In the history of the international system, there is a very important break up, that we have now to consider, it’s the invention of multilateralism. This invention was progressive, and the word of multilateralism appeared in 1945 while the multilateralism process was initiated at the end of the 19th century with the first international conferences and the first international organizations. But the main moment was 1919 with the Versailles peace when was created the League of Nations, and after, after the world war two, the United Nations. Multilateralism is a transformation of international relations, international relations were first made of bilateral relations, that’s to say one state with another, multilateralism means one state with all the others, or a part of the others, or at least two others, that’s to say, to overcome this face-to-face relationship, which was the main feature of the traditional international relations. This transformation had very important implications, very important consequences for the very meaning of international relations. I will distinguish four important implications. The first one is the idea of international community. If international relations are no more face to face relations, it suggests that now international arena is made of a potential international community, I said potential because it would be excessive, abusive, to speak of an international community, which is not organized, and even now, especially now, but the idea of multilateralism results in the perspective of a created international community. That’s to say international arena is no more these fighting gladiators of Hobbes, international community is a kind of attempt to overcome this permanent fight among gladiators, among nation states. The second implication will be the idea of collective security. In the traditional vision of international relations, security is made of a fragile balance of power, that’s to say individual strategies of states, which are adapting to each other. Now, with the multilateralism, we perceive the idea of a possible collective security regime, that’s to say a vision of security, which would be made of norms defined from above, that’s to say by the international community as a constraint to all the members of this community. The third implication would be that international law is more important, more decisive than sovereignty, if there is a collective security, that’s to say that there is a collective norm, a collective law which is above the nation, the national sovereignty of the state, that’s to say multilateralism is necessarily challenging the traditional vision of sovereignty. And the fourth implication would be, through multilateralism, defining sectors of international regimes, that’s to say a kind of international order as it is said which is organized around norms adopted by nation states. The financial sector with the creation of the Bretton Wood institutions and particularly the IMF, and also development with the creation of the World Bank, but also around the UN agencies, an international regime of health around the WHO – World Health Organization, a regime of education around UNESCO, a regime of food and alimentation through FAO, and a regime of labor and of social law, international social law around the ILO – the International Labor Organization. That’s to say these international regimes are opening the way to the intervention into the domestic affairs of all the other actors, all the other states, that’s why I said that this multilateralism is paving the way to overcoming the national sovereignty, and that’s why also multilateralism is inspiring so many reluctances among those states, which are strongly committed to the strict vision of national sovereignty. The most important part of this lecture is to consider the problems, which are created, which are triggered by this new multilateralism. With multilateralism, we have really new international relations, these new international relations imply important challenges to the traditional order, to the traditional conception of international relations. Are we able to solve these dilemmas? I will distinguish four dilemmas, four problems which are emerging from multilateralism and this multilateral development of the world. The first one is the problem of inclusion, that’s to say there was always a kind of reluctance to include all the states inside these multilateral institutions. After the First World War, the defeated nations were not admitted in the League of Nations, Germany for instance was not admitted and was only admitted in 1926, that’s to say 7 years after the creation of the League of Nations. But after the Second World War, Germany, Italy, Japan, that’s to say all the defeated nations of the Second World War were not admitted, that’s to say this multilateral world is oddly an including world. But what about very important states in the international arena like China , the Beijing China, which was admitted instead of Taiwan only in 1971, Vietnam was admitted only in 1977, that’s to say after the Vietnam War, and during the Vietnam War, which was one of the main wars of the post 1945 world, Vietnam was not member of the United Nations. Koreas were admitted only in 1991. And now, what about Palestine, which is not member of the United Nations? What about Taiwan, which is no more member of the United Nations? And what about these non-recognized states which are however active administrations in the international order, like Kosovo, like Somaliland, like Puntland all these non-recognized states and others are not members of the United Nations? And however, inside these parts of the world, there is a real risk of international tensions and international conflicts, that means that UN is not able to moderate the main conflicts in the world, because some of the major protagonists are not included as members of the United Nations. That is a first challenge. The second challenge would be: is multilateralism only an inter-state multilateralism? Can we consider now, in the third millennium, at the beginning of the 21st century, that only states are actors of the international arena? Non-state actors must be included in negotiation, in the deliberation, in the global process, and if they are not there is a strong risk of a limited capacity of the United Nations to solve the problems. That’s why the great secretary general Kofi Annan considered that first of all the new multilateralism must be a social multilateralism including the main non-state actors, that’s why for instance NGOs are more and more accredited to ECOSOC that’s to say the Social Council of the United Nations. This council must be enhanced as it is so weak by now and it must actively include all these about 3 000 NGOs which are currently accredited to the ECOSOC. But Kofi Annan launched also the Global compact program by which he invited the main multinational firms to participate in a multilateral program, by which they declare to be committed to international values, and in counter part, they will receive a label given by multilateralism. This inclusion of new actors is probably one of the main challenges we have to meet in the next years and the next decades. The third challenge would be issue, of course the main issue is global peace. But peace must be considered not only as non war, peace must be considered as human security; that’s to say people free from fear as it was correctly pointed out by the UNDP, the United Nations Development Program, in which UNDP considered seven human securities, that’s to say: Food security, don’t forget that we have every three hours 2800 people killed by starvation, but also health security, environmental security, economic security, cultural security, individual security and political security. That’s to say to enlarge the multilateral agenda, that’s to say considering that the main social issues are the most important international issues in the present agenda of the world. And the fourth and the last challenge is the ability of multilateralism to contain power. Is multilateralism a club of powers or a real representation of the international community? The problem is that the main issues are handled by the Security Council, and the Security Council is constituted partly by five permanent members, and these permanent members that’s to say United States, Russia, China, France and United Kingdom have a veto power. That’s to say they can block when they cast their veto a decision which is not conformed to their own wish, that’s to say it’s impossible to enforce the powers and that’s also to say that the main international issues are really managed by these five powers. We are now in a world, which is globalized, and in a globalized world, local actors are more and more important, more and more decisive, and so, Security Council is facing two aporias. The first is: how to open this Security Council to new powers, that’s to say rising powers Brazil, India, South Africa, Japan, Germany and so on? And the second question is: is it possible in our present world to enforce decisions taken only by the P5 and which are regarding local actors who are absent in the deliberation? This is not possible, that’s why we are now in a very strange situation in which power decides not to intervene, it’s the case in Palestine when Israel violate the resolutions of the Security Council, or to intervene when their interest is involved in an international issue, with results which are not really convincing. So, it’s quite clear that now with the new international conflicts we have to revisit the capacity of conflict solving of multilateral institutions, these institutions will survive if we are able to really deal with them.
