Rules-based order at risk: Return of power politics

IN the aftermath of the Second World War, the international community sought to build a system that would prevent the recurrence of global catastrophe.

- By P.M. Amza

The destruction of two world wars had shown that unregulated power politics would only lead to instability, devastation, and endless cycles of revenge. Out of that realisation was born the idea of a rules-based order—an architecture grounded in treaties, legal obligations, and multilateral institutions, where disputes would be resolved by law rather than force, and where smaller nations could coexist with great powers on an equal footing.

For decades, this framework offered a fragile but functional balance. Yet today, that vision is under siege. Nationalist and supremacy-driven ideologies, embraced by both established and emerging powers, are eroding the very principles those treaties enshrined. Instead of serving as guardrails, treaties are increasingly treated as negotiable conveniences, honoured selectively or ignored entirely when they clash with domestic politics or strategic ambitions.

The twentieth century produced an unprecedented framework for international cooperation. From the UN Charter to the WTO, from arms control treaties to humanitarian law, these agreements sought to level the playing field and curb the arbitrary exercise of power.? They were never designed to erase global disparities but to manage them, creating predictability and reducing the chance that disputes would spiral into open conflict.

The promise of treaties

At the heart of the postwar order lay five pillars of international law. The UN Charter of 1945 prohibited wars of aggression, committing states to peaceful dispute resolution and collective security mechanisms. It was meant to replace the pre-1945 world, where conquest could still yield sovereignty, with a system of law-backed restraint.