THE EVOLUTION OF MINILATERALS: CATALYSTS FOR STRATEGIC COOPERATION IN THE INDO-PACIFIC

The current set of multilaterals, collectively or individually are facing a challenge in achieving four objectives of the largest multilateral institutions, the United Nations viz, "maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid and support sustainable development", owing to rising great power competition, unbridled competition among regional powers and unprecedented challenges in the Global North and the Global South.

- Priyanshi Agrawal

Naim (2009) criticises the world's obsession with multilateralism as he argues that though the need for multilateral collaboration has increased, they have failed in that they missed the deadlines, did not achieve the intended objectives and did not honour the financial commitments. Consequently, countries look towards minilateral institutions, that work with few countries, having shared concerns and mutual interests towards a specific range of issues in the scope of their specialisation in a comparative informal manner, in comparison to bureaucratic, highly formal and consensus and majoritarian decision-making based approach of multilateral institutions. It not only comprises of state as an actor, but it is a multi-stakeholder forum specialising in their respective area, to facilitate inter-governmental and intra-governmental cooperation, hence they tend to be more flexible, adopting innovative approaches to diplomacy to tackle novel issues.

On 06 September 2021, while delivering the "JG Crawford Oration-2021" organised by the Australian National University, Dr S Jaishankar, Minister for External Affairs, Government of India, stated quite unequivocally, "The days of unilateralism are over, bilateralism has its own limits and as the COVID reminded us, multilateralism is simply not working well enough... the resistance to reforming international organizations compel us to look for more practical and immediate solutions"[1], hinting towards the prospects of minilateralism. As Indo Pacific region evolves as the hotbed for geostrategic competition, the Indian diplomacy is manoeuvring minilaterals to navigate the issue-based partnership to tackle the rising contestation in the region, some of which are discussed below.