‘The end of the world as we know it’: Is the rules-based order finished?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the quiet portion retired loud astatine the World Economic Forum: what galore telephone the planetary rules-based bid was either collapsing oregon had collapsed already.

In the past fewer weeks, the United States, whose subject and fiscal heft underpinned overmuch of that order, has invaded Venezuela, has threatened to invade the European territory of Greenland, and has promised to levy tariffs connected immoderate of its Western allies that mightiness reason it.

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Moreover, successful spot of the United Nations, the organisation intended to embody the modern satellite order, US President Donald Trump is pushing what helium has hinted whitethorn beryllium its successor, the “Board of Peace“.

Speaking successful the Swiss municipality of Davos connected Tuesday, Carney accepted that, successful airy of the behaviour of the US – astir precocious successful its propulsion to instrumentality Greenland – the rules-based bid was fundamentally over.

In its place, helium said, was the coming epoch of large powerfulness rivalry, wherever the comfy “fiction” of the past withered successful the unforgiving airy of day.

“The system’s powerfulness comes not from its truth, but from everyone’s willingness to execute arsenic if it were true, and its fragility comes from the aforesaid source,” helium told satellite leaders. “When adjacent 1 idiosyncratic stops performing … the illusion begins to crack.”

“We participated successful the rituals, and we mostly avoided calling retired the gaps betwixt rhetoric and reality,” Carney added. “This bargain nary longer works. Let maine beryllium direct. We are successful the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

In Trump’s code successful Davos the pursuing day, the US president made wide that times had changed. He nodded to Venezuela, wherever his forces conducted a raid to abduct the country’s President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month. He criticised Europe, calling the countries determination weak.

And helium perpetually referenced his tendency to instrumentality Greenland, nary substance what Greenlanders, oregon Denmark – the state they are portion of – think.

“We privation a portion of crystal for satellite protection. And they won’t springiness it,” Trump said. “So they person a choice. You tin accidental yes, and we volition beryllium precise appreciative. Or you tin accidental no, and we volition remember.”

Trump has made wide that the aged mode of doing things does not involvement him. The post-World War II rules-based bid concepts of sovereignty, and the solution of disputes done negotiations, nary longer mattered.

Not an state but a predator

The actions of Trump and his medication person forced lawmakers crossed Europe and the West to face their reliance upon the US and measurement the difficulties of confronting the world’s astir important superpower, which NATO’s erstwhile lawman allied commandant for Europe, Richard Shirreff, described connected Tuesday arsenic having turned from “ally” to “predator”.

Limited attempts connected the portion of Europe to antagonistic US ambitions successful Greenland person seen the deployment of a token fig of troops to the island, lone to beryllium met by American fury and the contiguous menace of tariffs.

“The rules-based bid is over, and its ending reflects the decades-old fallacy that European and US values and information interests were the same,” said Geoffrey Nice, a quality rights lawyer and erstwhile pb authoritative successful the warfare crimes proceedings of Serbia’s erstwhile president, Slobodan Milosevic.

Over the years, the US has exempted itself from galore planetary treaties, specified arsenic the International Criminal Court, whose warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin was actively pursued by erstwhile US President Joe Biden, contempt Washington’s refusal to judge the jurisdiction of the tribunal itself.

Similarly, erstwhile the International Court of Justice ruled against the US successful a 1986 lawsuit connected Washington’s enactment for rebels successful Nicaragua, the US simply dismissed the ruling. Other planetary obligations, specified arsenic those connected climate, oregon commitments to Iran to easiness sanctions successful instrumentality for greater transparency of its atomic programme, person been likewise shrugged off.

“The world has been that, clip and again, the US has placed its ain interests and its ain sovereignty first. The United States’ involvement successful planetary law, going backmost to the Nuremberg, has ever been advertisement hoc alternatively than pact based,” Nice told Al Jazeera, referring to the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders aft World War II. “What’s compounded this is that, for implicit 80 years, Europe and others person deluded themselves that this isn’t the case.”

Protesters instrumentality portion successful a march successful beforehand of the US Consulate, nether the slogan, ‘Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people’, successful Nuuk, Greenland, March 15, 2025 [Christian Klindt Soelbeck/Ritzau Scanpix/via Reuters]

Hypocritical order

Longstanding criticisms of the alleged rules-based bid person grown progressively marked implicit the past fewer decades.

Perhaps astir notable for galore was continued Western enactment for Israel contempt its genocidal warfare connected Gaza, successful which it has killed much than 71,550 Palestinians successful the past 2 years. Western leaders person mostly ignored the International Criminal Court’s apprehension warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, raising questions astir whether planetary instrumentality matters for some, but not for others.

“The thought of holding to a singular — and often profoundly hypocritical — rules-based bid is finished, to the grade it ever genuinely existed,” said HA Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies successful London.

Critics accidental the hypocrisy of the planetary rules-based bid has been exposed during Israel’s warfare connected Gaza [Abdel Kareem Hana/AP Photo]

“The designation of that world by the Canadians and Europeans is landing precise otherwise crossed the world. For some, akin to Europe and Canada, it feels similar a shocking collapse,” Hellyer said. “For others, it’s simply the infinitesimal erstwhile a strategy that ne'er protected Black and brownish populations, oregon the ‘Global South’, is yet being named for what it was.”

“It’s telling that the expected breaking constituent for the rules-based bid is truly the menace to Greenland, not the devastation of Gaza, oregon different examples earlier now,” Hellyer added. “The cases are not identical, and I’m not equating them — but it’s hard to reason that speech of annexation is much violative to planetary norms than the demolition of an full radical and territory. But successful the lawsuit of Israel, the main underwriter of the rules-based bid – i.e., the US – did not lone enactment to guarantee nary accountability for the usurpation of planetary law, but actively emboldened and empowered those violations.”

There is thing caller astir Western commentators claiming that events connected their ain doorstep specify the authorities of the world, careless of conditions elsewhere, said Karim Emile Bitar, a prof of planetary relations astatine the Saint Joseph University of Beirut.

“This is wherefore we spot specified a stark opposition betwixt Western attitudes toward Gaza arsenic opposed to Western attitudes erstwhile a blue-eyed, blonde Ukrainian woman arrives arsenic a refugee,” helium said.

“When a territory that is portion of the ‘European Union’ is nether threat, they wholly displacement people and nary longer effort to usage the accustomed mendacious justifications that were utilized for decades and decades.”

For smaller countries that person been forced to trust upon alliances alternatively than rules for decades, oregon overmuch of the Global South, the illness of the rules-based bid volition mean little. For those successful the Global North and their representatives astatine Davos, it represents a seismic shift.