The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Cyberspace is the newest domain of international activity characterised by both cooperation and conflict. The goal in this area should be to create international arrangements that encourage benign uses of cyberspace and discourage malign uses. Governments would have to act consistently within this regime as part of their sovereign obligations – or face sanctions or retaliation.
Global health presents a different set of challenges. In a globalised world, an outbreak of infectious disease in one country could quickly evolve into a serious threat to health elsewhere, as has happened in recent years with SARS, Ebola, and Zika. Fortunately, the notion of sovereign obligation is already advanced in this sphere: countries are responsible for trying to detect infectious disease outbreaks, responding appropriately, and notifying others around the world.
When it comes to refugees, there is no substitute for effective local action aimed at preventing situations that generate large refugee flows in the first place. In principle, this is an argument for humanitarian intervention in selective situations. But translating this principle into practice will remain difficult, given divergent political agendas and the high costs of effective intervention. Even without a consensus, however, there is a strong case for increasing funding for refugees, ensuring their humane treatment, and setting fair quotas for their resettlement.
Trade agreements are, by definition, pacts of reciprocal sovereign obligations regarding tariff and nontariff barriers. When a party believes that obligations are not being met, it has recourse to arbitration through the World Trade Organisation. But things are less clear when it comes to government subsidies or currency manipulation. The challenge, therefore, is to define appropriate sovereign obligations in these areas in future trade pacts, and to create mechanisms to hold governments accountable.
Establishing the concept of sovereign obligations as a pillar of the international order will take decades of consultations and negotiations – and even then, its acceptance and impact will be uneven. Progress will come only voluntarily, from countries themselves, rather than from any top-down edict. Realistically, it will be difficult to forge agreement on what specific sovereign obligations states have and how they should be enforced.
Complicating matters further, US President Donald Trump’s administration has espoused an “America first” doctrine that is largely inconsistent with what is being suggested here. If this remains the US approach, progress toward building the sort of order that today’s interconnected world demands will come about only if other major powers push it – or it will have to wait for Trump’s successor. Such an approach, however, would be second best, and it would leave the United States and the rest of the world worse off.
Now is the time to begin the necessary conversations. Globalisation is here to stay. Moving toward a new international order that incorporates sovereign obligation is the best way to cope. World Order 2.0, predicated on sovereign obligation, is certainly an ambitious project – but one born of realism, not idealism.
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Richard N. Haass is President of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the new book, A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order, from which this article is adapted.
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Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2017.
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