Abstract
Although the term "Rules-Based International Order " (RBIO) has gained prominence in the post-Cold War era, its foundation was laid in the 1945 UN Charter. The RBIO was intended to function within a rule-of-law framework, but the system has eroded under the structural realities of the Westphalian nation-state system. In the absence of a common “Leviathan”, equal sovereigns began to prioritise national interest over international law and morality, leading to intensified great-power rivalry.
This paper is divided into different parts, beginning with an analysis of the context and the controversy surrounding the RBIO, and how the unilateral and selective enforcement of rules by major powers, in contrast to the idea of multilateralism and global governance of the RBIO, has resulted in a transition from multilateral consensus to power-based competition. The Paper discusses how the Global South’s perception of the RBIO as a "law of power” has made them engage in the formation of mini-lateral blocks, small-scale collaboration on the basis of shared interests instead of shared values as a tool for strategic autonomy, moving to India’s diplomatic manoeuvring to navigate the geopolitical reality of power domination to safeguard national interest. The paper deals with the effect of the growing popularity of minilateralism on the RBIO, as the Global North also uses these “small club groupings,” suggesting that RBIO should be reformed to reflect the neutrality of the system, in which rules are applied to the weak and strong alike to deal with common and complex transnational threats like cybercrime, Climate Change, health Emergencies, and AI governance.
Keywords: Rules-Based International Order (RBIO), Multilateralism, Global Governance, International Law, UN Charter, Global South, Minilateralism, Bilateral Treaty,
The paper examines the context and the controversy of the Rule-Based International Order (RBIO) at a time when relations between states are marked by intense great-power rivalry, creating geopolitical uncertainty. The RBIO in the contemporary era faces unprecedented strain, undermining the pillars of the order. The paper proposes examining the context and controversy surrounding the legitimacy, fairness, and survival of the RBIO amid US Unilateralism, Russian Expansionism, and US-PRC strategic competition, which have dismantled its pillars. The paper addresses the challenges to the RBIO, a gap between its promise and the current reality. What is the future of the formal treaty regime, which enforces the rule-based International system through formal dispute mechanisms? How is India navigating contested geopolitical shifts to maintain and secure its national interest? What changes are to be expected in global power dynamics in an environment of self–seeing, egoist states, more concerned with their strategic autonomy? Has the time come for recognising that the principles of the Rules-Based Order are more context-dependent rather than universal? Is there a shift from multilateral consensus to power-based competition and regional mini-orders? Is the system of Multilateralism equipped to address global existential threats and challenges such as cybercrime, climate change, pandemics, and AI governance?
Beginning of the Rules –Based International Order
The massive and unprecedented devastation caused by the Second World War created a sentiment and willingness that the mayhem caused by great power politics, shifting of alliances, and imperial conquest must be replaced with a system, a global framework governed by shared norms. The vision was ambitious and universal, and fuelled by the idea of replacing the chaos of shifting alliances with a predictable world governed by shared rules and norms. The UN Charter, with its founding principles / Purposes, laid the general foundation for an international order based on rules. Thus, a collective effort by the international community to address common challenges through international cooperation and diplomacy, emphasising mutual adherence to universally agreed principles of international law and promoting multilateralism, began. That was the sentiment of the world and the leading powers at that time, a realistic assessment of the post-World War scenario, that an alternative platform to war is to be provided, to minimise differences/conflicts, if not to totally eliminate the differences between nation-states, which are sovereign equals.
The UN-centred international system provided a collective security framework and a structured mechanism for the peaceful settlement of Disputes under the UN framework. The primary purpose of the UN was described in the UN Charter as maintaining peace and security in the world1. At the same time, the catastrophic collapse of the world trade in the 1930s, fueled by the Great Depression and the resulting surge in economic nationalism, compelled the leaders to accept that unregulated economic nationalism, retaliatory tariffs, in an interconnected global economy, can never ensure economic prosperity for any nation. Most importantly, the prevailing belief was that if nations are bound together by economic dependency within a framework of international institutions designed to manage the global economy collaboratively, lasting peace may be achieved.
During and immediately after the Second World War, the victorious powers, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other allied nations, engaged in a series of negotiations to establish a framework for the post-war global economy. The result was the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank at the July 1944 Bretton Woods Conference and the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the precursor to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at an international conference in Geneva in October 1947. Thus, a new framework of global governance, based on shared /agreed norms, primarily having these three dimensions- promoting multilateralism to maintain international peace and security, open global trade, free markets, liberal diplomacy, & treaty-based solution to conflict came into existence.
Change from LIO TO RIO – Liberal International Order to Rules-based International Order
For decades, this international order, so created, was not called “rules-based international order.” The term “rules-based international order” began to feature in foreign policy discourse in the 2000s, initially in the Anglosphere. Former US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken described the RIO as an “international order” based on “rules.
‘The system of laws, agreements, principles, and institutions that the world came together to build after two world wars to manage relations between states, to prevent conflict, to uphold the rights of all people2.
The logic behind the change of term appears to be a tactical move. Many commentators have agreed that the promotion of the new term RIO in place of LIO was designed to secure the support of the non-Western world against Chinese and Russian expansionist and other policies. There is no denying the fact that the non-Western world, especially the Arab world, viewed Western liberal democratic values and the way they were promoted, especially during the Cold War period, with reservation.
The term RBIO was frequently used during the administration of former US President Joe Biden, whose officials often used it to warn against what they held to be threats to the international system posed by Russian and Chinese geopolitical revisionism.
A system built on great power equations
From the very beginning, the order was primarily led by the USA and the 5 veto-wielding permanent members of the UNSC. Over time, this Western-led approach became a concern, particularly for the Global South. In fact, the selective application of agreed norms relating to sovereignty, Human Rights, Trade, climate change, etc., created a kind of credibility crisis for the system.
The system indeed had its own contradictions and appeared to be based on great-power equations built by the victors of the Second World War. The UN charter promoted the principle of Sovereign Equality, the P-5 veto, five permanent member states veto in the UNSC, making them more equal than the other UN members, allowing them to veto decisions in the UNSC. Similarly, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) rules also invited criticism, as they allow nukes only to those who already have them. Ironically, the 'haves' are the great P-5 members of the UNSC.
The NPT, which entered into force in 1970 and was extended indefinitely in 1995, seeks to
1. Prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Non-nuclear states agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons
2. Promote the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy and
3. Move towards nuclear disarmament. The P5 member states, the nuclear-weapon states, commit in good faith to eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals. These goals are often described as the NPT’s ‘three pillars’- non-proliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy and disarmament.
The NPT has, however, been undermined, especially by the failure to implement its disarmament pillar. In fact, the grand bargain at the heart of the NPT – those non-nuclear states forgo nuclear weapons in exchange for progress on disarmament by the P5 – is under severe strain. Under the NPT regime the State Parties are given the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful, civilian purposes, overseen by international inspections by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but they are not given the right to acquire or develop nuclear weapons. Whereas no meaningful efforts are made by the nuclear weapon states to do away with their nuclear arsenals.
Further, the NPT's indefinite extension in 1995 created unrealistic expectations for progress towards nuclear disarmament. The reality started appearing to be in sharp contrast to the nuclear disarmament pillar of NPT. China’s nuclear build-up is accelerating, with the Chinese arsenal estimated to have doubled between 2020 and 20253. Another UNSC member, France, has announced an expansion of its nuclear programme.
The New START, the US–Russia nuclear arms control agreement also expired in February 2026, with nothing to replace it. This is a formal end to the last remaining legally binding nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation. The reality is that for the first time since 1972, there are no legal limits on the strategic nuclear weapons stockpiles of the world's two largest nuclear powers. The two states with huge nuclear arsenals are left without a binding, verification-backed ceiling on their deployed forces.
The Crack within the nuclear-armed states was evident in the recently concluded 11th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was held in New York in April/May. The review conference failed to arrive at a final document and ended without a consensus amidst high nuclear tension. The sentiment expressed by the conference president aptly summarises the hopeless future of nuclear disarmament in the context of heightened geopolitical security concerns.
Vietnam's U.N. Ambassador Do Hung Viet, who chaired the conference, announced that there was no consensus among the 191 parties to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty on even a watered-down final document.
He told the press
“No one blocked consensus.” But he said “a very important reason” for the failure to reach an outcome was a provision in the final draft that said Iran “can never seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons4.
Breakdown of Multilateralism within the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
Dispute settlement under the WTO is the central pillar of the multilateral trading system. The Uruguay Round and the creation of the WTO, as a member-driven organisation, were aimed at establishing and enforcing global rules of trade, so that trade flows smoothly, predictably and freely as possible5.
The Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) under the WTO was, to a great extent, successful in transforming the global trading system into a more rule-based, inclusive, and capable of enforcing trade obligations. Unfortunately, the Dispute settlement of the multilateral trading system has been functionally paralysed since 2020, because of the blockage of appointment or reappointment of Appellate Body members by the USA6.
In the absence of a functional Appellate Body (AB) any state losing a WTO panel case has no option to appeal, no final ruling. As of 2026, more than 30 panel rulings have been appealed “into the void,” meaning that a resolution of these dispute proceedings is not possible until new Appellate Body members are appointed. US steel tariffs, China IP, EU Palm Oil cases are some of the panel rulings that have been appealed ‘into the void7.
All future panel rulings also face the risk of being appealed “into the void” unless a solution is found to the impasse. Without a binding dispute settlement mechanism, the global trading system is fast reverting to a power-based" trading model rather than a "rules-based" model. The smaller economies are unable to defend their trade rights on an equal footing. " Unilateral /Punitive tariffs. Imposed by great powers are instances of economic bullying by major developed nations. Disputes are increasingly settled through bilateral negotiations, making the one-on-one trade negotiations between smaller economies and major economic powers more of a zero-sum game. Smaller economies are forced to accept unfavourable, asymmetric terms or face unilateral sanctions and market exclusion.
Selective Application of Norms of RBIO – Fairness and Credibility at stake
The selective application of mutually agreed norms as enshrined in the UN Charter by Super Powers was more than evident. During the Cold War period, the ideological conflict and the power confrontation between the two blocs resulted in legitimising unlawful actions by both the superpowers by advancing doctrines like the Brezhnev Doctrine (USSR) and the Truman Doctrine (USA). To fulfil ideological interests and expand their influence, both superpowers engaged in a selective application of the UN Charter and in Proxy wars. Very often, both powers resorted to the ‘veto’ power to prevent/block resolutions condemning their own actions. As a result, the UNSC, designed as a tool for the collective Security system under the UN charter, failed to deliver the expected result. In other words, Power politics -selective adherence and application of universal norms by the superpowers became the reality of the RBIO during the Cold War period.
The acceptance of ICJ jurisdiction and judgements by the major powers also appeared to be mixed. The U.S.A filed a case before the Court following the occupation of its Embassy in Tehran by Iranian militants on 4 November 1979, and the capture and holding as hostages of its diplomatic and consular staff. Whereas the USA contested and refused to abide by the ICJ decision in the Nicaragua case concerning a dispute relating to responsibility for military and paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua, filed by Nicaragua on 9th April, 19848.
The technique employed by the USA in the name of the Vandenberg Reservation—part of the 1946 U.S. Declaration accepting ICJ compulsory jurisdiction — also raised concern about the limitation of the ICJ as a judicial organ to effectively address interstate disputes in contentious cases involving the USA and arising from multilateral treaties9. The Vandenberg Reservation was cleverly used by the USA in the Nicaragua case.
During the Cold War, the other superpower, the former USSR, never accepted the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction. The Soviets, instead, favoured negotiations as the most “flexible and efficient” means of international conflict resolution. Fedor Kozhevnikov, who was himself a Soviet judge on the ICJ from 1953 to 1961, wrote that, as a rule, the ICJ could only deal with legal disputes and not with disputes of “political character.” For disputes of “political character,” negotiations were the suitable means of dispute resolution10.
Toward the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's approach towards the global court softened slightly. In 1989, under Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of perestroika, the USSR withdrew its reservations regarding compulsory jurisdiction for six major human rights conventions (including the Genocide Convention) 11.
To date, Russia's acceptance of ICJ jurisdiction is consent and treaty-based. Cases against Russia before the court can be brought only if the issue in dispute arises from specific treaties to which Russia is a party. For example, in recent proceedings brought by Ukraine against Russia for its war of aggression, the ICJ’s jurisdiction was established because both nations are parties to the 1948 Genocide Convention and other specific international conventions. Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea also constituted a crucial violation of core UN charter provisions.
This refusal to accept the court's jurisdiction occurred in several other cases involving other permanent members. For instance, for years, the UK refused to comply with the landmark ICJ advisory opinion (2019) and subsequent UN General Assembly Resolutions that the UK's 1965 detachment of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius (prior to Mauritius's 1968 independence) and the United Kingdom's continued administration of the Chagos Archipelago is unlawful /p>
Another major UNSC power, the PRC, has worked through both legal, quasi-legal, and blatantly illegal means to claim sovereignty in violation of the Convention on the Law of the Sea in the South China Sea. China has refused to accept the authority of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, located at the Hague, in a claim brought by the Philippines under UNCLOS, including the court's ruling in favour of the Philippines.
End of the Cold War – A trajectory shift
The end of the Cold War, with the collapse of the former USSR in December, 26th, 1991 created a high optimism among the Western liberal elites about a liberal world order based on democracy, the rule of law, and a liberal market economy in place of the ideological rivalry that marked the Cold War era. A historic shift in trajectory was evident with the introduction of concepts like R2P (2005) and the globalisation of the world, with priority given to trade over ideologically driven military conflict. The establishment of the World Trade Organisation in 1995 to promote and institutionalise Free Trade was one such momentous achievement.
Unfortunately, the 9/11 (2001) deadly terror attack on the USA, followed by rhetoric like “Axis of Evil “,” War on Terror (WOT) “Weapons of Mass Destruction “(WMD), resulted in more harm to the Rules-Based Order than delivering compliance to international law.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the WOT, a military campaign against Afghanistan, which, at the time, was under the government of the Taliban, who were accused of harbouring Al-Qaeda leaders, was launched. Controversy and intense debate surrounded the treatment of prisoners of WOT at the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base in Cuba. Serious questions were raised about national security, human rights, and justice. Many detainees were alleged to have been subject to physical torture and psychological abuse.
The Bush administration held that the enemies in the conflict, the terror suspects, were neither combatants nor civilians but unlawful combatants, rather than prisoners of war (POWs), who could be attacked at any time and detained indefinitely without trial. By declaring and classifying the terror suspects as unlawful combatants, the Bush administration managed to escape the scrutiny under the Third Geneva Convention, which has been ratified by the USA and which provide a minimum standard of care for the PoW, among other facilities and rights12. Another controversy surrounded the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was justified under "Axis of Evil” WMD and terrorism narratives. However, the operation lacked UN Security Council authorization13. All these highly debated issues/ decisions undermined America’s moral authority to be the leader in promoting and protecting a rules-based order. To make matters worse, the selective approach to legal norms by the USA created a kind of apprehension if the USA is promoting the rules-based order, based on an interpretation of rules favourable to U.S. national interests.
As the years passed by with Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in 2000, Russia transformed into an aggressive revisionist power aiming to reversing its losses of the 1990s through territorial conquest and annexation. In violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter and the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. annexation of Crimea (2014) was executed, and the territorial conquest escalated into the sweeping invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Contrary to the expectation that China’s 2001 accession to the World Trade Organisation would lead to political liberalisation, China became more authoritarian internally and more assertive externally through its Belt and Road Initiative and pursued an aggressive policy in the South China Sea, in line with its defined national interests.
Joe Biden's Presidency and Rules-Based Order
Following President Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, a general sense of euphoria and hope emerged with Joe Biden, a liberal politician, assuming the office of the President of the USA.
During the presidency of Donald Trump, whose all-encompassing policy doctrine was to Make America Great Again (MAGA), the rules-based order appeared rarely. Trump’s "America First" doctrine, in fact, systematically disrupted the main pillars of the post-1945 rules-based international order. Decisions like shifting from multilateralism and global consensus toward transactional bilateralism, unilateral protectionism and trade barriers, coupled with protecting America’s national interest at all costs, badly affected the long-standing norms of free trade under WTO. His decision to withdraw from key multilateral institutions and agreements created a power vacuum and uncertainty. Joe Biden's presidency was marked by issuing dozens of executive orders in his first month to reverse steps President Trump had taken in his first presidential term that diminished the United States’ commitment to international human rights. For example, the USA re-joined the UN Human Rights Council under his presidency. An executive order was signed to bring back the USA to the Paris climate accord, reiterating the significant role played by the USA in framing the accord. USA re-joining the global climate accord was promoted as momentous as our joining the Agreement was in 2016 — and as momentous as our re-joining is today — what we do in the coming weeks, months, and years is even more important14.
President Biden has famously claimed that upholding human rights is a main priority of his foreign policy. However, a selective approach to human rights by the Biden administration raised questions about the real intention. Controversy surrounded the Biden administration's policy to ignore or to defend excessive /alleged disproportionate military actions by its allies, Israel, in Gaza, that followed in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel in Oct, 2023. While engaging in aggressively condemning similar tactics used by Russia in Ukraine, which is a primary strategic adversary of the USA. This asymmetrical application of International Humanitarian Law resulted in sharp criticism, and the administration was criticised for hypocrisy and double standards, raising concerns about the legitimacy of the order, which, ironically, the Biden administration sought to protect. It is worth recalling his speech to the 76th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, held in New York, 21-27 September 2021
"We will defend the rules-based international order that has been the bedrock of global security for decades, and we will work with our partners to ensure that the rules of the road are applied equally to all nations, large and small." 15.
In contrast to this promise for equal application of rules, the inconsistent enforcement of rules, whether in the case of Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, ultimately eroded U.S. credibility as a reliable and responsible power to uphold the global order. President Joe Biden, for instance, has called the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza against the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “outrageous” At the same time, after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, President Biden accused his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of genocide and denounced him for undermining “the rules-based international order”. The US government later applauded the ICC for its decision in 2023 to prosecute the Russian leader for war crimes while vehemently criticising the arrest warrant issued by the ICC against the Israeli Prime Minister.
The Biden era ended with a highly fractured global system, and selective enforcement and adherence to international legal norms by the USA and other major powers increasingly weakened the system's credibility. The Biden administration’s foreign policy achievements were labelled a “Strategy of Renewal,” a new age in international affairs. In reality, however, the rules-based international order was in a state of advanced decomposition by the end of the Biden era16.
Challenges to Multilateral Global Norms- Donald Trump's Second Term
The second term of Trump's presidency appears to have given a deadly blow to the Westphalian model of the nation-state. The Foreign policy goals adopted in the first year of the second Trump administration have challenged the key principles of the established post 1945 global order-, primarily, I) a global trade system based on reciprocity and negotiated rules, ii) mutual respect of the sovereign equality and the territorial integrity principle and iii) the non-use of force to acquire territory. To begin with, the multilateral global trade regime was replaced with sweeping, indiscriminate tariffs that affected allies and rivals alike. Most notoriously, President Trump used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977. Two foreign threats: the influx of illegal drugs from Canada, Mexico, and China and “large and persistent” trade deficits were cited. A national emergency was so declared, deeming both threats as “unusual and extraordinary,” and presidential authority under IEEPA.
To deal with the trade deficit threat, the President imposed a duty “on all imports from all trading partners” of at least 10%. These baseline tariffs were used as a geopolitical lever, establishing a framework to lower tariffs only if individual nations negotiated customized trade or security deals that directly reduced the U.S. trade deficit. An uncertainty in global trade, total disregard to multilateral global norms was so created. After the US Supreme court struck down the IEEPA-based tariffs ruling, president Trump immediately invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974—a provision allowing a temporary 150-day tariff during "serious international payments problems"—to implement a fresh, global 10% import duty17.
In May, this year, the Trump administration launched a massive Section 301 investigation under the US Trade Act of 1974, creating a new, framework for imposing additional tariffs of 10% to 12%on imports of goods linked to forced labour economy. 60 trading partners including India are under the banner of combating forced labour in global supply chains18. This move appears more to be a strategic pressure technique and less as an anti-slavery initiative. Has the forced labour probe provided a pretext for Trump to create a new legal and moral vehicle for broad blanket trade restrictions?
President Trump's unilateral protectionism and economic nationalism soon resulted in an inevitable intensified shift from a U.S.-centred, WTO-centric order to strategic regionalism and decentralised globalisation, with the emergence of a regionalised global economy with the proliferation of regional trade agreements19.
Trump’s reliance on the brute force of the US military power, sanctioning U.S. military operations and authorising the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Jan, 2026, represented a severe blow to the rules-based international order. The global order as based on principles of the UN Charter uphold the principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity. A sovereign state is unimaginable without a permanent territory, over which the sovereign state exercises undisputed and exclusive jurisdiction, free from interference from others.
This is recognised in Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, without a UNSC mandate, is widely seen as a clear violation of the principles of international law of non-interference and sovereign immunity given to the Head of State. The US offering a legal justification to this unlawful abduction appears to be not new; it is the same rationale that was used earlier for invading Iraq. Similarly, the explanation given by Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, regarding Washington’s surprise entry into the Iran – Israel conflict, the joint US-Israel attacks that killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and military strikes against Iran are widely classified as an Act of Aggression20. For Iran was neither attacking the United States nor Israel, nor was it about to attack these states. Iran, in fact, was actively engaged in a negotiation with the parameters of its nuclear program hours before the attacks began.” Though Iran’s argument that the right of self-defence permits a State to target any of an aggressor’s military units, even those uninvolved in unlawful attacks, did not go well with many, including the African Union and the Arab League21.
Present Crisis -A Structural Breakdown and the Advent of Strategic Autonomy
The most pertinent challenges to the so-called post-1945, Rules based Order is aptly summarised by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney at the annual World Economic Forum meeting at Davos on January 20, 2026
‘… We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim. --- great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, and supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited…”
‘…If great powers abandon even the presence of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transnationalism will become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetise their relationships…’22
The undeniable and harsh reality of today’s International Relations is that the postwar international order is crumbling- a ‘New Global Disorder 'is forcing a change in policy for the Middle powers. Multilateral dispute settlement mechanisms such as the WTO and the UN are under threat or near collapse. These are the institutions on which the Middle Powers have traditionally relied. The near-collapse of these relief mechanisms has compelled the Middle powers like Canada and India to develop greater strategic autonomy in energy, food, critical minerals, finance, and supply chains to ensure that they remain truly sovereign.
Strategic Autonomy provides a nation-state with the much-needed flexibility, independence, and capacity to engage with multiple powers on its own terms, serving as a protective shield for national sovereignty. Strategic autonomy, thus, has become an absolute structural necessity, empowering the nation-states with the geopolitical resilience required to prevent external powers from dictating their economic or defence policies in a fractured world. As the US moved from rule – maker to rule – violator, nation-states moved to Strategic Autonomy, preferring to build their own power equations to check great power domination, to counter the saying strong do what they can23.
The countries in between decided to combine economic, demographic, and defence capabilities to resist or restrain naked, brutal unilateralism, with total disregard for once-mutually accepted rules that built the edifice of the Rules-based order. Though the tendency to throw global norms to the dust is not uniquely American, this is the first American President to come to office on the explicit premise that the existing international order is flawed and disadvantageous to American interests. For the first time, an American president discredited the UN and other world bodies like the WTO and refused to share any global burden sharing, pausing America's significant financial contribution to world bodies24. This "Trumpian Ruptures “has reinforced both American Allies and Adversaries, Middle and Small powers to discard the rigid, Cold War-style alliance systems in favour of strategic autonomy and alliances25.
Minilateralism, as a concept in International Relations, has been around for some time; its prominence has increased in recent years amid renewed US Unilateralism, Russia's emergence as a revisionist power, and China's growing power. Ironically, both the USA and the PRC are also entering into often exclusionary Minilateral partnerships to safeguard national interests. The USA has moved towards minilateralism to decouple critical supply chains from China by entering into a partnership with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (Indo-Pacific Framework for Economic Prosperity) and by becoming part of Quad (with India, Australia) or AUKS (with Australia, UK) to integrate economic pressure with regional security architecture. PRC counters this strategy by expanding the Quad or the SCO.
India Narrative
India is navigating this fractured international landscape through multi-alignment and diversification. The choice of Strategic Autonomy gives India, a major democratic power, a unique advantage to partner with Western alliances while simultaneously engaging with rising revisionist powers like China and Russia. India is no longer non-aligned as in the past, but it is multi-aligned, built on issue-based collaborations, no longer staying away from power centers, engaging them simultaneously.
India, for example participated in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), a Quadrilateral cooperation among the four robust democracies, - India, Japan, USA and Australia in a region redefined to include the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, mainly to ensure Maritime Security, Indo-Pacific maritime routes, access to advanced defence and critical technology, supply chain resilience and to counter China's "String of Pearls" encirclement in the Indian Ocean. Western analysts regard the Quad alliance as a mechanism to counter China’s rising military and economic hegemony in the Indo-Pacific, promoting the PRC to term the Quad as “Asian NATO26.
Whereas India intentionally avoids turning this alliance into an outright anti-China military bloc. To maintain "strategic autonomy”, New Delhi continues to" balance its Western/Quad ties with involvement in groups like the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. India's membership of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation), which started as a minilateral grouping of six founding member states in 2001 and later expanded to a grouping of more than 10 member states and 17 SCO partner states, is better viewed through the prism of India's perception of Chinese and Russian influence and Chinese-Russian “no limits’ friendship27.
Membership in diverse groups has given India the distinction of being one of the few global powers to hold active membership in deeply contrasting groups. The objective is to navigate and balance relationships with all major powers, such as the USA, the EU, the PRC, and Russia. India now engages with the “superpowers” in overlapping patterns, expressed through diversified and functional engagement in the areas of defence, technology, trade, energy, etc. Selective coupling and decoupling are enabling India to enter into partnerships with specific defence, technological, trade, and energy needs. India has adopted a strategy of decoupling its military from complete foreign dependence to build true technological sovereignty, and of economic decoupling to reduce over-reliance on China (the "China Plus One" strategy). India's Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) initiative is introduced as a framework to reduce dependence on Chinese goods.
But this stand of India seems not to go down well with the American administration. The USA. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau at the Raisina Dialogue, 2026, India’s premier geopolitical forum, so commented
"We're not going to make the mistakes we made with China 20 years ago, in terms of saying 'Oh, we're going to let you develop all these markets' and then, next thing we know, you're beating us in a lot of commercial things. We're going to make sure that what we do is fair to our people...."28
Conclusion
The 1945 ideal vision of an RBIO that rules, not power, will govern all States, the equal sovereigns, appears to be compromised today. The erosion of the RBIO thus shifts toward a law of power. Universal norms and Universal institutions are giving way to power-based coalitions, where geopolitical strength, not legal equality, determines outcomes. Egoist state behaviour under the anarchic structure, with steps such as blocking judicial appointments, missing deadlines, UNSC gridlock through excessive abuse of the veto privilege to block resolutions, and failing to honour commitments and judicial awards, has made collective action nearly impossible. Consensus for global collective action is now becoming rare, resulting in a transition of the universal-rule-based global order to a power-based grouping, where the few write the rules for many and make exceptions for themselves.
In theory, the RBIO multilateral framework and global governance still provide a platform for all states to come together, negotiate rules, build institutions, and coordinate to devise solutions to address issues of common concern and threat. In practice, however, arriving at a common consensus for global cooperation and governance is increasingly difficult due to the lack of such consensus. This lack of global consensus is unfortunately becoming the general norm, not an exception. In response, states from both the Global North and the Global South have initiated smaller issue-specific minilateral, flexible groups capable of offering quick solutions /responses to maintain Strategic Autonomy to offset the unilateral and punitive trade sanctions, supply chain vulnerabilities, and financial exclusions that the RBIO universal institutions are no longer able to provide. In fact, with the weaponisation of interdependence transforming supply chains, trade routes, and semiconductors into a new geopolitical battleground, this new small security and economic alignment is taking place, replacing the multialignment of the RBIO.
While introducing the concept of minilateralism, Moises Naim has famously stated the reality and the difficulty of getting a global consensus for an international action as a well-intended but futile endeavour29.
Since the rationale behind the formation of Minilateral cooperation is unlikely to disappear soon, this concept of minilateralism is likely to remain in International Relations, making the future of the formal treaty regime context-dependent.
WTO, WHO, NPT and UNCLOS regimes will continue to exist with major powers conforming to rules only when the same favours them and bypassing them where they see their interests being constrained. India's pursuit of strategic autonomy by balancing in the Quad while leading in the BRICS illustrates that Middle Powers like India choose to navigate the geopolitical battle by collaborating on specific issues without being forced to choose a definite side in this new style of cold-war binary.
Minilateralism, in short, provides all states, middle and super powers alike, to identify and collaborate, to create mutually beneficial cooperation. Some minlateral efforts, for instance, like the Minilateral Climate effort -Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs), formed in the year 2021 is contributing significantly to deal with common concerns like carbon emissions, helping emerging economies like South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and Senegal to expedite coal phase out to achieve the emission-reduction goals established by the Paris Agreement (2015).
Instead of using multilateral bodies like UNFCC or the World Bank, the JETPs, which is a tailor-made country-specific minilateral financing arrangement, brings together a highly specific core group of donors - the international Partners Group(IPG) of G7 countries to negotiate directly with one targeted emerging economy partner country at a time, to mobilise public and private financing to support a just and equitable energy transition, linking emissions mitigation with social equity in fossil -fuel dependent economies30.
Despite the success story, it has to be noted that the foundation of minilateralism is fragile as the concept is based on shared interest not on shared values or ideological alignment. This may lead to nations entering into conflicting agreements and forming alliances based on narrow interests rather than shared values, which may, in the long run, make it more difficult for a universal organisation to achieve global peace and security. The challenges before the RBIO are - RBIO as an idea and the reality of international order - lack of effective adherence to multilateralism, and the lack of full respect for international norms as underpinned by the UN Charter. While supporters of the Rules-Based international Order argue that this order still remains vital for addressing global challenges, ambiguity still surrounds what these “rules” actually entail, who and how to enforce them. This lack of clarity, coupled with shifting global power dynamics, complicates efforts to sustain the system, making survival the major engagement. National leaders today are less focused on building a cohesive global system, defining what is “good" only to serve their national interest, and more focused on securing their own survival, supply chains security and economic prosperity. As argued by the famous German philosopher Nietzsche, in the absence of a universal truth, reality becomes a raw struggle for dominance. Whether the system will evolve further, fragment, or endure will depend on how well fairness, inclusivity and stability is balanced in an increasingly volatile world.
We need to remember that a G7 AI resolution /code cannot have binding effect in states excluded from its drafting. A vaccine initiative by any of these minilateral groupings cannot replace the WHO vaccine acceptance rate and legitimacy. Only a Universal Rules-based trading system will support both economic growth and sustainable development, helping balance measures like the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Restoring a fully operational dispute settlement system, strengthening predictable market access and preserving core principles such as non-discrimination are essential steps to prevent the trust deficit in the RBIO. Perhaps the time has come for all countries to work together again to cultivate a new type of International Relations, resisting unilateralism and bullying, fostering mutual respect, equity, and justice, and restoring win-win cooperation, rejecting the zero-sum game of the Cold War mentality. The recently announced U.S.–Iran Peace Deal is a positive sign for the future of the RBIO as it prioritises diplomacy, de-escalation, and freedom of navigation.
End Notes:
1. Article 1 of the UN Charter has emphasized the primary objective of the UN as To maintain international peace and security,… adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-1
2. https://2021-2025.state.gov/the-administrations-approach-to-the-peoples-republic-of-china/ Speech Anthony Blinken, The George Washington University, Washington DC ,May, 26 2022
3. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/05/avoiding-new-nuclear-arms-race
4. NPT Review Conference fails to reach Agreement for Third Consecutive Time -press conference https://www.un.org/en/conferences/treaty-on-the-non-proliferation-of-nuclear-weapons-npt-2026
5. About the WTO , available on www.wto.org
6. The Appellate Body is composed of seven members and is appointed by the DSB of the WTO. USA, a member, has systematically blocked the appointment of new judges since late 2017. As a result, today, the Appellate Body is facing an existential crisis . The term of the last sitting member expires on 30 th November, 2020. This has made the Appellate Body a court without a judge.
7. https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/mc12_e/briefing_notes_e/bfwtoreform_e.htm
8. https://www.icj-cij.org/case/64 United States Diplomatic and Consular Staff in Tehran (United States of America v. Iran) https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70 Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America)
9. The Vandenberg reservation effectively neutralizes the ICJ's compulsory jurisdiction in disputes arising from multilateral treaties, like the UN Charter, to which the USA is a party. The Reservation, in effect, created a procedural impossibility. For it requires the applicant state, intending to file a case against the USA in the ICJ in the case of a dispute arising out of a multilateral treaty, to bring every other state party to the treaty—that might be "affected by the decision"—into the lawsuit. Considering that a multilateral treaty may have more than 100 state parties, it is often procedurally impossible to make all states agree to file a suit against the USA.
10. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/application-of-the-international-convention-for-the-suppression-of-the-financing-of-terrorism-and-of-international-convention-on-the-elimination-of-all-forms-of-racial-discrimination-ukraine-v-russian-federation-judgment/1C4B2C51220C6332B91392FAC2204267 (P 524) Application of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and of International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 October 2024
11. https://www.ejil.org/pdfs/2/1/2028.pdf The Acceptance by the Soviet Union of the Compulsory Jurisdiction of the ICJ for Six Human Rights Conventions , Schweisfurth, Theodor, European Journal of International Law
12. ISIS forced hostages and victims to wear the bright orange uniform synonymous with the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This use of orange jumpsuits in ISIS execution videos was a deliberate, propagandized attempt to draw a visual parallel to the detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, orange jumpsuits were given to the Non-Compliant detainees who are hostile, refusing to accept their confinement, or attacking guards.
13. It has been alleged that US and UK governments overstated the evidence available for them to justify military action in Iraq. The central claim to invading Iraq was that Iraq continued its illicit nuclear weapons programme and had retained illegal stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons. However, no hidden caches of WMD was found by the US Iraq Survey Group after the invasion.
14. The United States Officially Rejoins the Paris Accord- Press Statement Anthony .j.Bilken, Februaray19, 2021, Secretary of State https://2021-2025.state.gov/the-united-states-officially-rejoins-the-paris-agreement/
15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpYf7wpY_64
16. https://www.stimson.org/2024/bidens-foreign-policy-legacy-a-troubled-interregnum/ Biden’s Foreign Policy Legacy: A Troubled Interregnum By Robert A. Manning and Mathew Burrows November 19, 2024
17. In February 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump struck down the IEEPA-based tariffs, to set broad tariffs or import duties as an unconstitutional overreach of executive power , forcing the government to refund billions to affected businesses. The use of IEEPA is currently constrained to financial sanctions, asset blocking, and trade embargoes, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf
18. How Trump is relaunching a tariff war citing ‘forced labour’ concerns https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/15/how-trump-is-relaunching-a-tariff-war-citing-forced-labour-concerns
19. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40647-026-00463-w Trumps Trade Offensive and the Rise of Strategic Regionalism : Toward Decentralised Globalisation, 14 th March, 2026
20. https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/da/da.html Definition of Aggression General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX) 14 December 1974 https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2026/03/secretary-of-state-marco-rubio-remarks-to-press-7 March3, 2026
21. Letter dated 16 June 2025 from the Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council In a letter to the UN Security Council, Iran announced that “all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile forces in the region shall be regarded as legitimate military objectives within the framework of Iran’s lawful exercise of self-defence. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4084026?v=pdf
22. https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/speeches/2026/01/20/principled-and-pragmatic-canadas-path-prime-minister-carney-addresses
23. "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must" is from Thucydides' Melian Dialogue. In 416 111BC Melos was a free state, an island in the Cyclades, that had remained neutral in the war between the Athenian empire and Sparta. Thucydides, who wrote the history of the Peloponnesian wars, creating a version of the dialogue between the Athenians and the Melians, imagining what must have happened when justice met brute force.
24. In January this year, the US officially withdrew from the World Health Organisation (WHO), leaving the UN agency without one of its biggest donors. The USA has not paid its fees for 2024 and 2025, although WHO lawyers suggest the US is obliged to pay the arrears - estimated at $260m (£193m) - Washington said it saw no reason to do so.
25. The "Trumpian rupture" refers to the decisive break from established multilateral institutions, global security alliances (like NATO), and trade agreements
26. Is Quad A NATO in the Making https://www.crfindia.org//media/Project/ChintanResearchFoundation/Publications%20PDF/New/16th%20may/Is%20Quad%20an%20Asian%20NATO%20in%20Making.pdf
27. China's Xi affirms 'no limits' partnership with Putin in call on Ukraine war anniversary Antoni Slodkowski and Laurie Chen February 24, 20256:19 PM GMT+5:30Updated February 24, 2025 https://www.reuters.com/world/xi-putin-hold-phone-call-ukraine-war-anniversary-state-media-says-2025-02-24/
28. https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/india-us-trade-deal-trade-with-india-yes-but-will-learn-from-china-mistake-us-deputy-secretary-of-state-christopher-landau-raisina-dialogue-11176704 Trade With India, Yes. But Will Learn From China Mistake": US Official
29. Let’s forget about trying to get the planet’s nearly 200 countries to agree. We need to abandon that fool’s errand in favor of a new idea: minilateralism. By minilateralism I mean a smarter, more targeted approach: We should bring to the table the smallest possible number of countries needed to have the largest possible impact on solving a particular problem. Think of this as minilateralism’s magic number. https://www.moisesnaim.com/my-columns/2020/6/10/minilateralism Minilateralism ,june21,2009 by Moises Naim
30. https://www.ceew.in/gfc/quick-reads/explains/just-energy-transition-partnerships CEEW, Green Finance Centre, Just Energy Partnerships (JETPs).
