The world headed for a reckoning? The signs are all there
By Professor Dato Dr Ahmad Ibrahim
The headlines are grim. Climate pledges unfulfilled, trust between nations declining, multilateral institutions stumble from one crisis to the next, and international law is violated with impunity. The world is on a path of profound transition—where the old order is dying, and the new one has not yet been born. Whether that transition ends in catastrophe or in a more resilient, global system depends on whether we stop mistaking symptoms for destiny.
Distrust among nations has increased. The war in Ukraine has shattered the assumption that borders in Europe would not be redrawn by force. The post-1945 multilateral system was never as virtuous as its architects hoped. What we are witnessing today is the unravelling of a particular post-Cold War moment—one in which the West assumed its values were universal and its dominance permanent. That moment is over. The rise of a multipolar world was inevitable. Can we build new forms of cooperation that reflect this reality, or will we retreat into rival blocs that view climate, trade, and security as zero-sum games?
The “respect for multilateral institutions has declined,” as they were designed in the mid-20th century. But institutions are not monuments; they either adapt or become irrelevant. The Paris Agreement on climate change, flawed as it is, represents a different model—one based on nationally determined contributions rather than top-down mandates. The recent pandemic accord negotiations, though difficult, show that nations still see value in binding themselves to shared rules. The decline of one model of multilateralism should not be confused with the death of multilateralism itself. What we are seeing is a painful, often ugly, process of renegotiation: who speaks, who decides, and who enforces.
The charge that there is “no respect for international law” is both true and misleading. It is true that powerful nations routinely violate it when their interests are at stake. It is misleading because international law was never a set of binding constraints on sovereign states in the way domestic law constrains individuals. It was always a language of legitimation, a framework for accountability, and a slow-moving tool for shaping norms. Today, that language is still being used. Ukraine has brought cases against Russia at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. Climate activists are using human rights law to force governments to act. The very fact that violations are being named and contested is evidence that the framework still holds normative power.
The danger is that a growing number of states no longer see international law as impartially applied. When the powerful exempt themselves while demanding compliance from the weak, the entire system loses legitimacy. The erosion we are witnessing is not of law itself, but of the belief that the law applies equally to all. Of all the crises, climate change is the one where the stakes are existential. And here, the gap between rhetoric and action is most stark. Fossil fuel subsidies remain high. Major emitters are expanding production. The latest IPCC reports make clear that we are not on track to meet the Paris goals.
The picture is not linear though. Renewable energy deployment is accelerating. The Inflation Reduction Act in the United States, Europe’s Green Deal, and China’s dominance in solar manufacturing mean that the global energy transition, while too slow, is now economically irreversible in many sectors. The question is no longer whether the transition happens, but whether it happens in time—and whether it happens justly, without leaving entire regions and communities behind.
We are headed toward greater fragmentation, giving way to something more plural. That pluralism brings risks: trade wars, security dilemmas, coordination failures on global public goods. But it also brings an opportunity to build a system that is more representative, more flexible, and more honest about the limits of what international institutions can achieve. The path we take will depend on whether we can do three things: first, separate the inevitable from the unacceptable; second, start treating multilateralism as a tool to be rebuilt; and third, recognize that the alternative to a perfect rules-based order is not chaos, but a hard bargaining among powers—and that bargaining must include not just states, but the people who will inherit the consequences.
The world is not on an inevitable path to destruction. It is on a path shaped by decisions: who leads, what they prioritize, and whether they can imagine a future worth building. The institutions are limping. The law is tested. The climate clock is ticking. But none of this is new for human history. What is new is the scale of interconnectedness—and with it, the scale of both the peril and the possibility.
The author is affiliated with the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy Studies at UCSI University and is an Adjunct Professor at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya. He can be reached at ahmadibrahim@ucsiuniversity.edu.my.