Rules-based International Order

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

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[Baroness Northover]

That this House takes note of the challenges to a rules-based international order, and their impact on global cohesion, stability and security.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have put down their names to speak in this debate. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.

We are a few days before the second inauguration of President Trump. Before he has even taken office, he has spoken of taking over Canada, the Panama Canal and Greenland. We know that what he says does not necessarily translate into what he does, though whether, this time, his chosen advisers will have much of a check on him remains to be seen. We now have autocratic leaders in three of the five permanent UN Security Council members: Russia, China and the US. We will have to see what kind of restraint on Trump can come from American democracy, the media—see even the Washington Post under Bezos—and the apparent separation of powers within the US system. He is the first convicted criminal to take office as President in the United States.

Globally, we see nationalists and populists exploiting economic challenges, post Covid and post the invasion of Ukraine, with climate change potentially destabilising the world. We see the use of misinformation becoming a fine art, not just from Russia and China but many other actors, and now via X and unchecked Meta. AI threatens to turbocharge this. Biden has just spoken of the US becoming an oligarchy, with huge wealth, power and influence concentrated in the hands of very few. Given the US’s position as the world’s largest economy, that has global implications. Huge wealth as possessed by Musk, along with social media influence, seemingly allows him to threaten to overturn our own democracy. Putin is also an oligarch, of course, and Chinese oligarchs have to dance to the tune of their leadership—see Jack Ma.

The institutions put in place particularly after the Second World War and Nazi genocide seem to be under threat. The rules-based order, whatever its limitations, is being shaken up. The world faces the existential threat of climate change but instead of pulling together to address this, we seem to be pulling apart—a far cry, seemingly, from where we were when the Paris Agreement was signed 10 years ago. Trump may indeed pull out of that, despite the huge financial and human costs, not least of what has happened in California. It is a tinderbox world. Are there even foreshadowings of the catastrophes of the mid-20th century as we look at widespread economic challenges, the social instability that usually follows, populists deploying new propaganda tools and the rise of authoritarianism?

It has always struck me that it was remarkable that any global agreements on international law and global institutions should be agreed. However flawed people may feel them to be, it is worth emphasising that point. The very idea of states potentially agreeing to limit what they might do, either within their own countries or in their relations with other countries, is striking. The establishment of the Red Cross in the 19th century reflects this: the First Geneva Convention of 1864, including the non-targeting of medical services on the battlefield. It is ironic that our next debate should be on attacks on healthcare in Gaza.

The brutality of the First World War led to the far-sighted, but ultimately ineffective, League of Nations seeking to resolve competition between nations through dialogue and diplomacy. The economic consequences of reparations, the stock market crash of 1929 and the depression, with propaganda lethally harnessed, destabilised the West and helped to pave the way in Germany for Hitler and the Nazis, through genocide, to begin the invasion of neighbouring countries and thence to the Second World War.

It was in the wake of those catastrophic years that we saw the setting-up of the global institutions we have today: the Bretton Woods agreements on the establishment of what became the IMF and the World Bank in 1944; and most importantly, the UN in 1945, whose charter will be 80 years old this July. Among the other plethora of organisations set up following the Second World War, there was the International Court of Justice at the Hague in 1945, agreements on regulating trade which eventually developed into the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization in 1948 and NATO in 1949. Brits played key roles in those—global influence. Of course, established as a project for peace, there was also the Common Market in 1957, which later became the EU. It brought together in remarkable fashion France and Germany in particular in the hope of avoiding future wars in Europe, and now includes states of the former Soviet Union, with candidates such as Ukraine keen to join.

Over the years since the Second World War, the Nuremberg trials were held, then others were held to account for genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans and elsewhere. International law steadily developed, and, after much struggling, the International Criminal Court came into existence in 2002. Whatever the flaws, those were remarkable developments since the catastrophe of the 1930s in Germany and the Second World War: a framework of political, legal and economic rules to manage relations between states, to prevent conflict and to uphold the rights of all people, wherever they lived. Of course, things have not been perfect. We have had wars and even genocides. The veto in the Security Council has stymied action. The complaint is made that these international arrangements particularly favoured the US and the western world. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that such global organisations were set up.

UK Governments have long argued for the international rules-based system. Thus, the last Government in their refreshed integrated review committed the UK to working to

“shape an open and stable international order of well-managed cooperation and competition between sovereign states on the basis of reciprocity, norms of responsible behaviour and respect for the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and international law”.

I expect that the current Government will say the same, but the challenges are immense.

There are autocratic leaders of states. Putin apparently wants to recreate a historic Russia or Soviet Union by dominating neighbours and brutally invading Ukraine. I heard Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov at the Doha Forum defending this in a way that reminded me of domestic abuse: “We had to; we were provoked”—in effect, “They asked for it”. If Trump seeks to end US engagement in Ukraine, how ready are we to work with European partners to ensure that Putin does not benefit from gains in Ukraine or undermine the security of the Baltic states and others? We know that much of the rest of the world does not share our concern about Ukraine. The External Affairs Minister of India put it thus:

“Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems”.


Then there is China. The Chancellor argues that China’s economy is vital for our own. Clearly, China’s slowdown affects the rest of the world. Tariffs from the US on China will affect us all. China leads on manufacturing renewables. It controls much of the world’s critical minerals supply. Industrial espionage is seemingly widely used to maintain its position at the forefront. Its engagement with the global South and its indebtedness to China, plus its human rights record, all make its role in the international order challenging. China’s cultivation of the global South is why we could never win votes at the UN on Hong Kong. Yet, interestingly, it maintains support for the principle of the UN charter, so long as it does not mean so-called internal interference. China has been expansionist in seeking control and influence. We do not know what Trump will do if China invades Taiwan. What will Europe do?

Both Russia and China are able to seize on the global South’s resentment at what seem like western double standards. One of the major areas where double standards seem to hold is the Middle East. It came across very strongly from leaders and others across the region and Africa at the Doha Forum in December that the response by the Israeli Government to the attack of 7 October 2023 is viewed as devastatingly disproportionate. The UN and ICC have said as much, but in return have come under attack. The West has not pushed back, critics say, allowing the Government of Israel to get away with actions others are condemned for.

The growth of populism and nationalism globally, reflected in Trump’s election, seems to show that lies are believed just as easily, maybe more so, than the truth, and that politics is being driven to the extremes. Those seeking power seem adept at using this. Sufficient numbers of people believe them, as we have seen in Latin America, Europe—including the UK—and elsewhere. We see that the likely victor in Canada in its upcoming elections is one who, in an interview before Christmas, expressed a desire to pull out of the UN. The WHO too is under misinformation attack.

Economic pressures, populism, nationalism and the spread of disinformation all played their part in our pulling out of the EU—that project for peace—even though we damaged ourselves economically and in terms of our global influence by doing so. Has withdrawing from the EU neutered the right wing in Britain? Hardly; if anything, it is stronger. The Government need to recognise that and move further and faster in rebuilding ties with the EU, both for growth and to maximise our global influence. Pandering to the right clearly did not work.

It is said that we are now in a multipolar world, but it is striking that even the BRICS countries nevertheless sign up to the principle of the UN charter. It is just that they say the West has double standards in applying this.

There has been a rise in authoritarianism around the world, including in Europe. Terrorism networks are better funded, exploiting concern over certain conflicts to raise funds. Crime is often international, including exploiting the increasing number of migrants on the move in Africa, to Europe and up through central America—a trend that climate change and conflict are exacerbating.

States, as ever, involve themselves for their own interests in the conflicts of others, as we see in the terrible case in Sudan, or risk seeing in Syria. Agreement on the equal rights of all—particularly women, and especially control over their own bodies—is seriously in danger of going backwards. We see that in full force in Afghanistan. Major new challenges, such as climate change and the transformative expansion of artificial intelligence, face us, with global institutions talking about these but not necessarily finding it possible to take action.

Nevertheless, as I have said, it was a huge achievement to have any global rules and institutions, which, since World War II, have helped protect citizens, including those in conflict, bring millions out of poverty and hold leaders to account. We should seek to strengthen them and not walk away.

We are indeed in very challenging times. I look forward to hearing noble Lords’ contributions, and especially the Government’s view, on this very wide-ranging topic. It is just the future of the world—that is all. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions and, as I expected, this debate has been very wide-ranging, drawing on huge expertise. I must respond to the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. I suggest that he reads back over what I actually said about President Trump, including the potential checks on him in the US system. I believe in being precise.

In this debate, it comes across loud and clear that noble Lords support the principles of a rules-based international system, with internationally agreed laws, fairly applied. There has been considerable concern about, first, the potential weakness of that international order and, secondly, the profound challenges we face: in particular, the new challenges of climate change and AI. It was out of appalling catastrophe—genocide, a devastating war and the flattening of cities, including the first use of nuclear weapons—that our current international system was born. We have to hope that we can work together to improve and modernise that system, without needing catastrophe to enable it. There was clear cross-party agreement on the need to do that, which I welcome.

Motion agreed.