, where the US generals hold key positions. For instance, from 2006, all the ISAF Commanders (COMISAFs) nominated were Americans, on the basis of the recommendation from the US Department of Defense (DoD). If the US COMISAFs reported to NATO’s Strategic Command (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe—SHAPE) and implemented NATO’s positions, they also played on the ambiguity of the CA to promote counterinsurgency. Before 2009, the US COMISAFs were indeed appointed by the US administration on the basis of their aggressive reputation in campaigns, as it was the case with Dan McNeill (COMISAF in 2007–2008). Nicknamed “Bomber McNeill”, he was previously in charge of the US Combined Joint Task Force 180 (2002–2003) in Bagram, where he supervised targeted killings against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The DoD recommended McNeill as COMISAF “because he was known for his experience in the conventional use of force, which meant the elimination of the enemy” (Interview, June 2015; Auerswald & Saideman, 2014: 98). Supporter of an aggressive COIN approach to defeat the insurgency, McNeill declared that the CA “includes a strong military option […]. Those who talk about a comprehensive approach should not forget the combat element” (MacNeill, 2008). From this perspective, the ambiguous logic of the US ascendency was also a product of European tactics of resistances in the chain of command. To counterbalance the US military influence, Deputies position to the COMISAF were created and attributed to European commanders. The objective was to promote the CA into the ISAF and to contain the US’s way, but, in

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reality, the Deputies had a very limited influence on the top Commander (Pomarède, 2021: 90–92). The coercive dynamic of the US dominance was accentuated after the surge in 2009. It was a turning point both in the escalation of violence and in the US-European relationships. Between 2009 and 2011, the American presence in ISAF skyrocketed from 40 000 to 90 000 troops (see table). The objectives of the surge were the destruction of the insurgency’s capacities with the aim to transfer as quickly as possible the security missions to the Afghan authorities (Woodward, 2010: 284). Due to the increase in US troops, the European allies accepted the adoption of counterinsurgency in late 2009. In the following years, NATO’s declarations nevertheless marginally referred to the ISAF as a counterinsurgency operation, mentioning rather the comprehensive approach: “COIN was adopted at NATO because the US significantly strengthened their presence in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, European allies such as France or Germany were still not comfortable with COIN. They wanted to preserve their military and political leverage in the campaign. The comprehensive approach still made sense to them, and this is why NATO’s declarations started to mention the two notions in an interchangeable way” (Interview, August 2015). On the military side, Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of the lethal Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC—2003–2008) that mainly operated in Iraq, was appointed ISAF Commander in 2009. Relying on the counterinsurgency discourse (with a greater accent put over the protection of populations than his predecessors), but with experience in Special Operation Forces accumulated at the JSOC, he used the surge to launch large military offensives (such as Moshtarak in 2010, the biggest ISAF operation since 2001) and to increase SOF raids (McChrystal, 2014: 366). This continuous comprehensive approach/ counterinsurgency ambivalence influenced the evolution of the power stetting of domination in the ISAF: “it allowed the US to take the ascendancy over the ISAF and it preserved the continuous reluctance of the Europeans to be militarily and politically constrained by the war consonance of the US counterinsurgency” (Interview, October 2015). The US diplomatic-military personnel also relied on their simultaneous positions in both the ISAF and the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom. Qualified as counterterrorist, Enduring Freedom was special forces targeted killings coalition acting against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban insurgency. The cooperation between ISAF and Enduring Freedom was

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a result of internal struggles at NATO. The US continuously insisted on the necessity to unify the two missions in order to support ISAF in combat missions (Rynning, 2012: 95–97). The European allies like France, Germany or Spain “wanted to keep the operations under a separate command, due to their reluctance to see NATO evolve into a lethal counterterrorist war force” (Interview, July 2015). In 2005, the diplomatic solution found to conciliate the US-European views was called the “synergy”. It meant an ISAF/Enduring Freedom collaboration through a partial unification of the chains of command. The ISAF/Enduring Freedom synergy was ambiguous, as it “remained difficult to differentiate a delimited superposition of the missions from their effective separation” (Interview, May 2015). This ambivalence mainly resulted from the US intent to merge the missions and was reflected by the American domination (focused on the importance of combat) over NATO’s operations. Indeed, the positions at the intersection of the ISAF/Enduring Freedom chains of command were hold by US generals. This dynamic was even more explicit after 2008, when it was decided that the US ISAF Commander will be “double hatted”. He had under his control both ISAF and Enduring Freedom forces. This decision crystallized the US supremacy in the ISAF with the surge. This power shift was articulated through a strengthening in the multi-positions of the US diplomatic-military personnel within the ISAF/Enduring Freedom chains of command. Indeed, Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus (ISAF Commander in 2010–2011—also previously accustomed to the intense use of special forces in Iraq) increased the volume of special forces operations to support the ISAF (Kaplan, 2013: 344). In spite of the increased cooperation between ISAF/Enduring Freedom, “NATO’s mission was officially kept separate from counterterrorism and continued to be qualified through comprehensive approach and counterinsurgency” (Interview, August 2015). This ambiguity marked the evolution of NATO’s consensus over the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. The US took growing control over NATO’s mission through the adoption of counterinsurgency and the blurring of the ISAF/Enduring Freedom chain of command. At the same time, the formal separation between the two operations allowed for a working consensus between the US and the Europeans on the ISAF.

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The Afghan campaign shows that the multiplicity of practices and meanings at the core of multilateral crisis management is not the pathological result of a chaotic and disorganized aggregation of states’ individual interests. While this “mess” and its ambiguities certainly participate to endless and sterile escalations of violence, it remained regulated by power relationships having their own logic. Through these struggles, state representatives made sense of armed crisis management and assembled an imperfect but actionable consensus.

3

Ambiguities on the Eastern Flank: NATO’s Politics of Deterrence Against Russia

NATO’s reaction to the war in Ukraine is different in nature from the Alliance’s mission in Afghanistan, where it fought an insurgency. First, NATO is performing its historical mission, deterring a conventional attack from a state enemy, Russia. The last NATO’s summit in Madrid (June 2022) is a significant marker of this evolution. The new Strategic Concept of the Alliance adopted at the occasion of the summit relegates Russia from the status of partner to the rank of “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security”. The war in Ukraine does not only revitalize NATO but makes it even more attractive to other European states. At the Madrid summit, the allies formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the Alliance, following their demand of membership. The other significant difference with Afghanistan is that NATO is not at war in Ukraine, but adopts a deterrence posture aimed at preventing an aggression against its Eastern member states. These two differences also explain why NATO’s reaction to the conflict in Ukraine is often described as a crisis management success, a “NATO revival”, which strongly contrasts with NATO’s failure in Afghanistan: the Alliance is refocused on its coremission and, being in a deterrence context, does not have to face the immense political and operational difficulties inherent to an open-war situation. Nevertheless, the “great return of NATO” does not mean that the member states perfectly agree on the means to deter Russia. On the contrary, the Ukraine war suggests that dissension and ambiguity remain a core-component of multilateral crisis management. My argument is that the category of the “Russian threat” drives a consensus between essentially two positions at NATO. On the one side, the Eastern European members (Baltic states, Poland, Romania,

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Slovakia for instance), often supported by the US, push for a strong military posture toward Russia. On the other, the Western and Southern European members (France, Germany, Spain, for instance) promote a more balanced approach mixing dialogue with Russia and reasonable military dissuasion. Analyzing the Warsaw Summit of 2016, a decisive moment in NATO’s response to Russia’s military proactivity, Patrick Keller explains: “This was the dichotomy reiterated by pundits before the Warsaw Summit: that of an eastern flank led by Poland and the Baltic republics demanding significant steps to strengthen NATO’s deterrence vis-à-vis Russia, versus a southern flank represented by Italy, Greece, Spain and France insisting that the actual danger Russia represents for the Alliance should not be exaggerated, and focusing instead on the security problems along Europe’s southern border” (Keller, 2017: 54). The Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) is an interesting example of how this dichotomy works and is conciliated in practice. The EFP is one of the main NATO’s tools to react to the Russian aggression. It was initially created at the occasion of NATO’s Warsaw Summit in 2016, in reaction to the Russian aggressive behavior in and around Ukraine: the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the political-military support to the separatist forces in the Donbass, and a broader military build-up in the region, especially in the Black Sea. Deployed in 2017, the EFP comprises four multinational battalion-size battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The battlegroups are respectively led by “framework nations”, the UK, Canada, Germany and the US. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EFP was strengthened. NATO member states agreed to deploy four more multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. Since then, the EFP is composed of 8 multinational battlegroups (400 to 10 500 allied troops stationed in each country) and, in NATO’s official words, “demonstrate[s] the strength of the transatlantic bond and make clear that an attack on one Ally would be considered an attack on the whole Alliance”. The very logic of the EFP is the result of a compromise between Eastern and Western European positions. In the negotiations prior to the Warsaw summit, the first ones insisted on the necessity to deploy permanent forces on their soils, in order to build a strong deterrence structure against Moscow’s aggressiveness. Nevertheless, countries, such as France and Germany disagreed, arguing that permanent military structures stationed in NATO countries bordering Russia would be an excessive measure of escalation. More importantly, it would constitute a

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violation of the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, which excludes the “additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces” in Central and Eastern Europe. The Allies came to the following consensus: the EFP will be a “permanent rotational presence”. The force will be physically positioned but its military components will rotate. The compromise makes possible the reassurance measures that Eastern European states need, while the rotational character of the presence satisfies the other concerned by a possible escalation with Russia. If NATO’s official headlines describe the EFP as the “biggest reinforcement of Alliance collective defence in a generation”, the military rationale of the presence is more complex. Again, it is inhabited by a logic of European Eastern-Western compromise. In the EFP negotiations, NATO had to choose between two types of deterrence policies. The first is the “deterrence by denial”. Supporting by a sufficiently important military capacity, this strategy “seek[s] to deter an action by making it infeasible or unlikely to succeed, thus denying a potential aggressor confidence in attaining its objectives” (Mazarr, 2018: 2). “Denial” was promoted by NATO’s Eastern flank countries and was consistent with their insistence on the necessity of permanently stationed forces. On the other hand, the “deterrence by punishment”, favored by Western European countries, “threatens severe penalties, such as nuclear escalation or severe economic sanctions, if an attack occurs. […]. The focus of deterrence by punishment is not the direct defense of the contested commitment but rather threats of wider punishment that would raise the cost of an attack” (Mazarr, 2018: 2). Associating the EFP with the first option, “denial”, was merely impossible for the Allies. Denying the access to a territory of an army with the size of the Russian one would have meant a considerable NATO’s military reinforcement on its Eastern flank, with what most of the Western and Southern European countries disagreed on, for budget reasons and because of the difference in threat perception. “[U]nwilling to undertake forward deployment of anything as large as or larger than a brigade (around 5,000 troops)”, NATO had no other choice “than to fall back on the other option ‘deterrence by punishment’” (Ringmose & Rynnng, 2017: 19). From this perspective, the EFP is not a presence designed to inflict immediate unbearable costs to Russia, but is thought as a “tripwire” which, once triggered, would generate, in theory, NATO’s consecutive full response, namely the deployment of the NATO’s Response Force (NRF). In this deterrence format, “NATO accepts that part of its domain—say, the Baltic states—are vulnerable to

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Russian aggression, but it pledges to meet such aggression with a response […] so fierce that Russia will desist” (Ringmose & Rynnng, 2017: 19). In other words, “deterrence by punishment” is the only acceptable option to NATO. It is the result of a compromise “between those who see permanent and more substantial NATO presence as the only viable deterrence [Eastern European countries] and those who see it as an escalatory measure [Western and Southern European countries]” (Allers, 2017: 30). The reinforcement of the EFP with 4 more battlegrounds in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is a continuation of this compromise. Consequently, the EFP compromise involves some limits. The first is the limited scope of the EFP, driven by a very classical reading and practice of deterrence. Indeed, the EFP is articulated around the core-consensual meaning of Russia as an aggressive state motivated by territorial conquest. The invasion of Ukraine proves that open war is a real option for Putin’s Russia. But the previous political-military sequence that goes back to the annexation of Crimea also shows that Russia relies on a variety of political-military tools which remain under the EFP’s scope of conventional military response and deterrence. This so-called hybrid warfare would probably be Russia’s privileged mean to destabilize NATO’s security (even more after the unintended difficulties encountered in the Ukraine campaign), rather than risking an open war with the Alliance. The discrepancy between the classical deterrence logic of NATO’s EFP and the more likely subversive character of the actions conducted by Russia against the Alliance is qualified by some observers as an obvious “irony”: “EFP deters what’s arguably the least likely form of aggression from Moscow, leaving the alliance far more vulnerable to the Kremlin’s most likely tactics, namely operations that fall short of an Article 5 violation”, such as “cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns conducted against the Baltic states and Poland. […]” (Deni, 2018). Secondly, the EFP is not immune to the dissensions between the Allies. In deterrence, showing resolve and cohesion is essential to persuade the potential aggressor that he would suffer intolerable damages. It is even more the case in “deterrence by punishment”. In contrary to “deterrence by denial”, in which the physical visibility of a consequent military presence is enough to dissuade an attack, the “punishment” option, adopted by NATO, only works if a coherent message is sent to the opposing power about the level of retaliation following the aggression. Put it briefly, the “punishment” needs to be credible, in terms of both intention and

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capabilities. Nevertheless, constructing a strong and unified message in deterring Russia is a challenge to NATO, due to the internal differences in the perception of the Russian threat that continues to be publicly displayed even after February 2022. Disunity among the allies might have concrete consequences on the viability of NATO’s defense posture. At some point, it could lead Russia to militarily “exploit. NATO’s political fault lines”, to put under pressure and undermine allied cohesion. In this scenario, Russia’s limited military actions “could be directed against those areas and allies judged by Moscow to be less likely to fight or to opt for escalation” (Zapfe, 2017: 155). A limited military attack on some parts of NATO’s EFP contingents would put the Alliance in the delicate situation of designing an adequate response in the middle of the divergences among the allies’ perception of the Russian threat. The consequence for the allies would be to choose between nonreaction in the fear of escalation—synonymous with a significant loss of credibility in NATO’s deterrence posture—or military response leading to an unpredictable horizon of escalation. As such, NATO’s forward presence in Eastern Europe confirms that the ambiguities and compromises driving multilateral crisis management come with limits. Of course, the EFP does not reach the level of inconsistency that characterized the Afghan campaign, but still: due to the differences in the perception of the Russian threat among the Allies, NATO’s deterrence encompasses a series of persistent weaknesses.

4

Conclusion

The aim of the chapter was to analyze the way militarized crisis management work in multilateral negotiations. In contrary to the widespread idea that crisis management in international organizations is a fragmented set of uncoordinated decisions and measures, the chapter looked at what makes sense in multilateral power settings. NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan and recent military reinforcement of its deterrence posture toward Russia served as examples to show that constructive ambiguities maintain crisis management alive. The consensus of crisis management is imperfect, ambivalent and might result in questionable or, worst, dramatic outcomes. But, sociologically speaking, the multilateral players find a way to solve their dispute and produce working agreements. In brief, multilateral crisis management is a socially organized reality, full of challenges.

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NATO’s contemporary trajectory brings to the fore the different degrees in which ambiguity plays in crisis management. The human and material costs generated by the open-war situation in Afghanistan unsurprisingly involved much more disagreements among the allies, than in the strategic deterrence configuration at NATO’s Eastern flank. In a nutshell, the multilateral dynamic of NATO’s reaction to Russia’s aggressiveness is more consensual and successful than NATO’s mission in Afghanistan. While the ISAF degenerated into an escalation of violence, NATO’s presence on the Eastern flank undoubtedly contributes to deter Russia from crossing the borders of the Baltic states. Yes, a Western-Eastern divide is at play among the European Allies. But the big picture suggests a stronger cohesion than in Afghanistan, where the common objective was hardly identifiable, if not inexistent. At least, the Allies agree on a common purpose on NATO’s Eastern flank, deterring Russia through the conventional means. The EFP measure reflects this consensus and the decision of strengthening it after February 2022 was taken quickly and without major oppositions. Nevertheless, even in the EFP, which draws back NATO to its historical mission, consensus does not mean harmony. Ambiguities and semantic ambivalences are, at different degrees, a key condition of multilateral crisis management and its limits. From this perspective, the demonstration could be enlarged to other international settings of militarized crisis management, starting with the counterterrorist operations in the Sahel. Under the lead of France and its military engagement (first Serval and then Barkhane until November 2022), different organizations, such as the UN, G5 Sahel, the World Bank, were involved in the region. The competition between these divergent approaches and the construction of ambiguities among the actors to stabilize the overall architecture of the intervention could help to explain its limited capacity to jugulate the protracted logics violence in the region (Carayol, 2023; Frowd & Sandor, 2018).

References Allers, R. (2017). Modern deterrence? NATO’s enhanced forward presence on the eastern flank. In K. Friis (Ed.), NATO and collective defence in the 21st Century: An assessment of the Warsaw Summit (pp. 23–32). Routledge. Auerswald, D., & Saideman, S. (2014). NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting together, fighting alone. Princeton University Press.

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Carayol, R. (2023). Le mirage sahélien: La France en guerre en Afrique. Serval, Barkhane et après ? La Découverte. Deni, J. (2018, June 27). NATO’s presence in the East: Necessary but not sufficient. War on the Rocks. https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/natospresence-in-the-east-necessary-but-still-not-sufficient/ (Accessed 3 November 2022). Dorronsoro, G. (2021). Le gouvernement transnational de l’Afghanistan : Une si prévisible défaite. Karthala. Fassin D., & Pandolfi M. (Eds.). (2013). Contemporary states of emergencies: The politics of military and humanitarian interventions. Princeton University Press. Frowd, P. M., & Sandor, A. J. (2018). Militarism and its limits: Sociological insights on security assemblages in the Sahel. Security Dialogue, 49(1–2), 70– 82. Jegen, M., & Mérand, F. (2014). Constructive ambiguity: Comparing the EU’s energy and defence policies. West European Politics, 37 (1), 182–203. Kaplan, F. (2013). The insurgents: David Patreus and the plot to change the American way of war. Simon & Schuter. Keller, P. (2017). Divided by geography? NATO’s internal debate about the eastern and southern flanks. In K. Friis (Ed.), NATO and collective defence in the 21st Century: An assessment of the Warsaw Summit (pp. 52–62). Routledge. Mazarr, M. (2018). Understanding deterrence. Perspective—RAND corporation. McChrystal, S. (2014). My share of the task: A memoir. Penguin. McNeill, D. (2008, March 31). Interview with top ISAF commander McNeill “More than Promises” needed in Afghanistan. Der Spiegel. https://www. spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-top-isaf-commander-mcn eill-more-than-promises-needed-in-afghanistan-a-544385.html (Accessed 4 December 2022). NATO. (2022). ISAF’s mission in Afghanistan (2001–2014). https://www.nato. int/cps/fr/natohq/topics_69366.htm?selectedLocale=en (Accessed 4 March 2023). Pomarède, J. (2021). Nettoyer, contrôler et cibler: Les engrenages de violence et la guerre de l’OTAN contre le terrorisme en Afghanistan. Critique Internationale, 92, 71–94. Rayroux, A. (2014). Speaking EU defence at home: Contentious discourses and constructive ambiguity. Cooperation & Conflict, 49(3), 386–405. Ringmose, J., & Rynning, S. (2017). Can NATO’s new very high readiness joint task force deter? In K. Friis (Ed.), NATO and collective defence in the 21st Century: An assessment of the Warsaw Summit (pp. 16–22). Routledge. Rynning, S. (2012). NATO in Afghanistan: The liberal disconnect. Stanford University Press.,

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Woodward, B. (2010). Obama’s wars: The inside story. Simon & Schuster. Zapfe, M. (2017). Deterrence from the ground up: Understanding NATO’s enhanced forward presence. Survival, 59(3), 147–160.

CHAPTER 5

The Enduring Crisis: Reclaiming the Normative Foundations of Multilateralism Thierry Balzacq

1

and Frédéric Ramel

Introduction

Multilateralism is not simply a diplomatic practice “of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states through ad hoc arrangements or by means of institutions” (Keohane, 1990: 731). It is also a “way of living” in the international system that privileges coordination of foreign policies in order to address challenges that less than three states cannot deal with effectively (Devin, 2022). Today, however, multilateralism is increasingly regarded as an impediment to resolving global problems. While multilateralism can be used both as a means of cooperation and competition, we are more interested in the former, paying

T. Balzacq · F. Ramel (B) Sciences Po, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] T. Balzacq e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_5

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closer attention to international organizations. It is this kind of formal multilateralism that most raises hope and breeds despair when expectations are not met. Treated as an instrument (as opposed to an end), it is often argued that multilateralism either does not work or at best performs poorly, that is, it fails to yield the collective well-being it is supposed to sustain (Brisset et al., 2022; Télo, 2020). In general, criticisms take a functionalist tone. Two are noteworthy. The first is that the number of actors makes it difficult to strike a consensus among participants; at most, they can only craft compromises, which amount to second-best solutions. The second is that issues have become so complex that international organizations are unable to process them. The key, then, is to change institutions. Yet, structural transformations seem stale. Perhaps, because the way international institutions are organized and how they operate express entrenched ideational and normative commitments that some states, specifically those with significant power, are reluctant to change. As “interdependence must be recognized as such to be regulated” (Devin, 2008: 251), these actors tend to move away from the spirit that guides multilateral practices. The thesis here is, therefore, that functional shortcomings (Fernandez & Holeindre, 2022) cloud the normative crisis of multilateralism. We argue that understanding normative disagreements which affect multilateralism enables us to account for why it is highly improbable that functional fixes that do not embody new normative commitments would assuage those who are dissatisfied with how international institutions work. The reason is simple, but it is rarely brought out into the light of day. What an institution does hinges upon what it thinks from (Douglas, 1986). Be that as it may, norms and values do not necessarily have to be explicit. Yet, the consistency of behaviors endows these norms and values with might. Thus, the focus on normative aspects explains a lot of the difficulties faced by multilateralism across time. The word “a lot” is meant to acknowledge that multilateralism’s problems can have several other causes. Our argument is therefore not a substitute for other explanations but a supplement to them. The chapter proceeds as follows. The first section examines how the heterogeneity of the international society exposes the division between the West and the “rest”, which support two distinctive approaches to what constitutes a legitimate international order. Because multilateralism’s crisis is in part a function of the strength of the commitments that states make, the second section explores a set of factors that enable states to relax their

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efforts toward meeting multilateral arrangements. In the third section, we propose a way to address multilateralism’s enduring crisis. Because multilateralism expresses a relational configuration, it is the very fabric of the relationship that needs to be rethought. We draw upon a relational approach to trust as an attempt at developing a robust kind of multilateralism. Thus, the chapter moves from empirical to more abstract discussions.

2

The West Against the “Rest”

During the Cold War, the French theoretician Raymond Aron engaged in a discussion with the classical realists of international relations, specifically Hans Morgenthau. His strongest criticism focuses on the role of values and ideas upon foreign policy and more broadly the international system. The latter cannot be understood exclusively through the prism of its structure, namely the distribution of power capacities and its consequences in terms of polarity (unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity). He therefore includes a second dimension to any international system: its nature, either homogeneous or heterogeneous, depending on the convergence of the principles that shape the political regimes. Aron puts it this way: “I call homogeneous systems those in which the States belong to the same type, obey the same conception of politics. I call heterogeneous, on the contrary, systems in which the States are organized according to other principles and claim contradictory values” (Aron, 1992: 136). A host of factors makes the contemporary international system heterogeneous, including the plurality of political regimes, cultures and historical experiences (Reus-Smit, 2018). This heterogeneity finds in the opposition between democracies and authoritarian regimes a salient cleavage on a global scale. Such a division generates a diplomacy of values carried by the great powers in order to give substance to their conceptions of the international order. This divide is not only a rhetoric entertained by Russia and China, as illustrated by the 4 February 2022, joint declaration on a new era of international relations and sustainable development or the Summit of democracies organized by the United States in December 2021. It also occurs in various sites, such as the NGO Committee, wherein some autocratic regimes accumulate mandates in order to control—not to say prevent—the recognition of the consultative status of NGOs with the Economic and Social Council. Nonetheless,

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in 2022, Russia could not renew its seat in this Committee for the first time in many years due to the aggression against Ukraine. Moreover, the opposition between democracies and authoritarian regimes is but one form of normative opposition. Another axis is the critic against if not hatred of the West that characterize the behavior of some states from the South. This critical perspective has two sources, one of an academic nature, and the other of a political origin. The first corresponds to the development of post-colonial approaches, which can be likened to the irruption of the plural on the world history scene. But these approaches are not disconnected from political practice and, above all, from an international inscription. Its origins go as far back as the Bandung conference of 1955, well before the 1980s, since the nonaligned movement intended to emancipate from the West. Moreover, in the field of International Relations (IR), this perspective results from a double dynamic. The first is a critique of IR as a hegemonic discipline whose agenda is mainly set by scholars working in the United States. It is based on a conception according to which IR would correspond to an “American social science” (Hoffman, 1977). The second dynamic is political in nature and surfaces in claims made by the major emerging countries. These countries do not only share economic similarities (strong growth, an increasing consumer market, integration into the world trade, etc.). Rather, they also partake in a common political narrative that castigates the West, whose expansion on a global scale was largely dependent on colonization. The heterogeneity is expressed in a very heated contestation of the values promoted by the West, as the evolution of public international law toward a more substantial component beyond the coexistence of states based on the principle of sovereignty-freedom. Initially, the international law was indifferent toward the values and the nature of political regimes within polities. The rules were limited to the respect of state liberty. Today, this restriction is called into question in order to open discussions and evaluations of the state of law in domestic affairs. The most important consequence of such evolutions is to deepen disagreements over rights and freedoms. These cleavages are not necessarily new, since as early as 1948, the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights had given rise to reservations on the part of several Muslim states. It is indeed the amplification of these cleavages due to a lateral and non-mutual search for the universal that must be analyzed (Alles, 2021). Contributions to

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multilateralism pit the differentialists against the universalists. The differentialists denounce secularism following the example of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. On the other hand, the universalist cluster advocates the protection of religious minorities wherever they live while respecting freedom of expression in the public space. Religious globalization, particularly through networks of jihad, has fanned this divide since the end of the twentieth century. This globalization is the result of two distinct factors. The first corresponds to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, whose leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, called for an extra-territorialization of punishments. This he practiced through the fatwa pronounced against the writer Salman Rushdie for his Satanic Verses. The second is the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, going beyond the defensive jihad of the Afghan people to enlist all Muslims to fight against the invader. Moreover, the controversies surrounding the defamation of religions in both the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council illustrate the intensity of the opposing values. OIC states are advocating for the recognition of defamation as a human right, while other states are highlighting the worrying instrumentalization of the fight against blasphemy, which in some countries is becoming an abusive tool for governments to prevent the existence of other religious communities and undermine freedom of expression. Certainly, devices, such as UNGA resolution 66/167 (19 December 2011) on “combating intolerance, negative stereotyping, stigmatization, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons on the basis of their religion or belief”, adopted by consensus, reflect forms of convergence. Be that as it may, the current normative landscape reveals increasingly vehement tensions around the universalization of rules at the heart of the global space. It is thus a part of the modern European project characterized by the recognition of the autonomy of the subject of law and carried by democratic regimes that is being scrutinized and even questioned by the emerging countries. In this normative confrontation, divergent interpretations of fundamental texts also appear, notably the San Francisco Charter and its spirit. For example, China’s position on multilateralism employs a particular rhetoric of defending the emergence of a multilateral international order based on the United Nations Charter (see also Chapter 7 in this book). The concept of “community of destiny for humanity” put forward by President Xi Jinping in 2013 fully participates in this political discourse. According to Wang Mingguo, this “reflects China’s insistence on building

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an international institutional order with Chinese characteristics, based on a general critique and partial absorption of the liberal institutional order, with the UN Charter as the core of the international institutional order” (Mingguo, 2022: 50).

3

The Problem of Weak Commitments

When Donald Trump came into office in 2017, one of the most controversial decisions he took was to rescind the US participation in the Paris agreement on climate change. The decision raises many questions, including whether state’s continuity remains a reliable component of world politics and how strong are the commitments made by an elected government beyond its term in office. Despite the bewilderment caused by Trump’s policy, however, it is primarily an instance of multilateralism’s crisis and waning appeal (see also Chapter 7 in this book). We identify three reasons that weigh heavily on multilateralism’s acceptance and performance: the growing body of soft laws, moral fallacies and financial uncertainties. Soft-Law. In the current international system, states cultivate and promote soft law to the detriment of binding treaty rules. This practice is visible in all intergovernmental organizations. There are exceptions. For instance, in the International Labor Organization, the 2011 convention on domestic workers (n°189) contains coercive rules. Indeed, most other texts adopted are codes of conduct and soft law. While they subject offenders to possible blaming or shaming campaigns, these normative texts do not lead to robust court procedures. Further, whenever states seem closer to subscribe to binding agreements, some of them negotiate reservations to international treaties, on the ground that this protects their sovereignty (Peters, 1982–1983: 72). While reservations differ in scope and scale, most premise upon the idea that this constitutes one of the best ways to protect a state national interest. The consequence of reservations is to reduce the perimeters of a multilateral treaty, as many states could raise different kind of reservations about different sections of the text. The common ground shrinks. Multilateral treaties, in this light, express the least common denominator. Of course, what matters here is whether this common denominator refers to a crucial aspect of the agreement. When it doesn’t, as it most likely happens, the multilateral treaty amounts to little more than window dressing.

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Moral fallacies. Both small and major states can put different demands on multilateralism, based upon moral assessments that are misleading (Doran, 2010: 40–59). For the small states, it is tempting to use multilateral settings as a way to entrap major powers and prevent them from acting. In this sense, small states, of which there is a large number within the UN system, can consider that the view of the majority has a normative priority over that of large states. The small states, therefore, see themselves as the bearer of a unique moral virtue, which entitles them to tie up major powers in institutional procedures. Rather than laboring in order to produce mutually acceptable outcomes, multilateralism becomes a balancing technique in the hands of small states. By contrast, large states tend to believe that because they possess the necessary quantum of power to act alone, this authorizes them to do so. In other words, they assume that capabilities translate into legitimacy. The problem with these two positions is that none sees moral virtue in the other’s actions. Perhaps, this moral fallacy can be toned down by the fact that multilateralism as a way of being in the world space is essentially supported by the democratic middle powers. Not only do they provide 54% of the budget of intergovernmental organizations, but they also and above all find themselves in its spirit: mimicry (rapprochement between the institutional forms and practices adopted in these organizations and those cultivated by democracies), hope (convergence in the ways of apprehending internal and external issues) and even identity (values carried by these two types of organization in the sense that pluralist constitutional regimes find in multilateral practices a fairly natural extension of what they embody). Just as democratic societies are held together by middle classes capable of supporting the regime’s effort to improve the living conditions of all, the multilateral system is held together by these middle powers. In the eyes of Guillaume Devin, “no democratic middle powers, no multilateralism” (Devin, 2020). Financial Issues. For multilateralism to operate effectively, it needs money (Larhant, 2016). There is, however, a significant imbalance between voluntary and mandatory contributions to the budget of international institutions. Indeed, the balance is skewed toward voluntary contributions, which allow for a more robust orientation of the policies adopted, to the detriment of mandatory contributions, which represents on average 20% of international organizations’ annual budget. Further, states prefer to bolster their defense budget than allocating money to UN operations which are criticized for their inadaptation to local demands

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(Olivier de Sardan, 2021). Thus, the net total allocated to peace-making in 2022 was roughly 6 billion US dollars. Compare this to the 2,000 billion US dollars invested in defense in 2021 (Tian et al., 2022).

4

Multilateralism and Relational Entrustment

Multilateralism is a relational configuration. That is, the relative force of states’ commitment tells us something important about the characteristics of the relationship between actors involved. Our normative argument indicates that the main pathology of multilateralism is the lack of trust. As George P. Shultz (2020) puts it, “trust is the coin in the realm” (emphasis in the original). If this is true, then the challenge we face is to suggest a way through which states can cultivate trusting relationships. This section offers a strategy to do so, arguing that being a relational enterprise, multilateralism demands a relational account of trust. In what follows, we build in part on previous works (see Balzacq, 2022). A priori nothing could be more banal than the argument that trust is a property of relations and not an individual attribute, yet scholarship on trust tends to dispose briefly of the nature of the relations that underlie a particular set of trusting interactions (Jackson & Nexon, 1999). In addition, when authors seem to get closer to a relational view, they more often than not fail to discern the implications that follow from a relational approach. We, therefore, pursue two interrelated objectives. On the one hand, in line with our general claim, we unveil the distinctively relational character of trust. On the other hand, we examine the consequences of a relational approach to trust, arguing that it establishes the normative expectation that multilateralism requires. These normative expectations rest mostly on the hopeful anticipation that actors would conduct themselves as the relation demands, not out of habit or predicted efficiency. Although both habit and efficiency can support interactions between actors, none is a reliable ground for the hopeful anticipation that feeds into trust. In contrast, in the relational perspective, “normative expectations bear a great deal of the weight” (Walker, 2006: 101). The upshot of this argument is that trusting relationships have peculiar imperatives attached to them. Actors are not dupes who routinely reproduce their affective experience of prior interactions or isolated entities that maximize utility without regard to the history of affective and symbolic interactions that any trusting relationship embodies. What is key, then, is that trusting relationships have their “affordances”, that is, they imply a

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specific “conception of ‘what is to be done’” (Martin, 2011: 311). We should, in addition, explicitly point out that, trusting relationships rest on the mutual imperatives to conduct oneself in a way that is appropriate to the relationship. This is simple, but something crucial follows. Trusting relationships emerge out of the two non-contingently interdependent attitudes, namely trustworthiness and trust-responsiveness. The one who trusts makes a commitment to trustworthiness which hopes for trust-responsiveness from the trustee. In this perspective, the relationship predicated on trust presumes that actors involved would display moral attitudes both in the action taken (trustworthiness) and in the answer expected (trust-responsiveness). Inasmuch as trusting relationships bring into being moral expectations, they cannot help but indicate them. Be that as it may, the view that trust is governed by rational calculation is insufficient in the same way as the view that trust is conditioned by affective dispositions. Neither affect nor self-interest necessarily pushes agents’ action in a consistent direction. It is relationships which provide actors with reasons and motivations to develop trust. Of course, the explanation of trust is multifactorial, but relatedness is a key feature of trusting relationships (Ostrowski, 2021: 67). Affective and cognitive models explain trust by relying on persistent attributes of agents. A relational view turns our gaze toward the way relationships make possible the construction of trust. In sum, trust is less achieved than signified. Let us give an extended empirical vignette to flesh out the basic ideas that underline a relational view of trust. Consider states that desire to affiliate with NATO (see also Chapter 4 in this book). In fact, membership processes are concerned primarily with generating trust, by establishing trustworthiness. In other words, security communities invite a new member to join when they deem the applicant trustworthy (Cook et al., 2005: 5). To that effect, applicants must first earn their trustworthiness. This implies, among other things, that aspiring members display their ability to fulfill the expectations attached to being an ally. In general, such expectations refer to the lack of ill will toward the alliance and the capacity to contribute to the security of the community. For a security community, the lack of ill will is difficult to ascertain. But a number of proxies exist to evaluate the degree of commitment to the well-being and performance of the alliance, including subscribing to regulative rules of the alliances, among which the norms of non-free riding are key. While aspiring members presume that NATO is capable of acting effectively on their behalf, the alliance assumes, in turn, that allies or would-be allies

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are competent states able, as it were, to live up to what being a NATO member entails. This means that the road to membership makes explicit the conditions of possibility of trust, namely competence and willingness to abide by the norms of interaction between allies. However, it is not so much, or even at all, a leap of faith that creates trust. It is worth noting that it is the responsiveness of the potential member that indicates that it acknowledges the demands made on it by NATO. By doing so, we surmise, the would-be member advances its reputation as trustworthy. Trust-responsiveness, in this sense, meets the moral claim of reciprocity that NATO membership process enfolds. This is why, it is probably inaccurate to talk about trust than trusting relationships, as the former tends to induce the view that trust is a subjective trait or estimate (Gambetta, 1988, 217). “By fulfilling the expectations that others have of us”, says Colleen Murphy, “we acknowledge that the legitimacy of moral demands on others is dependent on what we as individuals do” (Murphy, 2010, 83). The fact that relations engender trust is another way of arguing that trust is “as much a product of the activities of others as of self” (Crossley, 2011: 67). Trust is thus a two-way process, involving both an attitude toward and an attitude from others. It is easy to argue that the truster’s trustworthiness is vulnerable to the trustee lack of trust-responsiveness. This is true, in particular, for an allpurpose characterization of trust. It is, indeed, a staple of rational choice analysis of trust that leads it to opt for the language of reliance than trust (Kramer & Carnevale, 2001: 431–450; Larson, 1997; Putnam, 2000). In the context of a security community, aspiring members tend to exhibit responsiveness to trust and disconfirm the rationalist tenet according to which anarchy would push the trustee to exploit the truster’s goodwill. This account suggests that something more binding than maximizing utility drives the trustee’s response to the truster’s expectations. Our assumption is that a security community is an intimate relational context, whose existence and performance cannot be reduced to instrumental trust-responsiveness. It should not be imagined, however, that security community insulates strategic considerations (Oelsner, 2007: 257–279). A state that applies to NATO, for example, might, and often does, employ stringent criteria for strategic reasoning in an attempt to establish its trustworthiness, including through the loudest of costly signals. However, because the security of one member depends on the security of all, trusting relationships definitive of security communities are inductive, that is, grow out of a “practice that is historical and sociocultural, defining

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a community and shaping the behavior of its members” (Qin, 2018: 346). This is to say that trusting relationships constitutive of security communities hinge on a degree of intimacy that renders pure utility maximizing inappropriate if not unacceptable. Alexander Wendt has argued in a more general vein that collective security communities exemplify a Kantian culture wherein, “states identify with each other, seeing each other’s security not just as instrumentally related to their own, but as literally being their own. The collective boundaries of the Self are extended to include the Other” (Wendt, 1999: 305). It is not unreasonable, therefore, to look for a different source for trusting relationships than the ones adduced by strategic considerations. Collective security communities are an instance of what might be called “relational entrustment”, which is an underlying aim of multilateral configurations. Formulaically, a state’s security is entrusted to another’s care (Hoffman, 2006: 4). The same principle holds more or less for other international organizations. For example, when an international organization decides to open the membership accession process to another state, it signals that it thinks well of the aspiring state. But for a trusting relationship to develop, the aspiring state needs to demonstrate its trustworthiness. To do so, often, actors employ devices that convey their trust-responsiveness. What motivates trust-responsiveness itself attracts different interpretations. According to Philip Pettit (1995: 212), the trustee behaves as the truster anticipates to preserve the good opinion of the latter. As Victoria McGeer puts it, “responsiveness to another’s positive view of our competence and potential…is a deep and fundamental feature of human psychology” (McGeer 2004 cited in Walker, 2006: 82). In this sense, trust-responsiveness finds its source in individuals’ basic psychological desire to obtain the good opinion of third parties, which enhances their self-esteem. However, such explanations are in tension with pervasive lack of trust between states (Booth & Wheeler, 2008). For if the desire for the good opinion of others were so irresistible there would be little (if any) reason not to trust, and trusting would be a default political attitude in world politics. Clearly, it is not. The desire for the good opinion is not a constant because not all trustees respond to the truster as relied upon. Evidence to the contrary is not strong. Perhaps, part of the motivation behind trust-responsiveness resides with contextual conditions, that is, with the relational configuration within and through which states reach the kind of intimacy that a collective security community expresses. A collective security community is

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a configuration of relationship of mutual orientation whose existence and maintenance depend on the imperatives to behave as supposed. What happens when NATO invites a state to embark on negotiations leading to membership? We can postulate that the invitee feels recognized as a state able to perform the duties inherent in the emerging relationship. Seen thus, the aspiring members comport themselves in a trust-responsive manner because NATO has deemed it trustworthy. That is, being trusted within the context of a collective security community creates the motivation to prove oneself trustworthy. We find similar logics at work in diplomatic special relationships. These sorts of interaction arrangements are able to withstand both external and internal crises. Special relationships owe their strength if in part to the trust that binds actors together. However, such trust is not only testament to the non-utilitarian intimacy between the parties involved. Rather, special relationships “do not necessarily have to operate on a primarily non-utilitarian logic of reciprocity that is essential to true friendship and can involve more strategic expectations” (Hoppermann & Hansel, 2019: 82). Thus, Opperman and Hansel argue that special relationships need not draw upon identical motivational factors in order to keep the relationship running. In the German-Israel case, for example, Germany’s ontological security is the main incentive for contributing to the relationship. In sum, talking of trust in an abstract fashion, that is, out of the sets of relationships that produce it, fails to tap into the distinctive felt imperatives that each trusting relationship generates. The nature of the relationship accounts for the kind of imperative that mutual orientations consecutive to trust distills. In this perspective, trusting relationships rest upon expectations of a normative type. Normative expectations inherent in trusting relationship induce a sense of “this is what I should do” in this relational configuration. This view dovetails with Walker’s characterization of hopeful trust, that is, trust “given in the hope that the giving of it will activate someone’s sense of responsibility” (Walker, 2006: 82). It could be argued the creation of the G20 was meant to fulfill that function. Yet, we do not subscribe to the idea of trust as given, as trust is a relational attribute, not an object of a transaction between the truster and the trustee. Nonetheless, we retain the link between trust and responsibility, which reverberates normative expectations that characterize trusting relationships. The trustee is regarded as a responsible agent who is entrusted with the care of something or someone. As such, a failure to conduct

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oneself in accordance with the presumption embodied in the relationship violates normative expectations, which induces a qualitatively distinctive experience. Thus, we may propose that the recognition of agency, competence and lack of ill will work hand in glove with the hope that the trustee would feel the imperative of acting responsibly. Any analysis of trust must, then, unveil the commitments implicit in the relationship that is being woven. Let us bring it all together. This section has sought to put forward the idea of a normative foundation of multilateralism, dwelling on trust. Trust, it argues, consists in establishing relationships that acknowledge the reciprocal and benevolent agency of one another. A trusting relationship, according to Vincent Keating and Jan Ruzicka, is “an intersubjectively ideational structure that allows two or more actors to set aside risk and uncertainty” (Keating & Ruzicka, 2014: 755). In other words, we conceive trust as a deliberate act of not taking precaution in interacting with one another. To a certain extent, this reinforces Jon Elster’s view that, “the focus on deliberate restraint has the advantage of highlighting the interaction between the truster and the trustee” (Italic in the original. Elster, 2015: 337). However, we argue that an actor can be more or less inclined to trust does not mean that the trusted actor would reciprocate. Trust, not necessarily the proclivity to grant trustworthiness, is an emergent feature of relations. When trust prevails, the fabric of the relationship can be, and often is, tighter. In security communities such as NATO, whose existence and operation depend on a collective identity of sorts, trust appears as a primary factor in developing the degree of intimacy that the latter calls for (Kydd, 2001: 801–828). Such relationships have their attendant exigencies. The sources of trust are, therefore, pace emotional and rational choice theories, less generic than contextual. In Margaret Urban Walker’s words, “it is better to make particular kinds of motivation a part of what is trusted in, rather than a part of the definition of trust ” (Walker, 2006: 81. Emphasis in the original). Actors may be trust-responsive for a number of reasons, but security communities create a shared situation which binds actors included in a distinctive, normative fashion (Rengger, 1997). Here, in other words, trusting relationships create normative expectations, that is, actors involved behave in the way expected because they are responsible for doing so. Reciprocal agency, normative expectations and responsibility are the elements of our relational approach to trust in a multilateral setting.

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5

Conclusion

This chapter has argued that multilateralism’s crisis is neither only nor essentially a functional problem. Rather, it expresses intersecting normative disagreements. As a response, we suggested that one of the most effective approaches to improving multilateralism’s performance is to facilitate a new mindset which relies upon a relational ethics of trust among members. This relational ethics, we argue, would pave the way for three major transformations: the development of deeper forms of inclusiveness, the empowerment of new leaders, and the recognition of mutual vulnerability. Improving inclusiveness. Catalyst diplomacy or the logic of polylateralism (Lamy, 2021; Wiseman, 2010) offers new ways for how negotiations are practiced. Certainly, this approach seems to be more easily envisaged in matters of non-traditional security or issues commonly (and unduly, one might add) referred to as “low politics”. The legitimacy of norms and decisions can no longer ignore a narrow conception of the diplomatic scene by States. This demand for inclusiveness naturally requires radical thinking about the conditions of selectivity of non-state actors in order to avoid the effects of a sorting out between the “good and the bad” (Defrain-Meunier, 2019). Guidelines for good practice by intergovernmental organizations have been adopted in many areas of negotiation. Empowering new leaders. The position of the Kenyan representative on the Security Council after the Russian aggression on Ukraine strongly illustrates this call for respect for international law. The criticism of Russian violations of international laws by denouncing imperialist excesses that call into question the very existence of borders is linked to a normative promotion of strategic restraint. This can be considered as the natural corollary of a civilized conception in international relations. Here, the affective polarization documented and described to capture uncivilized behavior within democracies, notably in the United States, can find a form of equivalent in the conduct adopted by states when they turn away from the rules of public international law in its original sense: namely coexistence between states. Recognizing the global condition of mutual vulnerability. There is a gradual emergence of a universal history crossed by the congruence of global issues affecting all societies today. These are the famous “problems without a passport” highlighted by the former Secretary-General of the

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United Nations Kofi Annan. Interdependencies are such that they expose societies to increased vulnerability in a situation of reciprocity. Pandemic and climate crises are clear examples. Faced with these vulnerabilities, solutions can no longer be conceived in a state-centric way. They necessarily result from the articulation of points of view as the One Health agenda illustrates, for instance. Promoting this multilateral cooperation is more than an ingredient to be added to the diplomatic recipe. It is a condition for our survival because, even though a positive dynamic emerged in the twentieth century, “we—human inhabitants of Earth— are in the either/or situation: we face either joining hands, or common graves” (Bauman, 2019).

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Larson, D. W. (1997). The anatomy of mistrust: U.S.-Soviet relations during the cold war. Cornell University Press. Martin, J. L. (2011). The explanation of social action. Oxford University Press. Mingguo, W. (2022). A community with a shared future for mankind and the transformation of the international order: An international institutionalist perspective. International Forum. 3. Morjé, H. L. (2019). Power in peacekeeping. Cambridge University Press. Murphy, C. (2010). A moral theory of political reconciliation. Cambridge University Press. Oelsner, A. (2007). Friendship, mutual trust and the evolution of regional peace in the international system. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 10(2), 257–279. Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (2021). La revanche des contextes. Des mésaventures de l’ingénierie sociale en Afrique et au-delà. Karthala. Ostrowski, E. A. (2021). Finding the right balance: Cooperation and conflict in nature. In W. Wilczynski & S. F. Brosnan (Eds.), Cooperation and conflict: The interaction of opposites in shaping social behavior (pp. 66–86). Cambridge University Press. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon and Schuster. Peters, J. K. (1982–1983). Reservations to multilateral treaties: How international legal doctrine Reflects world vision. Harvard International Law Journal, 23, 71–116. Pettit, P. (1995). The cunning of trust. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 24(3), 202–225. Popovski, V. (2022, December). Re-imagining the United Nations Organization. GGIN Policy Brief . Qin, Y. (2018). A relational theory of world politics. Cambridge University Press. Rengger, N. (1997). The ethics of trust in world politics. International Affairs, 73(3), 469–487. Reus-Smit, C. (2018). On cultural diversity: International theory in a world of difference. Cambridge University Press. Shultz, G. P. (2020, December 11). The 10 most important things i’ve learned about trust over my 100 years. The Washington Post. Télo, M. (Ed.). (2020). Reforming multilateralism in post-Covid times. For a more regionalist, binding and legitimate United Nations, Fondation pour les études progressistes européenne. (On Line) https://feps-europe.eu/wp-con tent/uploads/2021/01/Reforming-Multilateralism-in-Post-COVID-times-. pdf

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Tian, N., Béraud-Sudreau, L., Marksteiner, A., Liang, X, Lopes da Silva, D. (2022). Trends in World Military Expenditure, 2021. Stockholm Peace Research Institute. Walker, M. U. (2006). Moral repair: Reconstructing moral relations after wrongdoing. Cambridge University Press. Wendt, A. (1999). Social theory of international politics. Cambridge University Press. Wiseman, G. (2010). Polylateralism. Diplomacy’s Third Dimension. Public Diplomacy Magazine., 4(2010), 24–39.

PART II

Power Shifts in Multilateralism

CHAPTER 6

The United States from Trump to Biden: A Fragile Return to Multilateralism Frédéric Charillon

1

Introduction

The international institutions set up at the end of World War II allowed the advent of an imperfect concert of nations and, for the West, of stability mechanisms devised in the United States (the World Bank in 1945, the Bretton Woods agreements in 1944). The established order was conflictual, but under control: direct confrontations between the two American and Soviet giants were avoided, even if they settled their accounts elsewhere (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan or on the African continent…). With the disappearance of the USSR in 1991, there was hope of 7a world finally reunited. Even if, at the end of the 2000s, the Russian Federation regained its aspiration to regional domination, and China to a leading world position, free trade and global negotiations united the protagonists. This configuration might be coming to an end.

F. Charillon (B) Université Paris Cité, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_6

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Since 2016, the world has been going through several major systemic shocks, which call into question the very principles of the globalization of trade. The Covid-19 crisis that hit the world at the beginning of 2020 highlighted the vulnerability of states to global interdependence (Joseph S. Nye & Robert O. Keohane had been telling us about this since 1977) (Keohane & Nye, 1977). It also emphasized the need for greater strategic autonomy, to reduce dependence on foreign powers, in terms of strategic supplies (in this case, at the time, medicines, protective masks, medical systems for respiratory assistance…). It triggered competition for the manufacture of effective vaccines and then for their distribution. It brought into competition different political models in the management of the crisis: authoritarian regimes relied on social discipline and political secret to curb the epidemic, and democracies on transparency and data sharing. China and Russia promoted their vaccines (Sputnik in Russia, Sinovac in China) and their strong management (the “zero covid” policy in China), while Taiwan, Japan and South Korea demonstrated their ability to implement effective public policies in the crisis. At the end of the day, a profound questioning of liberal globalization was observable, even in the democratic camp. Even before the Covid-19 episode was over, the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops in February 2022 came as another shock. The shock of an “old-fashioned” territorial invasion, the numerous sanctions unleashed by North America, Europe and Japan against the aggressor, once again raised the question of strategic dependence. As Russia and Ukraine are important exporters of agricultural products, of some strategic raw materials (aluminum, copper, cobalt, zinc…) and above all in the production, export and transport of energy (oil and natural gas), the dangers of a world of free trade were once again revealed. With the Chinese support given to Moscow in this crisis, the rupture of commercial links between the West and Russia, the specter of a decoupled world, and therefore of “de-globalization”, was once again looming. Undeniably, multilateralism has suffered from these shocks, which seem to have created a gap between, on the one hand, the West and its Asian democratic allies, and, on the other hand, authoritarian regimes supported by a large part of the South, for whom liberal multilateralism remains inseparable from a reviled America and its European allies (sometimes as former colonial powers). But a major upheaval had affected the international system even before these two crises. The election of Donald Trump in November 2016 in the United States (followed by the new

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president taking office in January 2017) acted as a “game changer” in several ways. The new president was meant to be disruptive. With no political experience, he was the candidate of a polarized society America, which he wanted to bring back at the heart of his concerns: “America first” and “Make America Great Again” (giving birth to the acronym “MAGA” that would be used to designate his supporters). Distrust of the rest of the world, protectionism and even isolationism, once again became the compass for American foreign policy. As the then French ambassador in Washington, Gérard Araud, put it on Twitter—not without controversy—“a world was collapsing” before our eyes. Since 1945, the American “grand strategy” has rested on three pillars: to be able to carry out two large-scale military operations simultaneously; to promote a democratic vision in partnership with its allies; and to defend international institutions that allow multilateralism to prevail. This chapter examines several hypotheses to explain this destabilizing US Presidency on pillars, thereby undermining the very spirit of multilateralism. Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy, no longer based on investment in relations with partners, but focused on short-term deals favorable to the US; a desire to flatter a domestic electorate reluctant to international commitment; an “illiberal” ideology at bay with the liberal values that undergird multilateralism; an amateurism and a disorganization of US public policies no longer compatible with an American leadership of the international order. The chapter also deals with the challenges faced by the Biden administration in its attempt to revive multilateralism. For multilateralism is not an easy thing to fix. The will of the administration in place since January 2021 is strong, but times have changed. International stability has deteriorated, and allies doubt the reliability of America’s security guarantee since the Trump presidency. Above all, the very content of the concept of multilateralism is being challenged by powers other than the United States. Inherited from a liberal vision that was imposed in the aftermath of World War II, multilateralism is now evolving in a fragmented world scene, where spheres of influence are being reconstituted, and where a rising power—namely China—wishes to constitute an important game changer.

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2

Trump’s Double Disruption

Many books have addressed the issue: What is the nature of Trumpism in foreign policy? (Brands, 2018; Foreign Affairs, 2020; Hill & Hurst, 2022; Reuben, 2022) What are the long-term consequences of the Trump presidency on US international policymaking, on the American worldview, on the international system, on multilateralism? Will these consequences be long-lasting? Fixable? Was Trumpism a parenthesis, or does it foreshadow the future of American stance in NATO? The upheaval brought by Donald Trump’s presidency has been felt first domestically, but also internationally. 2.1

A Polarized Society

The presidency of Donald Trump, between January 2017 and January 2021, has increased the polarization of the American society. A polarization that was not only social and political, but also altered relationship to the rest of the world. By proclaiming “America first” or “Make America Great Again”, the president encouraged a distrust of any international commitment to treaties, cooperation and alliances. He resurrected the hypothesis shared by a part of the American conservative spectrum according to which involvement in the world can be a danger. By the same token, he called into question one of the founding principles of American Grand Strategy (Balzacq et al., 2019) since 1945, namely that the United States’ commitment to multilateralism is in the national interest. With this discourse, he addressed an electorate, often from a declining middle class, with a certain inclination for protectionism or isolationism. By cultivating this electorate through numerous statements (or tweets…), Donald Trump opposed it to an intellectual elite (journalists, academics, even state services in charge of strategic analysis) that he distrusts, and which is more interested in international relations, diplomacy and the rest of the world. In other words, he has weakened an already fragile consensus on America’s international “deep engagement” (Brooks & Wohlforth, 2016). This polarization also reinforces a double movement in American society by which multilateralism is being challenged. On the one hand, there is an older class, known as “boomers”, some of whom oppose multilateralism in the name of protectionism and the national interest. On the other hand, a younger class, called “Millennials”, is partly attracted to the

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left of the Democratic Party and opposes multilateralism as established after 1945 by the Western Allies. From Bernie Sanders to Alexandria Ocasio Cortes, the left wing of the Democratic Party favors a new world economic order, critical of liberal institutions such as the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. By exacerbating these cleavages, Donald Trump’s presidency has reinforced opposition to multilateralism on both fronts. 2.2

“You’re Fired!”: Public Policies Under Heavy Strain

When he was hosting the TV show “The Apprentice” in the years 2004 to 2014, Donald Trump was famous for his interjection “you are fired!” against candidates who had to leave the show. At the head of the US administration, he seemed to have made this working method his own again. As several books have shown (Wolff, 2018; Woodward, 2018, 2020), the brutality and hesitations of the president in terms of appointments in the administration and at the highest positions of the American bureaucracy have deeply disorganized the American state apparatus. During his four years, he appointed four Secretaries of State (Thomas Shannon Jr, Rex Tillerson, John J. Sullivan, Mike Pompeo) and seven Defense Secretaries (Jim Mattis, Patrick M. Shanahan, Mark Esper, Richard V. Spencer for eight days, Mark Esper again, Christopher C. Miller for two months, plus David Norquist for two days). But also three ambassadors to the United Nations (Nikki Haley, Jonathan Cohen, Kelly Craft, for those who lasted more than a few days), not to mention the episode of the nomination to this post of the former broadcast journalist Heather Nauert, who finally withdrew her candidacy after domestic scandals. If one adds to this list the case of ambassadors, senior international officials, and less visible but equally strategic positions in international organizations, one obtains a picture of a severely disorganized American diplomatic apparatus. Not only were incumbents frequently dismissed, but the appointment of their successors could take a considerable amount of time, leaving the position vacant for a long time, and thus leaving the United States’ international partners with no interlocutor. In Paris, London and in other capitals around the world, many diplomats have complained about this disorganization of American diplomacy, for it prevented the proper functioning of multilateralism, interrupted ongoing negotiations and stopped progress on current issues. Another good

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example is that for a long time there was no one appointed permanent assistant secretary of state for African affairs at the State Department and the U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley seemed to be the one “in charge” as she was the first most senior Trump appointee to visit the continent in October 2017. Without the decent and proficient contribution of the world’s leading power, multilateralism could hardly flourish. Without the president’s confidence in those whose job it was to contribute to US international diplomacy, international relations could not proceed smoothly. For Donald Trump did not trust them. He publicly disavowed even his intelligence apparatus (when the CIA attributed responsibility for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to the Saudi crown prince, the president disapproved of its analysis). He has shown on several occasions that he trusts his family members or close friends more than professional diplomats, by having his daughter Ivanka participate in international summits at his side, or by entrusting his son-in-law Jared Kushner (without any diplomatic experience) with the Palestinian issue. If the tool of American foreign action has been profoundly altered, the Trump administration has also attacked the very principle of multilateralism. A principle to which it seemed viscerally hostile, at least in its classical sense of the term which had been prevailing so far.

2.3

Trump the “Deal Maker”?

Has the Trump administration moved away from American adherence to multilateralism? And if so, what are the reasons for this choice, and what are the consequences? First, it should be recalled that for the United States, multilateralism has often been an interchangeable strategy, rather than an ideology. In this respect, to say that the Trump administration has radically changed the American approach would be an exaggeration. However, under his tenure, several major developments have moved America away from support for multilateralism, with significant consequences for its dynamics. First of all, Donald Trump, who had no political experience, was quick to approach international relations from a transactional perspective, closer to his background as a businessman. Knowing that he was inexperienced in diplomacy, he proclaimed himself a “deal maker”, a field in which he felt he had competence, and even added value, to offer America. One

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could still imagine that the 45th President of the United States would be able to put his business experience to work in international negotiations and initiate a new multilateralism. The transactional approach could indeed mean putting forward relationships based on give-and-take and win–win, which is not at all incompatible with multilateral practices. But several characteristics of Donald Trump would steer the administration in a very different direction. First, his “America first” leitmotif led him not to seek a collective international dynamic with new objectives, but to renegotiate previous agreements in a direction he deemed more desirable for the United States. For instance, he imposed a new treaty between his country, Canada and Mexico, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in force since 1994 with a “United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement” (USMCA) launched in 2017. Moreover, his obsession with undoing what his predecessor (Barack Obama) had done, led him to cancel outright the agreements negotiated by the latter, often described as “the most disastrous deals in history”. Thus, the United States quickly disengaged from the 2015 Paris Agreement on global warming (COP21), the Tran-Pacific Partnership (TPP) signed in February 2016 between twelve Pacific Rim economies, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in 2015 with Iran on its nuclear program. In return, Donald Trump proposed other agreements in other areas, which he naturally described as “deals of the century”, but which will not come to fruition. This was the case of a negotiation launched with North Korea, quickly abandoned after a meeting between the leaders of the two countries, or a draft solution for the Palestinian issue, immediately rejected by the Arab states. It was therefore clear that, by way of multilateralism, Trumpism in foreign policy had two lines of action: a balance of power on an essentially bilateral basis, and blackmail by the United States to withdraw from various deals or institutions if the conditions of a collective agreement did not satisfy Washington. On several occasions, the United States did withdraw from international bodies, such as UNESCO in 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) in the summer of 2020, or stopped funding international mechanisms, such as the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in 2018. This course of action had strong repercussions on the international system.

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3

How To Fix Multilateralism?

Can the United States return to the previous software after Trump? Is it possible to simply turn the page? Not so easy. Donald Trump has sown the seeds of an illiberal wind across the planet. He has weakened the confidence of allies in America’s reliability as a partner in liberal multilateralism. It has enfeebled the mechanisms of cooperation and consultation. Reversing all three phenomena at once is a difficult challenge for his immediate successors. 3.1

Turning the Page of Trump the “Illiberal”

By refusing any multilateral constraint, criticizing international cooperation agreements, and displaying a national-authoritarian model that advocates inward-looking attitudes, the forty-fifth American president has fueled a dynamic that was described as populist and “illiberal”. It would be emulated from Brazil (with Jair Bolsonaro) or the Philippines (with Rodrigo Duterte) to Central Europe, for example in Poland or in Viktor Orban’s Hungary. What is it all about? We will not settle here the definition of populism in a few lines (De La Torre, 2018; Oswald, 2022), nor that of illiberalism. Let us simply observe that the use of “the people” against the elites, the distrust of recognized scientific expertise (whether on climate or epidemics), the distrust of institutions and intermediary bodies, and the hostility toward the outside world have been set up as a method of government by the most powerful democracy in the world, and the one that is most involved in international affairs. The country that initiated the multilateral institutions created after World War II, the usual advocate of free trade and the major contributor to the main international organizations, vilified these bodies for four years. It has thus set an example in at least two ways. 1—By having the world’s leading economic power endorse a trend toward nationalist withdrawal and protectionism. Hence a fashion phenomenon, whereby several heads of state from the South followed suit and were proud to call themselves the “Trump of the tropics”. 2—By openly supporting the supporters of this anti-multilateral posture throughout the world, and by using advisors to encourage and structure political forces that subscribe to the same political stance. This was the case with Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign manager and then political advisor at the White House for several months in 2017, who created “The Movement” in 2018 in Brussels. Bannon

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tried to bring together European far-right nationalist parties, meeting with figures like Matteo Salvini, Nigel Farage or Marine Le Pen. 3.2

How to Restore Trust?

From such a posture, the second damage caused by Donald Trump was to considerably undermine the confidence of the Allies in the United States. By criticizing or canceling America’s international commitments, by refusing to explicitly subscribe to several important collective mechanisms, the White House has raised doubts about the United States’ word. It was not the first time that Washington made unilateral decisions. Everyone remembers the aftermath of World War I, when America helped create the League of Nations under President Wilson and then withdrew from it. More recently, the “Nixon Shock” on 13 August 1971, caused by several announcements, was a memorable example. On that day, the American president said that he would suspend the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets, and unveiled other measures to stabilize the dollar, even at the expense of partners. Trump shocked with the brutality of his style. He did not hesitate to insult partner countries or to call allies, such as the European Union, enemies (see Chapter 8 in this book). Then, by the application of this brutality to what was the keystone of the alliance system of American power, namely NATO, and by repeatedly refusing to explicitly subscribe to Article 5 of NATO (a clause which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all), Trump worried his partners. How could America still support multilateralism when it was undermining from within the collective mechanism of its own alliance, whose security it was supposed to guarantee? In an interview with Fox News in July 2018, Trump illustrated everything that could be faulted in his attitude toward multilateralism. When discussing the defense of Montenegro, a new NATO member since 2017, Fox host Tucker Carlson asked “Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack?” and Trump responded: “I understand what you’re saying. I’ve asked the same question”. Then adding: “Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people … They’re very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and congratulations, you’re in World War three”. Even on the most fundamental security issues, even on the alliance that the United States itself founded and seeks to expand, the Trumpian approach was exercised in a disturbing way, according to an implacable logic: 1—any engagement

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with third countries is dangerous, because it can drag the United States into unwanted mechanisms. 2—It is, therefore, advisable not to engage with such partners. 3—Only the interests and security of the United States should be taken into account. The impact of this approach on the Allies has been significant. Why, they may ask, engage in a multilateral process with the world’s leading power if it is likely to withdraw at any time, at its own discretion? Or to change the rules of the game? Or to demand more and more in order to continue to respect its part of the contract? The shock has been profound, both among the European allies, who have wondered how to ensure their security if the American guarantee is no longer reliable, and in Asia, worried about the rise of China. Donald Trump’s numerous criticisms of his European allies (accused of “taking advantage” of America), his abandonment of the Kurdish allies who had helped the United States defeat the Islamic State in the Middle East, the failure to respect the United States’ signature on several multilateral agreements, and the conciliatory attitude of the American president toward numerous authoritarian regimes, have traumatized several capitals. While the electoral victory of Joe Biden in November 2020 brought relief to the allies, much remained to be done to restore long-term confidence (see the Chapter 5 in this book). 3.3

Biden’s Ordeal

As soon as he took office, the new American president wanted to reassure his allies. Some points of Donald Trump’s foreign policy would not be called into question, such as the installation of the American embassy in Israel in Jerusalem, or the logic of increasing confrontation with Beijing, which is now the subject of a partisan consensus in Washington. But the return of the United States to the international organizations deserted by Donald Trump, or to multilateral agreements that had previously been signed then denounced (such as the 2015 Paris climate accords), would be quickly implemented. In addition, the composition of the new administration looked more stable, with reassuring appointments for allies, such as Anthony Blinken at the Secretary of State, who had already served under Barack Obama (Deputy Secretary of State 2015–17, Deputy National Security Advisor 2013–15). Numerous initiatives show that Washington wants to give pledges of its willingness to return to multilateralism, where Donald Trump was

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content to undo existing ties. We can observe a return to the strategy of alliances and treaties in the Pacific. Notably with the AUKUS, an alliance signed with Australia and the UK in September 2021, with the launch of a new economic partnership in the Asia Pacific, the IPEF (IndoPacific Economic Framework) in May 2022, or a Pacific strategy signed the following September with the island states of the region. As early as January 20, 2021, Joe Biden formalized the return of the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement. On the following April 8, Washington announced the resumption of US financial assistance to the Palestinians, totaling $235 million. The White House also reaffirmed its support for a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine. A Strategy for Conflict Prevention and the Promotion of Stability in Coastal West Africa (March 2023), a US-Africa summit in December 2022 in Washington, a strategy for Africa presented by the State Department in August 2022, many projects to rebuild the global economy… all these indicators are intended to reassure partners of the American desire to return to multilateralism, consultation and collective discussion. Since December 2021, the American president has also convened an annual Democracy Summit, intended to bring together his allies against the rise of authoritarianism, populism, or nationalism in the world, embodied in particular in the eyes of Washington by Moscow and Beijing. In the American strategy as Joe Biden seems to see it, multilateralism and the defense of democracy are two sides of the same coin. There is a logic to this: multilateralism and democracy are both part of a liberal vision. Reassuring democratic allies also means revitalizing NATO. Washington’s commitment to the Atlantic alliance and the centrality of Article 5, the visits of the president and his secretary of state to the European allies, a new strategic concept for NATO, are intended to show that the mistakes of the Trump era are a thing of the past. The new Strategic Concept for the Alliance was adopted at the Madrid Summit on 29 June 2022, setting out NATO’s priorities, core tasks and approaches for the next decade. The 2022 Strategic Concept describes the security environment facing the Alliance, reaffirms its values and spells out NATO’s key purpose of ensuring collective defense for its Allies. It further sets out NATO’s three core tasks of “deterrence and defence; crisis prevention and management; and cooperative security” (https://www.nato.int).

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4

The United States in a Competitive Multi-Multilateralism

Nevertheless, many obstacles—domestic as well as international—remain to the success of this project of reassuring allies, rebuilding multilateralism and resurrecting US leadership in these processes. 4.1

Domestic Uncertainties

First, there are inherent obstacles in the American domestic political scene. No one can guarantee that the Trump era was just a parenthesis in American history. Partisans of Trump’s line, or Trump himself, can return to power and stay longer than four years. At the time of this writing, both 2020 protagonists are on track to run again in 2024. In late April 2023 incumbent President Joe Biden announced his 2024 reelection campaign. His former opponent, Donald Trump, remained one of the most serious candidates in the race for the Republican nomination. The election of 2020, although lost by Donald Trump, showed that the current he embodied was important in the country. An America that closes in on itself, defiant to the outside world, exists with a sociology of its own. The Republican Party, which has supported Donald Trump to the point of excess, does not seem to want to return to the fundamentals that have made American foreign policy successful in the world, starting with the defense of liberal institutions and multilateralism. Even if Trump fails to win election again in the future, he has set the tone for more suspicion toward international cooperation. As said earlier, the left wing of the Democratic Party, which is strongly marked by personalities who claim to be socialists or advocates of a new international economic order (such as Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), also remains far from the old liberal recipes. It is not easy to know what line they will take on the practice of multilateralism in the world, should they come to power. It is doubtful, however, that they will be friendly toward the major international monetary, economic and banking institutions. Perhaps even more worrying for the future of a liberal and multilateral vision of international relations, the trade war against China, launched in the Trump years, is today the subject of a bipartisan consensus in the United States, which in the eyes of many justifies increasing infringements of the principle of free trade (see the Chapters 7 and 10 in this book). The growing constraints imposed by Washington on trade with

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Beijing, particularly in the area of advanced technology, and the episodes of tension between the two capitals over the Chinese firm Huawei or the TikTok application, are redrawing a new configuration of global trade. In September 2022, for example, Biden’s America decided to significantly limit the export of certain semiconductors to China. It is difficult to imagine in this context a new beginning for multilateralism, given that the two major world economic powers are now putting in place many mechanisms to do without each other. The growing tension between the two capitals has resulted in China seeking to reduce its dependence on US grain exports or on US technology. In the same way that the United States is trying to find new suppliers, or assemblers, in Asia. 4.2

A Fragmented World Stage

If the perception of a new Cold War (this time against China) prevails in the United States, it will profoundly challenge America’s commitment to multilateralism and free trade. As was the case during the years of bipolarity between 1947 and 1991, international institutions will be seen from Washington as forums for political competition and struggles for influence, rather than as places of consensus and global governance. As we have seen on several occasions in the past, America encourages global multilateralism when it serves its interests. Otherwise, it organizes a multilateralism between partners and allies, ready to fight with the rest of the world. Global multilateralism in the sense that we used to understand it since the beginning of the 1990s is maybe reaching an end. After the Covid-19 crisis and the rise of China (see infra), a third game changer just turned the tables, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022. Not only has this war shown once again the vulnerabilities of the global scene to interdependence, but many countries in the South have refused to condemn the Russian invasion and have shown their distrust of the West. China, which displayed an “unlimited alliance” with Russia on the eve of the February 2022 invasion, and which then supported the Russian position in the conflict, is clearly seeking to organize an alternative to international multilateralism as promoted since 1945 by the United States. Beijing seems to be joined in this by several Southern capitals. In February 2023 at the United Nations, five southern countries voted against the imposition of sanctions against Russia, 32 abstained, including India, China, South Africa or Algeria. It is this same South that has largely subscribed in recent years to the

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great Chinese project of the Belt and Road Initiative (Fang et al., 2022), which aims to improve the logistics of trade routes through gigantic investments in order to intensify both economic and political rapprochements. While seeking to strengthen its position in existing multilateral bodies (United Nations, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, etc.), China is also trying to set up parallel institutions to compete with Western-style liberal multilateralism (Duarte & Leandro, 2023). For several years indeed, China has sought to create and promote alternative organizations (Schumann, 2022). The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is now a major rival to the Asian Development Bank and even to the World Bank (Qian et al., 2023). The New Development Bank of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Iran, is progressively constituting a form of alliance which, without being the equivalent of NATO, seeks to constitute a political bloc. Beijing is also trying to promote a “Global Security Initiative” (GSI) (Ekman, 2023). China’s President Xi Jinping, in April 2022, issued the project that calls on countries to adapt to the changing international landscape, with policy principles such as non-interference and grudges against US “hegemonism”. The Ukrainian war seems to have crystallized this tendency, which had already been at work for several years, by accelerating the formation of blocs, solidarities and perhaps a certain return of spheres of influence. It is in the name of regional influence that Russia is now claiming Crimea, eastern Ukraine and, probably a larger area still imbued with Russian cultural heritage, which it would like to see placed under its control. It is also in the name of “Asian values”, of history and of the United States’ exteriority from this zone that Beijing would like to turn the page on the America’s preponderant presence in the Asia Pacific. In the end, the divisions of Trumpism, the period of Covid-19 and the recompositions of the Ukrainian war make the revival of a global multilateralism particularly difficult, not to mention the liberal and free-trade dynamics that underpinned it for several decades. What next?

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Conclusion

“America is back”, Joe Biden announced just after his victory in November 2020. Back to what exactly, and with whom? Since the election of Joe Biden in November 2020, the world has changed considerably. The multiple actors on the world stage, States, international organizations or even private actors, are no longer willing to accept a mere return to American leadership as it existed in the 1990s. The economic crisis of 2008, the rise of China, the return of Russian ambitions, the rise of giants, such as India, Brazil, soon Indonesia and others, impose a new pluralism. And this, even if the United States continues to largely dominate the security structures, as well as the world economy. America still accounts for a fifth of patents registered abroad, 58% of G7’s GDP (up from 40% in 1990), 25% of the world’s GDP in 2022 (almost the same share as in 1990) and 18% for China. As we have seen, several models of governance are now in competition, several international bodies coexist, and growing tensions threaten the existence of a global market for trade and political dialogue. We are entering an era of multi-multilateralism, that is, the coexistence of several possible approaches to it. How will America deal with this new situation and where does it leave the future of global multilateralism? More than halfway through his term, and having stated his intention to run for re-election, where has Joe Biden set America? Has he sought to define a new worldview that would allow for new interpretations of governance or multilateralism? Or has he sought to strengthen America for future competition, to consolidate the camp of its allies and America’s leadership within it? In the middle of 2023, the prospects for a new multilateralism were bleak. While the diplomacy of the Biden administration has undeniably revived the dynamic of multilateralism, whether through the Secretary of State’s trips abroad, the President’s reassuring words to his allies, or the American reengagement in international organizations, the context is not conducive to a revival of multilateral dialogue. First, because the protectionist ideas that were those of Donald Trump have become entrenched in American society and political debate. President Biden has kept in place the tariffs and import restrictions that were imposed by Trump and announced new measures to support a national industrial policy, and to shield US industry and manufacturing from foreign competition. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) is a United States federal law which aims to curb inflation by reducing the

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deficit, investing into domestic energy production and promoting clean energy, that has been perceived by the partners of Washington—especially in the EU—as a protectionist move. The Build Back Better Act introduced in the 117th Congress (September 2021), the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (November 2021) have also given the signal for increased investment in domestic social and industrial policies. The general impression is therefore that America is preparing to strengthen its industry and organize its ecological transition, not in the sense of global governance that would be negotiated with all international partners, but with a view to future economic and political international confrontation. Second, the Democratic administration seems to give credence to the idea of an inevitable confrontation between democracies and authoritarian regimes, more than to the necessity of a new deal with a more pluralistic world. Rather than the idea of a necessary general overhaul of multilateralism and international institutions, it is the prospect of defending the pro-Western status quo, on the one hand, against the rise of a Chinese challenger, on the other, that seems to be gaining ground. Rather than a global negotiation on the modalities of a new multilateralism, we are witnessing the establishment of two parallel multilateralisms (or more), each with its own members, rules and power relations. America is not the only one responsible for this situation. And of course, the first two years of the Biden-Harris administration did not show the same contempt for multilateralism and international commitments as the Trump administration. But we find the same spirit as in the Madeleine Albright era, when she was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State— also a Democrat: “multilateral when possible, unilateral when necessary” (Kern, 1993).

References Balzacq, Th., Dombrowski, P. & Reich, S. (Eds.) (2019). Comparative grand strategy: A framework and cases. Oxford University Press. Brands, H. (2018). American grand strategy in the age of Trump. Brookings Institution Press. Brooks, S. G., & Wohlforth, W. C. (2016). America Abroad: Why the sole superpower should not pull back from the world. Oxford University Press. De La Torre, C. (Ed.) (2018). Routledge handbook of global populism. Routledge.

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David, C. -P. (2021). La politique étrangère américaine est (désormais) la continuation de la politique (intérieure) par d’autres moyens. Etudes internationales. 52. 1–2. Printemps-été. 171–187. Duarte, P. A. B., & Leandro, F. J. B. S. (Eds.). (2023). The palgrave handbook of globalization with chinese characteristics: The case of the belt and road initiative. Palgrave. Ekman, A. (2023, March 22). China’s global security initiative. When the process matters more than the content. EUISS Briefs. Foreign Affairs (2020). Trump’s world: The foreign policy legacy of the “America first” president. Foreign Affairs. Fang, C. N., &, Linggui, W. (Eds.). (2022). The routledge handbook of the belt and road. Routledge. Hill, M. A., & Hurst, S. (Eds.). (2022). The Trump presidency: Continuity and change in US foreign policy. Routledge. Keohane, R. O., & Nye, J. S. (1977). Power and interdependence. Little Brown and Co. Kern, H. A. J. (1993). The Clinton Doctrine: A new foreign policy. Christian Science Monitor, 18 June, 19. Oswald, M. (Ed.) (2022). The Palgrave Handbook of Populism. Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Qian, J., Vreeland J. R., & Zhao, J. (2023). The Impact of China’s AIIB on the World Bank. International Organization, 77 (1), 217–237. Reuben, S. (2022). US Foreign Policy in the Age of Trump. Routledge. Schuman, M. (2022, July 13). How China wants to replace the U.S. order. The Atlantic. Wolff, L. (2018). Fire and fury: Inside the Trump white house. MacMillan. Woodward, B. (2018). Fear: Trump in the White House. Simon & Schuster. Woodward, B. (2020). Rage. Simon & Schuster.

CHAPTER 7

China: Supporter or Contender of Multilateralism? Camille M. Brugier

1

Introduction

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to have enduring consequences on the liberal international order, and more specifically on how authoritarian regimes operate, and are perceived, within the multilateral system. Recently, China’s vote against the exclusion of Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council on 7 April 2022, and its unwillingness to leave out its Russian neighbor from the G20 have thus been perceived as attacks on the multilateral system. Questions about China’s relationship to multilateralism1 intertwine with questions on China’s relationship to the liberal international order, which is defined as a set of global, rule-based structured relationships based on the principles of political liberalism, economic liberalism and 1 Defined in broad terms as “the process of organizing relations between groups of three or more states” (Malone & Medhora, 2020: 1300).

C. M. Brugier (B) Institut de Recherche Stratégique de L’Ecole Militaire (IRSEM), Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_7

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liberal internationalism (Lake et al., 2021: 231–232). China is a puzzle in itself: it is an authoritarian regime philosophically unaligned with liberal values and the world’s second economic and military power. According to various strands of international relations theory, China is the most likely contender of the liberal international order. In practice, the liberal international order has been confronted differently. By invading Ukraine, Russia has violated one of the most fundamental written texts of the multilateral system: the UN Charter. Further threats of nuclear escalation on the part of Vladimir Putin have endangered world peace and the very basic principles on which interstate relations operate (Reuters, 2022). Chinese behavior has never gone to those extremes. What is often held against China is the fundamental mismatch between its communist regime and the “spirit” of the liberal order, since “characteristics of contemporary Chinese Communist Party rule are at odds with the liberal international order as a rules-based order that privileges democracy, free enterprise, and individual political freedoms” (Chen Weiss & Wallace, 2021: 640). As Mitter (2022) argues, China is a revisionist state but not a revolutionary one. It wishes “over time [to] shift norms so that ideas of aggregate economic growth and national sovereignty take precedence over transnational concepts of individual rights” (Mitter, 2022: 7). Scholars question whether the interests of China, a single-party authoritarian China on the way to become the world’s first economic power, align with an international order that privileges democracy (Chen Weiss & Wallace, 2021; Stent, 2020). With respect to the liberal international order, China has consistently backed elements of it which align with its interests, rather than trying to dismantle it and its institutions. Hua Chunying, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, argued on the day of the Summit for Democracy2 that this initiative “undermined the international system with the UN at its core” (Hua, 2021). In Hua Chunying’s narrative, regime type is not an issue and the UN is the legitimate international body. Similarly, President Xi Jinping stated at the 75th session of the United Nation’s

2 The first Summit for Democracy was organized by the Biden administration virtually on 9 and 10 December 2021. It gathered Heads of States and leaders from civil society and the private sector to commit to democracy and fend off authoritarianism. The list of participants to the event can be found here: https://www.state.gov/summit-for-democr acy-2021/#Interventions. Accessed 17 May 2023.

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General Assembly that “we should stay true to multilateralism and safeguard the international system with the United Nations at its core” (Xi, 2020). During the (ongoing) US-China trade war, China also presented the different rounds of sanctions as having adverse effects on the international order: on 4 April 2018, it explained that the latest American move “severely violate[d] the basic principles and spirit of the World Trade Organization (WTO)” (Lu, 2018a). This was again echoed on 15 June 2018, by Lu Kang, one of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s former spokespersons, who described a “move [that] not only hurts bilateral interests, but also undermines the world trade order” (Lu, 2018b). Although these statements are often aimed at the United States, they speak to the relevance of the international order for China more broadly. These anecdotes point to the mismatch between the perception of China as a threat to the liberal international order, and to multilateral cooperation within the framework of existing institutions, and China’s enduring support to the liberal international order narrative in both the security and trade sectors. In resolving this apparent contradiction, this chapter will tackle China’s relationship to multilateralism and to the liberal international order. It will show that China has greatly benefitted from this order and that it has put efforts to transform it according to its best interest.3 To document this claim, I will scrutinize China’s record in the United Nations (political institution) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) (trade institution). The empirical evidence shows that China’s record in international institutions is mixed, not unlike major democratic powers; but that the perception of China’s behavior toward liberal international order has degraded, not least in the United States (see Chapter 6). While China has rejected some multilateral institutions, like the International Court of Justice, it has intensely interacted in others, such as the UN and the WTO. China, instead of bypassing these institutions, is increasingly active in reshaping their design to better accommodate its interests. Said differently, China acts as a non-revolutionary revisionist power (Mitter, 2022: 7).

3 A growing number of Chinese scholars argue that alternative, culturally anchored governance models are possible. For example, Qin Yaqing argues that the current governance model could be used in a “Chinese way” by putting China’s relations with other powers at the core of institutions rather than Western cost/benefit calculations (Qin, 2016).

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Within both the UN and the WTO, China’s record and power are surprisingly consistent with behavioral patterns of other great powers, and notably with the United States’ behavior within an order that it has created and sustained. In light of this evidence, I argue that China doesn’t threaten the liberal international order or multilateralism because of its specific identity, alignments, objectives and plans for the international arena. Rather, this analysis supports the hypothesis of a mismatch between China’s regime and liberal international order institutions, combined with a structural “China effect”, as the reason for the discrepancy between what China does and how China is perceived in the liberal international order. Even relative gains on the part of China have now become inadmissible for the United States, which perceives the emerging power as the greatest of threats. Competition with China and the wish to see its rise halted are now part of the United States’ global strategy. Any parts of the liberal order which are likely to enhance China’s power, global outreach or simply provide it with absolute gains—however small compared to United States’ gains—are at risk of being shunned or hampered by the United States. Because of China, the liberal hegemon is becoming the primary potential contender of the liberal status quo, especially in the economic realm. China has carefully selected the organizations of the liberal international order which it has joined, eagerly partaking in those most likely to help it gain international leverage (UN Security Council in 1971) or reap material benefits (WTO in 2001). China has also dismissed international institutions or decisions that could directly undermine its interests. For instance, China has so far refused to become a member of the International Criminal Court (just like the United States) and failed to recognize the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling on the South China Sea (2016). Among China’s multilateral memberships, the UN and the WTO are undoubtedly the most salient. The UN is at the heart of the international peace and security system, and the WTO is the cornerstone of the liberal economic order because it allows international actors to negotiate and enforce international trade law. Reviewing Chinese behavior within these two institutions shows that China’s behavior is very similar to those of other great powers. It is even generally less problematic for the system than the US behavior. However, since China often aligns with or tacitly supports Russia, a country that does endanger the liberal international order, it is considered by other states as a de facto contender of the

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system. Finally, the very fact that China, a country that is undemocratic and which often partners with outspokenly revisionist states, is gaining momentum and making profits in and off institutions of the liberal international order renders these institutions questionable in the eyes of the United States, thereby endangering the multilateral system.

2

Chinese Behavior in the UN: Illiberal but not Systematically Obstructive

China believes that the United Nations should be at the heart of the international system. Beijing highly values the institution and has consistently supported it in the past decades. One explanation, among others, is that China is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, where it takes part in decisions of the utmost importance for international affairs. In other words, China supports the UN because it is an institution that recognizes it as one of the most important players in the system and endows it with a special status within the international community. Within the UN, China pursues three agendas: increasing its power and influence by appointing Chinese nationals in leadership roles, ensuring norms are aligned with its short- and long-term interests, and improving its credentials as a “responsible power”. 2.1

China’s Engagement in the UN (Financial and Human Resources)

China’s engagement in UN institutions has gradually increased since the beginning of the twenty-first century. It has taken the form of active participation in UN bodies such as the Security Council (UNSC), the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR), as well as technical organizations such as the WHO (World Health Organization) within which China was very active at the climax of the Covid-19 outbreak (see Chapter 3 in this book). China is also increasingly involved in UN peacekeeping operations (Cho, 2019: 482). Likewise, the country has gradually expanded its financial support to the UN regular budget and has accelerated the promotion of Chinese nationals to positions of influence within the organization. In the last two decades, China’s contribution to the UN regular budget grew from a share of 1% in 2000 (United Nations Secretariat, 1999: 4) to 3.2% in 2010 (United Nations Secretariat, 2009: 4) before reaching

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15.25% in 2023 (United Nations Secretariat, 2023: 3). China has become the largest contributor to the UN budget, second only to the United States. Its financial engagement mirrors its international ranking as a world economic powerhouse as well as its growing interest in the UN. While China retains “the lowest number of executive leadership posts among the permanent and aspiring permanent members of the UN Security Council” (Fung & Lam, 2021: 1156), China has also sought to increase the number of Chinese nationals in executive leadership roles within the UN.4 China follows an interesting pattern: it seems to prefer to compete for executive leadership positions in specialized agencies rather than in high-profile UN agencies. Some argue that this is to avoid the reputational risks of leading a visible agency (Fung & Lam, 2021: 1150); others that China’s choices reflect its foreign policy priorities (Ashta et al., 2021). Commentators agree that appointed Chinese nationals increase China’s outreach (Ashta et al., 2021; Feltman, 2020: 4; Ekman, 2022: 17), legitimize China’s skills and expertise in the eyes of other member states and of the UN Secretariat (Fung & Lam, 2021: 1151), and overall help advance Chinese foreign policy goals and values within the UN. 2.2

China’s Behavior in the UN Security Council

The People’s Republic of China became a member of the United Nations in 1971. By 1997, it had exercised its veto right as a permanent member of the Security Council only once; and 15 times since then. Overall, two features of China’s voting pattern are striking. The first is China’s parsimonious use of its veto power and its early alignment with Russian vetoes. The second is China’s norm-containment strategy regarding the Responsibility to Protect. Table 1 shows that all but except two Chinese vetoes were cast alongside the Russian Federation. This trend is striking: ever since 2007, all Chinese vetoes were cast hand in hand with Russia. There is, however, a strong disparity between the two actors: if China has used its veto power 16 times, Russia has, to this day, cast a grand total of 43 vetoes since the

4 Chinese nationals have held, or hold, Director-General positions in the UN DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs), the ITU (International Telecom Union), the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), the WHO (World Health Organization), the UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) and the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization).

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People’s Republic of China became a veto-holder in 1971 (150 in total). This discrepancy suggests that China and Russia pursue different strategies within the Security Council. On the one hand, Russia blocks Western initiatives on a quasi-systematic basis. China, on the other, uses its veto sparingly for various reasons (see Table 1): (1) to punish countries that recognize Taiwan as a separate country (S/1999/201; S/2019/186); (2) to prevent initiatives and contain norms that go against its direct interests (S/2014/348; and specifically on the Responsibility to Protect, see S/ 2016/1026, S/2017/172 and S/2019/756); (3) to signal disagreement with Western efforts to sanction illiberal nations (S/2022/720). China and Russia’s interests in the UN Security Council meet to shift the international order away from the supremacy of liberal values. However, these shared vetoes often reveal diverging, yet compatible, interests. For instance, in the case of Syria, Russia was one of the powers fighting onsite—China did not. Therefore, Russia had a direct interest in hampering Western involvement in the region and China a stake in limiting the use and expansion of the Responsibility to Protect norm. Their coordinated vetoes on Syria did not serve the same purpose. Indeed, against the background of the discussion of the norm of the Responsibility to Protect (see Table 2), many of China’s recent vetoes5 targeted the Syrian conflict, reflecting China’s fear of international interventions leading to regime change (Fung, 2019). Jennifer Welsh explains that the Responsibility to Protect rests on three pillars: China is particularly wary of the third pillar of the Responsibility to Protect (Table 2). China fears that it could induce a shared acknowledgment among member states that specific situations (states failing to protect their population from atrocity crimes notably) require regime change carried out through international interventions. China’s voting pattern on resolutions that make reference to the Responsibility to Protect in the Security Council reflects a double trend: first, a change in China’s discourse, which has slowly shifted from defending territorial integrity to opposing, and preventing, any normative acknowledgment of international interventions leading to regime change; second, a systematic veto of resolutions using the third pillar of the Responsibility to Protect as a legal basis to justify an international intervention that could entail regime change (as in the case of Syria). 5 China’s vetoed the following resolutions (in chronological order): S/2011/612, S/ 2012/77, S/2012/538, S/2014/348, S/2016/1026, S/2017/172, and S/2019/756.

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Table 1

China’s vetoes in the Security Council

Date

Agenda item

10/01/1997

Central America: Efforts toward S/1997/18 peace The situation in the former S/1999/201 Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Myanmar S/2007/14

25/02/1999 12/01/2007 11/07/2008

Draft number

S/2008/447

04/10/2011

Peace and Security—Africa (Zimbabwe) Middle East—Syria

04/02/2012

Middle East—Syria

S/2012/77

19/07/2012

Middle East—Syria

S/2012/538

22/05/2014

Middle East—Syria

S/2014/348

05/12/2016

Middle East

S/2016/1026

28/02/2017

Middle East

S/2017/172

28/02/2019

The situation in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela The Situation in the Middle East The situation in the Middle East The situation in the Middle East The Situation in the Middle East Non-proliferation—Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

S/2019/186

19/09/2019 20/12/2019 07/07/2022 10/07/2022 26/05/2022

S/2011/612

S/2019/756 S/2019/961 S/2022/654 S/2022/667 S/2022/720

Permanent member casting negative vote China China China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation China Russian Federation

Source Security Council Data—Vetoes since 1946 dataset (Peace & Security Data Hub (un.org), accessed 19th of April 2023)

For Chen (2016), while the perceived threat of the Responsibility to Protect norm to the Chinese regime has triggered China’s attempts to limit its application, Beijing’s wish to appear as a responsible power has simultaneously led it to “engage pragmatically” with the Responsibility to Protect rather than dismissing it altogether. China has adopted

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Responsibility to protect and its three pillars

Responsibility to protect Pillar 1

Pillar 2

Pillar 3

Responsibility of states to protect their own population from genocides, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing

Pledge by states to assist Will by states to take each other in fulfilling their collective action, in a protection responsibilities timely and decisive manner if any state were “manifestly failing” to protect its population from atrocity crimes

Source Own table with input from Jennifer Welsh (2019: 53)

a strategy of “norm containment” in order to slow down the progress of the Responsibility to Protect while circumscribing the concept’s application. Specifically, China accepts the use of the Responsibility to Protect, including the possible use of force without the consent of the host state, if this does not lead to significant reforms to the state’s political infrastructure (Fung, 2016). To be clear, China tolerates the use of the Responsibility to Protect to the extent that it does not cause regime change and does not serve any other purpose than alleviating humanitarian crises. This transpires in China’s behavior in the Security Council: it abstained on resolution 1973 which authorized military action in Libya (under the Responsibility to Protect’s third pillar) (see Chapter 2 in this book). However, “the way in which NATO subsequently conducted its military campaign in Libya appeared to confirm Beijing’s long-standing suspicions that R2P’s military dimension could be used as a pretext for pursuing other strategic objectives” (Garwood-Gowers, 2016: 89). This prevented Beijing from fully supporting the Responsibility to Protect’s third pillar, a position that China has upheld ever since: never since resolution 1973 has it allowed the third pillar to be invoked as the basis for intervention in other conflicts, while it has in the meantime supported the use of Responsibility to Protect’s first and second pillars (Fung, 2016).6 This trend is likely to endure as China is feeling increasingly threatened over its policies 6 China has invoked the first and second pillars of the Responsibility to Protect in numerous interventions (Côte d’Ivoire, Lybia, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen) (Fung, 2016).

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toward minorities, as shown in the episode of the release of the assessment of human rights concerns in China’s Xinjiang region by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations in August 2022 (OHCHR, 2022). Relatedly, the idea that all types of political regimes are legitimate in the system is one of the core interests China pushes forward in the UN. In a speech to the UN General Assembly in 2020, President Xi Jinping called to respect each “country’s distinctive development path” (Xi, 2020). China shares this view with Russia, as embodied in a joint statement in February 2022: “There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ template to guide countries in establishing democracy” (Russian Federation & PRC, 2022). As mentioned, the two countries have been veto players during the Syrian conflict and deterred actions undertaken by the international community against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Increased engagement of China in norm-shaping within the UN, including in the Security Council, shows its growing belief that international norms may have an impact in China itself. Of course, China being a permanent member of the Security Council and a veto-holder, it does not fear that other states may impose any decision that would go directly against its security interest. Rather, China’s fear is that actors advocating for regime change in illiberal states (or states internationally perceived as a threat to their own population and generally non-democracies) will become increasingly legitimate. In other words, China is “containing” the Responsibility to Protect, and the normative turn, promoted notably by the United States and its allies, toward a “dictator-skeptic” international arena. 2.3

China’s Bid to Increase Its Credentials as a Responsible Power

China believes it has a reputational deficit within the international system because of the nature of its regime. It understands itself to be (unfairly) perceived as “rogue” and as a potential threat to other countries and to the system as a whole. As a result, China is a “status seeker” in the international system, which, “rather than adjust[ing] to the US-led liberal democratic system, […] sought to develop a new, more positive image by contributing to global governance while maintaining distinctive identities” (Larson & Shevchenko, 2010: 67). China’s increasing contribution to the UN system is better understood in this light. China has become the 2nd largest contributor to the UN budget, as well as the largest contributor of troops to the UN Peacekeeping Operations

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among permanent members of the Security Council. In 2020, China’s State Council argued that “China’s armed forces participate in UN peacekeeping because the pursuit of peace is in the genes of the Chinese nation” (State Council, 2020). As argued by Suzuki, UN peacekeeping is useful for a “frustrated great power” such as China because “it allows them to demonstrate that they are committed and willing to fulfill their responsibilities as legitimate great powers and have no desire to upset the status quo” (Suzuki, 2008). Since many peacekeeping and peacebuilding operations are “actively promoting democracy and human rights protection”, being active in this sector is de facto abiding by the rules of the liberal international order and upholding liberal internationalist credentials. China’s contributions to the UN system serve, among different purposes, to compensate for its reputational deficit—that of a dictatorship in a liberal democratic system. China’s behavior in the United Nations systems has been that of a power that attempts to balance its influence and reputation—much like other great powers. On the one hand, China has increased its contribution to the UN budget and has increasingly sponsored the nomination of Chinese nationals in agencies’ leadership roles to disseminate Chinese foreign policy goals and values. Within the Security Council, China has used its veto 16 times, always in alignment with Russia, to serve interests that are complementary, but not always overlapping. For instance, China has used its veto to sanction countries that recognize Taiwan as independent, to prevent some institutions—such as the International Court of Justice—to gain momentum, or to prevent the use of the third pillar of the Responsibility to Protect as a means to legitimize regime change in Syria. In parallel, China has strived to mitigate the reputational deficit incurred by the nature of its regime by increasing its “responsible power credentials”, namely by contributing importantly to UN peacekeeping. As such, Chinese behavior is not a direct threat to the functioning of the UN system: in particular, China uses its veto sparingly and overall supports and contributes actively to UN activities and actions. Chinese behavior, especially in the Security Council, is nonetheless problematic for Western initiatives based on liberal values (ICJ, interventions in third countries). China is also involved in “alternative” multilateral institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative. These institutions all, on varying aspects, question the centrality of the United

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Nations. However, they do not prevent China from supporting the UN as the core of the international multilateral system.

3 Chinese Behavior in the WTO: A Battle of Foreign and Domestic Policies China has been a member of the WTO for over 20 years and has greatly benefitted from its membership. After joining the WTO, its share in global trade has increased from about 3% to nearly 15%, leading some analysts to characterize it as “a trade titan” (Rühlig, 2022: 130; UNCTAD, 2021). In 2020, two-way trade held an impressive share of 37% of Chinese GDP according to the World Bank open database7 . However, WTO membership does not come cheap. Membership is tied to the adherence to the WTO’s binding international adjudication— the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Mechanism (Harpaz, 2010: 1155). By becoming a WTO member, China accepted to chew away part of its (economic) sovereignty an international organization, something it had refused to do in other instances (e.g., the International Criminal Court). China also consented to drastic entry costs set by member states, notably the United States and the European Union. In fact, China agreed to “WTO-plus commitments” and “WTO-minus rights” meaning that it signed on more commitments and had less rights than other acceding members. Rühlig (2022: 131) argues that the conditions China agreed to were the most severe the organization has ever known. In order to assess China’s record in the WTO, two separate dimensions are assessed: the degree to which China implemented the reforms required to align with its accession commitments, and its behavior within the Doha Round negotiations8 and the WTO Dispute Settlement body.

7 This database of the World Bank is freely accessible online at: https://data.worldb ank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS?locations=CN (accessed 6 September 2023). 8 The Doha Round is the name of the current round of negotiations carried out on trade rules and norms at the WTO. The Doha Round’s focus is on development. The talks have been ongoing for over two decades and many analysts argue that the negotiations have failed.

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China’s Economic Domestic Reforms

According to Tan Yelin, China’s commitment through membership to carry out important domestic reforms was also a means for the then Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji “to spur China’s economic development and drive forward contentious domestic reforms” (Tan, 2021: 2). In a way, the leadership saw WTO accession as a way to coerce reluctant Chinese bureaucrats and local governments into liberalizing the economy. Although this chosen tactic did not bear the expected fruits, this analysis runs counter to what other commentators have time and again argued: that China’s initial strategy was to join the WTO to reap maximum benefits from world trade without carrying out any reform of its economic fabric (Kine, 2021). In fact, the 2004 United States Trade Representative (USTR) report to the American Congress on China’s WTO compliance was rather encouraging, stating that “China deserves due recognition for the tremendous efforts made to reform its economy to comply with the requirements of the WTO” (USTR, 2004: 3). However, the 2008 iteration of the report noted that “beginning in 2006, progress towards further market liberalization started to slow” (USTR, 2008: 4). In 2017 and following Donald’s Trump election, the supportive wording gave way to regret: “it seems clear that the United States erred in supporting China’s entry into the WTO on terms that have proven to be ineffective in securing China’s embrace of an open, market-oriented trade regime” (USTR, 2017: 2). In the WTO itself, the concluding remarks of the chairperson for China’s 2021 trade policy review highlighted member states’ concern over a number of issues, including China’s State Owned Enterprises, opaque subsidies regimes and unfinished financial sector liberalization (WTO, 2021). Indeed, in light of the China’s initial commitments to domestic economic reforms, its record is, as the United States Trade Representative puts it, “poor” (USTR, 2021: 2). Clearly, China’s reforms never took the U-turn required to join the “club” of market economies. To the contrary, China stopped liberalization reforms in 2006 and reversed to more state-led traits with Xi Jinping’s coming to power in 2013. Incremental liberalization does, however, continue to take place in a select number of areas, such as the financial sector (Rühlig, 2022: 133). Overall, however, the direction of reforms does not pivot toward liberalization nearly enough for China to align with the commitments made upon its WTO accession.

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Tan Yelin argues that prior to Xi Jinping coming to power, limited liberalization in China was caused by an exceptional resistance from local governments that were expected to “lose” from economic reforms (Tan, 2021). Economic decision-making in China is largely decentralized and local governments have long resisted change initiated in Beijing, making for a patchy set of liberalization reforms. Additionally, and despite the leadership’s commitment to see China open up to international trade, it is unlikely that China ever intended to fully embrace a market economy. Long Yongtu, the chief negotiator of China’s accession to the WTO, argued in 2021 that “when we promised to adopt a market economy, we made it absolutely clear that it would be a socialist market economy” (Zeng, 2021)—thus indicating that China’s wish to be integrated into the liberal system while remaining illiberal on some aspects. Xi Jinping’s turn to a fully state-capitalist model has driven China even further away from the initial objective of becoming a market-compatible economy (Dolfsma & Grosman, 2019). Thus, in late 2016, the United States and the European Union decided not to grant China Market Economy Status (MES) as could be expected following the expiry of some measures of China’s WTO Accession Protocol (Talley, 2016). Being granted MES would have allowed China to be on an “equal footing” with its main trading partners, for example by limiting their ability to opposite with anti-dumping measures. In response to being denied MES status, China filed two separate complaints against the United States and the European Union at the Dispute Settlement Mechanism of the WTO (DS 515 and DS516). China argued that the expiry of certain provisions of China’s Accession Protocol on 11 December 2016 should have granted it MES automatically. However, four years later, on the 15 June 2020, China tacitly dropped the dispute against the EU.9 Analysts argue that Beijing did not want to discuss in the open the extensive evidence gathered by the panel against China (Rühlig, 2022: 132). To conclude, despite China’s initial large strides (2001–2006) to align with its accession commitments, liberalization reforms remain partial and China far from being a market economy. While local resistance to Beijing’s liberalization reforms partly accounts for this outcome, the current 9 If China had wanted the case to continue, it should have asked the DSM panel to resume its work when it stopped, in June 2019. The fact that China did nothing is equivalent to dropping the case.

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Chinese leadership itself is not favorable to full economic liberalization and has only taken incremental steps toward fulfilling its commitments. 3.2

Chinese Behavior in Negotiations and in the WTO Dispute Settlement Body

Chinese behavior in WTO negotiations and in the adjudication body of the WTO provides evidence on its willingness to be an active member of the liberal trade order. According to the literature, China’s engagement was progressive. The Doha Round started as China became a full WTO member: it had little time to prepare effectively (Gao, 2012: 59). Over time, China engaged further in negotiations and presented itself as an advocate for developing countries. In its first speech at the WTO, Beijing asserted its role as a “bridge” between developing and developed members to reach an agreement for the Development Round (Pearson, 2006: 252). This ambition has not been fulfilled: although China claims to be a developing nation, it is arguable that it behaves like a developed one, including in the WTO. China’s economic interests have been, and remain, closer to those of the United States, the European Union or Canada (Pearson, 2006: 247). For instance, China often opposed other developing countries in negotiations on textile, a sector that is central to developing economies (Harpaz, 2007: 63). However, while China strongly asserted its interests, even against more vulnerable developing countries, it did not obstruct overall negotiations. According to Rühlig, “the more fundamentally uncompromising stances of developed and developing countries such as the United States and India, were at least as important” in the failure of the Doha Round negotiations (Rühlig, 2022: 134). Since it became a WTO member, China has been an active participant in 72 cases presented to the WTO dispute settlement body: 22 as a plaintiff and 50 as a respondent.10 From a “rookie” that joined panels as a third party, it became an active litigator after 2008 (Harpaz, 2010). In parallel, China also demonstrated rather good compliance with panel

10 WTO Case Data, available on the following link: https://www.wto.org/english/tra top_e/dispu_e/find_dispu_cases_e.htm. Accessed 18 May 2023.

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findings compared to other great powers, and particularly in contrast to the United States (Zhang & Li, 2014; Wang & Zhou, 2022).11 Comparatively, the United States’ recent breaching of international trade law—such as the systematic reference to national security (including with its allies), the enactment of unilateral tariffs against products coming from a specific country (US-China trade war), the signing of bilateral agreements such as the US-China “Phase-One Deal” (with quotas of imported American products in specific sectors) have had a profound impact on the trade system. For instance, the WTO ruled against the United States and in favor of Switzerland, China, Norway and Turkey in December 2022 in cases brought after the United States imposed tariffs on steel imports and duties on imports of aluminum which it considered to be “a threat to American national security.”12 In these cases, the United States decided to negotiate on a bilateral basis with parties that it considers as allies (DS 548), while appealing the WTO ruling with others, notably China. The United States has also held the unequivocal position that issues of national security cannot be reviewed in WTO dispute settlements (USTR, 2023). Washington directly attacked China by stating that “with this dispute and others, we see China pursuing a strategy that would convert the WTO into a permanent venue for national security disagreements” (USTR, 2023), disregarding the fact that many members, including allies (the EU, Canada, Norway and Switzerland) had filed similar cases against it. Strikingly, in a 2019 WTO ruling, Washington sided with Moscow in a dispute opposing Russia to Ukraine, in which Russia defended trade-restrictive measures it had taken against Ukraine in the name of national security (DS512). Another important yet less visible development is that while Washington has appealed the WTO decision on its “national security” overreach, it has since 2019 (under the Trump administration) refused the nomination of the WTO’s Appellate body members at the end of their terms. Since then, the Appellate body has been de facto non-operating. Since then too, “losing” parties, such as the United States in this case, have appealed the panel reports and seen dust settle on their procedures in an empty court. The judicial decision of the Appellate body of the 11 According to Rühlig’s calculations, China has complied in 84% of completed cases without the need for any compliance proceedings and “settled a remarkable 48% before the first instance ruling” (Rühlig, 2022: 135). 12 The cases are the following, DS556, DS552, DS544 and DS564.

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WTO being the only binding decision of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, cases such as those appealed by Washington remain unaddressed. This gives little incentive for the United States to amend its laws unless, or until, the appellate body is restored and rules against it. This has systemic implications: there is currently no means to force a Member State to abide by international trade law. In order to sustain the trade adjudication system of the WTO, a group of members, including China and the EU, have launched the “multi-party interim appeal arbitration arrangement” (WTO, 2020), whereby participant countries do not appeal panel decisions but seek arbitration instead.13 Meanwhile, in addition to undermining the Dispute Settlement Body, Washington does not state clear demands nor makes concrete proposals to reform the WTO and meet the objective of a fully functioning Dispute Settlement Body by 202414 (WTO Secretariat, 2022). In light of these two dimensions—the degree to which China has fulfilled its accession commitments and obligations and China’s behavior in negotiations and in dispute settlement processes within the institution—China’s WTO record is mixed. On the one hand, China still falls short of its accession commitments and obligations, especially on specific but crucial issues (e.g., State Owned Enterprises and subsidy schemes). China is not planning either to become a market economy in the near future, raising very few expectations of “liberal” domestic economic reforms being taken. On the other hand, China’s negotiating style since the beginning of the Doha Round has been assertive but not obstructive. Beijing has failed to bridge positions of developed countries and developing nations but has not taken uncompromising stances during negotiation rounds. China is also considered as a reasonable complier with WTO DSB panel reports.15 It has also taken action, alongside the EU and other members, to sustain an adjudication system despite the absence of a functioning appellate body. In the WTO, there is therefore a clear mismatch between what China is—a state-capitalist economy 13 This solution means that states that participate in this initiative accept to have their

panel reports (the decision taken by the first court of the DSB) analyzed during a hearing by a substitute court to the Appellate Body. The decision of the substitute court is, however, non-binding. 14 This objective was set by WTO members during the WTO Ministerial Conference of June 2022. 15 Panel reports refer to the initial decision taken by the dispute settlement body.

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unwilling to become a market economy—and the WTO—an institution which embodies the liberal trade agenda. Nevertheless, China’s behavior within the institution is less problematic for the liberal international order than actions undertaken by the United States against it.

4

Conclusion

This chapter shows that China’s record in international institutions of the liberal international order is mixed. In the UN, its behavior is not unlike that of other great powers. In the WTO, while reversing to some extent its move toward becoming a market economy, China does not obstruct the negotiation process and is rather a good complier with decisions stemming from the dispute settlement body. The real challenge with China in the liberal international order is therefore what it stands for (see Chapter 5 in this book). In the UN, China’s objective, through its appointed nationals and increasing financial engagement, is to spread a set of values at odds with political liberalism and individual rights. This is also central to its attempts to circumscribe the progression of liberal norms that it perceives as destabilizing for its own regime—the Responsibility to Protect being a case in point. China does not truly stick to the “spirit” of the liberal order: it sided, for example, with Russia to prevent further sanctions on North Korea in the UN Security Council. In other words, while China plays by the UN rulebook—it parsimoniously vetoes, it does not prevent the Security Council from delivering resolutions—there remains a problem with what it vetoes and with whom it vetoes it. However, China also contributes to relative losses of power of the UN by creating alternative venues of discussion, international initiatives and multilateral organizations such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In the WTO (see also Chapter 10 in this book), the outlook is similar. China’s behavior in the institution is quite “normal” but the very nature of China’s economic regime that is problematic for the institution: China is not a market economy and does not plan on becoming one anytime soon. When China joined the UN in 1971 and the WTO in 2001, most liberal countries thought that the “tables would turn” in China. They bet on the fact that time would bring China around and turn it into a democracy and a market-abiding economy. However, these changes never took

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place and illiberal countries such as China and Russia both actively take part in the liberal order that was never meant to host assertive, strong and big illiberal members. Is the liberal order ready to accept member states that are not willing—in the short or long term—to engage in regime change? What is increasingly visible is the United States’ wish to see China out of the order, or to discard parts of the order that are perceived as too beneficial to China—what one could call the “China effect”. The United States’ numerous attacks against the current trade regime and the WTO are telling: American Ambassador to the WTO Dennis Shea argued that China did not want to change its economic regime and that “the WTO itself does not have the tools to bring about that change” (Shea, 2018). This would according to Shea explain the United States’ wish to do away with the WTO or reshape it. By using “national security” prerogatives to escape WTO rules, the United States believes it is regaining control over sanctioning capacities that it can use against an uncooperative China. If the United States’ reactions to the “China effect” were to be extended to other institutions than the WTO, notably political institutions such as the UN, it could well be the end of the liberal international order. If China were to perceive that it can never be considered a legitimate potential first world power, it is likely that Beijing will actively seek to undermine the current multilateral order. The liberal international order therefore stands at a crossroads.

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Qin, Y. Q. (2016). A relational theory of world politics. International Studies Review, 18(1), 33–47. Reuters (2022). Factbox: Has Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons. 27/10/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/has-putin-threatened-use2022. nuclear-weapons-2022-10-27/. Accessed 18 April 2023. Rühlig, T. N. (2022). China’s foreign policy Contradictions: lessons from China’s R2P, Hong Kong and WTO Policy. Oxford University Press. Russian Federation, People’s Republic of China (2022). Joint statement of the Russian Federation and the people’s republic of China on the international relations entering a new era and the global sustainable development. 2022/ 04/02. http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770. Accessed 18 April 2023. Shaffer, G., & Gao, H. (2018). China’s rise: How it took on the US in the WTO. University of Illinois Law Review, 115, 1–21. Shea D. (2018). China’s trade disruptive economic model and implications for the WTO. US Mission to International Organizations in Geneva. 27/07/ 2018. https://geneva.usmission.gov/2018/07/27/55299/. Accessed 18 April 2023. State Council of the People’s Republic of China (2020). China’s armed forces: 30 years of UN peacekeeping operations, white paper. http://english.www.gov. cn/archive/whitepaper/202009/18/content_WS5f6449a8c6d0f7257693 c323.html. Accessed 18 April 2023. Stent, A. (2020). Russia and China: axis of revisionist?. Brookings Series on Global China, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ FP_202002_russia_china_stent.pdf. Accessed 18 April 2023. Suzuki, S. (2008). Seeking ‘legitimate’ great power status in post Cold war international society: China’s and Japan’s participation in UNPKO. International Relations, 22(1), 45–63. Talley, I. (2016). US won’t grant China market economy status, senior administration official says. Wall Street Journal, New York, December 9th 2016. Tan, Y. L. (2021). Disaggregating the China Inc.: State strategies in the liberal economic order. Cornell University Press. UNCTAD (2021). China: the rise of a trade titan, 27/04/2021. https://unc tad.org/news/china-rise-trade-titan. Accessed 5 Septembre 2023. United Nations Secretariat (1999). Assessments of the member states’ advances to the working capital fund for the biennium 200–2001, contributions to the United Nations regular budget for 2000 and new member states contributions for 1999. 27/12/1999. ST/ADM/ SER.B/551. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N23/ 012/56/PDF/N2301256.pdf?OpenElement. Accessed 18 April 2023.

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United Nations Secretariat (2009). Assessment of member states’ advances to the working capital fund for the biennium 2010–2011 and contributions to the United Nations regular budget for 2010. 24/12/2009, ST/ADM/ SER.B/789. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N23/ 012/56/PDF/N2301256.pdf?OpenElement. Accessed 18 April 2023. United Nations Secretariat (2023). Assessment of member states’ advances to the working capital fund for 2023 and contributions to the United Nations regular budget for 2023. 11/01/2023. ST/ADM/SER.B/ 1052. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N23/012/ 56/PDF/N2301256.pdf?OpenElement. Accessed 18 April 2023. United States Trade Representative (2004). 2004 report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance. 11/12/2004. https://www.politico.com/f/?id= 0000017d-979a-dee4-a5ff-ff9af8950000. Accessed 18 April 2023. United States Trade Representative (2008). 2008 report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance. https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/asset_upload_file192_ 15258.pdf. Accessed 18 April 2023. United States Trade Representative (2017). 2017 report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance. https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Reports/ China%202017%20WTO%20Report.pdf. Accessed 28 April 2023. United States Trade Representative (2021). 2021 report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance. https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Reports/ 2021USTR%20ReportCongressChinaWTO.pdf. Accessed 18 April 2023. United States Trade Representative (2023). Statement of the United States at the meeting of the dispute settlement body. 27/01/2023. https://ustr.gov/aboutus/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2023/january/statements-uni ted-states-meeting-wto-dispute-settlement-body. Accessed 18 April 2023. Wang, C. X., & Zhou, W. H. (2022). A political anatomy of China’s compliance in WTO disputes. Journal of Contemporary China, 31(1), 1–17. World Trade Organization (2020). Statement on a mechanism for developing, documenting and sharing practices in the conduct of WTO disputes, 30/ 04/2020, JOB/DSB/1/Add.12. https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/ 2020/april/tradoc_158731.pdf. Accessed 18 April 2023. World Trade Organization (2021). Concluding remarks by the chairperson, China’s trade policy review, 21 & 22/10/2021. https://www.wto.org/eng lish/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp515_crc_e.htm. Accessed 18 April 2023. World Trade Organization Secretariat (2022). Members welcome MC12 commitment to address dispute settlement. 30/06/2022. https://www.wto.org/eng lish/news_e/news22_e/dsb_30jun22_e.htm. Accessed 18 April 2023. Welsh, J. (2019). Norm robustness and the responsibility to protect. Journal of Global Security Studies, 4(1), 53–72.

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CHAPTER 8

The Post-brexit European Union and Multilateralism: Evolution and Challenges in the European Perception of Power Delphine Deschaux-Dutard

1

Introduction

Over the course of the last decade, the international environment around the EU (European Union) has dramatically changed. The EU has faced numerous crises, from the annexation of Crimea to Brexit, from migration pressures linked to high instability in the Middle East to turmoil in the transatlantic partnership under Trump, the Covid-19 pandemic, the ongoing war in Ukraine and the global return of power politics. These rising challenges have led the EU to question its approach to power and multilateralism, and show that European position in international relations is being put to the test. The EU has traditionally advocated for a

D. Deschaux-Dutard (B) Political Science, University Grenoble Alpes, CESICE, Grenoble, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_8

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multilateral world in which it is able to play the role of a “normative civilian” power. Yet the latest security crises in its close neighborhood have shaken this assumption and compelled the EU to take a more assertive role in international relations. This is especially true in international security, with the shift in approach symbolized by the financing of weapons to Ukraine in 2022 and the training of Ukrainian soldiers to use new tanks in the winter of 2022/2023. European thinking on this topic is also illustrated by the frequent use of the notion of “strategic autonomy” over the past few years. However, the notion remains unclear, underdefined and interpreted differently by the actors promoting it (Sinkkonen & Helwig, 2022). In this regard can the EU’s more robust (strategic) role in multilateralism endure over time? What are the EU’s assets in today’s turbulent world where multilateralism is being redefined by the assertiveness of (re)emerging powers like China and Russia? What are the main constraints and how is a potentially more assertive European stance in the world perceived? This chapter will tackle these issues in order to explain where the EU is coming from as a power and where it might go within the new era of challenged multilateralism the world has entered. In order to examine this issue, the chapter will focus in particular on the security aspects of the EU’s role within multilateralism as these have grown in prominence over the last two decades (with the rise of terrorism, migration fluxes, instability in the Middle East and Sahel…), and further call into question the role that the EU has taken within global multilateralism since the beginning of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. Yet many of the conclusions drawn from discussing the security sector in this chapter also apply to other sectors where the EU’s role in multilateralism has either been put to the test or is declining (such as climate change or global economic rules for instance). The chapter therefore begins with a review of the literature on the EU’s global actorness when linked to the question of European power. Based on the assumption that the way in which the EU functions in international relations is better understood by combining internal and external variables, the second part of the chapter gives an overview of the EU’s institutional, normative and democratic assets within multilateralism. The third part then focuses on the main limitations in terms of the EU’s changing role in multilateralism by examining both the internal and external constraints on the EU’s strategic objectives in international relations.

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The EU’s Global Actorness, Multilateralism and the Question of European Power

For over five decades, the question of EU’s actorness in the world has intersected the question of multilateralism and has fuelled a vast amount of academic literature (see among others Gstöhl, 2020; Hill et al., 2017; Koops & Macaj, 2015; Rhinard & Sjöstedt, 2019; Sinkkonen & Helwig, 2022; Tereszkiewicz, 2020). 2.1

Investigating the EU’s Role in the World

In terms of the first attempts to theorize the role of the European Community in the world, the founding works by Cosgrove and Twitchett (1970) and Sjödstedt (1977) played a significant role; they tried to define the characteristics of an international actor, which is not a state but a collective of sovereign states. The three main characteristics of European Community actorness at this time were defined as the capacity to determine European interests and dedicate resources to attaining these interests; a decision-making structure enabling the European community to take collective decisions under pressure when a crisis occurs; and the possession of a diplomatic network enabling European agents to implement the European decisions taken collectively. When looking at these characteristics, it is striking that the twenty-first-century EU fulfills them all. Yet the literature on EU’s actorness has grown fragmented on the issue; one part of the academic literature focuses on the internal aspects of the EU’s actorness (that is, the EU’s institutional structure and how this structure is able to articulate the EU’s collective action in the world; see for instance Sjöstedt, 1977; Telo, 2009); whereas another part of the literature focuses on the external behavior of the EU as a global actor, often connecting the question of the EU’s global actorness with the question of its (strategic) autonomy (see for instance Drieskens & Van Schaik, 2014; Sinkkonen & Helwig, 2022). Moreover, literature on the EU as a global actor in international relations has fuelled parallel trends of case studies covering the three main areas of EU’s external action: foreign and security policy, trade policy and neighborhood policy including cooperation with third countries (for reviews on each area’s case studies, see Bouchard et al., 2014; Keukeleire & Delreux, 2022; Rhinard & Sjöstedt, 2019).

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Over the last decade, academic research on the EU’s actorness has been intertwined more and more with the question of the EU’s role in multilateralism. Given that multilateralism has become predominant in the post-Cold War era, the growing role of the EU in this phenomenon has generated important academic literature (see in particular Bouchard et al., 2014; Costa & Jørgensen, 2012; Driesken & Van Schaik, 2014). This literature has particularly bloomed since the Lisbon Treaty, enforced in November 2009, has tried to increase the EU’s coherence and consistency on the international stage (Bouchard et al., 2014; Costa & Jørgensen, 2012; Driesken & Van Schaik, 2014). For the past twenty years, the EU has come up with a specific vision of multilateralism which sits under the notion of “effective multilateralism” as developed by the EU’s first-ever high representative for foreign and security policy, Javier Solana, in the wake of the Iraq war in 2003 (Jørgensen, 2006; Kurowska, 2012). The specificity of the EU’s position within multilateralism has been underlined a number of times and compared with other forms of regionalism (Telo, 2013, 2016) in a world characterized by competition (some even label it a “post-hegemonic era”; Telo, 2013). Each crisis since the EU member states became divided over the Iraq war has therefore contributed to fuelling the tremendous quality of literature on the EU’s role and place in contemporary multilateralism, be it the Arab Springs (Del Sarto, 2016), the annexation of Crimea in 2014 (MacFarlane & Menon, 2014), the referendum on Brexit (Gstöhl, 2020; Schade, 2020), Trump’s erratic foreign policy in relation to transatlantic partners (Aggestam & Hyde-Price, 2019), Covid-19 (Anghel & Jones, 2022) or the war in Ukraine that began in 2022 (Anghel & Jones, 2022; Attin, 2022; Genschel, 2022; Siddi, 2022). Staying on the academic literature, another notion intersects with the literature on the EU’s actorness within multilateralism: it is the question of the EU’s relationship with the notion of power. 2.2

From Civilian to Global Power? the EU’s Core Dilemma

For a long time now, the EU has exclusively been associated with the notion of civilian or normative power (for a genealogy of the relationship between the EU and the notion of power, see Deschaux-Dutard & Nivet, 2023). In the case of European integration, the notion of civilian power goes hand in hand with that of a security community developed by Karl Deutsch (Deutsch, 2015) in the 1950s: in such a community,

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member states no longer consider physical force to be a legitimate means of resolving violence and political dilemmas, but instead rely on processes that involve mutual communication to resolve disputes peacefully. When applied to the construction of the European integration process, these characteristics led François Duchêne (1973) to think of the European community as a civilian power. This notion was also widely reflected in European treaties until the end of the Cold War through the idea that European foreign policy should focus on the promotion of democracy, human rights and peaceful cooperation. This conception of European power owed much to the fact that European security was guaranteed by US commitment to NATO and the bipolar equilibrium during the Cold War. Thus, many scholars have promoted the idea of the EU as a civilian, normative (Manners, 2011; Sjursen, 2006) or quiet power (Moravcisk, 2009). Until the end of the Cold War, EU integration was consequently characterized by a form of refusal of power that is different from normative influence (Deschaux-Dutard & Nivet, 2023), relying on the EU’s civilian assets such as its economic power, for example, or its capacity to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions. However, the end of the Cold War and the armed conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s in particular cruelly demonstrated to European leaders that the EU was evolving in a conflictual international environment, characterized by the return of war and power politics, which required an evolution in European thinking on power. The economic power of the EU had also generated strong expectations about its capacity to act, generating a gap between these expectations and the EU’s real capacity to respond (Hill, 1993). Thus, each armed conflict since the end of the 1990s has opened a window of opportunity to develop new European strategic assets (Deschaux-Dutard, 2020). Therefore, a new military dimension was added to the European integration process with the launch of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) in June 1999, which became the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) as a result of the Lisbon Treaty. Thus, for more than two decades, the EU has begun its evolution toward a form of power other than civilian power (Smith, 2005). The EU’s strategic documents, and in particular the European Union’s Global Security Strategy published in 2016 and the Strategic Compass published in 2022, have acknowledged this evolution by highlighting the idea of strategic autonomy (Sinkkonen & Helwig, 2022), but have not given a clear definition of the EU’s aspirations to exerting another form of power, as this issue keeps dividing the member states as

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we show below. In recent academic literature, the EU is therefore qualified as a small power (Toje, 2011), a would-be world power (Majone, 2009), a distinctive power (Biscop & Coelmont, 2013) or even as an “inadvertent great power” (Gehring et al., 2017). The question of the “normalization” of EU’s power was also raised long before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine (Tereszkiewicz, 2020). Although the question of what kind of power the EU embodies is far from being solved, there seems to be at least a form of consensus around the idea that the EU embodies a unique kind of international actorness, at the intersection between its collective potentialities (both normative and institutional) and its member states’ diverging aspirations, as we are going to show in the next section.

3 The EU’s Assets Within Multilateralism: Tools, Strategic Norms and Citizens’ Support From an institutional point of view, the EU has for decades been developing objectives with regard to the international arena (DeschauxDutard & Nivet, 2023). This translates into the creation of institutional tools and agents enabling it to have an existence within multilateralism. 3.1

European Institutional Assets that Express the EU’s Voice in the World

Following the European Political Cooperation (EPC) of the 1970s, the Maastricht Treaty established a more consistent role for the EU on the international stage by creating the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CSFP). This implies a twofold obligation in terms of coherence: between EU member states, and between the different dimensions of external action, as we show below. The EU’s external action is characterized by multi-sectorality, some aspects of which (such as trade, development or the European neighborhood policy) are managed by the European Commission, while high politics (diplomacy; defense) remains the responsibility of the European Council, the main intergovernmental body (on how European international action functions and the EU’s foreign policy, see in particular Hill et al., 2017; White, 2017). The Amsterdam Treaty (1997) introduced an additional tool that gave the EU a face and a voice in the world, answering Kissinger’s classic question asked in 1970: “what’s the EU’s phone number?”, as a criticism of the lack of European coherence in international relations. This face

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and voice is embodied by the High Representative for Foreign Affairs (currently Josep Borrell). In order to enhance the EU’s external action coherence and European consistency in international relations, the Lisbon Treaty also introduced an important and comprehensive reform of the EU’s external action by promoting synergy between the various areas of European external action managed by different institutions. Therefore, the EU disposes not only of the legal personality but also of several institutional agents: the High Representative for Foreign Affairs who also became the Vice-President of the European Commission so as to help find better coherence between the different areas of European action within multilateralism; the President of the European Council (currently Charles Michel) became a permanent position held for two and a half years so as to help progress the EU’s external action despite the Council Presidency being rotated; the European External Action Service (EEAS) launched in 2011 enabling the EU to dispose of a meaningful diplomatic service not only in Brussels but also across the world through the EU’s 140 delegations and offices worldwide (Drieskens & Van Schaik, 2014). Since 2011, the EU has also been granted the role of permanent observer at the UN General Assembly: this important upgrading of the EU’s role within the UNGA means that the EU cannot vote on but can discuss the issues raised at the Assembly with the other participating states. 3.2

European Tools: From Institutions to Action

Moreover, the EU has developed diplomatic, civilian and military tools that enable it to act multilaterally. First, since the end of the Cold War, the EU has often relied on diplomacy in the shape of mediation on the one hand, and sanctions on the other. Mediation is a classic tool used by the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs. Yet the EU’s attempts at mediation have so far encountered questionable success, depending a great deal on the leverage the EU has on the conflict in which it is called to mediate, and the perception of the parties involved. Globally, although the EU’s role in the negotiation of the agreement on Iran’s nuclear program is often seen as positive and important, the literature on the EU’s capacity as an international mediator is mostly critical of its lack of effectiveness when acting alone. The example of the “Normandy Format” in the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 clearly shows that the EU cannot play its

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international role fully without the commitment of its biggest member states (in this case France and Germany). Therefore, the EU relies much more on the tool of sanctions (Scalera & Wiegand, 2018; Giumelli et al., 2021), available since 1994 with the enforcement of the Maastricht Treaty. Autonomous European sanctions and restrictive measures are a crucial element when it comes to conveying the EU’s voice within multilateralism, in so far that the EU’s position may differ from the US position for instance (as in the case of the lifting of sanctions against Iran in 2016), or to expressing a collective concern in other situations (such as imposing several packages of sanctions on Russia in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the military aggression against Ukraine in February 2022).1 Giumelli et al. (2020) have indeed identified 48 instances in which the EU has imposed sanctions since the 1990s and show that restrictive measures have become a European foreign policy instrument. Even though restrictive measures, like those imposed on Russia after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, may give rise to dissensus among member states, in the long run they have persisted nevertheless: Portela et al. (2021) have demonstrated that the incarnation of EU norms through EU sanctions and the interplay between Brussels and those member states that are most prone to promoting EU’s values aid understanding of why sanctions have survived. EU sanctions also tend to embody the EU’s ability to exert its power on neighboring states, when one explores the alignment of third states with EU sanctions (Cardwell & Moret, 2022). The EU even adopted its first-ever cyber sanctions in 2020, adapting its tool to new hybrid threats. Last but not least, the EU has developed civilian and military capabilities since the 1990s, following the integration of the Petersberg tasks into the EU’s legal corpus.2 Not only can the EU deploy lawyers, police officers or civil servants to help re-establish the rule of law and governance in post-conflict situations, but the EU can also launch civilian and military missions. Over 30 EU missions have already been implemented on several continents and regions (Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East) since the 1 See the map of EU sanctions throughout the world: https://www.sanctionsmap. eu/#/main. Consulted on January 27, 2023. 2 The Petersberg tasks (adopted within the previous framework of the WEU in 1992 and integrated into the Lisbon Treaty) fall into three categories: humanitarian tasks, peacekeeping or peace-enforcement tasks, and armed intervention in crises for the purpose of peacemaking, in collaboration with the UN, NATO and the CSCE.

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2000s, and the EU manages 11 ongoing civilian missions and 7 ongoing military missions in 2023.3 Thus, before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the European Union already had strategic assets: several documents (the European Security Strategy of 2003, the Cyber Security Strategy of 2013 revised in 2020, the Global Security Strategy of 2016; see below) and a number of military instruments that have been categorized over the last two decades first into capability catalogues and then, from 2004, into battle groups, i.e., multinational military units of 1,500 men theoretically capable of being projected at short notice outside the European arena. However, these tools have given rise to intense frustration due to their non-use (Reykers, 2017), once again reviving the idea of a gap between the expectations created by the EU and its actual capacity to act (Hill, 1993). Similarly, since 2016, boosted by the Brexit referendum and the lifting of the British veto on many initiatives aimed at fuelling the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) (see Deschaux-Dutard, 2020), a number of initiatives have emerged in the field of European defense which aim to foster cooperation between member states in the military field and make the EU a more coherent and consistent strategic actor, in particular with regard to the defense industry, with the establishment of Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in 2017 and the launch of the European Defence Fund among others. Brexit enabled the EU’s attempt at forming a more consistent security and defense actor to be relaunched, by lifting the British veto on many initiatives within European defense, but Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine has brought this issue to the forefront, paving the way for advances in European defense and strategic thinking illustrated by both the publication of a Strategic Compass in March 2022 and the first-ever use of the European Peace Facility created in 2021 to finance the delivery of weapons from Europe to Ukraine. But is the evolution of the EU’s strategic thinking really consistent? 3.3

A Specific European Way of Thinking About Strategy

The EU’s role in contemporary multilateralism is also mirrored in the three main strategic documents published by the EU over the last two decades, each published following a period of crisis or turmoil inside and 3 https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/missions-and-operations_en Consulted on April 19, 2023.

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outside the EU: the European Security Strategy, issued in 2003 under the leadership of Javier Solana following the division between the EU member states over the Iraq war; the EU Global Security Strategy, published in 2016 in the wake of the annexation of Crimea, the return of terrorism on the European continent and the migration crisis linked to the civil war in Syria4 ; the Strategic Compass issued in March 2022 in the context of the return of high intensity warfare on the European continent following the start of the military aggression by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.5 Comparing these documents by examining the occurrence of a few key words (see Table 1 below) gives a good insight about the way the EU conceived international relations and how this perception evolved. Table 1

Evolution of the EU’s strategic thinking, 2003–20226 European Security Strategy (2003)

Threat Military Cyber NATO Climate Terrorism Multilateralism/ multilateral Africa Force Nuclear Russia China Autonomy

European Global Security Strategy (2016)

European Strategic Compass (2022)

53 18 1 9 8 21 18

22 11 23 17 26 29 18

105 107 80 28 26 22 14

9 6 13 13 6 1

31 9 5 9 6 8 (among which 5 involve “strategic autonomy”)

14 13 13 13 9 5 (among which 1 involves “strategic autonomy”)

4 https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/global-strategy-european-unions-foreign-and-sec

urity-policy_en Consulted on April, 19 2023. 5 https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-7371-2022-INIT/en/pdf Consulted on January 26, 2023. 6 The table was produced by the author. The key words are presented in order of decreasing occurrence. The ones in bold present the most significant variations when comparing the three documents.

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Although it appears that multilateralism remains the anchor of the EU’s vision of international relations over time, the perception of the international environment as threatening has increased drastically since 2003. Although further strategic reflection at the EU level has been dedicated to certain new threats, through successive strategic documents (which involve climate change and cyber issues for example), the latest Strategic Compass initiative strengthens the focus on terrorism and nuclear proliferation, on the threats to multilateralism and the liberal world order posed by Russia’s assertiveness and China’s strategic rise,7 and on NATO as the primary security partner (see Chapter 2 in this book). It is interesting to note that the notion of strategic autonomy appears to a lesser degree in the 2022 Strategic Compass compared to the 2016 Global Strategy: the war in Ukraine has so far shown how much the military security of the European continent continues to be reliant upon NATO and how important EU-NATO cooperation is and will be in the future. Therefore, when looking at the EU’s strategic documents, it is striking to note an evolution toward a more robust representation of power. If the EU keeps advocating for a multilateral and liberal world order, the means of achieving and maintaining it seem to encompass not only diplomatic and civilian tools that enhance interstate cooperation but also military tools, where necessary, to face up to the return of power politics, as the conflict in Ukraine seems to show since 2022 (the use of the terms “military” and “force” has indeed increased heavily as shown in Table 1 above). Yet even though the notion of strategic autonomy is regularly affirmed at the EU level or by certain member states such as France, the concept remains relatively ambiguous not only among those who utilize it but also in the academic literature. Although some member states view strategic autonomy as a means of balancing the hegemony of the USA and the rising influence of China, others such as Germany and to an even greater degree Poland and Eastern European countries interpret the situation differently and see it as a way of jumping on the bandwagon with Washington (see Cladi, 2022; Helwig & Sinkkonen, 2022). Therefore, even though the EU’s strategic thinking developed since 2003 constitutes an asset that it hopes will propel multilateralism in a peaceful and cooperative direction, which the EU has promoted since the beginning of the 7 For an interesting analysis on the role of the perception of the other in EU’s external action, see (Rumelili, 2021).

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integration process, it remains vague enough to leave room for national interpretation, leading to important limitations on the EU’s voice in the world as we will show below. Last but not least, another important asset of the EU’s role within multilateralism is the healthy level of support from its citizens. 3.4

A High Level of Support from European Citizens

Another asset that the EU has in terms of its role within multilateralism is the high level of support from European citizens. The more legitimacy that the EU’s external action is attributed among European citizens (see Galantino, 2015), the more likely it is that the EU will be able to play a role within multilateralism, at least in terms of promoting European cooperative norms. This support is evident when one looks at the results of Eurobarometers from the last few decades.8 A Eurobarometer survey conducted in 1991 already showed that 75% of the respondents were in favor of the European common foreign policy, and another in March 1991 demonstrated that 61% were in favor of a European intervention force (EB35).9 This level of support remains quite stable over time and even increases every time the EU has to face a security issue. A Special Eurobarometer Survey conducted in 2016 showed that European citizens seemed to want more international action from the EU with regard to foreign policy (50%) and even more action in relation to defense and security (66%).10 The support for a common European defense policy among European citizens was close to 75% according to the Eurobarometer survey (EB 461) published in April 2017.11 The same level of support is evidenced by two surveys conducted in 2022 (EB Flash 506 and EB 97.3) concerning the EU’s action in the war in Ukraine: 8 We do not wish to enter into debate about the strength of European opinion here, as it would take us too far away from the purpose of this chapter. See (Galantino, 2015). 9 http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSur veyDetail/instruments/STANDARD/yearFrom/1991/yearTo/2000/surveyKy/1425. Accessed 19 January 2023. 10 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/at-your-service/files/be-heard/eurobarometer/ 2016/europeans-in-2016-perceptions-and-expectations/analytical-overview/fr-analyticaloverview-europeans-in-2016.pdf Accessed 19 January 2023. 11 http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurvey Detail/instruments/SPECIAL/yearFrom/1974/yearTo/2016/search/463/surveyKy/ 2173 Accessed 19 January 2023.

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74% of EU citizens seem to be satisfied with the way the EU is managing the war in Ukraine,12 but the level of support increases when they are asked about the different elements relating to soft and harder power: 75% think that more military cooperation is needed at the European level; 80% agree with the sanctions imposed on Russia; 93% agree with the humanitarian measures afforded to people affected by the war; 67% agree with the financing of weapons for Ukraine.13 According to the Standard Eurobarometer published in the fall of 2022, 70% of EU citizens advocate for a strengthening of EU foreign policy and 77% for a greater degree of European defense.14 These numbers are consistent with Petiteville’s (2015) argument concerning the high level of support for military intervention within EU countries and support the idea that the EU has evolved beyond soft and normative power. However, although the EU has many assets that support its role within multilateralism, many limitations constrain the EU’s potential as a global player.

4

Constraints and Challenges in Terms of the EU’s Role in Multilateralism

Several constraints and challenges weigh on the EU’s international role, especially in relation to foreign policy and defense matters. It is not sufficient to have capabilities on paper, it is also necessary to be able to mobilize them and be perceived as an influential player. 4.1

Internal Constraints

The post-Brexit EU’s potential within multilateralism is hindered by two enduring challenges that neither Brexit, nor the war in Ukraine have resolved but have rather complicated.

12 https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/ebsm/api/public/deliverable/download?doc=true&

deliverableId=84907 Accessed 19 January 2023. 13 https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/ebsm/api/public/deliverable/download?doc=true& deliverableId=82356 Accessed 19 January 2023. 14 Yet these surveys entail many caveats as people are not asked whether they agree with being taxed further to finance a stronger EU foreign and defence policy for instance. For more information on these caveats, see (Galantino, 2015).

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First, the functioning of European foreign policy has not radically changed as a result of Brexit and the war in Ukraine: in the areas that concern high politics it remains intergovernmental. Although Brexit has increased complexity in trade, in which the UK is now developing a different position from the EU, its impact is mostly area-dependent (Schade, 2020). In the areas of security, defense and foreign policy, the EU has maintained a healthy level of cooperation with the UK, even though the UK has started to develop a specific vision of its role in international relations (Global Britain; see Hadfield, 2020) which might sometimes mean competition (see the example of the breach of the contract on submarines with France in September 2021, which benefited the AUKUS countries). Yet as a result of Brexit, not only did the EU lose its second biggest military power and a seat at the UN Security Council, but the EU’s external action hybridity was also exacerbated. The hybrid nature of Common Security and Foreign Policy (CFSP) relies on a nexus between bodies at the European level and the member state level. Therefore, even though crises like Brexit or the war in Ukraine might help build collective positions within the EU in the short term, the longer-term view tends to show that foreign policy goals and priorities continue to diverge among EU countries. This has led to four different visions of the EU’s role in international relations within the European External Action Service for instance (Jørgensen et al., 2020). This hybridity also raises the difficult question of leadership with regard to the EU’s external action (Aggestam & Johansson, 2017), as the war in Ukraine has shown: although the French-German partnership has long been labeled as a driving force (Deschaux-Dutard, 2022), Germany’s turmoil over the sending of tanks in January 2023 and the increasing divide between Eastern countries on the one side and France and Germany on the other concerning the way to deal with Russia clearly shows that neither Paris nor Berlin can claim that they are responsible for effective and long-lasting leadership in relation to EU’s foreign policy. The national strategic cultures and the way they consider multilateralism and their role within it also explain why the EU’s external action continues to often be characterized by divergences when it comes to areas of high politics under the intergovernmental rule. An example of this is the way the EU handled the Turkish incursion into Greek territorial waters in August 2020: while France decided to send over two military ships and two combat aircraft in order to deter Turkey, the other EU

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member states, led by Germany who held the presidency of the EU, opted for mediation. An additional issue which impacts the EU’s role within multilateralism is that of its internal coherence and the rise of illiberal regimes. The rise of governments ruled by populist leaders such as those in Hungary and Poland could jeopardize the EU’s role as a normative power, if the core norms supported by the EU are already challenged internally by some of its member states, which may affect the EU’s potential as a norm exporter (Meunier & Vachudova, 2018). This phenomenon also impacts the EU’s capacity to have a collective international position, as the reluctance of Hungary to agree to sanctions against Russia showed at the beginning of the war in Ukraine. 4.2

Is the EU Seen as a Global Actor Externally?

Last but not least is the question of whether perception of the EU also impacts its role within multilateralism (see Lucarelli, 2014; Rumelili, 2021). The EU promotes a model of cooperative multilateralism that has been put to the test by diverging visions over the last decade, either by rival (re)emerging powers like China or Russia, or even by partners such as the USA under the Trump administration. Although the EU seems to be widely recognized as a successful example of regional integration (Lucarelli, 2014), it is also often not perceived as a real actor, or at least not an efficient one. When looking at Russia for instance, since 2014 the EU has used a combination of mediation attempts (among which were the mediation negotiations under the “Normandy Format”)15 and sanctions against Russia. It seems quite clear that even before the military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia did not consider the EU to be an effective international actor, having observed a number of incidents, such as the failed visit of the EU’s High Representative Josep Borrell to Moscow to discuss a number of issues with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov on 5 February 2021.16 European sanctions have indeed generated counter-sanctions from Russia since 2014, as is also the case with

15 The “Normandy Format” designates the diplomatic negotiation model between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany during the Ukrainian conflict 2014–2015. 16 Russia evicted three EU diplomats on the very day of Josep Borrel’s visit to Moscow.

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certain other countries under EU sanctions such as China (Cardwell & Moret, 2022). How other countries view the overall attractiveness of the EU does not appear clear in the twenty-first century. Not only has the EU’s influence declined in its southern neighborhood in the aftermath of the Arab Springs, but as voting at the UN General Assembly on the armed conflict in Ukraine showed on 2 March and 12 October 2022, the EU is not exerting a lasting influence on its traditional partners. With regard to Ukraine, many African countries that share long-lasting ties with either the EU or European countries, such as Mali, Algeria, Congo or Senegal (who only abstained in the second vote) either decided to abstain and did not formally join the chorus of 143 states blaming Russia for the military aggression against Ukraine, or did not participate in the vote, as was the case with Burkina Faso or Morocco for instance. The extension of Russia and China’s strategic influence in Africa reinforces this idea, when one looks at Russia’s seduction strategy toward several African countries benefiting from EU missions or assistance such as Mali or Burkina Faso for instance. An examination of how the EU is perceived externally also uncovers the way in which the main world powers see the EU (see DeschauxDutard & Nivet, 2023). The USA has viewed the EU as a strong partner again since the election of Joe Biden, and the war in Ukraine combined with multiple security challenges over the last few years has shown that Washington has no difficulty taking unilateral action when American interests are at stake, as has been the case with Indo-Pacific security. Therefore, as Newsome and Riddervold (2022) demonstrate, the transatlantic relationship remains weaker than it was during the Cold War, as the EU has focused on multilateral norms and forums, whereas the USA since the 2000s has mainly used multilateralism when it serves American interests (see Chapter 6 in this book). Yet most European countries continue to jump on the bandwagon with the USA, as NATO’s primacy in the war in Ukraine demonstrates (Cladi, 2022). The fact that the Ukrainian President used his first trip abroad since the beginning of the war between Ukraine and Russia to visit Washington on 22 December 2022, and that he visited London and Paris before visiting Brussels in February 2023 demonstrates the way the USA and more generally individual states continue to be perceived as much stronger players than the EU collectively. With regard to China’s vision of the EU globally, the EU-China relationship is seen to be based on both cooperation and competition, as

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it clearly appears in EU strategic documents. Although China remains the EU’s primary trading partner and Europe’s economic dependence on China has increased as a result of the war between Russia and Ukraine, there is divergence between Beijing and Brussels in terms of their respective visions of multilateralism (Scott, 2013). When it comes to policy areas other than trade, China mostly favors bilateral relations and does not see the EU as a consistent actor, as the rather limited position of the EU within China’s strategic narrative illustrates (Lucarelli, 2014; Zeng, 2017; see also Chapter 7 in this book). 4.3

Toward a New Gap Between Expectations and Capabilities?

The war in Ukraine has paved the way for significant advances in terms of the EU’s actorness in international relations. Similarly, the situation in Ukraine has put particular emphasis on the strategic reflection that has taken place between the member states, which took the form of the European Strategic Compass published in March 2022. The pace of reflection on how to take European defense, and moreover Europe’s role in international security forward, has accelerated considerably, with this issue being discussed at every (formal or informal) European Council meeting since February 2022, in parallel with numerous meetings at the ministerial level. Denmark, which has traditionally been neutral, has put an end to its opt-out clause and joined the movement. Finally, the European Commission, entitled a “geopolitical” Commission when it was inaugurated in 2019 under the aegis of its new president, Ursula von der Leyen, has also displayed a certain degree of political activism since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. However, this must not lead to more disappointment that would again be caused by high expectations raised by the EU and the concrete results that fall short of these expectations. As some authors argue, it is unclear what consequences the crises such as the armed conflict in Ukraine will have on the EU internationally (Genschel, 2022). As far as the EU’s defense capacity is concerned for instance, although the new strategic compass demonstrates Europe’s will to seize the moment, it does not really stand out for its ambition either in terms of military capability or how European defense will function. For example, the objective of setting up a 5,000-soldier rapid reaction force can be juxtaposed with the previous military instrument, the battle groups, which have so far

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remained unemployed due to unresolved caveats. Similarly, the document does not envisage a reform of the way in which CSDP functions institutionally, which is based on unanimity, and makes decision-making complex and can lead to inaction (see the example of the impossibility of setting up a European military mission during the Libyan crisis). More globally, the leadership of NATO with regard to many military aspects of the war in Ukraine continues to illuminate the existence of a European cacophony concerning strategic autonomy (Meijer & Brooks, 2021).

5

Conclusion

While the war in Ukraine has reignited European debates about the nature of European power as a result of the adoption of numerous packages of sanctions against Moscow, it has not yet transformed the EU into an efficient world power capable of acting autonomously in security matters, and as such, it is not a transformation that will occur in a year. More globally, although the EU has many assets within multilateralism and disposes of an important influence in non-military areas such as trade or the promotion of values, the rise of other narratives within the liberal world order makes the EU’s contribution to multilateralism complex and not clearly heard (see Chapter 5 in this book). Europe needs to define the kind of actorness it collectively wishes to project in a world in which power politics has become commonplace again and where cooperative multilateralism is no longer the only narrative.

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CHAPTER 9

Mobilizing the South: Pluralizing and Complexifying Multilateralism Delphine Allès and Elodie Brun

1

Introduction

At the time of the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2023, several press releases relayed the dissatisfaction of Northern powers, mainly the United States (USA) and European Union members, with the lack of political and military commitment of the socalled Global South countries to explicitly condemn and sanction the Russian Federation (Pitel & Chazan, 2023). What emerges from these publications is the image of a homogeneous and inert “South”, whose reactions are perceived as disruptive when they eschew the will of big powers. More than 60 years after the great waves of decolonization, it is surprising that such perceptions and diplomatic attitudes persist,

D. Allès (B) Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales—Inalco, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] E. Brun El Colegio de México, Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_9

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despite the impasses they produce. The “South” or “Global South” as a concept, an all-encompassing and misleading term, draws its intellectual validity from the study of the complexities of its various components. The interest in mobilizing it when analyzing international cooperation lies in the plurality of its members’ actions in the face of multilateralism. The South must be understood as a complex, shifting, contradictory and, above all, active set of actors (Gramer & Rathi, 2022; Menon, 2023). The situation is all the more confusing because two expressions are used in parallel to refer to these actors: the South and the Global South, each used in the singular and sometimes in the plural. Few authors address this conundrum, but those that do tend to prefer South tout court when they study the interstate milieu alone. Global South is then used when different types of actors are included in the analysis, accompanied by a strong epistemological critique in favor of a renewal of knowledge and a deterritorialization of the concept to focus on anti-capitalist or anti-system political objectives (Brun, 2022; Ojeda Medina, 2016).1 In this chapter, we focus on the states of the South, as the main, although not exclusive, representatives of this notion within international organizations (IOs).2 Among the studies that propose definitions of the South, participation in multilateralism appears as a fundamental pillar of foreign policy that converts into a criterion for recognition (Brun, 2022; Haug et al., 2021: 1929). This participation is thought of mainly in institutional terms, with IOs serving as facilitators of encounters for a South that exists beyond its components, through their relationships (Ferabolli, 2021). IOs with a universal membership also constitute a tribune; the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) epitomizes this function. Mélanie Albaret (2022) distinguishes three main meanings of the South in multilateral forums from this variety of possibilities. The geographical state-centered definition of the South, based on the regional division of the world—Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia—as used by most IOs predominates. In particular, the publication of the Brandt Report in 1980 (Brandt Commission, 1980) represents a milestone for this interpretation. The South is also understood as a set of 1 For a justification of the use of Global South in state-centered studies, see BraveboyWagner (2009). 2 The Global South is made up of a multitude of non-state actors that participate in multilateral fora such as companies, experts, civil servants or non-governmental organizations.

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actors who unite collectively against the status quo, or as a space of radical critique and resistance. This latter interpretation is also found in critical work on the Global South, aimed at uncovering and overcoming global power imbalances. All broad definitions of the South share the fact that we are dealing with actors in a multidimensionally disadvantaged position on the international scene. At a normative level, global and regional multilateralism may be perceived as a tool for balancing global asymmetries for countries in a less privileged, subaltern or, to use a Latin American term, peripheral situation. Nevertheless, is this assessment shared by the respective actors? History shows a certain complexity. Its official version does emphasize the role of Southern countries at the United Nations (UN), establishing a certain continuity with post-independence and Third World aspirations to an equal seat at the table of states (Albaret & Devin, 2016; Berg, 1982; Taylor & Smith, 2007). The best-known examples are the pressure exerted by these representatives at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) against Apartheid and various forms of colonization and neo-colonialism, from the 1960s and the aborted proposal of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) a decade later, through interregional groupings such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the G77—the latter initially on more economic issues. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), created in 1960, symbolizes the organizational capacity of its members. However, this participation was never uniform. At that time, Brazil did not support the initiatives taken at the UN against the Portuguese colonies. The five founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in 1967, were pro-Western autocracies that sought to acculturate the international system rather than reforming it. More recently, in 2013, Saudi Arabia gave up its seat as an elected member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in the context of the Syrian conflict (Le Monde, 2013). This chapter thus aims to show the diversity of the concerns and strategies employed by Southern states vis-à-vis multilateralism over a recent period. During the past decade, the focus has been on the contentious actors among permanent UNSC members—be it the Trump administration (see Chapter 6 in this book), the Russian regime or China (see Chapter 7 in this book). What about the so-called South? Does this set of heterogeneous actors, through a variety of strategies and practices, balance the multilateral game, diminish the power of the powerful and

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promote collective bargaining against inward-looking or unilateral attitudes? Our answer is not categorical. The participation of the South in multilateral entities certainly represents a pluralization of international cooperation, but it does not necessarily mean its consolidation, let alone a shift toward more balanced institutions and practices. To this end, we begin by reviewing the diversity of the South’s relationship to multilateralism in its ideologies, representations and forms of participation. Then, we address the issue of the disadvantaged representation of these actors, which new research shows in a renewed way beyond institutional schemes, through diplomatic practices and informal modes of governance. Finally, we look at the institutional and normative innovations that stem from the aspiration to a more consolidated presence of the South in the decision-making processes of international cooperation.

2 The Plurality of the South: From Heterogeneous Conditions to Differentiated Expectations Far from the common representation of a homogeneous “South”, Southern countries come in various shapes, forms and, more importantly, multilateral practices and expectations toward the dividends of their integration within global or regional international organizations. Early after the period of independences, when they started reaching a critical mass within the UNGA, Southern states began organizing with the aim of voicing what they perceived to be specific concerns—on the symbolic and political levels, collective legitimization and equal representation (Claude, 1966), and on the policy and practical levels, concerns related to the structures of global trade and economy as well as development (Braveboy-Wagner, 2009; Toye, 2014). From the idea of a unity of “colored people” that emerged at the Bandung conference to the current divisions within the G77, countries and actors pertaining to this category, however, evolved in ways that reflected the variety of their historical trajectories, the ideological orientations of their power elites and the policy choices or strategic opportunities they chose to follow during or after the Cold War. For instance, with the exception of Cuba, Latin American countries embraced economic aspirations much more easily than the political agenda presented in Bandung.

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Various formats emerged early on, usually under the form of loose fora or groups that revolve around specific concerns or characteristics. The largest forum within the UNGA, the Group of 77 was established in 1964 by 77 non-aligned countries with the aim of weighing on the global economic order in the context of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The legitimacy and necessity of this endeavor have been confirmed by the resilience and expansion of the group, which is currently composed of 134 members—including China. The group initially published a common declaration and decided on establishing permanent institutional structures organizing yearly meetings aimed at negotiating common stances, most importantly in favor of a better consideration of less developed countries’ concerns in international trade negotiations. On a political level, it also adopted common stances against apartheid and in favor of global disarmament (Albaret & Devin, 2016; Alden et al., 2010). The G77 has also been acting as a soundboard for specific issues that would otherwise not obtain such a broad audience. In 2019, it symbolically attributed chairmanship to Palestine, despite the fact that the Palestinian authority was only an observer at the UN in the absence of UNSC validation for full membership. This symbolic responsibility granted Palestine a de facto access and representation during the UNGA. From the outset, however, the group has been divided on substantial matters, reflecting the near impossibility of establishing more than a lowest common denominator and loose principles among “Southern” UN members. On the most pressing climate issue, for instance, China has traditionally argued for “common but differentiated responsibilities” among developed and developing nations, while members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) have recently favored constraining commitments to mitigate climate change (Carter, 2020). Another divide exists between AOSIS and OPEC, due to their contrasting economic models and exposure to climate change. Most members are, in practice, involved in multiple sub-groups and coalitions, reflecting different and sometime diverging interests. While substantial agendas tend to be promoted by smaller circles such as AOSIS, pushing specific and more coherent concerns, larger groupings such as the G77 are rather used to showcase numerical strength and loose normative objectives (Klöck, 2020). However, it would be a mistake to disregard the influence of the coalition in understanding the issue of various collective negotiations.

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On a more individual level, various conditions, trajectories and expectations have also led to highly different postures and strategies, ranging from integration to transgression and contention (Badie, 2008; Sidani, 2014). In general terms, the degree of international social integration tends to condition the potential costs of contention and the likelihood of a boldly contentious strategy (Allès & Lebow, 2018). Openly contentious narratives have, nonetheless, only exceptionally led to concrete secession from global multilateral arenas. The only example of a defection from the UNGA was that of Sokarno’s Indonesia in 1965, at a time when the founding father of Indonesia protested against Malaysia’s accession to a non-permanent member seat at the UNSC. Considering that the UN was controlled by neocolonial powers, Sukarno ambitioned to establish a competing “alliance of the new emerging forces” open to other powers from the non-aligned world that sought to denounce and reverse domination on the international scene—most prominently, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which at the time was not yet a member of the UN as China’s seat, was held by the Republic of China (Taiwan) until 1971. Yet, a year later, following the overthrow of Sukarno’s government, Indonesia retrieved its membership. The attempt at forming a parallel organization was never implemented as the PRC never fully adhered to the project and rather pursued its agenda of entering the UN (see also Chapter 7 in this book). Despite the fact that the UN tribune has been used for many strong anti-Western and more specifically anti-US speeches, it is striking that it has not encountered other secessionist moves. Prominent and contentious Southern leaders—such as Castro, Chavez or Maduro, Kim Jong Un or Ahmadinejad—have repeatedly used this tribune, and their continued attendance suggests that the legitimizing role of belonging to the UN, as well as the audience it provides, has weighed more in policy calculations than the potential dividends of a full-fledged break from the institution (for the Venezuelan example, see Albaret & Brun, 2022). Secession is more frequent, although not common, from other organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or regional entities like the Organization of American States (OAS). The UNGA and the various sub-groups that organize within this setting also form a locus for the competition to determine which actors may claim the responsibility and ability to represent the South. The Ukraine crisis has often been presented as a catalyst for a “Global South” characterized by its rejection of the injunctions to take sides. It has been China’s narrative, for instance, that the Global South was united

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in its struggle for autonomy and opposition to North American or European economic sanctions against Russia (Rodell & Skidmore-Hess, 2022). Reality is more complex, however, that this observation suggests. While most states outside Europe and North America indeed refused to adopt sanctions (with the exception of Singapore, a member of the Non-Aligned Movement), an overwhelming majority did vote in favor of UNGA resolutions ES-11/1 (2 March 2022—141 for, 5 against, 35 abstentions, 10 absent), ES-11/4 (12 October 2022—143 in favor, 5 against, 35 abstentions, 10 absent) and ES-11/6ti (23 February 2023—141 in favor, 7 against, 32 abstentions) that condemned the aggression, denounced the unilateral annexation of four Eastern Ukrainian territories and called for the immediate withdrawal of Russian Federation troops from Ukraine. In so doing, and while striving not to align with any of the identified sides, a wide majority of states of the South thus reaffirmed their support to international law and the principle of territorial integrity, which remain perceived as the core principles underpinning the international society and a golden thread across their stances in spite of empirical variations in their implementation (Coe, 2015; Makinda, 1996). It is true, however, that the vast majority of the more than thirty states that abstained on those three resolutions belong to the South—notably China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and over 15 African States including Algeria, South Africa and Soudan. Others, like Mali and Nicaragua, voted alongside Russia against resolution ES-11/L.7 that demanded Russia leave Ukraine. Aside universal international organizations, the organizational and institutional forms taken by Southern groups at the regional level have also varied, illustrating further differences in their relation with multilateralism. It is particularly striking when looking at the various shapes and purposes of Southern regional organizations. While organizations such as MERCOSUR (Southern Common Market, a South American regional process of integration instituted in 1991), SICA (Central America Integration System, created in 1993) and the African Union (which replaced in 2002 the Organization of African Unity, established in 1963) are characterized by a higher degree of institutionalization and an aspiration to integration, others, such as the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, founded in 1967), CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, launched in 2010) or the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, established in 1985), have been characterized by informal processes and limited integration, mere intergovernmental dialogue, the prominent role of norms and a preference for

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consensus-based cooperation processes that remain inherently controlled by states seeking to enhance their sovereignty rather than pooling it. This diversity in Southern states takes on and relation to multilateralism reflects their various conditions as well as their ideological and institutional differences. What, then, may be seen as a common characteristic of the South in its relationship to multilateralism? States that identify to this category remain secondarized within key multilateral settings—the composition of the UNSC permanent members is particularly representative of this observation, as well as the localization of the headquarters of the global multilateral institutions, with only one formal headquarter being localized in the South (the United Nations Environmental Programme, in Nairobi). Peripherality, to paraphrase Alfred Sauvy (1952) describing the condition of the Third World, defines the situation of actors that aspire to “become something”—to have a substantial contribution within global multilateral settings. A central difference between the contemporary international system and the context of the Bandung conference is that “the South” now holds substantial political power (as it forms the majority of the UNGA) as well as increasing economical and geopolitical assets that improve their visibility and political weight. In this context, the institutionalization of an unbalanced representation of the South creates further frustration and delegitimizes global multilateral institutions, hindering the hope for a better integrated global multilateral system.

3

Unbalanced Representation: Structural Inequalities and Empirical Adaptation

The question of representation is crucial to grasping the evolving perceptions of Southern states toward the legitimacy of the global multilateral system, and the contentious logics that may ensue. The deepening discrepancy between the structural power differences institutionalized by global multilateral settings, on the one hand, and the evolutions of the empirical reality, on the other, is a source of frustration that has increasingly turned into the emergence of differentialist practices. In spite of the sovereign equality preached by the UN system, it has been widely demonstrated that institutional frameworks engrave unequal representations and crystallize hierarchical logics (Weiss, 2016; Woods & Lombardi, 2006), despite the formal and normative equality

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they proclaim by upholding the sovereignty principle and through seemingly equalizing institutional settings such as the UNGA. The UNSC is obviously representative of this dual logic, with its limited permanent membership and veto rights restricted to five World War II winners and nuclear power holders. Attempts at reforming the UNSC have widely focused on identifying criteria for a more balanced geographic representation, starting in 1964 with and extension of the membership from six to ten non-permanent members, with a regional representativity criterion. Nevertheless, despite the repeated commitment of UN Secretary-Generals (most prominently Boutros Boutros Ghali with his 1992 “Agenda for peace”, and Kofi Annan with the 2005 plan “In Larger Freedom”), attempts at more substantially reforming the UNSC by creating more permanent seats have been met with unsurmountable opposition. The latter has not necessarily been the prerogative of the permanent members (France, for instance, is committed to a formula that would include the G4 candidates—Brazil, India, Japan and Germany). The lack of consensus on the criteria of representativity among Southern states themselves (should it be based on geographic repartition, commitment to the UN values or effective contribution to peacekeeping operations), the disagreements as to which states would be the most legitimate and representative (most significantly for the African continent, where the odds are divided among Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa, but there are also divisions between India and Pakistan in South Asia, as well as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico for Latin America), and the commitments associated with a permanent seat have also been stumbling blocks. This issue remains on the agenda of many Southern countries, as confirmed by the United Nations Secretary-General’s (UNSG) reiteration of the need for this reform, precisely at the African Union Summit in January 2023 (The Africa Report, 2023). Ad hoc formulas have nevertheless facilitated a better participation of all actors, especially those directly concerned by peace operations, in the deliberations of the UNSC. Since 1992, the Arria formula, initiated by then-Venezuelan Ambassador Diego Arria, has for instance allowed for the informal consultation by the UNSC of tier UN members as well as non-state actors concerned by a discussion or resolution. As peace operations are operated on the ground by a wide majority of Southern soldiers despite the operations command remaining predominantly held by Western officers, the accompanying experts chosen by

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UNSC members are also increasingly chosen among candidates holding Southern or “non-Western” nationalities (Boutellis, 2022). Adjustments have also been implemented in other institutions where the representation was—and still is—disproportionately excluding Southern countries—showing both a concern and consciousness of the illegitimacy of the conventional institutional settings, and the lack of a strong reformist commitment on the part of their key members. At the IMF, while decisions are normally approved by consensus among the 24 members of the Board of governors, voting powers are based on a quota system allocating additional votes based on the special drawing rights owned by each member. In addition to this wealth-based representation, which is currently widely dominated by the United States (17.43% of the total quota, 16.5% of votes), followed by Japan (6.47% for quota, 6.14 for votes), China (6.40, 6.08% for votes) and Germany (5.59% for quota, 5.31% for votes), the composition of the executive board tends to disproportionately represent Northern states. While the seven countries with the largest economies (USA, China, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia) nominate their own executive directors, the others are gathered in geographic constituencies of two to 23 countries (IMF, 2023b). In 2016, mainly in response to China’s economic ascendancy, the IMF has undertaken a major governance reform with the aim of enhancing the voting power of the poorest members and having a more representative executive board. It also reviews and reforms its quota allocations every five years. Despite these efforts, the structure of the institution structurally over-represents founding powers from the North. For instance, among the least well off, the constituency that brings together some twenty African countries represented 1.35% before the start of the adjustments and only 1.62% at the beginning of 2023 (Brun, 2018: 341; IMF, 2023a). The daily conduct of multilateral negotiations also tends to enhance structural inequalities as “international pecking orders” are reproduced through social stratification and rank competitions, enhancing structural inequalities through multilateral negotiations (Pouliot, 2016). Daily inequalities are also engraved in material matters, such as logistics and human resources. Countries with small or weak diplomatic apparatuses are often de facto limited in their ability to take part in multilateral negotiations, as they are not capable of aligning a sufficient number of diplomatic representatives. While the US embassy to the UN is composed of

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around 150 staff, many less privileged countries cannot sustain a permanent representation and only send ambassadors at-large during crucial moments. In an attempt at circumscribing the consequences of these material inequalities, the UN has established rules aimed at favoring a more balanced representation during the sessions of the UNGA. National delegations at the UNGA are, for instance, limited to a maximum of five representatives and five substitutes. Nevertheless, they can be extended to as many technical advisors or experts as a state deems necessary. Similarly, the limitation of parallel sessions during the UNGA is meant to avoid favoring states with larger diplomatic forces. Nevertheless, this disposition tends to overbook the sessions’ agendas, thus favoring state delegations that are able to align the largest numbers of experts and staff to draft preparatory notes and pre-arrange negotiations in parallel settings. The situation of minilateral arenas, regarding matters of representativeness, is also interesting as it is more contrasted than one would intuitively think. While G- type minilaterals (G7, G20) have been heavily criticized for creating exclusive, Western-centric arenas focused on the concerns of states dominating the world economy, the picture proves to be more complex. The G20 was founded with emerging states from the South precisely in order to provide a more inclusive and representative arena to discuss global economic challenges. The composition of this forum has been heavily criticized because its members were not chosen upon transparent criteria, but it was a step forward in terms of inclusion, showcasing large states with aspiring economic and political power such as Indonesia, Brazil and India. In recent years, the organization of the G20 Summits in Indonesia (2022), Argentina (2018), Turkey (2015) or Mexico (2012) has provided these countries with an international audience they had not previously reached through their participation in conventional multilateral settings. Minilateral initiatives have also emanated from the South, with clubs such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and BASIC (Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Indonesia, China) groupings, or more thematic groups such as the D-8 (with eight emerging Muslim-majority economies). Seeing the glass half-full, one might consider that since minilateralism has become an ordinary practice, the fact that Southern actors have appropriated this practice shows that they have assimilated impactful ways of coordinating and advancing their agendas. A more critical approach might consider minilateral initiatives as undemocratic and less representative structures, as they lack transparency (Herz & Ribeiro

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Hoffmann, 2019), and as a waste of diplomatic energy, as they do not produce structural effects on the global political scene. Another concern pertaining to the multiplication of minilateral arrangements is thus the fragmentation of representation they provoke, potentially reducing the overall impact of Southern states’ diplomatic engagement.

4 Institutional and Normative Innovations: Between Separate Households and Forced Inclusion The multiplication of Southern countries has forced multilateral fora, created in the wake of World War II in a still reduced world in terms of sovereign states, to adapt both institutionally and normatively. The era of Third Worldism experimented with some adjustments, but the revival of South-South ties in the context of the long boom has reminded us of their inadequacy (Albaret & Devin, 2016: 28–35; Brun, 2018: 317–484). The question of reforming IOs reflects the importance acquired by non-state actors, who are indispensable for thinking about international cooperation, but it also cruelly refers to that of global interstate asymmetries. The risk, well known to IOs, of the inertia of multilateral forums is the development of parallel structures, whereas the resolution of global problems, by their very nature, requires coordinated collective action. There is already a network of collective institutions in the South that have not resulted in a separation from the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions (Braveboy-Wagner, 2009; Woods & Lombardi, 2006), but this could change if inertia prevails within them. A part of the South is centralizing global attention. The emergence of new global strategic spaces is leading to the creation of new arenas that have grown increasingly autonomous from the control of Northern powers and force them to adapt and shift their priorities. This observation is striking in the emergence of the Indo-Pacific as a new strategic region, where multilateral cooperation in the political and strategic realms is being redefined along flexible lines and varying geographies but revolves around the centrality of Southern states (India, Southeast Asia) and their multilateral practices (India, Southeast Asia) (Teo & Sea, 2023). In material terms and in representations, the pivot is, however, not entirely effective: while the very notion of the Indo-Pacific has regional origins as it was first envisioned by Indian and Indonesian policymakers, its adoption by

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the United States has led to a symbolic capture that created opposition and many in the region still believe that it is an imported US concept, illustrating the normative domination that is still exerted by this country. This strategic pattern, like that of the emerging powers a few years ago, had the advantage of drawing attention to state actors from the South, but it is also full of oversights and renders invisible interactions that already exist. While Indo-Pacific narratives are shared by an increasing number of actors and invested by the US and European powers, one should not forget the autonomous organization of the southern side of the Western Hemisphere. The South Pacific actually has its own trajectory of cooperation. Thus, Chile has become a member of the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC—initiated by business leaders) in 1978 and the Pacific Arts Association in 1983, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (Armanet, 1992: 57). Today, it has built up an intense network of free trade agreements (SUBREI, 2023) and participates in all transregional initiatives. For instance, the Chilean government has strongly promoted the signing of the Global and Progressive Treaty for the Trans-Pacific Association (TPP11 or CPTPP), symbolically and intentionally achieved in Santiago in 2018.3 In the region, institutions created by the People’s Republic of China, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), or with its dominant participation, such as the New Development Bank (NDB) of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), are crystallizing debates around the risk of bypassing the Bretton Woods institutions and are imposing a parallel international economic and financial system, which may ultimately also weaken the whole UN system while eschewing the necessary efforts of inclusiveness (Weiss & Abdenur, 2017). The UN, as an institutional actor, quickly grasped the importance of carrying certain aspirations of the South. Let us recall the creation of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964, as a forum for dialogue on development issues left aside by

3 The idea of a transpacific free trade agreement, initially promoted by the United States

before it withdrew from the initiative under the administration of Donald Trump, has its origins in the Transpacific Economic Cooperation Agreement (P4), signed in 2005 and entered into force a year later, between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. It is worth noting that Chile took more than three years to ratify the TPP11 following the protests and electoral processes of the last few years.

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the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) signed in 1947— following the failure to launch the International Trade Organization (precisely because of development). The enlargement of the UNSC and the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) in 1965, and establishment of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1972, are institutional adjustments that remind us that the inclusion of the South in international organizations is a long-term process. It is still ongoing, through phases of acceleration, as shown above in section 3. Greater inclusion of the South is also taking place within the specialized agencies and programs of the UN system (Valente et al., 2019; Chapter 12 in this book). The creation of UN Women in 2010 is particularly interesting (see also Chapter 11 on UN Women in this book). It serves to meet internal coordination needs, promote the gender agenda at the UN and better represent the South. Thus, the three executive directors all come from countries of the South: Chile for Michelle Bachelet (2010–2013), South Africa for Phumzile MlamboNgcuka (2013–2021) and Jordan for Sima Bahous since 2021. The trick lies in the combination of broadening representation and maintaining a liberal working agenda, heavily influenced by Western traditions (Charlesworth & Chinkin, 2013). While there have been deliberations on a potential bias of the International Criminal Court (ICC) toward Southern countries, with an opportunistic targeting of the Court on the part of leaders (leading to the Philippines and Burundi’s retreat, in the context of investigations targeting their leaders), African countries have statistically been the most committed to its jurisdiction (Dezalay, 2017). The effects of the growing presence of the South are not only organizational. The South, which was initially constructed by IOs and Northern countries as an “object” for multilateral initiatives and a recipient of international aid provided through multilateral agencies, has increasingly grown as autonomous actors that seek their presence to be recognized, as well as a fair share in multilateral agenda settings and negotiations. Contrary to the received idea that they are mere rule-takers, Southern countries also participate in the normative innovations that feed multilateralism. Several works in history and international relations have shown the various Latin American contributions to issues of collective bargaining since the nineteenth century, and then to human rights, democracy and development since the second half of the twentieth century (for literature reviews, see Albaret, 2022; Parthenay, 2023; for recent references,

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see Long & Schulz, 2022; Santa-Cruz, 2005; Thornton, 2021). Many normative and political innovations have also been fueled by the concerns of Southern or by Southern actors, for instance the focus on a human development index rather than strictly economist measures of development (promoted by Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen) or the UNDP’s coining of the notion of Human Security (promoted by Mahbub ul-Haq) (Acharya, 2001). On the institutional side, Asian multilateral practices also tend to be more focused on normative localization and agency, consensus-building practices, as well as the integration of non-state actors through track 1.5 and track 2 dialogues including on strategic concerns (Zimmerman, 2016). Attempts to reform the global institutional system and international legal frameworks sometimes fail but, in any case, they leave their mark. Singapore’s agency in international debates on the United National convention on the Law of the Sea, thanks to its ability to coordinate “smaller” and land-locked countries, as well as its weigh on the structuration of international trade through the WTO, has been documented (Alles, 2016; Østreng, 2018). More recently, Singapore also played the role of a facilitator for the adoption of an international convention on the high seas, thanks to the support it gained on the part of small island countries. The Latin American commitment at the time of the elaboration of the Law of the Sea—which partly led to the invention of the Exclusive Economic Zone—was also reflected in the negotiations on the High Seas (Parthenay, 2023). In 2012, Brazil attempted to carry a revision of the concept of the Responsibility to Protect into “responsibility while protecting” in favor of a better third pillar framework on intervention (Kenkel & Stefan, 2016; Tourinho et al., 2016). The proposal did not prosper. In 2016, the governments of Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico partnered unsuccessfully to propose during UNGA Special Session a discussion on the necessary evolution of the International Drug Control Regime and the war on drugs toward less repressive and more public health and development sensitive approaches (Serrano, 2021). The Colombian government of Gustavo Petro, elected in 2022, is trying to relaunch the debate on this subject and is sending one of the best academics in the region, Arlene B. Tickner, to head its permanent representation in New York.4 The resistance of the Northern powers, the lack of a precise 4 Arlene Tickner’s Profile on Google Scholar. Available at: https://scholar.google.com/ citations?user=rg06HSgAAAAJ&hl=en. Accessed 20 February 2023.

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reform plan and the fluctuating leaderships of the South have represented major obstacles to changing visions in these two last areas so far.

5

Conclusion

Through a non-linear path shifting5 effect, state representatives from the South have succeeded in making international institutions6 evolve toward greater practical and ideational inclusion. Nevertheless, much remains to be done before we can speak of the South as a balancing force of multilateralism on the formal level. As for the normative contributions, it would be to lock the South into a reductive straitjacket to expect its members to simply defend the UN system when the most powerful challenge it. The South of states is made up of inherent contradictions that have become its characteristics. Two are particularly striking. On the one hand, their diversity is fundamental and must always be understood in a fluctuating manner, varying according to contexts, issues and governments. The support of Southern countries for multilateralism is therefore not guaranteed. On the other hand, these actors need international organizations, even though they constitute an imperfect system. Furthermore, the alternatives do not succeed at reducing the existing asymmetries as much as they sharpen them. To date, only one country from the South (Indonesia) has ever withdrawn from the UNGA, and one (Saudi Arabia) has refused to participate in the UNSC. In Latin America, neither the crisis-ridden Venezuela of Nicolás Maduro (2015–2016) nor the skeptical governments of Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico (more traditional left-wing, period 2021–2022) and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil (more extreme right-wing, period 2022–2023) have renounced to their respective elected seats. Finally, the diversity of the South reminds that one of the main dilemmas of multilateralism is how to define its constitutive values 5 Path shifting means “introducing a novelty that is initially very limited, that will not be perceived at first as a challenge to the system in place, and then will act in an incremental way by developing this new variable little by little, so as to produce more profound changes” (Palier & Bonoli, 1999: 418). 6 We adopt a broad definition of institution in this chapter, following Barry Buzan’s proposal: “the common usage of ‘institution’, which can be understood either in quite specific terms, as ‘an organisation or establishment founded for a specific purpose’, or in more general ones, as ‘an established custom, law, or relationship in a society or community” (Buzan, 2004: 16–17).

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(Barnett, 2021; Helleiner, 2019; see also Chapter 5 in this book). Emerging states have increasingly supported reformist or differentialist agendas, in sharp contrast to the universalist logic carried by the Bandung principles. In this context, the extent to which multilateralism’s core—liberal—principles will survive a reform aimed at better implementing the—sovereign equality—norms on which it has been founded, is anything but straightforward.

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IMF [International Monetary Fund]. (2023b). IMF members’ quotas and voting power, and IMF board of governors. Available at: https://www.imf.org/en/ About/executive-board/members-quotas#total. Accessed 15 February 2023. Kenkel, K. M., & Stefan, C. G. (2016). Brazil and the responsibility while protecting initiative: Norms and the timing of diplomatic support. Global Governance, 22(1), 41–58. Klöck, C. (2020). Multiple coalition memberships: Helping or hindering small states in multilateral (climate) negotiations? International Negotiation, 25(2), 279–297. Le Monde. (2013, October 18). L’Arabie saoudite refuse d’entrer au Conseil de sécurité de l’ONU. Long, T., & Schulz, C.-A. (2022). Compensatory layering and the birth of the multipurpose multilateral IGO in the Americas. International Organization, first view. Makinda, S. M. (1996). Sovereignty and international security: Challenges for the United Nations. Global Governance, 2(2), 149–168. Menon, S. (2023). Out of alignment, what the war in Ukraine has revealed about non-western powers. Foreign Policy online, 9 February. Ojeda Medina, T. (2016). Relaciones internacionales y cooperación con enfoque Sur-Sur. Catarata. Østreng, W. (2018). Small states in the decision-making process of UNCLOS III. In: H. N. Scheiber, N. Oral & M.-S. Kwon (Eds.) Ocean law debates. The 50-year legacy and emerging issues for the years ahead (pp. 216–265). Brill. Palier, B., & Bonoli, G. (1999). Phénomènes de Path Dependence et réformes des systèmes de protection sociale. Revue française de science politique, 49(3), 399–420. Parthenay, K. (2023). La diplomatie océanique des États latino-américains et caribéens à l’épreuve de la négociation du Traité de la Haute Mer (BBNJ). Études internationales, to be published in May. Pitel, L., & Chazan, G. (2023, February 19). Western pleas over Ukraine fail to sway African and South American leaders. Financial Times. Pouliot, V. (2016). Hierarchy in practice: Multilateral diplomacy and the governance of international security. European Journal of International Security, 1(1), 5–26. Rodell, P., & Skidmore-Hess, C. (Eds.) (2022, August). Special report: The global south & Ukraine (Report). Association of Global South Studies. Santa-Cruz, A. (2005). Constitutional structures, sovereignty, and the emergence of norms: The case of international election monitoring. International Organization, 59, 663–693. Sauvy, A. (1952). Trois mondes, une planète. L’observateur, 118, 14.

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Serrano, M. (2021). A forward march halted. Latin America and the UNGASS 2016 process. In A. Idler & J. C. Garzón Vergara (Eds.) Transforming the war on drugs: Warriors, victims and vulnerable regions (pp. 113–130). Hurst & Oxford University Press. Sidani, S. (2014). Intégration et déviance au sein du système international. Presses de Sciences Po. SUBREI [Undersecretariat of International Economic Affairs, Chilean Ministry of External Relations]. (2023). Acuerdos económico-comerciales vigentes. Available at: https://www.subrei.gob.cl/acuerdos-comerciales/acuerdos-com erciales-vigentes. Accessed 6 February 2023. Taylor, I., & Smith, K. (2007). United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Routledge. Teo, S., & Sea, S. C. (2023, March 4). ASEAN and multilateralism in the IndoPacific: Past, present, and future. Observer Research Foundation. The Africa Report. (2023). UN secretary-general & heads of state call for permanent Security Council seat for Africa, 19 February. Thornton, C. (2021). Revolution in development. Mexico and the governance of the global economy. University of California Press. Tourinho, M., Stuenkel, O., & Brockmeier, S. (2016). Responsibility while protecting: Reforming R2P implementation. Global Society, 30(1), 134–150. Toye, J. (2014). Assessing the G77: 50 years after UNCTAD and 40 years after the NIEO. Third World Quarterly, 35(10), 1759–1774. Valente, M. S., Lopes, D. B., & Olivieira, J. P. (2019). Does the appointment of secretaries general to lead global bureaucracies correlate with international power sharing? A longitudinal assessment based on empirical evidence from 1945 to 2016. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 62(2), e013. Weiss, T. W., & Abdenur, A. (Eds.). (2017). Emerging powers and the UN. What kind of development partnership? Routledge. Weiss, T. G. (2016). What’s wrong with the United Nations and how to fix it. Polity Press. Woods, N., & Lombardi, D. (2006). Uneven patterns of governance: How developing countries are represented in the IMF. Review of International Political Economy, 13(3), 480–515. Zimmerman, E. (2016). Think tanks and non-traditional security: Governance entrepreneurs in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan.

PART III

New Dynamics

CHAPTER 10

Beyond the Failure of the WTO: Resilience of Trade Multilateralism Mehdi Abbas and Erick Duchesne

1

Introduction

If ever there was an international organization synonymous with the crisis of multilateralism, it is the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Since the failure of the Cancun Ministerial Conference (2003), the crisis of the WTO and the multilateral trading system has been an exemplary case study of multilateral economic cooperation failure. The finding of a WTO crisis stems from the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) deadlocks. Launched in 2001 and supposed to end in

M. Abbas (B) School of Political Science, Grenoble Alpes University, Grenoble, France e-mail: [email protected] Pacte-Social Science Laboratory, National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS), Paris, France E. Duchesne Political Science Department, Laval University, Quebec City, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_10

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2005, the DDA is still being negotiated, at least officially (see Table 1). However, it is evident that over the last two decades, the WTO has not remained inactive (see Table 2). The DDA negotiations have even been renewed and expanded according to member trade policies’ evolution, thus demonstrating the flexibility and adaptability of the institution to the global situation. Similarly, despite accusations that the WTO system is blocked and outdated, all members have stayed in the organization and the Doha negotiations. Furthermore, the WTO remains attractive (24 countries have acceded since 2001, and 24 are in progress). Indeed, the DDA process reveals the permanent “crisis” state in which the WTO and the multilateral trading system find themselves. Hence we advance the proposal of “constructive conflictuality” as a guiding feature of multilateral trade governance. A retrospective analysis of the WTO’s agenda shows that crisis is the operating logic of a member-driven and bargain-driven institution. Moreover, it is necessary to explain why this crisis may not manifest itself during a specific period and why it is the source of an institutional dynamic notwithstanding or because of the contradictions that structure the institution. Therefore, there is no such thing as a “crisis” of the WTO and trade multilateralism. More specifically, we argue that the “crisis”, i.e., the antagonism of interests and preferences between unequal actors in a less asymmetric international trading system, and the ongoing process of conflict and cooperation between member states on negotiating issues, rule-making and institutional frameworks governance that it gives rise to, is the usual way trade compromises are forged and constantly contested. By considering the “crisis” as the new normal for shaping multilateral trade governance, we will be led to challenge the expression of “WTO reform”. If the “crisis” is the WTO’s regular operating mode, the “reform” refers to any negotiated arrangement. Therefore, what is presented as the “WTO reform agenda” is about institutionalizing new compromises and operating procedures in a new international political economy context. To address this proposition, the chapter is organized as follows. First, the chapter challenges the “WTO crisis” narrative in light of systemic and political economy evolution since the DDA’s launch. Then, it advances the notion of conflictual or antagonistic multilateralism as the new normal in WTO negotiations. Finally, the last section provides an operational analysis of the constructive conflictuality produced by antagonistic multilateralism.

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Table 1 Doha Development Agenda from one ministerial conference to the next, 2001–2022 From Doha (November 2001) to Cancún (September 2003) 1. Launch of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA): 29 negotiating tracks organized into five themes: (1) Trade liberalization (services, agriculture and industrial products); (2) Regulation (dumping and anti-dumping procedures, Agreement on Intellectual Property and revision of rules on regional trade agreements) (3) “Singapore Issues” (trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, investment and competition) (4) Strengthening of special and differential treatment (5) Two working groups: relationship between trade, debt and finance, and relationship between trade and technology transfer 2. China’s accession to the WTO From Cancún to Hong Kong (December 2005): conflicts of interpretation (1) Lack of progress on the DDA’s main “development” themes (2) Failure to meet deadlines and failure to agree on negotiation terms (3) Emergence of the G20 (Cancún) in reaction to the United States-European Union duopoly on agriculture, consolidation of the G90 and formation of the NAMA-11 in the negotiation on industrial products (4) Adopting a “Development Package” in Hong Kong for LDCs, limited to market access issues (5) Two visions in opposition: mercantilist focused on access to markets, versus developmentalist, concentrate on a political space for development From Hong Kong to Geneva (December 2011): the stalemate of the DDA (1) Global financial crisis and suspension of the negotiations (2008) for lack of compromise on agriculture and industrial products (2) Geneva Conference (2009): a no negotiating ministerial dedicated to “review the functioning of the institution” (Pascal Lamy) (3) Adopting a waiver allowing preferential treatment for service suppliers from the 31 least developed countries (LDCs), freeing other members from the legal obligation to grant non-discriminatory treatment to all their trading partners (4) Relaunch of the work program on e-commerce and small vulnerable economies (SVEs) (5) Accession of Russia, Montenegro and Samoa From Geneva to Bali (December 2013) (1) Agreement on Trade Facilitation from the Doha Declaration (2001) (2) Decision on agricultural stocks for food security reasons (3) Preferential rules of origin for LDCs (4) Waiver of preferential treatment for LDCs services and service providers (5) Implementation of the monitoring mechanisms for special and differential treatment From Bali to Nairobi (December 2015)

(continued)

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Table 1

(continued)

(1) Dissent on the continuation of the DDA (2) Nairobi Package: six decisions concerning agriculture, cotton and the treatment of LDCs (3) Compromise on the elimination of agricultural export subsidies (4) Accession of Liberia and Afghanistan From Nairobi to Buenos Aires (December 2017) (1) Ministerial decision on fisheries subsidies (2) Work program on the liberalization of e-commerce (3) Work program on small economies (difficulty integrating value chains and reducing trade costs) From Buenos Aires to Geneva (June 2022) (1) Agreement on fisheries subsidies (2) Ministerial Declaration on food insecurity (3) Ministerial Declaration on the exemption from export prohibitions or restrictions for WFP food procurement (4) Ministerial Declaration on the WTO response to the Covid-19 pandemic and preparedness for future pandemics, including intellectual property (TRIPS)

Table 2

Doha Development Agenda stalemate and WTO achievements

Trade Agreements Concluded

Dispute Settlement Mechanism Trade Policy Reviews Building Trade Capacity

WTO Accession Multilateral Trade Governance

Source Authors’ composition

– Information Technology Agreement (1996). Expanded at Nairobi Ministerial Conference (2015) – A new Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) (2012) – Trade Facilitation Agreement (2014) – Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (2022) – 598 requests for consultation submitted by WTO members (1995–2020) – 431 reviews (1995–2022) – Technical Assistance and Training – Aid for Trade (2005) – Standard and Trade Development Facility (2006) – Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility (2014) – 24 accession process concluded – Transparency Mechanism for Regional Trade Agreements (2006). Transformed into a permanent mechanism at Nairobi Ministerial Conference (2015) – Special and Differential Treatment Monitoring Mechanism (2013)

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2 Crisis and Resilience of the Multilateral Trading System There is considerable literature on the WTO’s “crisis”, “stalemate” and “deadlocks” So, we agree, with Narlikar and van Houten (2010: 159), that “the extended period over which the Doha deadlock has stretched out means that it is unlikely that a mono-causal explanation will suffice”. However, it is possible to organize the argument of a WTO in crisis around two theses. The first one concerns the WTO’s negotiating function. It refers to the inability of member states to conclude the DDA or to deliver tangible and operational results in trade liberalization. More numerous, more diverse, technically and regulatory complex, and more sensitive issues regarding development, growth and productive specialization would explain the impossibility of reaching a global and fair compromise. The second thesis is about the governance of the WTO and its institutional limitations. It can be summarized through the WTO incompatible decision-making triangle that links three elements: the dominance of contracting parties (WTO as a member-driven organization), the consensus principle (veto power for every and single member) and the logic of the single undertaking (nothing is agreed until everything is agreed) (Elsig & Cottier, 2011: 291). It is “impossible” to reach an agreement among 164 member states based on consensus and a negotiating agenda in which nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. The idea of a “WTO in crisis” is based on an a-historic and functional vision of multilateral trade governance. An a-historic vision because there have been numerous conflicts and deadlocks since the beginning of the multilateral trade system. Do we need to recall the failure to create an International Trade Organization (ITO), the third pillar of the Bretton Woods global economic governance system? As early as 1952, an impasse had been reached in the GATT and it was at the cost of the withdrawal of agriculture, textiles-clothing, and the 1955 reform that the institution fulfilled its single function, at the time, of reducing tariffs (Irwin, 1995; Stilles, 1995). It took four years (1982–1986) to reach a consensus to launch the Uruguay Round which was supposed to end in 1990 not 1994. A functional vision is at the heart of the “inwardlooking approaches” which focus on formal decision-making, technical management issues and governance mechanisms (Hoekman 2012; Elsig & Cottier, 2011; Pauwelyn, 2008). These functional visions consider

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the WTO regime as an institutional setting dedicated to reduce international transaction costs, to open markets according to efficiency criteria (usually relative prices) and to control the opportunistic behavior of state members. Based on the famous quote from the Appellate Body report in the US versus Venezuela dispute that “it is not possible to interpret WTO law in clinical isolation from international law”,1 we believe that it is impossible to interpret the “crisis” of the WTO regime in “clinical isolation” from the evolving relations of international political economy, i.e., from the change in the nature of globalization which has accompanied the several developments of the DDA. The DDA was launched in a specific context.2 The negotiation trajectory suffered from the outset from a birth default: its parameterization. Indeed, the member states agreed that the first year of negotiation would be devoted to development issues, the second to agricultural liberalization, then industrial, then in services, and the third year to the remaining issues. But the inability to complete the development issues seized up the whole negotiation. This parameterization partly explains the failure of the Cancun Ministerial Conference (2005). Since then, the member states have opted for a contracting agenda (Winham, 2007), but, in doing so, they reduced the space for compromise and the possibility of mutual gains. The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 subsequently reprioritized the global economic governance agenda at the expense of multilateral trade negotiations and the DDA. However, structural factors matter, as their causes and effects are longlasting and likely to increase in the years to come. These are at the heart of the political economy of the multilateral trading system. First of all, the secular stagnation, i.e., a persistent and structural output gap and/or slow rate of economic growth, into which the world economy has entered.3 It 1 Appellate Body Report on United States—Standards for Reformulated and Conventional Gasoline, adopted 20 May 1996 (WT/DS 2). 2 The fourth WTO Ministerial Conference (9–14 November 2001) took place in the shadow of the September 11, 2001, attacks and the international community put on a show of consensus by highlighting the renewal and improvement of North–South relations as its key goals. The DDA was also a response to the WTO legitimacy crisis following the failure of Seattle Ministerial conference and the unborn “Millenium Round” (November– December 1999). 3 Among the potential explanations for secular stagnation there are: a rise in saving rates due to the resurgence of emerging markets, a decline in investment opportunities, a

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implies that the phase of expansion and opening new markets with high growth potential is over for good. However, a context of stagnant markets complicates liberalization, exacerbates competitive rivalries and does not encourage cooperative market access solutions. Secondly, the slowdown of global value chains, already at work since 2012, could become more pronounced as the health crisis and the war in Ukraine have led to a break in supply chains that is damaging to firms and has revealed the vulnerabilities of national economies to this model of international production organization by multinational firms (MNCs). The most profitable location trade-offs have already been largely achieved, the fall in transport costs and transaction costs linked to the connection of different production plants is itself subject to diminishing returns, the rate of using new technologies of information is slowing down, and the export promotion policies that have accompanied industrial and service sector relocations since the beginning of the 2000s are no longer in vogue (Ferrantino & Taglioni, 2014). The global trading and investment system witnessed a re-nearshoring and a re-bundling of the defining elements of modern GVCs. Thus, the fragmentation of tasks (unbundling) and geographic dispersion (offshoring) could be challenged (UNCTAD, 2020). Add to this the economic damages of the war in Ukraine. It can deepen the fragmentation of the international trade and investment system in relation to security concerns that could lead to a rise in protectionist measures. In addition, the lockdowns in China to prevent the spread of Covid-19 are also disrupting the supply chain, which could lead to renewed shortages of manufacturing inputs and higher inflation4 (WTO, 2022). Thirdly, the rebalancing of wealth and power relations under the dual effect of the rise of new economic trading powers and a new efficiencysecurity trade-off by governments and firms. At the time of its creation (1995), the WTO was shaped by an international political economy structured by and around historical capitalism. Power configuration was explicit: the Quadrilateral (Quad)—US, UE, Japan and Canada—formed the “decision-making powerhouse” (Baracuhy, 2015) of the multilateral trading system (MTS). Four decades of globalization, i.e., changes in the

decline in the relative prices of investment goods, and a decline in the rate of population growth. Each factor is a primary fundamental driver of international trade and investment. 4 See WTO. (2022). https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres22_e/pr902_e.htm.

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distribution of production, income and wealth, reshaped the international political economy, and trade was, and still is, one of the leading forces contributing to shifts in the distribution of economic and political power among nations. The WTO, World Trade Report 2013, rightly points out that “especially China, but also India and Brazil have transformed the balance of power in the multilateral trading system” (2013: 207–208). We posit that the main structural and institutional change in the international trade and investment system is the emergence of developing countries as significant players in the world trade system and the heterogeneity of preferences and interests among them (see also Chapters 7 and 9 in this book).

3

Toward a Conflictual or Antagonistic Multilateral Trading Cooperation

The accession of new economic competitors to the status of powerful countries profoundly modifies the governance of international exchanges (Elsig et al., 2019; Hopewell, 2015; Hosli & Selleslaghs, 2020). Power is once again becoming the structuring parameter of international political economy relations (Drezner, 2007; Shaffer & Pollack 2010). This leads to a more conflictual multilateralism in which issues of “strategic autonomy” and “national security” or “collective security” in the case of the EU, once again become the priority. The global economy is caught between a “Thucydides trap” and a “Kindleberger trap” leading to an uncertain future (Duchesne & Gaudreault, 2022).5 The combination of the global pandemic crisis, China rising power and the Russia-Ukraine war leads to a move from efficiency-driven to security-driven international trade and investment system. In such a context, trade and investment governance is shaped by conflicting preferences, values and interests among actors of unequal power. Focusing on power dynamics in the global political economy leads one to consider, on the one hand, that distributional issues prevail over efficiency issues in shaping trade and investment rules and, on the other hand, that cooperative behavior is conditioned by relative gains (Grieco, 1990; Powell, 1994). 5 Per Thucydides’ trap, intensifying Sino-American tensions could lead to a direct clash of the superpowers. Per Kindleberger’s trap, the international system could end up adrift, as it did in the 1930s when the US did not fill the gap left by the hegemonic decline of Great Britain.

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Periods of reconfiguration of the hierarchy of economies are characterized by increased productive and distributive conflicts because neither the ascending nor the contested powers are willing to validate asymmetrical compromises with unequal gains. The ascending powers consider that they do not have to bear the costs of running institutions that do not serve their interests, and their rise in power confirms the benefits they derive from the status quo. Contested powers believe that their relative decline is the product of institutional arrangements that are fundamentally unfavorable to them and of the abuse of ascendant powers. They no longer wish to bear the cost of governance and, refusing the status quo, engage the system in a conflictual dynamic (Allison, 2017; Hurrell, 2018). How does this perspective shed light on the governance challenges of the international trade and investment system? First, the new balances of power have gradually eroded the grammar of the multilateral trading system based on non-discrimination (equal treatment), reciprocity and leadership. The new emerging powers need to follow the logic of equal treatment. On the contrary, they claim a more favorable special treatment, to which they believe they are entitled, and they break with the principle of « national treatment» by favoring, through a whole series of distortions, their national firms. Reciprocity, too, is being undermined: usually, based on the exchange of tariff concessions, it is now the normative and regulatory barriers that prevail, whether in the areas of investment, competition, public procurement or health standards. As a result, the historical supporters of the reciprocal and orderly opening of markets no longer see any point in it (failure of leadership), especially as they believe that the emerging countries—China in particular—have significantly benefited from the system. The established power (USA) is now less willing to compromise with the rising power (China) (see Chapter 6 in this book). In the wake of the 1997 Asian crisis, the Washington Consensus produced the “Great Moderation” (1997–2007). Among the most notable elements of this Great Moderation was the integration of emerging economies into global production and trade networks and China’s accession to the WTO in 2001. This accession occurred a year after the US established “normal and permanent” trade relations with China (May 2000). Twenty years later, China is no longer a mere “normal and permanent” trade partner but has become a “strategic” or “systemic” rival. The technological, economic and normative challenges this change poses have led the USA to engage

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in a diplomatic-economic struggle, one of whose forums is the WTO. Thus, the WTO’s stalemate is, above all, a reflection of the United States’ strategic choices. Expressed at the Nairobi Ministerial Conference (2013) and refined since then, the US position aims to get the other member states to undertake a reform of the WTO regime in line with their interests and, more generally, to initiate a renovation of international trade arrangements, as was done with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), now replaced by the US–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). This strategy recalls the sequence that led to the launch of the Uruguay Round and the creation of the WTO: attacks on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and multilateralism, a return to bilateralism, the fight against the trade deficit (with Japan at the time), an unprecedented commitment to regionalism (the launch of NAFTA) and, under the impetus of the “Reciprotarians”—of which Robert Lighthizer, the US Trade Representative between 2017 and 2021, was one of the spearheads—the assertion of aggressive reciprocity. The US strategy aims to make the status quo ante impossible, hence the neutralization of the dispute settlement procedure and the use of a unilateral logic of power relations. Second, the new multipolar international political economy of trade and investment is characterized by the complexity of making operational compromises. The Doha Round has, from its inception, suffered from the comparison with its predecessor, the Uruguay Round. It was seen as an “Uruguay Round-bis”. However, there cannot be two successive Copernican revolutions in the ITIS.6 This led to dissatisfaction with the poor results. However, the wealth and power relations that led to the ratification of the Uruguay Round no longer exist. On the contrary, for the first time, since the Havana Conference (1947), the system is genuinely multilateral rather than hegemonic or under the control of the Quadrilateral, the formal developed countries group in the GATT that imposed their agenda on the rest of the member states. The stalling of the Doha agenda is, foremost, a manifestation of the concrete learning process of multilateralism: it indicates that new “grand bargains” are probably unreachable. 6 We use the term Copernican revolution in order to emphasize the changes in sectors, modalities and purpose of the multilateral trade regime that emerged from the Uruguay Round negotiations.

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4 Conflictual Multilateralism Dynamic and WTO Regime Resiliency The slowdown of multilateral trade negotiations is inherent to the WTO regime. Indeed, the substantial transformation of multilateral trade governance under the WTO regime makes the negotiation process considerably more complex. This assessment stems from three sets of interrelated factors. First, WTO agreements do not only cover border protections. They also increasingly involve beyond-border regulatory measures and address the “third generation of trade barriers” (Cottier, 2006).7 Multilateralism has thus been transformed from negotiations on tariff concessions to negotiations on domestic policy and internal regulatory issues (competition policies, investment restrictions, government purchasing, industrial standards, etc.). This constitutes a significant shift in the functional focus of the GATT-WTO regime. This, in turn, has been reinforced by rising concerns about the “Trade and… agenda”, which could be addressed to the institution: trade and intellectual property, trade and investment, trade and competition, trade and environment, trade and technical standards, and in the future trade and climate change, trade and decent work, trade, and global health. Second, WTO agreements contain provisions designed to enhance the international contestability of markets (Baldwin et al., 1992; Barton et al., 2006; Graham & Lawrence, 1996). Market contestability will consequently be concerned with non-trade policies and divergent regulatory regimes (e.g., environmental and competition policies, standards for the protection of intellectual property) as well as qualitative barriers to trade (Krugman, 1997; Subedi, 2006). The multilateral trading system has moved toward a rationale of incentives aiming to liberalize and establish common market standards designed to level the playing field in favor of transnational corporations and global financial actors. Third, the WTO agenda includes a new set of rules with recommendations for compliance and procedural and substantive standards.8 7 The first and second generations related to tariffs and to non-tariff barriers. The third generation relates to national and sovereign control systems. The most common non-tariff trade barriers are: technical measures, administrative rules and procedures, standard and expertise procedures, quantitative and regulations restrictions on imports, internal taxes, restrictions on competition and freedom of circulation, and labeling requirements. 8 See sections 2.2 and 2.4 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, 3.3 and 5 of the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Articles VIII and X of GATT

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States have forged a new regulatory regime that aims to achieve “greater harmonization and mutual recognition of members’ regulatory system” (Footer, 2006). The Uruguay Round Agreement (URA) legacy is built on the central hypothesis that nation-state capacity, autonomy, authority and normative power have to be constrained by the structural power of markets. This does not fit with states’ return as market regulation actors. The primacy of the global market (competition, international contestability of markets and non-discrimination principles) denies any pluralistic institutional configuration among nation-states. The Doha Development Agenda’s (DDA) deadlock results from the inadequacy between these institutional forms and the “new normal” of the international trade and investment system. Nonetheless, the “crisis” as a mode of governance of a more heterogeneous and less asymmetrical multilateral trading system does not avoid the possibility of achieving compromises (see Table 2). It does not hinder the institutionalization of new cooperation methods between state members (plurilateral, Joint Initiative Statements, like-minded agreements), with other international organizations (WIPO, WHO, ISO) and with private entities. This is what we call constructive conflictuality. Three examples illustrate this proposition: the evolution of the non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiation, the issue of differentiation between developing countries and the Appellate Body crisis of WTO’s Dispute settlement system. By launching negotiations that aimed “to reduce or eliminate tariff peaks, high tariffs and tariff escalation”, the Doha mandate showed a high level of ambition, mainly as paragraph 16 contains no specific restrictions on the scope and range of its application to developing countries and less developed countries apart from the provision that “the negotiations shall take fully into account the special needs and interests of developing and least developed country participants, including less than full reciprocity in reduction commitments”.9 The interpretation of paragraph 16 was problematic from the start because the industrialized countries’

1994. Furthermore, the WTO regulates the use of exemptions for non-commercial reasons (Articles XX and XXI of GATT and XIV of GATS). 9 NAMA refers to all products not covered by the Agreement on Agriculture. In practice, it includes manufacturing products, fuels and mining products, fish and fish products, and forestry products. They are sometimes referred to as industrial products or manufactured goods. Paragraphs 16 and 31 (on the liberalization in environmental goods)

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level of consolidated rights (3.6%) meant that they saw it as a mandate for the ambitious liberalization of the developing countries. The latter, however, insist on less than full reciprocity (LTFR)10 that their development requirements be considered and on the renewal of special and differential treatment. The developed countries insisted on an ambitious formula stressing the need for negotiations to produce veritable new trade flows in return for their agricultural liberalization. So, they interpreted the mandate’s aim to achieve tariff harmonization among all the WTO members. This means that historical capitalisms are much more concerned about access to emerging markets than they were in former rounds and when the goals for the development round were first set. This preference led to the creation of the Friends of Ambition.11 The position of the developing countries focused on the link between their commitment to liberalization, the nature of their trade requirements and their levels of development. These conflicting interpretations led to the creation of NAMA-11 in reaction to the European proposal (October 2005) concerning the liberalization formula and its effects on the trade policies of developing countries.12 As NAMA-11 had not contributed to defining negotiation parameters, its creation could be analyzed as a “cognitive and institutional adaptation” (Hurrell & Narlikar, 2006) to changes in the content of the negotiations. After over a decade of negotiations (2002–2015), and since then, two conflicting approaches are facing each other. Firstly, the Friends of Ambition considered that liberalization needed truly open up substantial markets providing new trade flows with only LDCs and small, vulnerable economies exonerated from committing. Secondly, the NAMA11 members considered that the different propositions needed to be

together define the NAMA negotiation mandate. See http://www.wto.org/french/the wto_f/minist_f/min01_f/mindecl_f.htm. Accessed 25 November 2013. 10 It means that developing countries should be allowed to choose and undertake the scope of tariff binding and rates of tariff reduction appropriate to their development needs and industrial strategies. 11 The Friends of Ambition were the European Union, Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United States. 12 The following States are the members of NAMA-11: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Namibia, Philippines, Tunisia, Venezuela and South Africa, which is the coalition’s coordinator.

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improved in the development content. However, they had no intention of endangering their economic catching-up process by committing to institutional restrictions and called for special and differential treatment by insisting on their status as developing countries (Vickers, 2009). The emerging countries act through the “procedural” norms, not the “substantive” ones. For this reason, South Africa, Brazil and India’s institutional offers make them soft revisionists or “soft reformists” (Brütsch & Papa, 2013). Their acquired mastery of “insider activism” (Kahler, 2013; Soares de Lima & Hirst, 2006) enables them to propose an institutional setup centered on technical parameters, flexibilities and modalities. As such, they no longer use a defection approach (combining cooperation/ non-cooperation) and now participate fully in negotiations by instrumentalizing the WTO’s soft rather than hard law (Drezner, 2007; Shaffer & Pollack, 2010). This leads to change within the NAMA negotiating process and not to a negotiation deadlock. The second example of constructive conflictuality does not concern a negotiation topic but a governance arrangement. Self-qualification as a developing country has been a pillar of the multilateral trading system since its inception in 1948. Since 2016, we have witnessed a proliferation of proposals for reforming the practice of self-qualification coming from established powers, emerging powers and non-emerging countries. However, a structural differentiation among developing countries has occurred due to national development strategies and globalization dynamics. It led the established powers, the United States in particular, to raise the question of institutional differentiation, and, along with Canada and the EU, to turn self-qualification into a multilateral trade governance issue. These countries argue that the lack of differentiation between developing countries explains the stalled Doha Development Agenda, the limited trade advantages enjoyed by some developing countries, and WTO negotiations dysfunctioning. Through the confrontation of preferences, a consensus is gradually being built for a new institutional design of developed/developing country relations and a new balance of rights and obligations, i.e., a new special and differentiated treatment. Three proposals shape the self-qualification constructive conflictual debate. Firstly, graduation is the minimum evolution since it would revive the approach of the enabling clause. Based on criteria recognized by all members, some developing countries would no longer be eligible for special and differential treatment. The status of developing countries would remain but be considerably reduced since emerging countries

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or developing countries belonging to the World Bank’s Upper Middle Income would lose access to differentiated rights. This scenario is already underway as Brazil endorses this approach by announcing in March 2019 that it would give up special and differential treatment but not negotiated flexibilities. The same is true of South Korea, which, since February 2020, has no longer identified itself as a developing country and has renounced invoking special and differential treatment in the negotiations. Secondly, categorization would aim to institutionalize a developing country taxonomies according to specific generic, geographical or sectoral criteria. For example, categorization already exists at the WTO since certain agreements (TRIPS, the Agreement on Agriculture, the Agreement on Subsidies and the Trade Policy Review Mechanism) subdivide developing members into sub-groups. The proliferation of thematic (G20, G33, etc.), sectoral (Tropical Products Group, NAMA-11, etc.) or geographical (ACP, Asian Developing Members, Landlocked Developing Countries, etc.) coalitions shows that categorization could become institutionalized. Instead, it would multiply the sub-groups of developing countries competing with each other in terms of special and differential treatment. Finally, individuation would consist of adopting special and differential treatment on a case-by-case, product-by-product or sector-by-sector basis. Each developing country must demonstrate that the requested flexibilities serve its development strategy. The individuation of special and differential treatment would lead to the fragmentation of the multilateral trade regime because the treatment of a developing country would depend, on an ad hoc or unilateral basis, on the interests of developed countries (Pauwelyn, 2013; Schöfer & Weinhardt, 2022). On the other hand, it would respond to structural differentiation and institutional heterogeneity between developing countries. Furthermore, it appears to be in line with plurilateral and Joint Statement Initiatives, i.e., negotiations between countries with converging interests regarding the modalities and aims of the negotiations, which have multiplied in recent years at the WTO. The third example is related to the multilateral trading system “jewel of the crown”; the dispute settlement system. Since 2017, the United States

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initiated the “Appelate Body crisis” by blocking the selection of a replacement for retiring Appellate Body members.13 As a result, Appelate Body no longer has any active members and, therefore, cannot function. But, in April 2020, a group of 19 WTO members (24 nowadays) promoted an initiative to establish a “Multi-Party Interim Appeal” arrangement (MPIA) as an alternative to Appelate Body proceedings pending a resolution of the impasse.14 The first-ever MPIA arbitration case concerns Colombian anti-dumping duties on European frozen French fries. The three arbitrators appointed under the new MPIA delivered their ruling on December 21, 2022. Add to this, Türkiye, not an MPIA party, and the EU entered the agreements on appeals using a process very similar to the MPIA. Thus, the conflicting strategy pursued by the US has generated institutional and regulatory creativity in such a way that an appellate review mechanism that is more ad hoc and less institutional might be of interest to the United States. If, in practice, the MPIA addresses some of the US concerns, is it possible the United States would itself join? Thus, the crisis of the Appelate Body is primarily an expression of the contestation of economic interdependences legalization inherent to the liberal institutionalism paradigm. Far from being a “crisis”, it reflects the return of states and diplomatic compromises, rather than the rule of law, in international trade regulation. These three examples show that within a member-driven organization, institutional dynamics (deadlocks, bypasses, compromises) are systematically the result of member states preferences and strategies. In a system that is now less asymmetrical, some members have gained a capacity to react proactively to conflictual strategies carried by others. The fact that members show their attachment to the system which does not exclude

13 The objections included the following: that there were overbroad Appelate Body

rulings on the scope of the nondiscrimination obligation; that there was lack of deference to investigating authorities in trade remedy cases, including in relation to the practice of zeroing and the proper interpretation of the term “public body”; that there was an expansive approach to appeals of factual issues, including appeals under DSU Article 11; that the Appellate Body was offering advisory opinions on matters that did not need to be addressed to resolve the dispute at hand; that the Appelate Body treated its past rulings as binding precedent; and that the Appellate Body was taking longer than the mandated 90 days to issue its reports without first receiving permission from the parties to the dispute. 14 These members have put forward a temporary appeals mechanism Pursuant to Article 25 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding, to keep the system functioning until a permanent solution can be found.

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their ability to challenge some of its rules is a component of the constructive conflictuality. Thus, the regime is learning, evolving and adapting to changes in the context, preferences and interests of its members. By interrogating WTO’s crisis thesis and preferring WTO’s resilience through constructive conflictuality, we question WTO’s reform agenda. WTO’s reform does not have to be declared or implemented. WTO’s reform is practically in progress through all the evolutions provoked by the Covid-19 crisis, by the institutionalization of new collaborations between member states (Joint Statement Initiatives on services, investment facilitation, micro, small and medium enterprises), between international organizations (WIPO, WHO, WTO-UNEP Task Force) and through the reflection on new negotiation principles (critical mass versus consensus; flexibilities; graduated reciprocity); in addition to thematic and sectoral developments in the regular WTO committees. The constellation of these proposals, initiatives and developments constitute the “reform” of the WTO. Just as in trade negotiations, it is shaped through a process of conflictual cooperation because it is not just about the efficiency and transparency of the WTO, but is also fundamentally about the distribution of power within the system and the very design of the future trade and production order.

5

Conclusion

The contribution developed a critical reflection on the “crisis of the WTO and trade multilateralism”. Instead, we preferred the idea of the resilience of the multilateral trading system. This has led us to analyze the unfolding of the DDA as a manifestation of the WTO regime’s dual capacity to evolve and adapt to the new balances of wealth and power, to the systemic challenges and the crises that affect the global economy. In a world of great power rivalries where the search for national security and the promotion of “strategic” interests are at the forefront, the conflictual dimension of globalization is evident. Therefore, multilateralism is becoming conflictual, but this conflictuality is constructive. The system being institutionally more heterogeneous and less asymmetrical in terms of capacities, achieving trade-offs becomes more conflictual and, consequently, more complex. We have illustrated the proposal of constructive conflictuality with multiple examples: NAMA’s negotiations, DCs’ differentiation, WTO achievements despite Doha deadlocks, Appelate Body crisis….This “constructive conflictuality process” could

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also be used to analyze the nexus between multilateralism and regionalism or between trade and climate. As an evolving and adaptative regime, the WTO is engaged in a “learning by doing” process. How can trade agreements be worked out between rival powers with antagonistic interests? Is it possible to ensure the supply of global public goods—environmental, climate, public health—in a global economy shaped by power conflicts? What new principles will need to be developed to ensure that the multilateral trading system responds to social, climate and development challenges? These are among the critical questions that WTO members need to answer sooner or later!

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Footer, M. (2006). An institutional and normative analysis of the World Trade Organization. Martinus Nijhoff. Graham, E., & Lawrence, R. (1996). Measuring the international contestability of markets. Journal of World Trade, 30(5), 5–20. Grieco, J. M. (1990). Cooperation among nations: Europe, America, and nontariff barriers to trade. Cornell University Press. Hoekman, B. M. (2012). The WTO and trade in services. Edward Elgar. Hopewell, K. (2015). Different paths to power: The rise of Brazil, India and China at the World Trade Organization. Review of International Political Economy, 22(2), 311–338. Hosli, M., & Selleslaghs, J. (2020). The changing global order, United Nations University Series on Regionalism (17th ed.). Springer. Hurrell, A. (2018). Beyond BRICS: Power, pluralism and the future of global order. Ethics & International Affairs, 32(1), 89–101. Hurrell, A., & Narlikar, A. (2006). A new politics of confrontation? Brazil and India in multilateral trade negotiations. Global Society, 20(4), 415–433. Irwin, D. A. (1995). The GATT’s contribution to economic recovery in postwar Western Europe. In B. Eichengreen (Ed.), Europe’s post-war recovery (pp. 127–150). Cambridge University Press. Kahler, M. (2013). Rising powers and global governance: Negotiating change in a resilient status quo. International Affairs, 89(3), 711–729. Krugman, P. R. (1997). Why should trade negotiators negotiate about? Journal of Economic Literature, 35(1), 113–120. Narlikar, A., & Van Houten, P. (2010). Know the enemy: Uncertainty and deadlock in the WTO. In A. Narlikar (Ed.), Deadlocks in multilateral negotiations. Causes and solutions (pp. 142–164). Cambridge University Press. Pauwelyn, J. (2008). New trade politics for the 21st century. Journal of International Economic Law, 11(3), 559–573. Pauwelyn, J. (2013). The end of differential treatment for developing countries? Lessons from the trade and climate change regimes. Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law, 22(1), 29–41. Powell, R. (1994). Anarchy in international relations theory: The neorealistneoliberal debate. International Organization, 48(2), 313–344. Schöfer, T., & Weinhardt, C. (2022). Developing-country status at the WTO: The divergent strategies of Brazil, India and China. International Affairs, 98(6), 1937–1957. Shaffer, G. M., & Pollack, M. (2010). Hard law vs soft law: Alternatives, complements, and antagonists in international governance. Minnesota Law Review, 94(3), 706–799. Soares de Lima, M., & Hirst, R. (2006). Brazil as an intermediate state and regional power: Action, choice and responsibilities. International Affairs, 82(1), 21–40.

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Stilles, K. W. (1995). The ambivalent hegemon: Explaining the ‘lost decade’ in multilateral trade talks, 1948–1958. Review of International Political Economy, 2(1), 1–26. Subedi, S. P. (2006). The notion of free trade and the first ten years of the World Trade Organization: How level is the ‘level playing field’? Netherlands International Law Review, 53(2), 273–296. UNCTAD. (2020). Trade and development report 2020. UNCTAD, United Nations, Geneva. Vickers, B. (2009). Reclaiming development in multilateral trade. In A. Narlikar & B. Vickers (Eds.), Leadership and change in multilateral trading system (pp. 149–180). Martinus Nijhoff. Winham, G. R. (2007). The Doha round and its impact on the WTO. In R. Wilkinson & D. Lee (Eds.), The WTO after Hong Kong. Progress and prospects for the Doha Development Agenda (pp. 245–263). Routledge.

CHAPTER 11

Can UN Reform Be Successful? The Case of UN Women Marie Saiget and Simon Tordjman

1

Introduction

On 2 July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) as a new entity tasked with both a normative and operational mission. As stated in its founding resolution (64/289), the organization is aimed to support intergovernmental and governmental bodies in the development and implementation of global standards, to initiate partnerships with local “civil societies” and to hold the United Nations (UN) system accountable for its own commitments to gender

M. Saiget (B) · S. Tordjman GRAM/CERAPS, Université de Lille, Lille, France e-mail: [email protected] S. Tordjman e-mail: [email protected] S. Tordjman Sciences Po Toulouse, Toulouse, France © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_11

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equality. Yet, the strength of the mobilizations that UN Women continues to crystallize more than 10 years after its creation testifies to the still shifting and contested collective purpose of the organization. At the heart of these mobilizations, its very nature is at stake and oscillates between an activist organization, close to “civil societies”, and a diplomacy-oriented UN bureaucratic institution: is the new organization’s main objective to support women’s organizations and movements, or to produce expertise and strengthen international and national institutions in advancing gender equality? In this respect, the prerogatives described in the founding resolution remain partial and allusive. Rather than an imperative framework, its mandate provides with a set of opportunities, resources and constraints that can be seized by the various actors who deal with it and project onto it conceptions of what the organization is supposed to do. As one of the last major institutions to be created within the UN system, but also because its orientations continue to fuel tensions and controversies, UN Women is an exemplary case for analyzing change within international organizations such as the UN. A rich and dense literature has focused on the analysis of reform processes within multilateral institutions. Several works have attempted to identify the (f)actors that can initiate or hinder the transformation of these institutions. Some of them insist on the distinction between external dynamics that encourage institutions to adopt new ways of doing things and internal initiatives carried out by bureaucratic actors (Biermann & Siebenhüner, 2013; Trent, 2013). Thus formulated, this distinction appears, however, excessively schematic: several analyses of the transnational circulation of reformist models reveal the porosity of the organizational, sectoral or national affiliations of the individual or collective actors who participate in these transformations (Dezalay & Garth, 2002; Jong et al., 2002; Nay, 2011; Tordjman & Devin, 2015). Other research highlights the diversity of rhythms (incrementalism vs. ruptures) and temporalities (continuous or limited) that characterize the transformation processes (Hanrieder, 2015). A third field of investigation concerns the framing of reforms. It sheds light on the—sometimes joint—processes of politicization and technicization that run with these reforms (Louis & Maertens, 2021; Steffek, 2021), including through the dynamics of widening and channeling participation (Guilbaud, 2023). Despite the emblematic nature of UN Women, relatively few academic works have taken up this case. Most of the available studies have focused on the moment and the modalities of the creation of the entity

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(Charlesworth & Chinkin, 2013). Often inspired by activism and/or stemming from grey literature produced by the actors concerned, they highlight the ambitions that the institution catalyzed (Menon, 2015; Sandler et al., 2012). Others, particularly from the legal field, emphasize the doubly innovative nature of its mandate and the way it was established—by merging pre-existing entities (Canton, 2021). In French, a valuable synthesis is provided by Ombeline Lesselier’s socio-historical analysis of the genesis of the organization in 2013 (Lesselier, 2015). Yet, a decade after the institution was established, little work has addressed the organizational change and the transformations (still) at work. In contrast to a strictly legal analysis of the institution, the purpose of this chapter is to grasp the evolution of the collective meaning attributed to this entity since its establishment.1 To what needs did the creation of UN Women respond? Beyond its official establishment by the UNGA, what have been the main driver(s) of change in the organization? What reflections can be drawn for the analysis of multilateralism and its transformations? The aim of the chapter is then to explore the dynamics of transformation, resistance and (re)appropriation that mark the organization, from headquarters to the field, and affect its concrete practices and actions. Hereby, the chapter provides new insights on how the institutional and political trajectory of an international organization like UN Women is kneaded by the three poles of a “functionality triangle” (Devin, 2016: 83), namely its representativeness, legitimacy and effectiveness. In its quest for legitimacy and centrality both within and outside the UN system, UN Women has been faced with the challenge of reconciling demands for both professionalism and activism. From a double—meso and micro—perspective, we argue that the articulation between the headquarter (New York) and “the field” constitutes a point of tension as much as a modality of conciliation between the different dimensions of the institution: top-down and bottom-up, the normative and the operational, the professional and the contentious. This research is based on an analysis of original empirical material composed of participant observation carried out at the organization’s

1 We thus apprehend the analysis of the institutions in a sociological way, as a “system of rules, standards, values, routines, instituted practices, roles, stable and durable beliefs, shared by a social group” (Nay, 2017: 303).

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headquarters between 2010 and 2014, a study of grey literature (documents and internal communications of the organization, public statements by activist groups and UN “feminist bureaucrats”) and interviews conducted with staff at headquarters and in regional and country offices between 2012 and 2014 (Bujumbura, Burundi) and then between 2021 and 2022 (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Dakar, Senegal). First, this chapter shows that the creation of UN Women—through the merger of four pre-existing entities—raised high expectations among the agency’s officials, their UN counterparts and local partners. But, since then, not all of them have invested in it in the same way, nor do they have the same representations of the mission and collective purpose of the agency. In its quest for centrality and legitimacy, the organization catalyzes tensions of two kinds, structuring the extent of possibilities: on the one hand, institutional struggles between different UN agencies, as examined in section 3 “The Creation of UN Women: An Ambiguous Response to a Fragmented Institutional Architecture”; and on the other hand, strategic struggles over what UN Women should do, as analyzed in the last section of this chapter.

2 The Creation of UN Women: An Ambiguous Response to a Fragmented Institutional Architecture The institutional integration of women’s issues within the UN has been incremental. Until the 1970s and 1980s, the UN had only two organizations specifically devoted to this issue, both created in 1946: the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), an intergovernmental organization established within the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and (what was to become) the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), established within the Secretariat. In the wake of the first World Conference on the Status on Women (1975), the proclamation by the General Assembly of 1975 as “International Women’s Year” (General Assembly, 1975a: para 1) and then of the decade 1976–1985 as the “United Nations Decade for Women”, a first Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women (VFDW) was established in 1976, under the management of the Controller of the United Nations and in close cooperation with UNDP (General Assembly, 1976: para. 2). Under the impetus of its first director, Margaret Snyder,

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the fund quickly became independent of the Secretariat and, in 1980, concluded a first partnership with UNDP for the implementation of operational projects in “the field” (Memorandum of understanding, 1980). This dynamic continued until its transformation, in 1984, into a “United Nations Development Fund for Women” (UNIFEM), which was de facto placed under the administration of UNDP even though it was formally linked to the latter under the regime of an “autonomous association” (General Assembly, 1984). Like UNIFEM, the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) results from the 1975 Conference, which emphasized the inadequacy of research, data and information available on the integration of women into development programs (Report of the World Conference, 1975, Resolution 26). A few months later, the General Assembly established an International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (General Assembly, 1975b, para 9), tasked to advance the integration of women in development processes and coordinate its work with all relevant UN institutions in this field (Economic & Social Council, 1976). Twenty years after the Mexico Conference, the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) called for strengthening the institutional and operational capacities of the UN to implement the Platform for Action adopted at the end of the Conference (Waldron, 1996). In 1996, a position of Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI), with the status of Under-Secretary-General, was established under the UN Secretary-General, before being transferred the following year by Kofi Annan to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs from where it was tasked to ensure that gender is “mainstreamed” into all relevant UN entities. Despite these institutional developments and the consolidation of the multilateral normative framework related to women’s rights (Tordjman, 2017), the creation of a single UN organization specifically dedicated to women’s issues was not on the agenda until the end of the 1990s. From the mid-2000s only, in the wake of the World Summit (2005), both internal and external mobilizations to the UN system have progressively called for a global reform of the UN gender architecture. Alongside women’s rights organizations, several UNIFEM officials (as well as several other UN entities, including UNICEF) used their personal connections and public positions to encourage the “High-Level Panel on United

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Nations System-wide Coherence in the Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance and the Environment” (Secretary-General, 2006) to consider the issue of gender and women in its work (Sandler et al., 2012: 10). In 2007, the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign, made up of around 300 NGOs and mainly led by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), the Women’s Environment Development Organization (WEDO) and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), also called for strengthening the UN gender architecture (Baruch, 2012: 49). The General Assembly adopted, in July 2010, a resolution entitled “System-wide coherence” (General Assembly, 2010) in which it created UN Women as a means to strengthen the institutional coherence of the United Nations of the UN gender architecture. The first half of the text addresses procedural and practical aspects to increase the effectiveness of the United Nations development system: it focuses on the modalities of bureaucratic coordination (agendas, work programs, offices and committees) as well as on the financing and evaluation system of field programs. The creation of UN Women occurs in the second half of the resolution, testifying, for Charlesworth and Chinkin, to its status of “an instrument for bureaucratic streamlining in the area of development” (Charlesworth & Chinkin, 2013: 18). However, the status and functions described in the resolution reflect the institutional and political ambiguity of the organization. Institutionally, the entity merges the mandates previously held by DAW, INSTRAW, OSAGI and UNIFEM. Its governance system consists of a multilevel intergovernmental arrangement, at the crossroads of the General Assembly, the Secretariat, ECOSOC and the CSW. Politically, as Charlesworth and Chinkin point out, the official designation of UN Women—aimed at “gender equality and the empowerment of women”—“combines a legal (and political) concept, equality, with a political objective, empowerment” (2013: 17). Yet the General Assembly offers no guidance on the meaning of these terms. Few months later, the first report of the Executive Director to the Commission on the Status of Women does not provide any more clarity and keeps using these same terms without providing any specific definition of them (Executive Director of UN Women, 2010). Despite the high expectations linked to the creation of UN Women, the financial and human resources of the organization have remained limited. Its quest for centrality therefore translated into investments in the political, normative and operational fields which, in return, triggered

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institutional, as well as social and political tensions relating to the vocation and the collective purpose of the institution.

3

An Unfinished Institutional Emancipation

At its establishment in 2010, UN Women was not the only UN entity working on gender equality and women’s rights. Its creation took place in a competitive organizational context where multiple UN programs, agencies and departments developed and implemented their own projects on the advancement of gender equality and women’s rights. For instance, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) all claim expertise and commitment to the integration of gender issues across their programs. UN Women’s quest for centrality was thus based on the establishment of its own expertise, including on the “Women, Peace and Security” agenda (Saiget, 2015). This claim is institutionally supported by the Secretary-General who explicitly acknowledged its role in the coordination and reinforcement of actions for the implementation of resolution 1325 on “Women, Peace and Security” (Secretary-General, 2010). It led to the production of knowledge products and analytical resources, which allows the new agency to take ownership upon the definition of priorities, as well as promote the appropriate responses to address them (Gusfield, 1989: 431–433). Since 2010, UN Women has issued a series of reports, guidelines, orientations and best practices for “UN staff, women’s organizations, human rights groups, and peace activists” on the advancement of the Women, Peace and Security both locally and globally (UN Women, 2012). Beyond the specific issues they claim to address, these non-prescriptive tools support the UN Women’s own construction of its expert authority vis-à-vis member states but also and above all within the UN system. Additionally, through the production of specific knowledge and guidance, UN Women both refines and broadens its mandate on gender. It can claim a role in coordinating gender actions not only within the UN system but also with civil society organizations, the private sector, and national authorities with whom the agency defines and implements its mandate and programs.2

2 See, in the context of Burundi where UN Women has worked since 1993: Saiget (2019).

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The organization also seeks to advance its authority within the UN system through breaking with the institutional and operational marginalization that had previously constrained UNIFEM (see also Chapter 12 in this book on the general role of IOs secretariats in that regard). For a long time, the institutional trajectory of UNIFEM was indeed intertwined with UNDP’s. In the mid-1980s, the former took advantage of UNDP’s institutional and operational capacity, particularly its donor base, to fund its activities and its decentralized network of country offices (Lesselier, 2015: 20). But these close ties consolidated the dependence of UNIFEM vis-à-vis the latter and, more broadly, blurred the respective roles and responsibilities of the two organizations (Kardam, 1991: 44). At the field level, the hosting of UNIFEM field offices by UNDP and the availability of UNDP administrative and operational resources allowed UNIFEM to deploy itself as a field-based operational organization. But its room for maneuver remained limited. In Burundi, for example, UNIFEM conducted its projects on an ad hoc basis, as part of UNDP activities and through the UNDP gender focal point. In addition, many UNIFEM country offices were represented by national program officers, unlike most other UN agencies, which are usually represented at a higher level. Because of their status, these program officers were therefore hierarchically disadvantaged in their interactions with the other UN agencies in the country. They were also marginalized within the UN system as national program officers were excluded from higher governance mechanisms such as the Senior Management Team (SMT) meetings, which are reserved for UN staff from the Professional and higher categories (P and D). Therefore, as soon as it was created, UN Women began to upgrade the status of its staff. Even though the smallest country offices may still be managed by national program officers, most country offices are now usually headed by a Country Representative and/or by Deputy Country Representatives at the P4 or P5 levels. The competition between UN Women and UNDP did not end with UN Women upgraded administrative status. It has rather shifted into other areas, especially the mobilization of financial resources, which is becoming an even more important issue for both UN agencies, as the spread of gender mainstreaming makes gender a cross-cutting theme in all UN actions (True & Parisi, 2012). In Burundi, in the run-up to the 2015 elections, several gender initiatives emerged in an uncoordinated manner from UNDP, UN Women, as well as from transnational and national women’s organizations. Two different projects were aimed at

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obtaining funding from the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund (PBF III). During an interview with the UNDP in Bujumbura in March 2014, the gender officer defended herself from planning the UNDP program independently of UN Women. She presented the initiative as stemming from the necessary transversal integration of gender in the actions pursued by the UNDP. Yet, behind the scenes, her counterpart at UN Women did not share her view and went as far as to call the UNDP initiative a “good stab in the back”. Similar competitive logics can be found in Côte d’Ivoire in 2021. In a context where the UN Women country office is much smaller than in Burundi, the agency is yet making the same claim to centrality on gender issues within the UN system at the country level. UN Women is entrusted with the leadership of “Coalition n°6 Gender Equality” as part of the 2021–2025 Cooperation Framework for Sustainable Development (CCSD) in Côte d’Ivoire. Yet, collaboration between UNDP and UN Women is far from being automatic, although it is organized through a thematic group in which both agencies sit. According to a UN Women official, it remains weakened by “information withholding” practices on the part of UNDP and subject to continuous and repeated negotiations between the UN agencies.3

4

A Difficult Agreement on the Collective Utility of the Organization

In addition to these institutional tensions, the creation of UN Women in 2010 catalyzes contestations on what the UN agency should do and how it should do it, especially since the new agency’s quest for centrality relies on cognitive, financial and managerial tools, which are often imported from other agencies—UNDP in particular. These contestations are not new. For several decades, transnational feminist movements have expressed divergent views over the strategic orientations of international women’s machineries (Baksh-Soodeen & Harcourt, 2015). For some—and in particular for the former UNIFEM members—UN Women is an echo chamber of feminist mobilizations

3 Interview, National coordinator of programs, UN Women, Abidjan, 19 November 2021.

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while others see it as another UN organization, subject to the dual injunction of professionalization and effectiveness. These tensions are based on two divergent visions of the organization’s vocation. One view promotes normative, global and intergovernmental action, prioritizing advocacy over field and development-oriented programs; the other gives priority to the operational and programmatic dimensions, measured in terms of impact. The latter—most often relayed and supported by newly recruited staff from the UNDP—aims above all at increasing the organization’s efficiency by rationalizing its methods and aligning its operational modalities with those of other UN funds and programs. On the other side, several former staff members of UNIFEM defend a conception of the organization that is oriented toward feminist mobilizations and intended to trigger structural and feminist reforms of UN institutions and beyond. From 2010 onward, resource mobilization and evaluation became part of UN Women’s routine operations. While the imperative to spend money and spend it well is not new, it now focuses most energies both at headquarters and in the field. It is fueling the rise of evaluative logics, which have been considerably reinforced, particularly at the country level and in conjunction with the strengthening of country offices (Merkle, 2016). At the headquarters level, this budgetary rationalization seems to be accelerated by the recruitment of new staff in strategic positions. As Deputy Executive Director of UN Women from 2015 to 2018, Yannick Glemarec worked to align UN Women’s operations with the model of other UN agencies, in particular by importing management know-how from UNDP, from which he came. Trained as an engineer and doctor n environmental sciences, prior to joining UN Women, he had worked for ten years as UNDP Executive Coordinator and Director of Environmental Finance. In February 2013, he had been promoted at the Executive Coordination of UNDP’s Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTFO) for which he managed a portfolio of over 100 UN trust funds. Once appointed at UN Women, he reinvested his experience, keen knowledge of UNDP operational procedures and the skills he had acquired in these previous positions in the development of the new gender entity. As means to professionalize the functioning of the agency—including at the level of country offices— and turn the “activists” of UNIFEM into development professionals, he systematized the evaluation of each intervention through a programmatic framework, based on a “theory of change”, and developed a set of indicators aimed at analyzing the proportion of expenditures per country office, per program or per personnel (“management ratios”). According to the

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Director of the Office of the Executive Director of UN Women, Yannick Glemarec played a fundamental role in the “modernization” of UN Women, helping to mobilize significant financial resources by building confidence among donors.4 The two evaluation reports produced in 2014 and 2018 on UN Women by the Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN) supported and reinforced this orientation: they gave priority to the “organizational effectiveness” of the structure, which was to be strengthened in order to establish more clearly “its effective contributions to the targeted results”. The responses provided to this evaluation by the management of UN Women confirmed these recommendations and highlighted the institution’s commitment to “better define and identify the results achieved” and therefore “better quantify its impact” (UN Women Management Response, 2019). Building up on Devin functionality triangle (Devin, 2016: 80), emphasis was then put on the effectiveness as the main lever to establish the legitimacy of the organization, both within the UN system and vis-à-vis the international (donor) community. Many women activists and non-governmental coalitions—often backed up by a group of UN and/or former UNIFEM officials—defend an alternative strategic vision, prioritizing advocacy and more political work. In their view, the legitimacy of the organization is linked to its representativeness and its ability to echo and endorse the demands of feminist activists. The mobilizations surrounding the appointment of the organization’s Executive Directors illustrates this strategic and cognitive divide. Since 1 January 2017, the Secretary-General has made more than 300 appointments to the highest positions in the UN system (Under Secretary-General, Assistant Secretary-General, Special Representatives of the Secretary-General, etc.). While each of these appointments is accompanied by initiatives by key member states to promote their nationals, these influence games usually remain muted and confined to UN spaces (Beigbeder, 1997: 32–34; Chesterman, 2016). It seems to be different for the successive nominations of executive directors at the head of UN

4 Online interview, Director of the Office of the Executive Director of UN Women, 22 July 2021. On UN Women’s resource allocation, see: https://www.unwomen.org/en/ executive-board/strategic-plan-review/financial-resources.

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Women.5 A few days after the appointment of the agency’s new executive director, Sima Sami Bahous (Jordan), on 13 September 2021, an open letter—signed by some 50 staff members who work or have worked within the UN system—warned about the possible drifts of the organization: despite the “constraints of the United Nations”, the feminist commitment of UN Women is to be strengthened. The signatories call for “developing more effective tools to evaluate the UN’s internal performance on gender issues”, “including feminists in the governance of the UN and UN Women”, “revitalizing international negotiation forums aimed at women’s empowerment” and “strengthening the capacity of UN Women country offices” (Open letter to the Secretary-General, 2021). These cognitive struggles about what UN Women should be question the agency’s normative or operational vocation. As a result, the articulation of these two dimensions partly started in 2012, with an aim to assert UN Women position in the competitive fields of gender and women’s rights. As the Head of the Executive Director’s Office recounts, the “internal awakening” took place during the 2012 Commission on the Status of Women. Faced with the operational difficulties encountered by the organization in program management, the UN Women leadership became aware of the added value that the long-standing partnerships between UNIFEM and its local partners can play in the more political role that UN Women intends to endorse. This discourse is reinforced by the revival in 2016 of the older principle of localization and ownership of international aid, particularly within fragile or postconflict settings. In a context where the international donor community values the local anchoring of external interventions (Campbell, 2018; Hilhorst & Leeuwen, 2005; von Billerbeck, 2016; Zinnes, 2009), UN Women claims close contact, on the ground, with national institutions (National Women’s Machineries) and women’s organizations. During an interview conducted in 2021, an advisor from the Dakar regional office for West and Central Africa defined UN Women’s added value in relation to its local connections: Is the UNDP working for the poor, is it in contact with the poor? Does it lead a common struggle with the poor? Does the WHO have organizations 5 The first Executive Directors of UN Women are Michelle Bachelet (Chili, 2010– 2013), Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (Afrique du Sud, 2013–2021), Sima Sami Bahous (2021–…).

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of patients with whom they work on diseases? UNICEF with the children? We don’t speak for the women we serve, we speak together, we are often in a common cause.6

According to her, “the operational feeds the normative” by providing both a detailed knowledge of contexts and in-depth contacts with governments and civil society organizations. However, while the normative dimension was recognized in the 2018–2022 strategic plan, no strategic reflection specified in detail the articulation with the agency’s other operational and coordination functions. It was the organizational reform launched in 2018–2019 that put this articulation into practice. Aligning the structure of UN Women with that of other UN agencies, the reform put an end to the separation between the two normative (policy) and operational (programs) divisions and merged them into a single division, responsible for policy, programs, civil society and normative support to member states.7 At the field level, the normative dimension was integrated into the work of the regional offices, which are meant to support country offices in implementing standards adopted at the headquarters level and, increasingly, by regional organizations. The regional offices, whose number has been considerably reduced8 and whose institutional power has been strengthened,9 were also provided with additional resources to contribute to the normative and advocacy work through the recycling of the already existing activist networks that surrounded UNIFEM. For instance, noting the decrease in “the energy, enthusiasm and strength of civil society advocacy”, the regional office for West and Central Africa decided to focus on mobilizing resources for networks of women’s organizations, in the service of the organization’s normative and global vocation. Such a shift does not go without contestation though. According to the Head of the UN Women Executive Director Office,

6 Online Interview, 26 July 2021. 7 The second Deputy Executive Director of UN Women is responsible for the UN

system coordination, resource management, sustainability and partnerships. 8 In Africa, while there were four regional offices: South Africa in Johannesburg, East Africa in Nairobi, Central Africa in Kigali, and West Africa in Dakar, there are now only two, in Dakar and Nairobi. 9 Regional Directors now report directly to the UN Women Deputy Executive Director rather than to the Programme Director as was the practice. They also have a seat on senior management teams.

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the regional directors form a “clique”, fueling discontent among country office staff, who regret being left out of this new, yet “field-focused” narrative.10 Echoing a trend observed in many other contexts (Jenkins, 2001), criticism also targets the modalities of these regionally-managed support mechanisms that contribute to the standardization of advocacy work, due to increasing pressure to comply with the accounting, financial and programmatic guidelines set at the global level. Such an effect can be traced in the discourse of UN staff itself. When we interviewed her in July 2021, the Regional Advisor on Peace, Security and Humanitarian Action of the West Africa regional office was negotiating a program to strengthen the capacities of women’s organizations, referring to local beneficiaries of these programs as “clients”. At the national level, the bureaucratization of UN Women’s actions reinforces the programmatic dimension of the country offices and indirectly, divests them of their advocacy work with "civil societies". In a competitive environment—both between UN entities and between UN Women country offices—country offices have to focus on mobilizing external funding to complement limited core resources, which require devoting significant resources to responding to calls for projects. Additionally, as this injunction is not accompanied by increased human and procurement resources, it generated significant criticism from country office teams vis-à-vis these new constraints, leading a former UN Women mission officer in Burundi to say that “modernity is not always for the better”.11 These budgetary and organizational limitations weigh all the more heavily on country offices as their number remains relatively high.12 Several attempts to close smaller country offices—for instance in Sierra Leone, Cabo Verde, the Maldives or Guinea Bissau—in the name of insufficient external resource mobilization, had indeed proved unsuccessful as they triggered significant resistance on the part of national governments, foreign donors and country office teams themselves. In addition, some local “civil society” organizations contest the strengthening of the operational dimension of country offices. Two 10 Online interview, 22 July 2021. 11 Online interview, 26 July 2021. 12 In 2021, UN Women consists in 70 representations, made up of 7 liaison offices, 6

regional offices, 6 regional offices and 51 country-offices. This number is pretty similar to previous level as in 2016, UN Women architecture relied on 44 country offices, 6 multi-country and 6 regional offices (UN Women, 2016).

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types of arguments are usually mobilized to this end. First, it would weaken the development of local activism as UN Women captures part of the funding dedicated to advancing women’s rights, for which local organizations would also apply. Therefore, this operational dimension is perceived as contrary to what the organization is supposed to do. In Côte d’Ivoire, an activist told us at the end of 2021: “UN Women itself weakens civil society! It has no vocation to implement on the ground. They exceed their mandate”.13 Secondly, the reinforcement of the operational dimension of UN Women translates into making local organizations quasi subcontractors, without providing them with appropriate authority over budget expenditures and procurement modalities. This delegation is paradoxically justified by an “ownership” principle, which assumes that ministries, NGOs and various women’s organizations are aligned with the causes defended by UN Women—such as women’s political participation, economic empowerment or the fight against gender-based violence—and vice versa. Yet this delegation generates important constraints, especially for women’s organizations. For instance, the program director of Femmes Africa Solidarité, based in Dakar, Senegal, lamented that these procurement constraints made local organizations to advance funds, forcing them to take tedious steps to provide justification in order to obtain reimbursement.14 As we have seen, these different tensions about the identity of the institution, whether it is seen as an activist or a development institution, affect the strategic, normative and/or operational orientations defined by the organization’s executive management. They find practical arrangements in the division of labor between regional offices, tasked with a more normative role, and country offices, entrusted with operational missions. They are also partially mitigated in the recycling of UNIFEM’s activist networks that now serve the organization’s global normative purpose. However, these arrangements remain partial, as they give rise to new challenges both internally and externally, at the headquarters, regional and country office levels.

13 Interview, Abidjan, 24 November 2021. 14 Interview, Dakar, 12 April 2022.

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5

Conclusion

This chapter has shown that UN Women’s institutional reform did produce change. But this change should not be thought as mechanically resulting from a top-down dynamic, where country office staff take ownership of reforms decided at the top. Nor should it be seen as an empirical translation of its formal establishment in 2010: it only becomes effective when the reform is (re)invested in practice by the various actors at stake, namely UN officials, activists, diplomats, etc. The wide publicity that accompanied the creation of the organization does not eclipse the incremental change that continues to unfold in it. Since its establishment, UN Women has been marked by a process of “normalization”, which led to increasing its authority within the UN system and its progressive alignment with the management standards of other agencies (UNDP and UNFPA in particular). However, this evolution does not mean that support for “civil society” and local women’s movements, which was the hallmark of the predecessor UNIFEM, has been sidelined. Still faced with limited financial and human resources more than 10 years after its creation, the local connections inherited from UNIFEM provide UN Women with additional legitimatization resources. As shown in this case, reform is not to be seen through the sole lens of institutional innovations. It rather presents itself as an ongoing process of (re)conciliation through which additional resources give rise to practical arrangements between the different purposes and levels that are at work. Its ambiguous founding mandate as well as the subsequent organizational changes that follow the establishment of UN Women remain marked by political and institutional tensions between those who defend the “normalization” of the agency and those who deplore its adverse effects on its “original” activist vocation. This operational vs. normative dilemma echoes Devin “functionality triangle”, made up of representativeness, efficiency and legitimacy: the adequacy of the organization with the concerns of local activists as well as its practical ability to advance women’s agency and livelihood, provide the organization with important legitimization levers. But these resources do not take on the same value in all the spaces and arenas invested by the organization. On the one hand, a strictly topdown and/or managerial process can widen the gap between the UN sphere and its local constituency. On the other hand, insufficient operational capacities may limit the reach of advocacy efforts and risk further marginalizing the political authority of the organization.

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CHAPTER 12

Secretariats of Intergovernmental Organizations and Multilateralism Under Pressure Bob Reinalda

1

Introduction

This chapter regards international secretariats, the permanent organs of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) that perform their administrative activities, as active players in international relations. It assumes that if IGOs are subjected to external pressure and change, their executive heads and senior staff will not passively wait to see what states and other international actors will do but instead respond through adaptation. Multilateralism, or the collaboration of states in the pursuit of purposes for which IGOs were created (e.g., peace, security, health, human rights), is a stable phenomenon but nonetheless subject to tensions, disagreements, crises and transformations. Multilateralism under pressure refers to

B. Reinalda (B) Department of Political Science, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_12

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shifting power relations between major states and weakened support for global governance arrangements, including IGOs, regimes and a variety of practices. If governance arrangements weaken, they may eventually cease to exist, or alternatively they may be renewed and reinvigorated. Renewal refers to the return of activities in a new setup after a period characterized by restrictions. Two previous periods of multilateralism under pressure (the early 1970s and early 1990s) demonstrated that IGO secretariats did respond to serious problems that had emerged and helped to shape the new multilateral landscape. In both cases, IGO secretariats showed agency and IGOs remained relevant in the new landscape. Is this also true for the current era of multilateralism under pressure? To assess the present-day situation, this chapter discusses, respectively, secretariat agency as such, the two previous periods mentioned, current changes in organization numbers and types, the active contribution of secretariats to these changes, the issue of “fragmentation or agency” (explained through the world of global health) and the current United Nations (UN) Secretariat. It concludes that multilateralism is under pressure, but with IGO secretariats responding and adapting, albeit with ongoing challenges and restrictions.

2

IGO Secretariats as Agents of Renewal

The first question to be answered is whether IGO secretariats can be agents of renewal of multilateralism under pressure at all. Are these “dwarfs” (international functionaries leading a small bureaucracy) among “giants” (powerful states) able to play a relevant role of their own? How do they cope with external threats? Can they keep their room for maneuver and contribute to new arrangements, or do they have to give in to external powers and lose relevance? Five characteristics of IGO secretariats matter when answering the question of potential agency and renewal (Reinalda, 2020: 3–8). First, since the nineteenth century, IGO secretariats have had a permanent staff to take care of continuity, unlike other IGO organs, such as general assemblies, executive councils and committees, which meet at specific moments. Since secretariats also perform as institutional memories in their fields of expertise, it can be assumed that they are continuously aware of what is happening and, if required, ready for IGO action. Second, with the invention and elaboration of the “international secretariat” model in 1919, the secretariat staff is supposed to work for the

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IGO, despite issues of national allegiance. This model proliferated and became dominant in multilateralism (albeit with regional variations). Even if practice is less perfect than this ideal-type model, international allegiance matters as the secretariat staff seeks to devote itself to the objectives and purposes of the organization. Third, if IGO secretariats are confronted with new or unexpected problems, they use their implicit powers to allow for mandate expansion: the new problem was not yet known at the time of writing the foundational act (“constitution”) but looks so similar to what is mentioned in the constitution that they can act. Evolution of and change in IGOs reveal two pathways. The first is gradual change, referred to as “adaptation” or “institutional layering”: preserving much of the core of the original institution but adding new arrangements to pre-existing ones. The second, less common, pathway is far-reaching institutional change, referred to as “learning” or “conversion”, with institutions being used in new ways or in the service of new goals. Fourth, despite internal and external restrictions (bureaucratic shortcomings, pathologies, political limitations and insufficient resources), IGO secretariats have become leading actors in multilateral diplomacy, particularly for dealing with complex cross-border issues. When confronted with difficulties or delays in achieving success, they have shown institutional resilience and perseverance. Continuity and secretariat leadership do matter for issues like reasoned organizational growth, adaptation to changing situations and, ultimately, institutional survival. Fifth, to be effective as an IGO in international relations, executive heads must show combined leadership, i.e., both internal leadership (running headquarters and field missions) and external leadership in the wider field of international relations (representing the IGO vis-à-vis states, other IGOs and further actors). If only one form of leadership is exercised, as biographical entries in the IO BIO Project show (see IO BIO in References), the executive head and secretariat will be incapable of delivering, or at best weak actors. Given the first four characteristics (continuity, international allegiance, mandate expansion and resilience), one can expect that in situations in which an IGO functions poorly, it is subject to criticism, or it must adapt to a significantly changing environment in which power relations shift and support for global governance arrangements weakens, the executive head and senior staff will do their utmost to ensure that the organization adapts and survives, rather than giving in. They will analyze the situation, use the

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organization’s expertise, look for supporters in the IGO’s environment and marshal resources to demonstrate that the organization is still relevant. Success is not self-evident, if only because of inadequate leadership or external power relations. However, institutional endurance seems the likelier outcome, although certain IGOs have ceased to function (referred to as “IGO death”).

3 Previous Instances of Multilateralism Under Pressure Do we know of times post- World War II when IGO secretariats felt pressured to adapt and fight for survival? Two periods of a change in power relations and reduced support for global governance arrangements with roles for IGO secretariats can be identified: the early 1970s and the early 1990s. 3.1

Reshuffling Northern IGOs

From the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, the United States (US) encountered serious competition from other major powers in fields such as monetary relations and security which made continuity of US hegemony anything but self-evident. However, despite its internationally weakened position (through the Vietnam War), US dominance in global security and economic multilateralism was not endangered, as the crisis created a structural transformation in the nature of the post-war economic and political order. John Ruggie (1998: 77), who coined the term “embedded liberalism” for the post-1945 global economic and political orientations, argued that the decline of US hegemony would not lead to the collapse of the involved embedded liberal regimes, provided the shared purposes were held constant. Yet, continued multilateral management under US leadership involved new arrangements within and among IGOs, such as new provisions for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a special working party within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the temporary functioning of the Trilateral Commission (1973) and the creation of the first “country club” (1975), the G5 (shortly to become the G7), which emerged from highlevel consultations among a few wealthy states. The new institutions and mutual relationships helped the US ward off its crisis of hegemony, but the reshuffle impacted the UN System, as it weakened the coordinating

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capacity of the UN Economic and Social Council and loosened relations between the Bretton Woods institutions and the UN even more (Reinalda, 2009: 435–442). 3.2

Acting IGO Secretariats

The way in which the reshuffle affected the leeway of Southern IGOs reveals the roles of secretariats. The Global South outlined its strategy at the 1961 Belgrade conference of the Non-Aligned Movement by formulating its principles to guide interstate relations and its position in the UN System. These principles resembled in essence those of the traditional Westphalian state system and appealed strongly to colonies that had just achieved, or still sought, independence. In addition, Latin American ideas about the dependence of peripheral states on the North-controlled international economy, developed by the Secretariat of the Economic Commission for Latin America (headed by Rául Prebisch), revealed that exceptions to the free trade system of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) were granted mostly to Northern states. As a result of common Southern leverage within the UN, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was created in 1964 to discuss these problems. It developed the idea of a new international economic order, while Southern states united in the G77 to become an influential caucus group within the UN. With a large group of new states entering the UN System and pressing for new ideas and institutions, the richer Northern states of the IMF began to meet in smaller bodies outside the UN, such as the special OECD working party mentioned above and the Group of Ten, hosted by the Bank for International Settlements in Basel. Meanwhile, the secretariats of existing IGOs set the tone for their response. The International Labour Organization (ILO) and GATT secretariats responded, “initially by reordering their programs slightly, then by being intensely concerned about the mandate of their rival organizations, and finally by working out a division of functions with their erstwhile competitors”, such as UNCTAD and UNIDO, the UN Industrial Development Organization of 1966 (Cox & Jacobson, 1973: 384). Resources available through the new UN Development Programme (UNDP, created in 1965) provided an incentive to interagency agreement. The prospect of governmental intervention in case of an open conflict between UN agencies proved an incentive to limit interagency rivalry. Robert Cox and Harold Jacobson

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(1973: 384) observed an “interagency process of learning collaboration”. Given the institutional and financial force majeure of the World Bank, which under Robert McNamara’s leadership had turned into a development agency (see McNamara’s entry in IO BIO), and the Northdominated regional development banks, which functioned as the largest and decisive source of development aid, the Global South had little room for regional integration on its own terms. During the 1970s, Northern states increasingly approached developing states as a bloc through the OECD Secretariat. As a result, Southern regional integration organizations remained weak, although their secretariats managed to keep these organizations alive. 3.3

Adapting IGO Secretariats

Another instance of multilateralism under pressure with distinctive secretariat roles arose following the end of the Cold War. What was striking about the role of institutions in helping to stabilize the post-1989 transformation was “their specific form: multilateralism” (Ruggie, 1998: 102). Ruggie analyzed the situation as both political scientist and UN Assistant Secretary-General for Planning (1997–2001). The situation in 1992 was “not simply one of past multilateral arrangements hanging on for dear life”, but rather “numerous instances of active institutional adaptation and even creation” by the secretariats (Ruggie, 1992: 594). Sustainability of institutional arrangements made cross-sectoral and intertemporal tradeoffs and bargains feasible. Arrangements based on generalized principles, rather than particular interests and situational exigencies, proved more elastic and exhibited “greater continuity in the face of changing circumstances, including international power shifts” (Ruggie, 1992: 594). Much of the “institutional inventiveness within institutional arrangements” came from the secretariats (Ruggie, 1992: 596). Focusing on the UN System in this period of further globalization, Ruggie (2003: 317) concluded that IGO secretariats had generated highly innovative responses to the challenges posed by globalization. They did so “despite, not because of, its constitutional configuration and largely by maneuvering around constraints posed by governments rather than at their bidding”. Institutional change in the form of the Millennium Development Goals and the Global Compact required significant interagency collaboration, with the authority of the UN Secretary-General being the source of leverage vis-à-vis participating IGOs. The Global Compact

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was the Secretary-General’s personal initiative and he remained closely involved in it. Since a “higher” authority in a decentralized system may not always be available, relations of authority (as opposed to power) were “strongly shaped by individuals’ views about the desirability and legitimacy of the venture in which they were asked to participate” (Ruggie, 2003: 314). The executive heads of the three lead agencies involved in the Global Compact (the ILO, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Environmental Programme) saw their agendas raised in profile and extended to new domains. The UNDP Secretariat received the leading role in taking the Compact to national levels. Sustaining this collaboration required skillful management by the heads, as networks are not standard bureaucracies with a vertical hierarchy but rather horizontal associations in which participants combine their efforts to achieve goals that they cannot handle, or at least not as effectively, on their own. Network management must be facilitative, not directive. Attempts by the network manager “to capture the value created by the collaboration will undermine it” (Ruggie, 2003: 315). In this period, IGO secretariats were active agents, who learned to manage undertakings differently. 3.4

Eurasian and Southern IGO Secretariats

The disintegration of the Soviet Union (1991) forced former Soviet republics to redefine their position in international relations. The Warsaw Pact and the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance were dissolved. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe institutionalized into the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and international financial institutions (the IMF, World Bank and the new European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) as well as other IGOs helped to introduce drastic economic reforms working toward capitalism and to achieve the necessary transformation. The secretariats lent money and provided technical assistance on the condition that the policies of the IGOs were followed. The creation of Eurasian regional organizations of economic integration (e.g., the Eurasian Economic Community) became a slow process resulting from the low efficiency of the economies and Russia’s dominant role as regional power. Although these regional institutions “mimicked” Western European integration terminology, they remained intergovernmental and without room for maneuver for their secretariats.

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Regional economic cooperation in the South during the 1990s fared better. It was encouraged by external threat (ongoing globalization dominated by the North) and the end of bipolarity. The pressure exerted by the global free trade regime of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which had succeeded the GATT, saw an unforeseen deadlock between North and South and a weakened UNCTAD because of overlap between the two organizations. States threatened the UNDP with dissolution, but the UNDP Secretariat reacted by presenting a new objective (promoting “sustainable human development” and its new Human Development Index) and its unforeseen but successful effort to receive backing from other IGOs and actors at the 1995 UN World Summit for Social Development. During the 1990s, the secretariats of Southern regional integration organizations succeeded in revival and institutional reinvigoration, with ASEAN developing into an IGO with a truly international secretariat (it started without a secretariat, before having an administrative one), the administrative enhancement of the Southern Common Market MERCOSUR and the transformation of the Organization of African Unity, seen as outdated, into the African Union, which also offered an umbrella for regional integration organizations. It can be concluded that the two moments of multilateralism under pressure (the early 1970s and 1990s) revealed renewal, with IGO secretariats helping to shape the new multilateral landscape and adapt institutionally. Despite disruption to the mutual relationships between existing organizations and competition from new actors (e.g., country clubs), IGOs remained relevant in the new setup, while interagency relations, networking by IGO staff and the use of related management qualities intensified at the secretarial level.

4

IGO Death and Endurance

What is known about IGO death and endurance? Susan Strange once pondered the question of why IGOs never, or rarely, die. She assumed that international bureaucracies were closely intertwined with national ones from which many international officials originate. Her additional explanation was related to the agreements binding member states to observe certain responsibilities toward the staff of international secretariats (Strange, 1998: 218). Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni (2018: 340) demonstrates that far more IGOs have died than Strange assumed. The Correlates of War dataset and her own Dead-IGO-Dataset mention

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34 and 39% of identified IGOs as dead. IGO terminations correlate closely with geopolitical conflict, e.g., world wars and regional upheavals such as decolonization. Eilstrup-Sangiovanni (2018: 341) found that IGOs with global membership have significantly higher survivability than regional organizations. She expects that IGOs with broad, heterogeneous membership and/or broad functional remit are better able to diversify their activities, “thereby increasing their adaptability and reducing vulnerability to either issue-specific or geographically specific shocks”. IGOs with small membership, narrow scope and low centralization of activities are more liable to die, as their capacity for adaptation is smaller (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, 2021: 290–291). Eilstrup-Sangiovanni’s IGO death and endurance approach focuses on explaining macro-level changes in the number and types of IGOs, based on competitive selection, whereby the environment rewards certain traits and punishes others. This downplays the importance of individual organizational agency, “whereby IGO actors react to environmental stimuli and seek to refashion themselves to avoid obsolescence” (Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, 2018: 366–367). A more actor-centric approach may consider how an IGO’s capacity for autonomous action affects its survival chances. Julia Gray discerns three categories of IGO vitality: being “alive”, being “dead” (secretariats and bureaucracies do not meet and have no visible level of activity) and being “zombies”: organizations that persist in some form rather than disband altogether. Gray (2018: 5) holds that IGOs are more likely to be vital if their secretariats have the autonomy to enact policy and can attract and retain talented staff. 4.1

IGO Numbers 1985–2020

What do we know about current IGO numbers and types? Table 1 provides numbers from the Yearbook of International Organizations. These allow differentiation by type of organization, such as conventional IGOs (respectively, the UN, universal, intercontinental and regional membership organizations) and non-conventional IGOs (emanations and organizations of special form). Emanations are autonomous non-profit intergovernmental bodies that emanate from actors other than states, including IGOs. Well-known examples include the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and UNAIDS. Organizations of special form include a variety of international

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Table 1

Intergovernmental organizations numbers by type, 1985–2020

Types of IGOs Conventional IGOs: A–D A. Federations of IGOs B. Universal membership organizations C. Intercontinental membership organizations D. Regionally oriented membership organizations Total A–D Non-Conventional IGOs: E–F E. Emanations F. Organizations of special form Total E–F IGO death: H. Dissolved or apparently inactive organizations

1985

1989

1999

2009

2020

1 30 51 296 378

1 33 43 223 300

1 35 35 180 251

1 35 35 170 241

1 37 39 215 292

705 485 1,190

778 625 1,403

775 724 1,499

817 709 1,526

984 746 1,730

197

247

460

765

906

Sources Yearbook of International Organizations, 1986–1987, 1990–1991, 2000–2001, 2010–2011, and 2021–2022, Table 1: Number of international organizations by type. Table created by the author

banks, courts, funds and common markets. The Yearbook also provides numbers of dissolved or apparently inactive IGOs. Table 1 (IGO numbers by type 1985–2020) shows a dynamic institutional landscape for 35 years, with remarkable changes during the 2010s. First, IGO death is high and increasing noticeably. Between 1985 and 2020, IGO death continued to rise from 197 to 906: 709 organizations more over 35 years, or 360%. Second, the number of conventional IGOs decreased from 378 to 292 between 1985 and 2020 (i.e., 86 organizations less, or 23%). Table 1 shows an increase in universal membership organizations (B) between 1985 and 2020 (from 30 to 37), but a decrease in intercontinental membership organizations (C) (from 51 to 39), and a reduction in regionally oriented membership organizations (D) (from 296 to 215). Third, the number of non-conventional IGOs increased significantly from 1190 to 1730 between 1985 and 2020 (i.e., 540 more organizations, or 45%). Emanations rose from 705 to 984 (plus 179), IGOs of special form from 485 to 746 (plus 261). Fourth, between 2009 and 2020, the total numbers of conventional IGOs experienced an increase (from 241 to 292, i.e., 51 more organizations, or 21%). Both C (intercontinental IGOs) and D (regional IGOs) underwent increases (respectively, from 35 to 39 and from 170 to 215).

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Trans-Governmental Networks

Equally relevant for the changing institutional landscape is Charles Roger and Sam Rowan’s (2018: 4) warning that existing studies of institutionalized cooperation may be biased because of a clear emphasis on formal organizations and neglect of what they call “informal organizations”, because states have used “transgovernmental networks, publicprivate partnerships, emanations, and soft law instruments to achieve transboundary cooperation”. Informal IGOs are constituted by agreements that deliberately eschew hard obligations and, unlike IGOs, do not have independent secretariats with a distinct corporate and organizational identity. Roger and Rowan (2018: 4) calculated that the number of informal IGOs exploded between 1975 and 2005, rising nearly sixfold: “By the end of this period, informals comprised around a third of all the currently active IOs”. The OECD defines “transgovernmental networks” as cooperation based on “loosely-structured, peer to peer ties developed through frequent interaction rather than formal negotiation involving specialized domestic officials (typically regulators) directly interacting with each other (through structured dialogues, MOU [Memorandum of Understanding], …), often with minimal supervision by foreign ministries” (www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/irc7. htm. Accessed 17 April 2023). Michael Manulak (2021: 411) mentions a fourfold increase since 2000, with 115 of 140 trans-governmental networks created since 1990. The main relevance in the changing landscape of multilateralism seems the (increased) use of trans-governmental networks and informal arrangements by governments, resulting in inputs for IGOs and their secretariats. 4.3

Secretariat Agency During Change

Do IGO secretariats play active roles in this changing institutional landscape and, if so, can this agency be explained? Tana Johnson (2014: 6) holds that IGO staff members have advocated the creation of new IGOs. They have participated in the institutional design process and undermined “the mechanisms by which states endeavor to control the new institutions”. She calls the growing numbers of IGOs, which are descendants of other IGOs and interact in an increasingly complex family tree of organizations, “organizational progeny”. In her vision, secretariat staff in the design role are not “automatons of states”, but rather personnel that are

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united “by the collective and bureaucratic interests” of the organization that employs them. These interests are at once material, related to the survival and prosperity of the organization, and immaterial, related to issues such as legitimacy and policy advocacy (Johnson, 2014: 29). She sees institutional design participation by IGO personnel as widespread and with a systematic effect on formal mechanisms by which states attempt to control IGOs (Johnson, 2014: 212). As many IGOs have been enhancing their mandates and several have made comebacks after periods of insufficiency, Yves Schemeil mentions resilience and perseverance as qualifications for IGO secretariats or bureaucracies. He argues that IGO secretariats can turn organizational slack into innovation, because the preferences of the majority of member states do not coincide. Major causes that drive secretariats toward innovation and resilience include resistance to constituents’ control, adaptation to external change, increase through mandate expansion and the snowballing tendency to set up networks with other IGOs. IGO secretariats display creativity to justify mandate expansion and norm evolution through language skills and the creation of new structures. Such structures may be fully-fledged IGOs, pre-existing or reorganized, as well as joint ventures involving several IGOs (Schemeil, 2011: 241–245). Ties between IGOs are selected to empower them and offer a positive costbenefit result. Secretariats are inclined to open unofficial channels of consultation each time their field activities overlap. Since overlapping increases, due to further norm creation and mandate expansion, such channels multiply and connections aggregate. These dynamics of expansion through networks result in the survival of IGOs, which are also more autonomous since the creation of new units and new departments is not being counter-balanced by an elimination of the former agencies and sub-divisions, although some may also be abandoned (Schemeil, 2013: 231–245). The new focus on inter-organizational relations, an older practice but enhanced over recent decades, confirms the cooperation of IGO secretariats across organizational boundaries in a broad range of policy fields. Increasing cooperation between IGOs resulted from “the task expansion of major organizations in order to address a wider and more demanding range of policy challenges as well as the rise of a global policy agenda that has increasingly linked up previously distinct policy fields”, as can be recognized in concepts such as sustainable development, peacebuilding, human security and the security-development nexus (Biermann & Koops,

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2017: 1). These changes, “particularly in the field of peace and security in Europe during the 1990s, as well as on the African continent and in South-Central Asia during the first decade of the 2000s”, led to the promotion of concepts such as interlocking institutions, mutually reinforcing institutions, and a comprehensive or integrated approach (Biermann & Koops, 2017: 2). In inter-organizational relations, IGO secretariats work together, but they also interact closely with member states and are engaged “in negotiating various kinds of agreements, exchanging information and personnel, forming working groups, and holding joint meetings”, according to Bierman and Koops (2017: 11): IGO secretariats are concerned “with the politics of inter-organizational relations and with the institutionalization of relations – including formal contractual relations, coordination mechanisms, and rules and norms of cooperation”. It can be concluded that the multilateral landscape changed significantly between 1985 and 2020, with higher IGO death than assumed, but also an increase in IGO numbers during the 2010s. Both governments and IGO secretariats have been creative players adding to the complexity: governments by using trans-governmental networks and informal arrangements, IGO secretariats by constructing emanations and networks with other IGOs.

5

Fragmentation or Agency in Global Health?

Climate change, natural disasters, wars, humanitarian emergencies, energy transition and pandemics pose complex trans-border challenges which require robust common solutions based on treaties and practices in which IGOs play paramount roles. However, how well equipped are IGO secretariats if decision-making has become complex due to the multitude of agents, networks and inter-organizational relations not to mention the competition among them? Does this situation lead to “fragmentation” or “gridlock”, as some argue, making IGOs less powerful, even irrelevant? Or do IGO secretariats “fight back” against such pressures to remain significant? Unlike the state-oriented gridlock approach, my focus is on secretariat agency. The World Health Organization (WHO) seems a good case to investigate, as certain developments had led to a decline in its authority and legitimacy.

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5.1

Fragmentation and Gridlock

While the WHO had focused on primary health care with campaigns to eradicate or control various infectious diseases, the 1990s brought a growing number of new and mutating diseases (coronaviruses, avian influenzas) which (re-)emerged and showed increasing resistance to available drugs. Neglected national health systems did not act as primary barriers against international spread. In fact, the speed and volume of international travel and trade had created favorable conditions for diseases to spread (Burci, 2018: 681–682). Having failed to handle the AIDS outbreak during the 1980s and 1990s (resulting in organizational and financial difficulties), the WHO saw the UN become a co-determiner of global health policy. UN engagement in health resulted from fears of terrorist attacks using biological or chemical agents. Restrictions on the WHO’s room for maneuver since 2000 have included UN Security Council and General Assembly interventions, such as for infectious diseases seen by the Security Council as a security threat (2000–2001); a broadening of the definition of UN security through the inclusion of health (2004); the response to outbreaks seen in enforcement terms; the appointment of a UN coordinator for avian flu (2005); health as a standing item in the General Assembly’s agenda (since 2009); and the first UN field operation in health set up by the UN Secretary-General instead of the WHO (2014). The Security Council addressed healthrelated issues as threats to international peace and security twice on HIV/ AIDS (2000, 2011), twice on Ebola (2014, 2018) and on Covid-19 in July 2020 (focused on cessation of hostilities). In 2014 and 2017, the G7 and G20 also played health-related roles in the global political agenda, and in 2016, the World Bank became the main financier of pandemic preparedness and response. UN involvement pointed to an “informal ‘bottom-up’ division of labor whereby WHO’s role is limited to its normative and evidence functions, supplemented now by a fledgling response capacity”, according to Gian Burci (2018: 687), who as a former WHO Legal Counsel has analyzed this rather complicated WHO-UN process in detail. The UN’s new central role in global health policymaking implied a politicization of issues at the top level and reduced the decision-making role of the WHO and its executive head. The related image of “fragmentation” includes new agents, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (2000), GAVI, the Global Alliance for

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Vaccines and Immunization (2000), and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (2002) (see also Chapter 3 in this book). The so-called gridlock approach evaluates the WHO as part of the current global health regime negatively. It claims (without further evidence) that global health cooperation is “underperforming” due to the large number of global health actors and programs that “complicate the coordination and problem-solving capacities of the health regime complex as a whole” (Brown & Held, 2017: 164). Garrett Brown and David Held see multipolarity, institutional inertia, more complex problems and institutional fragmentation as causes of limited cooperation and ineffective problem-solving. They hope for change through the realignment of major power interests and innovative leadership by the G7 and its institutional partners. Hence, they focus on major states and the regime complex, but do not discuss what the WHO Secretariat has done. This significantly limits the gridlock approach. 5.2

WHO Secretariat Agency

Without denying the complexity of the situation or the existence of gridlock situations, my investigation into what has happened internally reveals that the WHO is not such a weakened agent as assumed. Although the WHO failed to respond to the AIDS outbreak and was pushed aside by the UN (resulting in reduced decision-making capacity), internal initiatives since 1998 reveal continued agency. Director-General Gro Brundtland’s drastic replacement of the Secretariat’s senior staff (see Brundtland’s entry in IO BIO) and the establishment of partnerships with other IGOs and NGOs (GAVI and the Global Fund) allowed the WHO to initiate internal innovations and use additional resources, as major donors were funding new initiatives outside the organization rather than donating to the WHO (Lee & Piper, 2020: 528). New partnerships, with the WHO often in an initiating role, emerged from the policy of “layering”, i.e., adding new institutional arrangements to existing ones, albeit in the form of joint ventures rather than institutional extensions. Later forms of layering include the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI, 2017) and the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator (2020). ACT’s Covax pillar demonstrated “the capacity of the WHO to rapidly mobilize networks around priority global health needs with key partners” (Lee & Piper, 2020: 530).

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Creating GOARN (Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network) in 2000 represented “conversion”, rather than layering, as this strong form of institutional adaptation provided the WHO with its own mechanism to control and halt infectious disease outbreaks. A small group of senior staff elaborated the new ideas of “global health security” and “epidemic alert and response”. They used computers and the Internet (new at the time), looked for outbreaks through amply present non-governmental sources (not done until then, although not formally prohibited) and tied national technical institutions (270 by 2022) to GOARN. The staff regarded GOARN as “a milestone”, because the 2001 World Health Assembly (i.e., the member states) “formally endorsed what we were doing” (KamradtScott, 2010: 82). The 2003 SARS outbreak provided an opportunity to test the new mechanism. The Secretariat’s “lessons learned” report then indicated how the WHO’s effective response to SARS should be incorporated in the stalled International Health Regulations revision process. This helped to restart the revision process, with the new Regulations, the WHO’s normative power, adopted in 2005 (in force since 2007). The WHO Secretariat kept strengthening its emergency capacity. Following Indonesian opposition, abhorred at first, it eventually created the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework for the Sharing of Influenza Viruses and Access to Vaccines and Other Benefits during the 2009 influenza pandemic. This PIP Framework (in effect in 2011) proved an “innovative instrument regulating for the first time the entire cycle of pandemic influenza surveillance and response through the sharing of viruses (PIP biological materials) as well as benefits deriving from the production of diagnostics, antiviral medicines, and vaccines” (Burci, 2018: 690). It represented a breakthrough in the global governance of pathogenic risks. Given Director-General Margaret Chan’s slow response to the 2014 West African Ebola epidemic (see Chan’s entry in IO BIO), the WHO established a high-level Advisory Group, chaired by David Nabarro, then Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Ebola (but note that the WHO had sent one of its best staff members to the UN). This resulted in the 2016 Health Emergency Programme, with an Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee, to help states strengthen their capacities to detect, prevent and respond to health emergencies. Getting equitable access to vaccines during outbreaks became a multistakeholder effort, in which the WHO Secretariat has participated actively (see also Chapter 3 in this book). CEPI, launched at the 2017 World

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Economic Forum in Davos, focused on what the WHO had identified as priority diseases. In March 2020, the G20 called for a structure that would allow partners to share resources and knowledge to fight Covid-19. In April, the WHO, the European Commission, the Gates Foundation and France launched the ACT Accelerator with four pillars, each one managed by a few partners, the Covax pillar by CEPI, GAVI, UNICEF and the WHO. During the Covid-19 pandemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus initiated the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, co-chaired by Helen Clark and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, to follow the Covid-19 process closely and assess it openly and from outside. My reading of the entire process: indeed, complexity and joint ventures, but also initiative and control by the WHO Secretariat, which adapted through layering and conversion. In response to Covid-19, the WHO applied its fully developed outbreak mechanism (similarly available in 2020 as mRNA vaccines), despite the WHO’s poor institutional equipment (ongoing underfunding by member states and the built-in lack of operational and compliance monitoring capacities) and the need to cope with selfish national priority policies of member states and the consequences of restricted national investments in outbreak programs. Unlike before, the WHO work “has taken place in partnership with wider civil society and epistemic communities at the outset rather than after or toward the end of the outbreak” (Harman, 2020: 377). Although their investigation of eight global health organizations from 1970 to 2012 showed fragmentation and declining WHO relevance, Bahr et al. (2021: 83) also recognized cooperation and engagement in joint interorganizational practices. These produced shared visions and agendas (policy practices), bureaucratic procedures (management practices) and supervision by sitting on another organization’s board, or having joint systems for monitoring and evaluation (legal and standard-setting practices). Growing intensity, legalization and formal institutionalization had in common the idea that cooperation is a value. New organizations entering the field must draw on the already existing repertoire of interorganizational practices and did so. While global health organizations were being constrained, the dense web of common practices with other IGOs did also create an order in the regime complex that the IGOs controlled. Tine Hanrieder (2015: 212) did not find a “linear historical trend toward more orchestration” in the WHO, where orchestration (i.e.,

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working through intermediaries) was a long-established organizational practice. Hanrieder (2015: 191) noticed that the WHO’s empowerment in epidemiological surveillance during the early 2010s demonstrated that new intermediaries became powerful allies who allowed the WHO to engage in such orchestration and even gain greater autonomy from member state oversight. However, WHO attempts to orchestrate health assistance in the developmental domain were increasingly frustrated, as states used new exit options to strengthen their oversight over the WHO through project-specific contracts. Laura Zamudio González (2021: 600) found that, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the WHO and its regional office, the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), brought together resources, capacities and authority by involving diverse agents in their response processes. However, voluntarism reached its limits, if in contexts of uncertainty and fragmentation of the response some minimal coordination mechanisms by hierarchy and centralization were required. The WHO and PAHO then provided these. It can be concluded that fragmentation and complexity in the field of global health increased. However, the WHO leadership managed to remain an active player together with other organizations (in joint ventures) by adapting the organization and its instruments to the changed circumstances—adaptation which can be recognized only if what the WHO Secretariat has done internally and externally is included in the analysis.

6

The UN Secretariat Challenged

Similar leadership stories as observed in the WHO can be written about other specialized agencies and non-UN IGOs, e.g., UNEP, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, the International Criminal Court and regional organizations. Whether IGOs succeed in adapting and maintaining a relevant role in complex situations depends on the leadership qualities of the executive head and senior staff: these qualities are not self-evident and may change with each new head. If the required internal (or external) leadership is feeble or lacking, the IGO is likely to weaken and become irrelevant, or even die. The main external restriction is member-state behavior, which can be selfish (Covid-19), undermining the basics of the UN System and other IGOs (Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and disrespect of international treaties), limiting resources or preferring trans-governmental

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networks over IGOs. However, well-run IGO secretariats will try to counter such tendencies through mandate expansion, institutional innovation and coordination, as argued above by Johnson (2014), Schemeil (2011, 2013), and Biermann and Koops (2017), and as illustrated by the WHO Secretariat. The main challenge to the future development of the UN is the competition taking place between the less interested, sometimes hostile, hegemon (the US) and the rising great power that is increasing its participation in the UN System (see Chapter 7 in this book). In 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping addressed the General Assembly to announce that China’s UN priorities would expand. The UN had become a key venue for China’s more globalist aspirations, with China in a position to be “leading the reform of the global governance system” and “moving closer to the center stage” (Fung & Lam, 2021: 1143). China has gained more relevance by becoming the second largest provider of assessed contributions to the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets. It intensified its participation in the UN conference sphere to better understand its operation and worked to get more people appointed to higher staff positions (Feltman, 2020). Unlike the Soviet Union/Russia, China feels that its multilateral influence is limited by the relatively small number of Chinese international officials. Both general and professional staff numbers should be increased. The total number of Chinese staff in the UN for 2019 was little more than one-fifth of that of US staff, while its number of professional staff was slightly higher than those of Brazil and Russia (Fung & Lam, 2021: 1156). Chinese diplomats became Under-Secretary-General, heading the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (since 2007), and leaders in UN peace operations in Africa (2019–2020). The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs was tasked with connecting the UN Sustainable Development Goals with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Fung & Lam, 2021: 1151), which matters as US-China tensions are reflected in changing Global South sympathies. Apart from Margaret Chan of Hong Kong, who, supported by China, became WHO Director-General (2007), China obtained four top positions out of fifteen UN agencies: Li Yong at UNIDO (2013), Houlin Zhao at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) (2015), Fang Liu at the International Civil Aviation Organization (2015) and Qu Dongyu at the Food and Agriculture Organization (2019). Due to Western counterpressure, Wang Binying did not become Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organization

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(2020) and a Chinese-inspired attempt to have a Russian ITU Director failed in 2022. While China is entitled to enhance its bureaucratic status (as did the US), its technocratic, state-centric approach to global governance, based on state sovereignty and non-interference in domestic politics, differs from the Western approach and its human rights view puts collective interests above individual ones. In its foreign policy, China is supported by several African and Latin American states because China has fewer demands on human rights and democracy. China has resisted the use of sanctions in the Security Council as part of a strategy to impose democratization or other conflict resolution strategies on resistant states. Since 2007, it has joined with Russia in vetoes, creating a split between the “P2” and “P3” (Britain, France, the US) among the five permanent members. The common thread in these Chinese-Russian vetoes was that the drafts condemned governmental behavior in the targeted states and expressed human rights concerns (Feltman, 2020: 2). China has also used its veto power to block any resolution that could be regarded as potentially damaging its future sovereignty over Taiwan. These Chinese positions have made the UN a more demanding environment. The UN as a global forum represents both continuity (being a huge bureaucracy) and potential discontinuity, as it must cope with a permanent Security Council member that hinders the UN from countering its aggression and another permanent member that seeks more influence, including the change of certain UN principles. It can be expected that the UN Secretariat will defend the organization’s basic principles, even if shifts in the global and regional balances of power will leave the Secretariat less room for maneuver. A reshuffle among organizations may follow, including the arrival of new institutions and the adjustment of mutual relationships, but the executive heads and senior staff of the specialized agencies will continue to play explicit roles, as happened in the 1970s and 1990s.

7

Conclusion

Given growing complexity, severe security issues and US-China rivalry (also within the UN System), the current era of multilateralism remains under pressure. What have IGO secretariats done so far? Have they acted like in the two previous periods discussed above, when they instigated institutional change and helped to shape the new multilateral

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landscape? In recent decades, the landscape of IGOs has been dynamic (see Table 1), with higher IGO death than assumed but also increasing numbers of various IGO types during the 2010s and the development of so-called informal IGOs. Taken together, these dynamics have resulted in a more complex institutional landscape, with joint ventures of IGOs and trans-governmental networks as new elements. Authors like Johnson (2014), Schemeil (2011, 2013) and Biermann and Koops (2017) explain the IGO agency by pointing out that IGO secretariats have succeeded in strengthening their positions vis-à-vis their member states through mandate expansion, organizational progeny and the creation of new structures, based on inter-organizational relations, joint ventures and networks. Trans-governmental networks and informal arrangements set up by governments as a countermove are also part of the new landscape. This latter trend does not detract from the fact that IGO secretariats, while adapting their institutions and instruments, have been helping to shape the new landscape. An analysis at the micro-level reveals that an increase in partners such as through joint ventures (in the field of global health assessed as fragmentation) did not keep the WHO Secretariat from both successful internal reforms, particularly regarding its mechanisms to cope with pandemics, and external repositioning—taken together a form of combined leadership over time, both internal and external. While shifts in the global and regional balances of power may leave less room for IGO secretariats in the future, it is to be expected that IGOs continue to work for the purposes for which they were created. Dissolving organizations is not that easy, especially if survival is an interest, given the need to find common solutions to threatening trans-border problems, such as climate change, energy transition, security, economic stability and pandemics. If the present situation of multilateralism under pressure results in renewal (institutional adaptation and a new multilateral landscape), this will occur with the active participation of IGO secretariats.

References Bahr, T., Holzscheiter, A., & Pantzerhielm, L. (2021). Understanding regime complexes through a practice lens. Global Governance, 27 (1), 71–94. Biermann, R., & Koops, J. (Eds.). (2017). The Palgrave handbook of interorganizational relations in world politics. Palgrave.

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Brown, G. W., & Held, D. (2017). Health: New leadership for devastating challenges. In T. Hale & D. Held (Eds.), Beyond Gridlock (pp. 162–183). Polity. Burci, G. L. (2018). Health and infectious disease. In T. G. Weiss & S. Daws (Eds.), The Oxford handbook on the United Nations (2nd ed., pp. 679–694). Oxford University Press. Cox, R. W., & Jacobson, H. K. (Eds.). (1973). The anatomy of influence: Decision making in international organization. Yale University Press. Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, M. (2018). Death of international organizations: The organizational ecology of international organizations, 1815–2015. The Review of International Organizations, 15, 339–370. Eilstrup-Sangiovanni, M. (2021). What kills international organisations? When and why international organisations terminate. European Journal of International Relations, 27 (1), 281–310. Feltman, J. (2020). China’s expanding influence at the United Nations—And how the United States should react. Brookings Institution. Fung, C. J., & Lam, S.-H. (2021). Staffing the United Nations: China’s motivations and prospects. International Affairs, 97 (4), 1143–1163. Gray, J. (2018). Life, death, or zombie? The vitality of international organizations. International Studies Quarterly, 62(1), 1–13. Hanrieder, T. (2015). WHO orchestrates? Coping with competitors in global health. In K. W. Abbott, P. Genschel, D. Snidal, & B. Zangl (Eds.), International organizations as orchestrators (pp. 191–213). Cambridge University Press. Harman, S. (2020). COVID-19, the UN, and dispersed global health security. Ethics & International Affairs, 34(3), 373–378. IO BIO. Biographical Dictionary of Secretaries-General of International Organizations, edited by Bob Reinalda, Kent J. Kille, and Jaci L. Eisenberg, available at www.ru.nl/fm/iobio. Accessed 18 April 2023. IO BIO entries, including the entries’ author names, can be found in alphabetical order by Executive Head. Johnson, T. (2014). Organizational progeny: Why governments are losing control over the proliferating structures of global governance. Oxford University Press. Kamradt-Scott, A. (2010). The WHO secretariat, norm entrepreneurship, and global disease outbreak control. Journal of International Organizations Studies, 1(1), 72–89. Lee, K., & Piper, J. (2020). The WHO and the COVID-19 pandemic: Less reform, more innovation. Global Governance, 26(4), 523–533. Manulak, M. W. (2021). The networked diplomacy of informal international institutions. Global Governance, 27 (3), 410–432. Reinalda, B. (2009). Routledge history of international organizations: From 1815 to the present day. Routledge.

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Reinalda, B. (2020). International secretariats: Two centuries of international civil servants and secretariats. Routledge. Roger, C., & Rowan, S. (2018). Informality and bias in studies of international organizations. Salzburg. Ruggie, J. G. (1992). Multilateralism: The anatomy of an institution. International Organization, 46(3), 561–598. Ruggie, J. G. (1998). Constructing the world polity: Essays on international institutionalization. Routledge. Ruggie, J. G. (2003). The United Nations and globalization: Patterns and limits of institutional globalization. Global Governance, 9(3), 301–321. Schemeil, Y. (2011). Dynamism and resilience of intergovernmental organizations in a world of persisting state power and rising non-state actors. In B. Reinalda (Ed.), The Ashgate research companion to non-state actors (pp. 237–250). Ashgate. Schemeil, Y. (2013). Bringing international organization. In global institutions as adaptive hybrids. Organization Studies, 34(2), 219–252. Strange, S. (1998). Why do international organizations never die? In B. Reinalda & B. Verbeek (Eds.), Autonomous policy making by international organizations (pp. 213–220). Routledge. Zamudio González, L. (2021). Indirect governance of transnational crises: The PAHO and WHO response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Latin American. Global Governance, 27 (4), 587–606.

CHAPTER 13

Regime Complexes as a Model of Multilateral Governance: The Case of the Environment Amandine Orsini

1

Introduction

In the early 2000s, scholars working on multilateralism in the environmental field realized that governance on specific topics, such as genetic resources (Raustiala & Victor, 2004), was not organized around a unique international institution anymore. Rather, several institutions were responsible for creating norms and rules on the same specific topic, without clear hierarchy among them: this is how they discovered and created the “regime complex” concept. Since then, regime complexes have been identified as governance arrangements dealing with a high number of specific topics, including climate change, forests, fisheries and, outside the environmental realm, trade, intellectual property rights or human trafficking.

A. Orsini (B) Université Saint-Louis, Bruxelles, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A. Guilbaud et al. (eds.), Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience, The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39671-7_13

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In less than 20 years, the regime complex concept has become an important concept in international studies. But what are precisely regime complexes? How has the concept evolved? What does it tell us about multilateral governance? This chapter precisely aims at answering these questions. It presents and questions the contributions of the regime complex concept to our understanding of multilateral governance. In order to do so, the first part presents the definition of regime complexes as well as the evolution of the concept through time, as the original concept has created many conceptual rhizomes. The second part explains what regime complexes tell us about global governance, using examples from the environmental field, that is the field in which research on regime complexes has been the most active so far. The third part reflects on the use of the regime complex concept outside of the environmental field. Such use has been, so far, more limited, which enables us to reflect, also in the conclusion, on the limits of the regime complex concept as well as on its potential for studies of multilateralism.

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The regime complex concept comes from earlier work on international regimes defined by Stephen Krasner as “sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international relations” (Krasner, 1982: 185). Traditionally, international regime studies have concentrated on the analysis of unique and specific international organizations, conventions, protocols or treaties, on a specific issue area, such as the Antarctic Treaty, the World Trade Organization or the Geneva Conventions. Progressively, however, scholars including Ernst Haas (1980) or Oran Young (1989) started to realize that different international treaties were not in isolation from one another but could enter into interactions. Building on the work of these specialists of international regimes’ interactions, Kal Raustiala and David Victor, who were interested in biodiversity issues and in particular in the specific topic of genetic resources’ governance, suggested to label “regime complexes” situations in which several international regimes were governing the same specific topic. More precisely, they defined a regime complex as “an array of partially overlapping and nonhierarchical institutions governing a particular issue-area”

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(Raustiala & Victor, 2004: 279). They identified several international regimes dealing with the plant genetic resources’ issue including the biodiversity, the intellectual property rights and the agriculture regimes. While this first step was crucial in opening a new research domain on regime complexes, several uncertainties remained with regard to the nature and number of institutions involved, as well as to the consequences of regime interactions within regime complexes for multilateral governance. To fill these gaps, in early 2010, a group of international scholars interested in regime complexes organized a workshop followed by a special issue on the concept, to refine the initial definition into: “a network of three or more international regimes that relate to a common subject matter; exhibit overlapping membership; and generate substantive, normative, or operative interactions recognized as potentially problematic whether or not they are managed effectively” (Orsini et al., 2013: 29). What these scholars wanted to insist on was the historical affiliation of regime complexes to international regime’s studies, meaning that their consequences for the effectiveness of global governance was a key question; as well as on the fact that regime complexes are governance structures, meaning that they are more than the sum of their constitutive parts. Instead of analyzing regimes one by one, a regime complexes’ lens requires to look at the networks of international regimes evolving around a specific topic. Networks between international institutions were found to be twofold: horizontal thematic networks that link regimes on different issue areas; and vertical networks based on overlapping state membership between these different regimes (Gomez-Mera et al., 2020). For example, four main international regimes deal with forests issues, namely trade, climate change, biodiversity and indigenous rights, and many states are members to these different regimes at the same time (Dupuits, 2021). For multilateral governance, such structures of regimes mean that if one of the regimes changes, or one element of these regimes changes, it is the whole structure that can evolve. Defining regime complexes as networks of international regimes also helped characterize the nature of the governance structure around specific topics of multilateral governance: regime complexes could be found at different stages including atomization, competition, specialization and integration (Morin & Orsini, 2013). Atomization means that a regime complex is particularly fragmented with no precise structure. Competition appears when part of the institutions involved in the complex interact and compete for the

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governance of specific issues. Specialization might follow competition and leads to the creation of a sort of division of labor between the different institutions involved in the complex. Finally, integration might happen when specialization leads to the emergence of a clear structure within the regime complex, with an integrated governance of the specific issue at hand. Integration as a last stage does not always happen and most regime complexes’ forms enable the emergence of “contested multilateralism” (Morse & Keohane, 2014) with tensions that can potentially emerge at different stages of the development of the regime complex. Collective thinking is diverse and some scholars took a different path to the regime complexes one, preferring to rather talk about “institutional fragmentation” patterns, rather than real governance structures (Biermann et al., 2009). They thought it was too premature to clearly identify governance structures organized around specific topics. Moreover, for them, the regime complex concept was somehow too deterministic, while international actors themselves (mostly states and international organizations) were often not aware of the existence of multilateral structures. Considering that “fragmentation” of global governance was still dominating (Kellow, 2012), they preferred to refer to the broader terms of “architectures of global governance” rather than to more narrowly defined regime complexes (Biermann & Kim, 2020; see also Chapter 3 in this book on global health multilateral governance). Several scholars, inspired by the extended work by Edgard Morin (1990, 2007) on complexity, also started to envision a potential link between regime complexes and the notion of complex systems. A common mistake in the interpretation of the regime complex concept is to believe that regime complexes are complex, in the sense of complicated. Rather, as mentioned earlier, “complex” in “regime complex” refers to the existence of a structure, a complex, that links different governance institutions together. While regime complexes are not necessarily complex, they, however, could share a number of similar characteristics with complex systems defined recently as “open systems—that is, exchanging information with their environment—that include multiple elements (units) of various types intricately interconnected with one another and operating at various levels” (Orsini et al., 2020: 1010). One indeed recognizes in the definition the reference to several units that are linked together. In particular, complex systems have three properties that distinguish them from other forms of governance: self-organization, emergence and

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adaptation: “overall, thinking in terms of complex systems invites us to give up on prediction, to dissociate management from control, to be attuned to unintended consequences, and to rethink the role of power. The world is not a machine, for better or for worse” (Orsini et al., 2020: 1011). Interested in the unpredictable but adaptive nature of complex systems, several scholars of regime complexes started to work on complex adaptive systems (Kim & Mackey, 2014). It can indeed be that some regime complexes become adaptive systems, but not all regime complexes are of this nature. Actually, Marielle Papin believes complexity and complex system science can be used as umbrella concepts to host the different formerly used concepts of “regime complexes”, “fragmentation” or “institutional interactions” in the same collective framework (Papin, 2020). While institutional fragmentation or complex systems refine the regime complex concept, they still build on it and do not replace it. After all, “the concept (of regime complex) has become a central element of the theoretical repertoire of global governance” (Gomez-Mera et al., 2020: 137). Moreover, all these concepts share one central common denominator: global governance is now networked across different international institutions, with social network theory often suggested as a key method associated with such conceptualizations (Kim, 2020). More interestingly, the concept has not only been actively discussed theoretically in academic debates, it has also been used as the framework for a plethora of empirical studies, in particular in the environmental field. We develop the empirical contributions of the regime complex concept in this field of global governance in the next section.

3 The Empirical Contributions of a Regime Complexes’ Perspective on Global Environmental Governance The environmental field has so far been the favorite empirical realm for regime complexes’ studies. Regime complexes’ scholars have indeed been working on regime complexes on the topic of genetic resources (Gehring & Faude, 2014; Morin & Orsini, 2014; Oberthür & Gehring, 2006; Raustiala & Victor, 2004), climate change (Abbott, 2012; Earsom & Delreux, 2021; Keohane & Victor, 2011), fisheries (Hollway & Koskinen, 2016), forests (Giessen, 2013; Orsini, 2013,

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2017), arctic ocean governance (Young & Kim, 2021) or energy (Van de Graaf, 2013). The empirical test of the concept enabled them to identify key features of multilateral governance through the lens of regime complexes. First, while “most regime complexes are the unintentional results of successive interactions” (Gomez-Mera et al., 2020: 141), they represent a new playing field for innovative actors’ strategies within global governance. When no unique regime enjoys a monopoly on governance issues, actors can play with different institutions, pushing their interests across different venues at the same time. By doing so, they can perform forum shopping (Kellow, 2012; Raustiala & Victor, 2004), forum shifting (Dupuits, 2021; Van de Graaf, 2013) and forum linking (Dupuits, 2021; Orsini, 2013). Forum shopping consists in “a strategy of selecting arenas because of the benefits conferred by institutional characteristics and using these to progress or inhibit the development of policy initiatives” (Kellow, 2012: 333): actors “shop” the venue that better corresponds to their interests. For example, business groups have been quite active in practicing forum shopping within the genetic resources’ regime complex, trying to use intellectual property and trade venues to counter the development of rules on benefit sharing within the Convention on biological diversity (Orsini, 2013). Forum shifting consists in changing the venue in which international discussions occur. Among others, one way of practicing forum shifting consists in creating a new venue. This is precisely what happened when Germany, joined by a handful of other states, decided to push for the creation of a new international organization within the energy regime complex, the International Renewable Energy Agency (created in 2009), as it believed that the International Energy Agency was not engaging enough with the important topic of renewable energy (Van de Graaf, 2013). While the former two strategies tend to potentially disrupt the existing balance within a regime complex, forum linking “occurs when actors seek to connect previously conflictive or disconnected arenas in order to serve their own interests” (Dupuits, 2021: 569): they try to create more coherence within the regime complex. For example, from 2015 and on, indigenous peoples have practiced forum linking between climate, biodiversity and indigenous rights’ regimes by pushing the specific topic of

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their territorial security, at the crossroad of all three international regimes (Dupuits, 2021). Forum shopping, forum shifting and forum linking are not necessarily exclusive and can therefore be combined or practiced by the same actors through time (Orsini, 2013). For instance, Dupuits (2021) explains how the failure of indigenous peoples to have territorial security recognized as a key issue in international processes through forum linking pushed them to practice a vertical forum shift to “move (of ) territorial security issues from international climate arenas towards other arenas or more regional and local priorities” (Dupuits, 2021: 577). They also practiced a horizontal shift at the international level, trying to move their concerns from climate arenas (after the 21st Conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2015) to biodiversity arenas (at the 13th Conference of the parties to the Convention on biological diversity in 2016). Just as regime studies were initially state-centric, regime complexes’ studies were also initially concentrating on states. But empirical proof of the concept soon revealed that the forum shopping, forum shifting and forum linking strategies were also performed by non-state actors. Non-state actors can even happen to develop their own institutional initiatives, parallel to governmental ones, to create proper “transnational regime complexes” such as the transnational regime complex on climate change. Within this complex, the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, two key transnational actors, created the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, in 1998, to provide to business and governments standards and training on greenhouse gas emissions (Abbott, 2012). As a result, regime complexes were found to favor multiple strategies and multiple actors in global governance, leading experts to conceptualize “hybrid institutional complexes” as global governance formats “that comprise heterogeneous interstate, infra-state, public–private and private transnational institutions, formal and informal” (Abbott & Faude, 2022: 264). Second, and related to this first result, a regime complexes’ perspective enabled to empirically refine our understanding of power in multilateralism. If actors and strategies become multiple, where does power lie? While initial theoretical studies expected that traditionally powerful players would still be central in regime complexes (Drezner, 2009), with regime complexes even reinforcing the power of the already powerful ones, empirical studies in the environmental field have shown that regime

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complexes can benefit actors with different skills, who are not the actors that were believed to be the central ones in the field. Indeed, regime complexes is likely to favor actors’ craftiness (Holeindre, 2017) while their force becomes less relevant. Using social network analysis and centrality measures, Hollway and Koskinen (2016) analyze bilateral and multilateral fisheries agreements as a regime complex, finding different power patterns depending on the governance scale, i.e., the bilateral or the multilateral parts of the regime complex. The European Union and Russia are the central players in the bilateral complex. In addition to geography, the explanation relies on the numerous agreements the European Union has with non-adjacent African states. It also relies on the fact that “bilateralism appears to be the preferred choice of larger, fishing-intensive states” (Hollway & Koskinen, 2016: 293). This finding seems to confirm that powerful states are the most central in the complex. However, both authors also find that, within a more global picture, small states are at the center of the multilateral elements of the complex, and “especially those with experience of local marine stocks being threatened” (Hollway & Koskinen, 2016: 293). In that case, power distribution can be explained by the fact that such states count on collective action to help them protect their fisheries’ resources. Apparently small players are found to be able to identify the networks of multilateral agreements as an opportunity for them to improve their fisheries governance. In the same line, but working on non-state actors’ strategies in regime complexes, Orsini (2017) shows that, once they manage to have enough resources to participate in multiple international venues (once they pay what has been identified as the “negotiation burden”), non-governmental organizations are well equipped to navigate the different institutions of the forest regime complex, and on this aspect are more skilled than business groups. This is partly explained by their capacity to “see” the different components of the regime complex and push for their interests throughout the different venues, while businesses tend to concentrate their lobbying efforts at the national level of policymaking and still act on venues separately and somehow miss the overall picture. They also tend to underestimate the importance of environmental venues as counterparts to trade and intellectual property rights’ venues. Such changes in power dynamics are partly explained by the fact that regime complexes enhance the legitimacy of global governance (Faude & Groβe-Kreul, 2020). Indeed, the presence of several institutions forces

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international players to justify their actions, especially when these actions create negative spillovers across existing institutions. Such justifications reinforce the importance of norms, at the detriment of interests. The authors take, among others, the example of the World Trade Organization Appellate Body and its decisions on environmentally motivated trade restrictions. Because it had to justify the potential interactions between trade and environmental issues, the World Trade Organization Appellate Body strengthened the relation between both (Faude & Groβe-Kreul, 2020: 436–437; see also Chapter 10 in this book). These empirical evidences have led to more general modeling confirming for instance that weak actors are more likely to benefit from regime shifting, compared to strong actors (Verdier, 2022). This does not mean that power dynamics are not at play any more within regime complexes. Some institutions are still more central, and therefore powerful, in specific regime complexes. For example, Morin et al. (2017a) show how social sciences are still underrepresented as epistemologies within the profiles of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ experts, a science policy boundary organization at the center of the biodiversity regime complex. This is understandable as the platform deals mostly with natural science issues, but what is more striking is that the profiles of the experts within social sciences, economics and management are nearly the exclusive competences represented: this illustrates the dominance of the trade regime within the biodiversity regime complex. Also, research by Delreux and Earsom on the European Union in the climate change regime complex investigates the responsiveness of the European Union, that is its potential to navigate the climate change regime complex. It shows that not all international actors can practice responsiveness as it requires key resources, being: “not so much a passive reaction, but rather a reflection of how the European Union as an international actor approaches international climate governance” (Earsom & Delreux, 2021: 712). Power dominance is still visible. It can also take the shape of the partial diffusion of topics across international institutions dealing with important global problems. This is the case of the incomplete “climatization” of global politics, whereby specialists have noticed the incomplete climatization of fossil fuels’ governance, while fossil fuels are the first drivers of climate change. Such incomplete climatization, they claim, “perpetuate(s) existing infrastructures and create(s) new lock-ins that displace the problem without contributing to its resolution” (Aykut et al., 2017:

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189). Regime complexes’ studies have the merit to shed new light on power dominance and to highlight new explanations for such dominance. Third, empirical studies using a regime complexes’ lens in the environmental field have concentrated on formulating recommendations to improve global governance. Several have seen regime complexes as entities evolving according to the principles of organizational ecology (Abbott et al., 2016). Among these, division of labor has been observed, just as when different species specialize in specific ecological niches (Gehring & Faude, 2014; Pratt, 2018), with positive outcomes for global governance. Biermann and Kim (2020) have also identified important policy responses in the context of institutional fragmentation, that can help improve the coherency and therefore effectiveness, of global governance. This is the case of “policy integration”, when one issue such as climate change is integrated in another one, such as energy (Dupont, 2015); of “interplay management” when for instance coordination platforms are created across international institutions such as the Inter-Organization for the Sound Management of Chemicals (Faude & Groβe-Kreul, 2020: 437); of “orchestration”, when an overarching agreement is created to host other institutions on a given topic, this is to some extend the case of the 2015 Paris Agreement for climate change (Earsom & Delreux, 2023); of “governance through goals”, which is a strategy that has been favored to improve the implementation of the sustainable development goals (Kanie & Biermann, 2017); of “hierarchization” such as attempts to develop global environmental constitutionalism to establish hierarchy in international environmental law, such as with the Global Pact for the Environment (Biermann & Kim, 2020: 283). Such policy responses can help solve conflicts between the norms of different environmental regimes, as is the case between the REDD initiative on deforestation and forest degradation of the climate change regime and the norms of the Convention on biological diversity. Indeed, the implementation of REDD can be opposed to biodiversity rich policies (when tree monocultures are planted for reforestation) and to indigenous and local communities’ rights (when initiatives exclude consultations with these populations) (Dupuits, 2017: 119–121). While institutional fragmentation can lead to conflicts and redundancies, it can also lead to synergies, reinforcing effects, cooperation and connectivity. Most importantly, a regime complex lens enables to keep adaptability and change in mind and “in certain fields, such as the governance of climate change, where uncertainty forces us to adjust governance at the same time as

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knowledge evolves, understanding how systems of institutions adapt is crucial” (Papin, 2020: 84). All three streams, of strategies, power dynamics and effectiveness, are not isolated one from the other. For instance, Kellow (2012) is optimistic about institutional fragmentation as it enables issues not to be overlooked as several institutions deal with the same topic; and as forum shopping can enable to push for new developments for global governance, making it constantly dynamic and adaptive. While the research above builds on the environmental field, the next section discusses its applicability to other fields of global governance.

4 For a Generalization of Regime Complexes’ Studies The environmental field has been a particularly exceptional empirical field to test the heuristic potential of the regime complex’ concept. This can be explained by several specificities of such a field of study. First, there exists no World Environment Organization, meaning that governance is more easily fragmented in the environmental domain. Second, due to the increasing importance of the ecological crises, institutions have proliferated within this field, creating more potential institutional interactions. Third, scholars of global environmental governance have been particularly interested in issues of effectiveness, and therefore concerned about the potential effects of institutional interactions. Finally, they have tended to borrow conceptualizations inspired by natural sciences such as adaptive governance systems, organizational ecology and complex systems that are very close to the regime complex approach (Gomez-Mera et al., 2020: 138). Now that the environmental domain has served as a pioneering field for regime complex studies, there is potential for it to inform other fields of global governance about the dynamics of multilateralism. A restricted number of other fields have already been analyzed in relation to the regime complex literature. This has indeed been the case as regime complexes in the environmental field include international regimes from other fields, meaning that research on environmental complexes is already producing results for other policy domains. The trade regime has been particularly intensely studied in relation to environmental issues, with research, among others, on the environmental provisions of international trade agreements, being bilateral or global trade agreements. The structure of all trade agreements including environmental provisions has

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been studied as a complex system (Morin et al., 2017), with, among others, results on the dynamics of environmental provisions’ diffusion, and on the major players hosting such provisions. Just as for the environmental domain, the trade domain is found to be highly evolving: “in this sense, systems of institutions have the property of autopoiesis, as they can generate more of themselves” (Morin et al., 2017 cited in Gomez Mera et al., 2020: 142). Because regime complexes are about interactions between different regimes, methods and research endeavors to map regime complexes in the environmental domain have diffused to other fields. For instance, after the elaboration of the International Environmental Agreements Database in 2002 (Mitchell, 2020), that maps all existing international agreements dealing with environmental issues (more than 3000), researchers developed the TREND database (TREND for TRade & ENvironment Database) that, until 2022, identified about 300 different types of environmental provisions in more than 700 trade agreements (TREND, 2022). Intellectual property rights’ studies have also embraced a regime complex lens, following their discussion within the framework of the access to genetic resources’ regime complex. As soon as Raustiala and Victor published their study about natural genetic resources and the question of their governance, Helfer (2004) analyzed the possibility of forum shifting across different regimes dealing with global health issues (see Chapter 3 in this book). The issue of access to genetic resources has also led to broader discussions on the important question of multilateral access to common goods such as medicines (Kuyper, 2015) or food (Margulis, 2013). These studies confirm the deliberative power of regime complexes and the key role non-state actors can play within these regimes. The security field has been less inclined to engage with the regime complex literature, despite the fact that this literature proposes interesting new pathways. This is partly explained by the fact that, initially, scholars in the security field privileged studies based on the notion of interorganizationalism, rather than on the concept of regime complexes (Biermann, 2009; Hofmann, 2009, 2019). Inter-organizationalism helped them analyze how different international organizations were interacting on global security issues, with the example of the interactions between the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a landmark example. However, despite its first analytical step toward the study of institutional interactions, inter-organizationalism still proposed a

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limited reflection on the security field. First, inter-organizationalism was still centered on governmental and intergovernmental actors as the central actors of global governance while including non-state perspectives could have added some needed nuances: “as global issues become progressively complex, there is increasing demand to bring together multiple actors with distinct policy expertise to solve them” (Uji, 2022: 1). Second, inter-organizationalism pictured a security field dominated by rational and strategic perspectives of global politics, by predictable events, while regime complexes would inform us on the dynamic structures of such a field (Gomez-Mera et al., 2020: 140). Third, it also reflected a security field confined to one unique scale: the international level of policymaking while regime complexes call for polycentricity: “complexes underline both the fragmentation and polycentricity of global governance” (Papin, 2020: 83). In parallel to inter-organizationalism, a few issue areas, more transnational in nature, have embraced a regime complex approach: studies on refugees and on human trafficking (Betts, 2010; Gomez Mera, 2016). Compared to more traditional security studies, the concept of regime complexes adds valuable new perspectives to such global governance efforts and in particular on issues regarding the lack of coherency between the norms adopted within different international institutions, norms that can be very detrimental to the implementation of human rights. Only very recently have scholars tried to apply a regime complex lens to more traditional security issues, such as armament or geostrategic behavior. The obtained analyses are promising. Regarding armament, researchers have been studying the adoption of the arms’ trade treaty, that goes much beyond initial expectations: “the treaty has turned out to be much more than a lowest common denominator, an outcome most observers would not have expected given persistent reservations of great powers and gridlock on the global level” (Panke & Friedrichs, 2023: 3). What the authors demonstrate is how “regime complexity has been a crucial factor in the explanation for why the ATT (arms trade treaty) was concluded in the first place and why the outcome does not resemble a lowest common denominator” (Panke & Friedrichs, 2023: 4). More precisely, by embracing a polycentric view of the issue, their research shows the relevance of regional organizations, such as the European Union (EU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), for pushing

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for more ambitious global governance on arms trade such as “the inclusion of small arms and light weapons into the list of conventional weapons in the treaty’s scope and the inclusion of ammunition in a prominent Article in the ATT” (Panke & Friedrichs, 2023: 12). They also confirm that small states, such as Costa Rica, can be very influential in regime complexes, because “agency that exploits the opportunities provided by regime complexity matters” (Panke & Friedrichs, 2023: 12). Some, facing important national security challenges due to issues beyond the classical security domain, such as climate change, take the opportunity of issue linkages to switch from a sidelined role to a more central presence on the international scene. This has been the case of Bangladesh in climate change negotiations that switched from a vulnerable country role to the more pro-active presence as a “weak power”, leading climate adaptation policies and practices in the Global South. In addition, these countries strengthen the regime complex conceptual understanding by insisting on the heuristic value of the distinction between horizontal regime complexity and vertical regime complexity, that is complexity across issue areas and complexity across policy levels. On geostrategic behavior, in their study of the geopolitics of the Artic, Fravel et al. (2021) demonstrate how a regime complex perspective enables to identify a Janus-faced approach to international cooperation practiced by China in the region (see also Chapter 7 in this book). In particular, they find that “China relies on global regimes regarding navigation issues, prefers bilateral cooperation for purposes of resource extraction, and prioritizes Arctic regimes to justify the pursuit of dualuse scientific research” (Fravel et al., 2021). Including several institutions at different levels in the study clarifies the role of this major player in the region, a clarification that would not be possible by looking at international regimes one by one. Overall, the use of the regime complex concept in the security field has been timid, while its systematic use would open new perspectives on change and adaptation. It would offer theories of change that studies of multilateralism often lack (Papin, 2020: 91), and offer new ways to describe global governance and generate plausible scenarios.

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Conclusion

This contribution has tried to give justice to a plethora of concepts used within the literature dealing with multilateralism to describe the structure of global governance. Such concepts, such as institutional interactions, institutional fragmentation, regime complexity or complex systems, all share some common grounds and navigate around the initial concept of “regime complexes”. Indeed, any new theoretical refinement enabled scholars to better understand the specificity of the original concept of regime complex, that is still used as the reference. They tell us that multilateralism is a polycentric field, an evolving field and a field organized around a high number of institutions. Applied to the environmental domain, its first domain of predilection, the regime complexes’ lens enables to picture precise actors’ strategies, to question power and to formulate recommendations to improve global governance. Interestingly, the use of the regime complex concept within the environmental field enables to shed light on its specificities, as well as on the current conceptual limits to understand global governance beyond the environmental field. While trade or intellectual property rights’ studies have engaged with the regime complex discussion, its use in the security domain is still timid, despite its promising analytical value. Looking back at the central question specialists asked a decade ago on the concept of regime complex in the title of a 2013 Global Governance special issue: “Regime Complexes: A Buzz, A Boom or a Boost for Global Governance?” (Orsini et al., 2013), it is unquestionable that regime complexes have created a buzz, with regime complexes’ studies having boomed over the past ten years. As developed in this chapter, conceptual as well as empirical knowledge of regime complexes has developed in various ways, also demonstrating the dynamism of a reflective concept questioned and refined numerous times. What, however, do regime complexes still need to become a real boost for global governance? For this to happen, all fields of global governance would need to engage with the concept, for renewed perspectives on key challenges for multilateralism.

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