There Is a Rules-Based International Order. It’s Just Not Omnipotent.

Butch Bracknell

Global Governance, United States

States don't always comply, but it still shapes their behavior.

Patrick Porter’s essay in The Skeptics, “Sorry Folks. There is No Rules-Based World Order.” (National Interest, August 28, 2016) is a classic strawman argument. Porter asserts that there is no “global set of rules” or “international law above power” requiring states to conduct their affairs within certain prescribed limits. He captures the concern with “legalism” observing the “ambition that formal rules can supplant power politics…[and] that politics itself can be obviated by codes and institutions” is naïve and unrealistic. In overstating the case, Porter ignores that codes, international law and international institutions were never intended to fully supplant state-interested behavior. They were intended, rather, to shape, influence, regulate and augment power politics. Vesting only five nuclear powers with veto power in the Security Council is the perfect, succinct example: the Security Council works to regulate interstate affairs, particularly with regard to the use of force, while acknowledging some state interests matter more than others.