Recent international events led by the Trump administration, from the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to threats regarding Greenland, and the withdrawal or suspension from key United Nations (UN) programs, have prompted a familiar yet urgent question: are we witnessing the collapse of the international rules-based order, or is it its negative re-shaping? The answer points more convincingly toward a negative re-shaping rather than total collapse.
To understand why these developments matter, one must return to the foundations of the international rules-based order itself. The contemporary international system is anchored in the UN Charter, which codified core principles emerging from the devastation of the Second World War. Among these are the prohibition of the use of force, respect for territorial sovereignty and integrity, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and an evolving commitment to human rights protections. Together, these norms formed not merely a legal framework but a political bargain: power would be constrained by rules, even if imperfectly applied.
It is precisely this bargain that is now being tested. In this light, one must begin by examining the implications of unilateral actions by a powerful state, directed at a sitting head of state such as Nicolás Maduro. When such actions are pursued outside established multilateral legal mechanisms, they threaten to weaken foundational norms of state sovereignty and non-intervention. By bypassing the rules-based system, powerful states risk eroding trust in the neutrality, consistency, and universal application of the international legal order.
In a similar vein, assertions of strategic interest over territories such as Greenland, even when articulated through the language of negotiation or security necessity, still challenge the core principle of territorial integrity. Such rhetoric promotes the notion that sovereignty may be contingent on strategic relevance rather than grounded in established legal rights. This itself signals the breakdown of the rules-based order. From the power dynamics perspective, it also points to a gradual reconfiguration, in which established rules are applied with growing flexibility by actors possessing substantial power.
The weakening of trust in multilateralism is further intensified by the United States’ selective withdrawal from UN programs and institutions. Although states possess the sovereign authority to exit treaties and international organizations, repeated disengagement by a state with significant influence and power conveys a wider message, which is that rules may be set aside when they conflict with national priorities. While such actions do not dismantle the UN architecture outright, they nevertheless gradually erode its substance, hence fostering the rise of alternative coalitions and institutional frameworks.
Central to these institutional challenges is the veto authority held by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Originally conceived as a pragmatic accommodation of great-power realities, the veto has evolved into a structural weakness. Its frequent deployment or even the threat thereof has repeatedly obstructed collective action in response to major conflicts and humanitarian emergencies, reinforcing the perception that geopolitical competition overrides the application of international law.
Far from ensuring stability, the veto has come to represent entrenched legal asymmetry, diminishing both the credibility and functional effectiveness of the Security Council. Moreover, to date, no African state or the African Union as a collective has veto power. In this sense, Africa’s exclusion from permanent representation in the UN Security Council underscores long-standing disparities in global governance and decision-making authority.
Against this backdrop, new geopolitical alignments are taking shape. The expansion and increasing assertiveness of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) for instance, signals growing discontent with governance systems perceived as dominated by Western influence. Such a grouping of states does not repudiate international law, but rather, it aims to recalibrate authority over norm creation and contest what is clearly the uneven application of the international rules-based order.
Another illustration is the emergence of the Board of Peace (BoP), a U.S.-led initiative established under the Trump administration and referenced in UN Security Council Resolution 2803 in relation to the Gaza peace process. While formally framed as a mechanism to support reconstruction and peacekeeping, the BoP has been widely criticized for departing from established multilateral norms, both in its structure and mode of operation.
However, the BoP’s limited international uptake, reported financial entry requirements, and concentration of decision-making authority have raised concerns that it functions less as a complementary institution and more as a parallel mechanism that circumvents traditional collective governance frameworks. Rather than reinforcing the authority of the UN, the BoP exemplifies a growing tendency to reinterpret or sidestep existing rules and institutions when they prove inconvenient, further testing the credibility, inclusiveness, and neutrality of the international rules-based order and reinforcing the broader pattern of its negative re-shaping rather than outright collapse.
Crucially, one must be cautious not to assume the collapse of the international rules-based order even in light of its dissatisfaction. This is not the case. The UN Charter remains in force, international courts continue to function, and states still routinely invoke legal norms to justify their actions. Yet the pattern is unmistakable: rules are increasingly contested, reinterpreted, and unevenly applied. What we are witnessing is, therefore, a negative re-shaping.
This negative re-shaping lies in the gradual normalization of exceptions to established rules. Preserving the system will require renewed commitment, not to abstract ideals, but to institutional reform, restraint in the use of unilateral power, and genuine inclusion of emerging actors in global governance.
What we are witnessing today is not the end of the rules-based order, but its most consequential stress test since 1945. Whether it emerges renewed or irreparably weakened will depend less on rhetoric and more on the willingness of states, especially the most powerful, to be bound by the very rules they claim to defend.
