Mark Carney and other custodians of the order are right to contemplate its death, but are they really willing to unpick the the entire system?
When precisely did the rules-based order die? Mark Carney’s speech last week at Davos was the first time a western head of state has said outright what has been hanging over political proceedings for some time. The rules-based order is “fading”, in the middle of a “rupture” and there’s no going back. But outside Davos, the G7 and Nato, that is old news – many believed the rules-based order had expired long ago, depending on what moment you take as your watershed.
There were several components to the order, which of course was a layered, complex thing. The first is structural, that is, the agreement between powerful and prosperous countries that there would be certain mechanisms and protocols to maintain political stability, contain the outbreak of wars and promote their mutual economic interests. All the bodies that direct international traffic – the EU, Nato, the UN, the WTO, the IMF – make up that top layer of organisation.
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