Multilateralism Under Assault: From Erosion to Regression

Opinion

What makes the present moment particularly dangerous is not dramatic collapse, but gradual normalisation… Multilateralism is not dismantled overnight; it is hollowed out quietly, through attrition and indifference

Multilateralism. Pic – CGTN

By Karma Yogi

In my previous piece, ‘The Erosion of Credibility: A System Under Strain’, I argued that what we are witnessing today is not merely a crisis of leadership, but a deeper weakening of institutional restraint. The consequences of that erosion do not stop at national borders. They radiate outward, unsettling an already fragile international order and accelerating a drift away from rules toward raw power.

From credibility eroded, we now confront rules abandoned.

Multilateralism was never designed to be elegant. It was designed to be necessary. Born out of the ashes of the Second World War, it reflected a hard-earned lesson: when power is left to regulate itself, catastrophe follows. The institutions created in that aftermath were meant not to deny power, but to discipline it; not to suppress national interest, but to contain it within rules that make coexistence possible.

That understanding now appears to be fading.

The Assault on Multilateralism

Across the international landscape, multilateralism is no longer questioned quietly; it is challenged openly. Commitments are treated as optional. Rules are obeyed selectively. Institutions are blamed for failures that stem less from design flaws than from deliberate political neglect. Funding is withheld, mandates are ignored, and consensus is caricatured as weakness.

This is not reform. It is disengagement.

Nowhere is this malaise more visible than in the trading system. The World Trade Organisation, once presented as the anchor of rules-based globalisation, is struggling to deliver meaningful progress. The Doha Development Round, launched in 2001 and intended to conclude within three years, has slipped quietly into oblivion. Conceived to place development at the heart of global trade, it became instead a symbol of paralysis and asymmetry. For developing countries, particularly small economies, Doha’s stagnation signalled that equity could be postponed indefinitely.

For small states, this shift is not theoretical. Multilateralism has never guaranteed fairness, but it has offered voice, visibility, and a measure of protection against raw power. When rules erode, it is not the strong who feel the consequences first. It is the vulnerable.

The Fading Voice of Small States

For Small Island Developing States — and for Mauritius in particular — this regression represents a direct disservice to carefully calibrated national strategies. Multilateral frameworks have enabled SIDS to compensate for scale, defend maritime and environmental interests, and translate moral claims on climate and development into legal and political traction.

For Mauritius, whose diplomacy has long been anchored in international law, ocean governance, peaceful dispute settlement and trade predictability, the weakening of multilateralism strikes at the core of its strategic posture. When trade rules stagnate, climate finance falters, and dispute-settlement mechanisms lose credibility, small states are left navigating an increasingly transactional world with diminished safeguards. A return to power-based bargaining is not merely unfair; it is structurally destabilising for those who rely on law rather than leverage.

Evidence of this regression is not difficult to find. Climate commitments are diluted even as climate impacts intensify. Development institutions are weakened at a time of widening inequality. Humanitarian mechanisms are starved of resources precisely when needs are exploding. The paradox is stark: global challenges grow more urgent as collective capacity shrinks.

The language of power has also hardened. We hear more threats, fewer negotiations. More ultimatums, less diplomacy. International relations are increasingly framed around a simple message: do what I say, not what I do. Rules apply — except when they do not. Obligations bind — except when inconvenient.

This is how might begins to masquerade as right.

What makes the present moment particularly dangerous is not dramatic collapse, but gradual normalisation. Each exception becomes precedent. Each bypass becomes habit. Over time, what once shocked begins to pass unnoticed. Multilateralism is not dismantled overnight; it is hollowed out quietly, through attrition and indifference.

Some will argue that this reflects necessary adjustment in a changing world. Reform is indeed needed. But reform requires engagement, not abandonment. Adaptation demands leadership, not contempt. The failure of Doha was not inevitable; it was the product of sustained unwillingness to reconcile power with responsibility.

International systems do not fail because they are imperfect; they fail because they are neglected. When institutions collapse, they are not replaced by something better. They are replaced by uncertainty, rivalry, and instability.

The erosion of credibility that begins in one capital does not remain contained. It seeps into alliances, weakens norms, and emboldens those who have long resented constraint. The current assault on multilateralism is not accidental; it is contagious.

The uncomfortable question is not whether we are returning to a world where might makes right. It is whether we are doing so incrementally, knowingly, and with remarkably little resistance — until the costs become impossible to ignore.

Multilateralism will not disappear with a bang. If it fails, it will do so with a shrug.

And history will record not that it was defeated, but that it was allowed to wither.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 13 February 2026