The world has long spoken of a ‘rules-based order,’ as though the law itself held dominion over power. Yet, behind the diplomatic courtesies and the fine print of charters, it was power that wrote the rules and altered them at will. The difference today is that the altering is done in full view and only a few feign surprise.
We all knew what the Order was even when we hoped for better. We knew it in World Trade Organization negotiations when our cries for special and differential treatment for small states in trade relations fell on deaf ears.
We knew it in Climate Change negotiations when our pleas for a loss and damage fund evinced a sop, not a solution.
From the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 to the Charter of the United Nations in 1945, the international system has proclaimed the sovereign equality of states. In practice, this has always been more aspiration than achievement. Legal sovereignty – the declared right to be free from interference – belongs to all; political sovereignty – the power to act without permission – belongs to the few
The theorists of pluralism have long argued that sovereignty has never been absolute, but continuously bargained, constrained, and reshaped by circumstance. Small and powerless countries know this truth by experience, not by theory.
The difference in the present circumstances is bluntness. The restraint that once moderated power – or at least gave a pretence of negotiation and respect for state rights – has given way to open display of might. Commitments to multilateral cooperation are treated as conveniences; treaties are interpreted as optional; international courts are ignored. The change is not in achieving objectives; it is in the tossing aside of pretension. Power no longer feels obliged to disguise itself in contrived negotiations.
For small states, this unmasking is more than academic. Their sovereignty is not an instrument to dictate to others; it is a fragile shield of defence – the space within which they may choose their partners, legislate their priorities, and speak their truths. When that space contracts, their independence becomes more ceremony than substance.
This tension is now evident in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), where half a century ago four leaders -Michael Manley, Errol Barrow, Forbes Burnham, and Eric Williams – declared the region a Zone of Peace. It was a visionary pledge: that the Caribbean’s destiny would not be shaped by the rivalries of distant powers. Yet, as former Jamaican Prime Minister P. J. Patterson recently warned, that pledge is under threat.
He described as ‘fundamentally dangerous and a horrible erosion’ the intrusion of external military operations into Caribbean waters – actions which have been justified in the name of security which appear to be unmindful of sovereignty, if not of law.
None of this denies the value of cooperation against transnational crime; it insists only that such cooperation be anchored in international law, transparency, and respect for regional consultation.
Patterson’s concerns are not about who acts, but what the action signifies: that even within the waters the Caribbean calls its own, decisions are made elsewhere. And while the Caribbean Community has often spoken of ‘collective sovereignty,’ the truth is that each nation, bound by economic and security dependence, has often pursued its own accommodations with external powers. Dependence invites compromise of the very sovereignty so often declared.
This is the paradox of small states: they depend on the international rule of law but are powerless when it is ignored. Sanctions regimes are threatened or imposed without UN mandate – as the OECD and the European Union have done on financial services; trade restrictions are justified by assertions of unfair trade deficits, even though Caribbean small states have no surplus with any trading partner – Guyana is now an exception only in the area of oil and gas sales; human-rights mechanisms are starved of funds or credibility.
In reality, poor and powerless countries have lived in a world order where justice has nominally existed, but enforcement has not. So, when the present international situation suggests that we are moving to a ‘new world order,’ we should ask: what is new? The only thing new is the bluntness with which power is exercised. The hierarchy has always been there – now only some pretend otherwise. We are witnessing not the birth of a new order, but the formal admission of the old: an order in which might makes the rules.
For small nations, the implications are sobering. Sovereignty may soon mean no more than the right to manage domestic affairs, provided they do not offend the ideologies or interests of those who command the oceans, the markets, and the security umbrella.
Yet, the response of small states cannot be withdrawal or despair. It must be steadfast insistence on the language of law and principle – not because it always protects us, but because without it there is nothing left to which to appeal. The rules-based order may be throwing off the disguise of legal robes, but its vocabulary still defines the terrain. The Caribbean’s security and prosperity have long benefited from principled partnerships with larger democracies; their appeal should be to keep those partnerships squarely within the framework of law.
In the Caribbean Community, governments will have to understand and tolerate why some amongst them, in their national interest, have to be more accommodating of larger powers. They will also have to accept that ‘collective sovereignty’ cannot be exercised if it invites individual punishment.
The challenge, then, is not to submit to the emerging new world order dominated by power and might, but to prevent the old one from becoming unashamedly permanent. For when law is silenced and power alone speaks, the ladder of equity collapses, leaving the powerless helpless at the bottom. Caution is now required, but so is courage.