The crisis of multilateralism

New PRIF Report sheds light on the crisis and future of the multilateral order

[Translate to English:] Teilnehmer der COP27 Klimakonferenz in Scharm-el-Sheikh, 16.11.2022. © picture alliance / photothek | Thomas Trutschel

[Translate to English:] © picture alliance / photothek | Thomas Trutschel

Multi­lateral­ism has not only been in crisis since the Russian war of ag­gres­sion. The grow­ing depth of in­ter­vention and ex­pand­ed mem­ber­ship of multi­lateral in­sti­tutions in re­cent years have been accom­pan­ied by their de­clining accept­ance in the inter­nation­al com­mun­ity. Trans­nation­al prob­lems, such as glo­bal warm­ing, how­ever, re­quire inter­nation­al co­oper­ation and agree­ment. The re­port pro­poses that multi­lateral­ism be view­ed in the fu­ture as a frame­work order. This means ne­go­tiating fun­ction­al ar­range­ments at the glo­bal le­vel in or­der to re­main capable of action with­out be­ing block­ed by norm­ative dif­fer­en­ces. More far-reach­ing ar­range­ments should be shift­ed to the re­gion­al level in co­op­er­a­tion with states of sim­ilar values and inter­ests. The authors con­cretize this pro­posal with four ex­am­ples: the UN peace mis­sions, the Inter­nation­al Crim­inal Court, the OSCE, and the cli­mate con­fer­en­ces.

The re­port is a co­op­er­a­tive pro­ject of re­search­ers of the HSFK pro­gram area "Inter­nation­al In­sti­tu­tions". The authors are Ben Christian, Melanie Coni-Zimmer, Nicole Deitelhoff, Matthias Dembinski, Stefan Kroll, Max Lesch und Dirk Peters.

Download: Christian, Ben / Coni-Zimmer, Melanie / Deitelhoff, Nicole / Dembinski, Matthias / Kroll, Stefan / Lesch, Max / Peters, Dirk (2023): Multilateralismus als Rahmenordnung: Zur Krise und Zukunft der multilateralen Weltordnung, PRIF Report 2/2023, Frankfurt/M, DOI: 10.48809/prifrep2302.