A New World Order – or the formal admission of the Old?
One Caribbean Nation. A New World Order – or the formal admission of the Old? The world has long spoken of a "rulesbased 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 Organisation 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 -...