My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have put down their names to speak in this debate. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.
We are a few days before the second inauguration of President Trump. Before he has even taken office, he has spoken of taking over Canada, the Panama Canal and Greenland. We know that what he says does not necessarily translate into what he does, though whether, this time, his chosen advisers will have much of a check on him remains to be seen. We now have autocratic leaders in three of the five permanent UN Security Council members: Russia, China and the US. We will have to see what kind of restraint on Trump can come from American democracy, the media—see even the Washington Post under Bezos—and the apparent separation of powers within the US system. He is the first convicted criminal to take office as President in the United States.
Globally, we see nationalists and populists exploiting economic challenges, post Covid and post the invasion of Ukraine, with climate change potentially destabilising the world. We see the use of misinformation becoming a fine art, not just from Russia and China but many other actors, and now via X and unchecked Meta. AI threatens to turbocharge this. Biden has just spoken of the US becoming an oligarchy, with huge wealth, power and influence concentrated in the hands of very few. Given the US’s position as the world’s largest economy, that has global implications. Huge wealth as possessed by Musk, along with social media influence, seemingly allows him to threaten to overturn our own democracy. Putin is also an oligarch, of course, and Chinese oligarchs have to dance to the tune of their leadership—see Jack Ma.
The institutions put in place particularly after the Second World War and Nazi genocide seem to be under threat. The rules-based order, whatever its limitations, is being shaken up. The world faces the existential threat of climate change but instead of pulling together to address this, we seem to be pulling apart—a far cry, seemingly, from where we were when the Paris Agreement was signed 10 years ago. Trump may indeed pull out of that, despite the huge financial and human costs, not least of what has happened in California. It is a tinderbox world. Are there even foreshadowings of the catastrophes of the mid-20th century as we look at widespread economic challenges, the social instability that usually follows, populists deploying new propaganda tools and the rise of authoritarianism?
It has always struck me that it was remarkable that any global agreements on international law and global institutions should be agreed. However flawed people may feel them to be, it is worth emphasising that point. The very idea of states potentially agreeing to limit what they might do, either within their own countries or in their relations with other countries, is striking. The establishment of the Red Cross in the 19th century reflects this: the First Geneva Convention of 1864, including the non-targeting of medical services on the battlefield. It is ironic that our next debate should be on attacks on healthcare in Gaza.
My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on her excellent speech, which was extremely well argued and well constructed. I did not entirely agree with everything; I think that the role of Iranian-backed terrorism must also be taken into account in the Middle East.
I want to start my speech by quoting from another speech that is now almost 25 years old:
“Globalisation has transformed our economies and our working practices. But globalisation is not just economic. It is also a political and security phenomenon. We live in a world where isolationism has ceased to have a reason to exist. By necessity we have to co-operate with each other across nations … We are all internationalists now, whether we like it or not … We cannot ignore new political ideas in other counties if we want to innovate. We cannot turn our backs on conflicts and the violation of human rights within other countries if we want still to be secure … We are witnessing the beginnings of a new doctrine of international community. By this I mean the explicit recognition that today more than ever before we are mutually dependent, that national interest is to a significant extent governed by international collaboration and that we need a clear and coherent debate as to the direction this doctrine takes us”.
That was Tony Blair, in Chicago in 1999, almost 25 years ago. What a mess we are now in. I still believe that what Blair set out in that speech, which I played a very small part in drafting—very small, I assure noble Lords—is the objective to which our policy should be aimed. However, it has obvious weaknesses given what has happened since. Interestingly, Blair did not mention China at all 25 years ago. On Russia, just to show the change of mood, he said:
“We simply cannot stand back and watch that great nation teeter on the brink of ruin. If it slides into the abyss, it will affect all of us … We must not let our current differences set us on a route towards … mutual hostility and suspicion”.
My Lords, this important debate on the international rules-based system is both timely and necessary. I put on record my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for tabling it and for outlining some of the key challenges that the world faces. As she noted, this system emerged in the aftermath of the human destruction witnessed during the Second World War. It is underpinned by institutions such as the United Nations and the IMF.
Since then, over several decades, we have seen the emergence of other organisations, legal structures and related institutions, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, which seek to hold perpetrators of crimes to account and bring justice for victims and survivors. Other organisations have been established to further economic empowerment, such as the World Trade Organization, which evolved into more focused groupings such as the G7 and G20. Treaties emerged as the nuclear age evolved, and we saw agreements such as the non-proliferation treaty to avert further global wars, which would be devastating if they ever happened. In a post-colonial era, we saw new dynamics emerging, with the ending of the imperial age of dominance and its replacement with what we have termed “partnerships”, underpinned by organisations set in renewal, such as the Commonwealth.
Yet, as 2025 begins, geopolitical tensions dominate. Wars rage in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Structural inadequacies and evolving dynamics mean that we are truly living through uncertain and challenging times.
As noble Lords are fully aware, for seven years it was my huge honour to represent our country around the world, including as the Minister of State charged with leading on our relationships with multilateral organisations, including the United Nations and the Commonwealth. I truly saw our capabilities and networks at work. I experienced high points: the strength of UK equities through diplomacy; the massive repatriation of more than 20,000 Brits during the Covid pandemic; development support in conflict zones; defence and security partnerships; the focus on new trading agreements; and success in international elections through investment in our relations with other nations.
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, for her comprehensive introduction to this important debate. I think many of us will be emphasising the many points that she made.
That there is a threat to the system of political, legal and economic rules which have governed international relations since the end of World War II is in no doubt. A new feudal order is emerging. The question becomes: should this, if not be accepted, at least remain unchallenged or should there be new international norms and treaties taking into account current realities such as environmental conditions, international commitments, and principles of national sovereignty and self-determination? If the latter, what might these new norms look like and who would draft them? Perhaps it is preferable to go for a middle way and focus on reforms to the existing order. The task is to salvage an international order that is now gravely weakened.
While international institutions must be revitalised, the rules-based system has for the last almost 80 years underpinned the principles of sovereignty, democracy and human rights. More recently, international rules have resulted in trade liberalisation through economic governance, the advent of a number of new peacekeeping missions, the International Criminal Court, as we have heard, and the insistence on women’s and LGBT rights. But there remains suspicion and departure from these accepted norms because they are perceived as imposing a system invented by liberal democracies for the benefit of western diplomatic, military and economic agendas.
These growing views of western manipulation have given rise to a gradual but quickening departure from these rules. Egregious examples abound. They include the distaste for multilateralism, with Trump—I nearly said “chump”—insisting on the unimpeded exercise of American power in pursuit of defined national interests; China’s preference for bilateral diplomatic transactions, together with a newfound assertiveness in the UN, as well as its unbending approach where its interests are threatened, an example of which is its refusal to abide by the court of arbitration decision concerning disputes with the Philippines over the South China Sea; and, of course, Russia’s subversion of international rules.
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on getting this subject before your Lordships yet again. As she said at the end of her speech, absolutely correctly, this is just a small matter of the future of the world, and it is certainly the future of liberal democracy and capitalism, or the socialised versions of capitalism that we need to be working to develop and preserve. This is not the first time we have looked at this subject; we have returned to it many times in your Lordships’ House over the years, and rightly so. There are two reports in particular that I think are worth scrolling back to as we try to breathe some momentum into the whole subject.
The first was the December 2017 report from the International Relations and Defence Select Committee, UK Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order. Going back further, the second was the March 2014 ad hoc Select Committee report, Persuasion and Power in the Modern World. I had the honour and privilege of chairing both committees and I think both reports had some influence in encouraging the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as it was then called, to start taking the whole issue of the soft and smart power dimensions of our world interests and influence much more seriously, and, I hope, led up to and connected with yesterday’s soft power initiative taken by the present Government at Lancaster House. I am glad that the idea is alive, but it needs to be connected with the other great issues we are discussing today.
The more recent report went much deeper still into what was happening in the world, which is widely disputed, and why. That “why” is the most important aspect of all because, unless we really understand the real and root causes of this now very troubled world, where we have the highest and most dangerous number of conflicts since the Second World War and where trust is undermining democracy on all sides, will never be effective in our focused efforts to halt the downward spiral of democracy going on at the present time. It is a sad contrast to our high hopes at the end of the Soviet Union.
I apologise for interrupting. I just point out that, apart from the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, every speaker so far has gone well over the seven-minute limit. If we carry on like this, it will eat into the wind-up speeches, so could we observe the seven-minute limit, please?
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Northover not just on securing this debate but on the width and vision expressed in her remarks.
The news from the Middle East gives some relief to Israel and respite to Gaza, but, after conflict, there must be accountability if a rules-based international order is to survive. As a boy, I saw the scenes from Belsen and I felt relief when the war ended. Vital to the durability of peace was Nuremberg, the tribunal which brought the leaders responsible for the world war and the Holocaust to account.
The Draft Code of Offences against Peace and the Security of Mankind was drawn up under the auspices of the United Nations. Decades later, that code was applied in separate international tribunals for Rwanda, for the former Yugoslavia and for Sierra Leone. American judges, among others, shaped the jurisprudence of international criminal law. American lawyers served as senior prosecutors and defence counsel.
In 1998, it was a delegation from the United States which played a key role in negotiating the Rome statute and its rules, establishing the International Criminal Court. Some 122 countries, including the United Kingdom, voted for the Rome treaty and seven, including the United States, China and Israel, voted against. In 2000, President Clinton, despite that contrary vote, signed the Rome treaty for the United States and said that
“we wish to remain engaged in making the ICC an instrument of impartial and effective justice in the years to come”.
He did not, however, submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification. Jesse Helms, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proclaimed it “dead in the water”, and George W Bush, on coming into office, agreed.
Last November, warrants were issued by the ICC for the arrest of the Israeli Prime Minister and his former Defence Minister, together with three now-deceased leaders of Hamas. There must be other Hamas leaders in the frame for their unprovoked slaughter in October 2023. Hamas puts the figure of deaths in Gaza at over 46,000 in 14 months; the Lancet last week reported 64,260 deaths in nine months. To put those figures in perspective, the number of US military killed in the Korean War over a period of three years was 36,516. The impressive Vietnam War memorial in Washington carries 58,320 names from eight years of US involvement in that conflict. We can see how that compares with the deaths in Gaza.
Today’s debate, introduced so eloquently and powerfully by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, is certainly timely and is perhaps overdue. One would need to be blind not to recognise that, in recent years, the rules-based international order has taken some heavy hits and has failed to make much serious progress towards the goals subscribed to by all members of the United Nations—whether they are reversing and mitigating climate change, increasing freer and fairer trade, reducing world poverty, combating global pandemics or many of the other pressing challenges.
In Ukraine and the Middle East we see wars raging—perhaps to be paused this Sunday in Gaza, I hope—that defy the rules of the UN charter itself and of international humanitarian law. The prospects for regress rather than progress in the period immediately ahead are all too evident. The hard fact is that this order, so laboriously constructed in the decades following the Second World War, is being deconstructed before our eyes.
We need to recognise that the proclaimed champions of this order, among whom successive British Governments have ranked themselves, bear some of the responsibility for that lamentable state of affairs. The sharp decline in our overseas aid spending from the still existent legal commitment to 0.7% of gross national income, which is now fast disappearing in the rearview mirror; our weak performance on trade issues since we unwisely decided to leave the EU; our failure to head off serious outbreaks of war in Europe, the Middle East and Africa—all have contributed to the failure to meet these challenges, which are to our own future security and stability every bit as much as they are to others’. Too often, warm words subscribed to at global gatherings have not been followed up by effective action.
Moreover, we have failed to recognise that the watchword we call a rules-based international order, and the detailed application of its component parts, have not been meaningfully communicated to our electorates. In many western countries, people are turning inwards and backing policies that are likely to make matters worse if the consequences of trade protectionism and the appeasement of the enemies of global order during the 1930s are anything to go by.
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, on sticking to the seven-minute speaking limit; he is the first person to have done so. This is a very broad, wide-ranging and complex subject and I will concentrate on its economic, international trade and financial aspects—or some of them, at any rate—and try to answer the question posed by my noble friend Lord Howell as to why.
As with the other aspects of the international rules-based order, the principles and institutional structures were set up by the United States, with some assistance from us, in the immediate post-war years. Therein lies one of the problems: the world has changed out of all recognition since then, and this has led to efforts by China and others to adjust the system to reflect more closely their rise in the world. That, in turn, has led to practices that challenge the systems and bring them under stress. But the real nub of the problem is the fact that the international order no longer reflects very closely the international realities, and until that is put right, we will continue to have major problems, with people breaking the rules and seeking to undermine them.
The main challenge, as has already been made clear by a number of speakers, now comes from the United States. That is not just because of the rise of Trump; it is the culmination of a number of factors. For most of its existence, the rules-based international economic order worked not just in the overall interests of the United States but, broadly speaking, to the benefit of most sections of its society. The great majority of people shared in the fruits of an expanding economy, enhanced wealth and widening opportunities. Of course, that was also true of other industrialised countries and countries that were not industrialised at the beginning but found ways of taking advantage of the opportunities that were open to them.
But in recent years, the system has increasingly worked in another direction. Those with the right education and skills, in the right part of the country, have continued to do very well—indeed, in some cases, exceptionally so—but as new industries have arisen and prospered, others have gone into decline, often terminally. Those who were dependent on these industries, such as steel, motor manufacturing and textiles, have seen their livelihoods disappear and with it their status in society. Wealth inequalities have widened enormously and social tensions have increased. These factors have fuelled the rise of the MAGA movement in the United States and the rise of Donald Trump as its spokesman. He reflects the frustrations, disappointments and anxieties of a very large segment of American society.
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The brutality of the First World War led to the far-sighted, but ultimately ineffective, League of Nations seeking to resolve competition between nations through dialogue and diplomacy. The economic consequences of reparations, the stock market crash of 1929 and the depression, with propaganda lethally harnessed, destabilised the West and helped to pave the way in Germany for Hitler and the Nazis, through genocide, to begin the invasion of neighbouring countries and thence to the Second World War.
It was in the wake of those catastrophic years that we saw the setting-up of the global institutions we have today: the Bretton Woods agreements on the establishment of what became the IMF and the World Bank in 1944; and most importantly, the UN in 1945, whose charter will be 80 years old this July. Among the other plethora of organisations set up following the Second World War, there was the International Court of Justice at the Hague in 1945, agreements on regulating trade which eventually developed into the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization in 1948 and NATO in 1949. Brits played key roles in those—global influence. Of course, established as a project for peace, there was also the Common Market in 1957, which later became the EU. It brought together in remarkable fashion France and Germany in particular in the hope of avoiding future wars in Europe, and now includes states of the former Soviet Union, with candidates such as Ukraine keen to join.
Over the years since the Second World War, the Nuremberg trials were held, then others were held to account for genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans and elsewhere. International law steadily developed, and, after much struggling, the International Criminal Court came into existence in 2002. Whatever the flaws, those were remarkable developments since the catastrophe of the 1930s in Germany and the Second World War: a framework of political, legal and economic rules to manage relations between states, to prevent conflict and to uphold the rights of all people, wherever they lived. Of course, things have not been perfect. We have had wars and even genocides. The veto in the Security Council has stymied action. The complaint is made that these international arrangements particularly favoured the US and the western world. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that such global organisations were set up.
UK Governments have long argued for the international rules-based system. Thus, the last Government in their refreshed integrated review committed the UK to working to
“shape an open and stable international order of well-managed cooperation and competition between sovereign states on the basis of reciprocity, norms of responsible behaviour and respect for the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and international law”.
I expect that the current Government will say the same, but the challenges are immense.
There are autocratic leaders of states. Putin apparently wants to recreate a historic Russia or Soviet Union by dominating neighbours and brutally invading Ukraine. I heard Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov at the Doha Forum defending this in a way that reminded me of domestic abuse: “We had to; we were provoked”—in effect, “They asked for it”. If Trump seeks to end US engagement in Ukraine, how ready are we to work with European partners to ensure that Putin does not benefit from gains in Ukraine or undermine the security of the Baltic states and others? We know that much of the rest of the world does not share our concern about Ukraine. The External Affairs Minister of India put it thus:
“Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems”.
Then there is China. The Chancellor argues that China’s economy is vital for our own. Clearly, China’s slowdown affects the rest of the world. Tariffs from the US on China will affect us all. China leads on manufacturing renewables. It controls much of the world’s critical minerals supply. Industrial espionage is seemingly widely used to maintain its position at the forefront. Its engagement with the global South and its indebtedness to China, plus its human rights record, all make its role in the international order challenging. China’s cultivation of the global South is why we could never win votes at the UN on Hong Kong. Yet, interestingly, it maintains support for the principle of the UN charter, so long as it does not mean so-called internal interference. China has been expansionist in seeking control and influence. We do not know what Trump will do if China invades Taiwan. What will Europe do?
Both Russia and China are able to seize on the global South’s resentment at what seem like western double standards. One of the major areas where double standards seem to hold is the Middle East. It came across very strongly from leaders and others across the region and Africa at the Doha Forum in December that the response by the Israeli Government to the attack of 7 October 2023 is viewed as devastatingly disproportionate. The UN and ICC have said as much, but in return have come under attack. The West has not pushed back, critics say, allowing the Government of Israel to get away with actions others are condemned for.
The growth of populism and nationalism globally, reflected in Trump’s election, seems to show that lies are believed just as easily, maybe more so, than the truth, and that politics is being driven to the extremes. Those seeking power seem adept at using this. Sufficient numbers of people believe them, as we have seen in Latin America, Europe—including the UK—and elsewhere. We see that the likely victor in Canada in its upcoming elections is one who, in an interview before Christmas, expressed a desire to pull out of the UN. The WHO too is under misinformation attack.
Economic pressures, populism, nationalism and the spread of disinformation all played their part in our pulling out of the EU—that project for peace—even though we damaged ourselves economically and in terms of our global influence by doing so. Has withdrawing from the EU neutered the right wing in Britain? Hardly; if anything, it is stronger. The Government need to recognise that and move further and faster in rebuilding ties with the EU, both for growth and to maximise our global influence. Pandering to the right clearly did not work.
It is said that we are now in a multipolar world, but it is striking that even the BRICS countries nevertheless sign up to the principle of the UN charter. It is just that they say the West has double standards in applying this.
There has been a rise in authoritarianism around the world, including in Europe. Terrorism networks are better funded, exploiting concern over certain conflicts to raise funds. Crime is often international, including exploiting the increasing number of migrants on the move in Africa, to Europe and up through central America—a trend that climate change and conflict are exacerbating.
States, as ever, involve themselves for their own interests in the conflicts of others, as we see in the terrible case in Sudan, or risk seeing in Syria. Agreement on the equal rights of all—particularly women, and especially control over their own bodies—is seriously in danger of going backwards. We see that in full force in Afghanistan. Major new challenges, such as climate change and the transformative expansion of artificial intelligence, face us, with global institutions talking about these but not necessarily finding it possible to take action.
Nevertheless, as I have said, it was a huge achievement to have any global rules and institutions, which, since World War II, have helped protect citizens, including those in conflict, bring millions out of poverty and hold leaders to account. We should seek to strengthen them and not walk away.
We are indeed in very challenging times. I look forward to hearing noble Lords’ contributions, and especially the Government’s view, on this very wide-ranging topic. It is just the future of the world—that is all. I beg to move.
Tony was an optimist about Russia and Putin, which has proved to be bitterly disappointing.
We thought then of the United States as a hegemonic power and that we Europeans should be its constant loyal friends and partners. Now we have Trump to reckon with and we no longer live, as the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said, in a unipolar world.
Britain is in a much weaker position to exercise any global influence. We are no longer at the centre of the councils of the European Union. Our economic strength, which is the basis of foreign policy strength, has been gravely weakened and, as a result, we halved our overseas aid budget—which, at 0.7%, was one of Labour’s proudest achievements previously—and we are struggling to meet our defence target.
If we want to be influential, we have first to prioritise economic growth here and have a successful economy, and to establish a new, more positive relationship with the EU—that is fundamental. Our top priority has to be to deal with the United States, not to moralise towards Trump but to make sure that we keep the Americans in Europe. That is fundamental to our security. To do that, we will have to become a leader in European rearmament, which will be necessary in the next decade.
A lot of numbers games are played on defence spending. Trump is said to want us to spend 5% of GDP. We are presently spending 2.3% with an objective of 2.5%. Interestingly, from a historical perspective, at the time of Suez we were spending 7% and at the time of our withdrawal east of Suez in the late 1960s we were spending more than 4% of GDP, so we are at a very low level. The point that I see as fundamental is that we will have to have European rearmament—I know that it is a word that people do not like—if we are to convince the Americans to back NATO and be a source of security in Europe against a revanchist Russia. We have to press for a European rearmament that is collectively planned and delivered, probably with the creation of a single market in defence, because that is the only way it will be affordable. If every member state does its own thing, we will waste a lot of money, as we presently do, on defence.
The defence budget has to go up, and I fear to more than 2.5%. That will involve difficult decisions. Some of it can be done through innovative financial means, as we have seen with the latest Ukraine package, but it also raises profound questions for tax and spend and public spending in the five to 10 years ahead. We have to establish a national consensus that we need to spend more on defence, to keep NATO as fundamental to our security, and to be willing somehow, collectively, with all-party agreement, to pay for it.
I also witnessed the most tragic and testing of circumstances, such as the ill-judged and rushed NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which saw the Taliban ascend to power. I worked around the clock with Members of your Lordships’ House and of the other place simply to get people out. The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, will remember that time well. Then, there was Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine and, more recently, the shocking terror events in Israel on 7 October and the devastating war in Gaza. Humanity is suffering.
We have seen the erosion of multilateralism. I experienced the UN at first hand. We passed resolution upon resolution to try to avert conflict and, where conflict began, to stop it. Yet, tragically, we have seen these collective arrangements fail to bring about that valuable commodity that we hold so dear—peace. Major powers have opted for unilateral or bilateral approaches, undermining the very system that they claim to support. We have seen withdrawals from agreements, such as the Paris climate change agreement; the rise of regionalism; and organisations emerge based on common economies, such as ASEAN, the African Union and, indeed, the EU. In the modern age, new powers have emerged, such as India and, within the Middle East, the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These have emerged not just as economic powers but as brokers for peace.
US-China competition continues, with disputes about trade, technology and military influence. Of course, Russia’s annexation of Crimea was an early warning sign, unheeded not by the UK but by many others. We now see this manifesting itself in Ukraine.
We have seen issues concerning climate change, cyberwars and digital governance, and global health crises—although under the then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, we led on multilateral action through the COVAX Facility, established by the World Health Organization.
We have also seen the challenges of extremism and terrorism by non-state actors such as Daesh and al-Qaeda. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, just referred to them. In Syria, sadly and tragically, despite its efforts, it was not the UN that delivered change and got rid of Bashar Assad, but HTS—a proscribed terror group.
Multinational corporations—companies such as X, Google, Amazon and Facebook—wield growing significance, often bypassing national regulations. They are a growing influence over the next generation.
The lack of reform of institutions remains a challenge for us all. The UN Security Council and the IMF face criticism for the geopolitical realities that now exist in the world. We see economic inequalities, global trade imbalances, and the rise of nationalism and populism, with the rejection of global norms and populist leaders in various countries rejecting the very international standards and treaties they are signed up to.
There are challenges to human rights, which I have always said was the most challenging but, equally, the most rewarding of the wide-ranging briefs I held in the Foreign Office. Even institutions such as the Human Rights Council are not being used for what they were set up to do; instead, they deliver blocks and see power-broking that ensures national issues and priorities emerge. Of course, military conflicts and security issues continue.
How do we move forward? Addressing these challenges requires a renewed commitment to multilateralism while recognising the desperate need for reform. It must happen through the recruitment to these institutions of talent that reflects experience and the strength of personal relationships. With this must come the willingness of all nations to balance the importance of national sovereignty with collective action.
Human rights and justice initiatives can be established. I pay great tribute to my predecessor, my noble friend Lord Hague, on the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, which I was pleased to take forward, marshal and lead for seven years. We held the conference in 2022. Today, Ukraine takes over the chair and First Lady Zelenska will chair a debate. Can the Minister update us on who is attending from the UK?
We led with the previous Trump Administration on establishing the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. I hope that will go from strength to strength during the second Trump presidency. On women’s rights, we led on important issues such as WPS and women mediators’ networks. I would welcome an update on Women Mediators across the Commonwealth, which the last Government established. There is also the question of addressing terrorism and extremism. We need international collaboration to combat terrorism and ensure the security of nations.
The UK’s commitment to upholding the international rules-based system, even amid rising challenges, by prioritising what we are best at—diplomacy, standing up for justice and inclusive development—must remain at the heart of our foreign policy approach. It is for us and the Government to keep this flame alive.
We have the continuing fragmentation of the system brought about by new centres of world power, increasing populist and nationalist pressures, new and empowered centres of political dissent, international crime and terror networks, and the rise of non-state actors, among other 21st-century developments. This democratic backsliding and the accompanying rise in authoritarianism threatens international peace and stability by undermining the democratic political process—for example, by using technology supply chains as a means of repression.
Last September, the United Nations adopted a resolution, a“pact for the future”, which called for a recommitment to international co-operation based on respect for international law and the strengthening of multilateral institutions. The actions pledged included sustainable development, peace and security, digital co-operation, and a focus on youth and future generations. Subsequent suggestions concerned amplifying these actions—for example, strengthening the International Criminal Court, establishing global conduct for outer space, further embracing soft power, trade policies that better protect human rights, and a recalibration of the “responsibility to protect” principle. At the same time, it was acknowledged that this was no easy task, assuming, as these actions do, a common standardised definition that would enjoy legitimacy, reward investment in co-operation, reconcile clashing interests and deter conflict.
Another major theme was the necessity of engaging with a far wider range of constituencies, from citizens and civil society to the private sector and even local political actors. Above all, there has been a consensus among reformers that preventive mechanisms are key. The UN enjoins states to facilitate more sustainable and robust frameworks for prevention, again working with local knowledge and skills, especially with NGOs.
This is a task that has scale and complexity. The responsibility to protect is a failing norm, codified by all UN member states in 2005 but too often seen by some states as intervention by the backdoor. The three main pillars of R2P are: the primary responsibility of the state to guarantee the safety and security of citizens; the responsibility of the international community to support states to implement this norm; and the responsibility of the international community to ensure protection of civilians where the state has failed to do so and when the state targets its own citizens.
It is not unfair to question the relevance of this principle in the face of ever-growing challenges. What strategies might work? Should R2P be recalibrated, defining more closely the second pillar to reflect the increasingly multifaceted nature of governance? Should the UN promote capacity building as its main plank, developing joint response mechanisms with regional organisations in collaboration with civil society organisations? Surely broadening the base of actors to provide evidence would help to embed R2P. It is encouraging to note that ASEAN is beginning to develop and integrate the R2P curriculum into its training courses for police and justice agencies. We cannot allow this crucial principle to die. Everyone with an interest in peace and security should be working to make it more agile, widespread and effective.
Finally, recent UK Foreign Secretaries have given support to a modernised rules-based international order that benefits everyone and holds to account those who infringe it. It has been pointed out that defending the rules-based order will require multi-pronged strategies. I hope that the UK Government will be closely involved in helping to achieve this.
Not all that many experts and commentators seem to quite grasp what is happening. Of the ones who certainly have—there are some very authoritative and excellent voices—several gave evidence to our 2018 enquiry. The best one of all was a very senior and good public servant of the nation, Sir Mark Lyall Grant, former National Security Adviser and our man at the United Nations, who held all sorts of other high offices as well. Certainly, speaking personally, he always gave me superb support when I visited the United Nations in New York as a Minister.
He is rightly quoted in the Library briefing that has been supplied on this debate—although unfortunately the briefing gets his name wrong. It is not just “Lyall”, it is Sir Mark Lyall Grant. He said:
“The most visible features”
of the world we are now living in
“are new centres of world power and influence”.
A vast shift has taken place in world power. He added that there was increasing populism, as has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, and others, and
“nationalist pressures, far-reaching networks of crime and terror, new and empowered networks of political dissent and assertions of identity”
of tribes, cells, groups, communities, localities and mini-nations,
“the rise of non-state actors and movements, the disruption, and in some cases”
total
“destruction of established industries, the distortion and corruption of news and views on a worldwide scale”,
which the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, rightly emphasised and which is of course growing by the hour, particularly with AI, which can bring great good to our lives but can also do great damage, and is doing so already,
“and mass movements of migrants and refugees”,
which we do not really know what to do about. Sir Mark went on in our report that it was very clear
“that the influence of the ongoing digital revolution and the accompanying global connectivity on an unprecedented scale”
affects
“every sphere of modern existence”
and
“plays a central role in this turbulent scene”
that we now face.
I think Sir Mark has really got it. He really shows how deep we must go in seeking to contain the onward march of technology, which is disrupting human relations on a global scale and threatening not only international stability but the safety and security of every family, man, woman, and child, and every nation’s integrity and unity, including ours.
I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, again, because he has been such a good Commonwealth Minister over the years. He asked where we should start to rebuild. Obviously, right now we would like to solve the horrors of Gaza and Ukraine. We may even get some good news tonight on Gaza—although I fear it will only be temporary, whatever comes. They are the worst running sores.
They are not necessarily the deepest sores, because the real problems may lie in the Pacific and around China, but all this has yet to unfold. We certainly have to build on new collective international organisations. There are those who say, “Start again”, but I do not think you can do that; you have to build on the United Nations. We must take the Security Council issue really seriously day by day. The trouble is, of course, that it has been wrecked by Russia and China sitting in the middle of it like cuckoos in the nest. We have to move, we have to go for new alliances, we have to think of our neighbours in Europe. If the European Union is not going to move in the directions we want, we have to think about new European structures, perhaps through the European Political Community. Now that the spine of the old EU has broken, with France and Germany no longer co-operating, clearly, new structures are required and we should take a lead there.
Finally, we have to re-energise the Commonwealth, again as the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, remarked. It is a safe harbour for the neo non-aligned nations of the world which do not want to be under either American or Chinese hegemony. Oddly enough, mention of the Commonwealth still seems to be very difficult for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office today to come to terms with. It is in fact the network of the future that is going to help more than possibly any other.
I divide the world between those who have grasped the enormity of what is now happening—the biggest shift since the Gutenberg printing press, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution—and those who have not grasped it and remain glued like errant insects to the surface of events. Events now will not wait for interminable reviews, commissions and councils. Whether in politics, business and investment or social development, events, technology and innovation will pass them all by, and are already doing so.
Can Hamas truly justify its savage attacks? Were the retaliatory deaths inflicted by Israel in Gaza proportionate self-defence? Who will decide? I know from experience, and respect, the Israeli system of military justice. I have no reason to conclude that Israel’s Military Advocate General is either unwilling or unable to conduct the necessary investigations and criminal proceedings, if warranted, into battlefield crimes by IDF forces. But Mr Netanyahu, as Prime Minister, is not subject to the military system of justice in Israel.
In his opening in the Nuremberg trials in 1947, the American Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, the lead prosecutor, said in a blazing speech:
“The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched.”
The International Criminal Court has the benefit of the procedures and safeguards set out in its charter, with the support of a vast majority of the world’s nations. It is a fair and impartial court, not under-resourced for its output. It is an important part of the architecture of the world order.
However, a Bill passed in the United States House of Representatives just last week instructs the US President to freeze property assets and deny visas to any foreigners who materially or financially contribute to the ICC’s efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute a protected person. Protected persons are defined as all current and former military and government officials of the United States—and allies that have not consented to the court’s jurisdiction, such as Israel. Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said:
“America is passing this law because a kangaroo court is seeking to arrest the prime minister of our great ally.”
He accused the ICC of anti-Semitism in prosecuting Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, in an equivalence with leaders of Hamas. He further said:
“Do not get in the way of America or our allies trying to bring our people home. You will be given no quarter, and again, you will certainly not be welcome on American soil.”
Similarly, Senator John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota and the Majority Leader, referred on the Floor of the Senate to, “the ICC’s rogue actions.”
To categorise the ICC as a kangaroo court and its proceedings as “rogue actions” undermines the rule of law. It casts doubt upon the validity of Nuremberg, the very mechanism that brought justice, if not peace, to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and a durable and lasting settlement in Europe. Will the Minister explicitly tell us what the reaction of His Majesty’s Government is to this pernicious Bill in the House of Representatives and what representations they will make to the US Government about it?
Some of this continued deterioration is likely to come upon us pretty fast, perhaps as early as the end of this month when a new Trump presidency begins in the US. It does not require much clairvoyance to predict that the US will again withdraw from its commitment to the Paris climate change accords. What will our response be? Will we simply wring our hands or collaborate with others to ensure that the next COP meeting, in Belém in Brazil, will keep alive and act more effectively towards the build-up of renewable energy resources and the reduction of carbon emissions from fossil fuels?
On world trade, how will we react if new tariffs are imposed unilaterally and trade wars break out? Will we be drawn into tit-for-tat retaliation, the damaging consequences of which, not only economically but in security policy terms, were clear for all to see in the 1930s and 1940s? Or will we work collectively with like-minded countries to sustain open, tariff-free trade and the equitable resolution of trade disputes—in particular to ensure that those benefits reach developing countries?
We must also face the grim reality that there will be other global health pandemics. Negotiations for a new WHO-based pandemic convention stalled last May and are continuing into 2025. Will we work wholeheartedly for intensified systems that will ensure earlier warnings of outbreaks? Will we back arrangements for the equitable distribution of vaccines as they are developed without leaving poorer countries behind? Will we do that whether or not the universal acceptance of those new rules can be achieved?
These are just three fields where urgent action is already needed and is likely to be required in the immediate future. The Prime Minister is clearly right to say that they are not susceptible to clear-cut binary choices, but hard and, in some cases, costly choices will have to be made if our backing for a rules-based international order is to be more than mere empty words; if that order is to be protected from falling into decay and disintegration and is to be developed and strengthened for the future; and if we are not to find ourselves in a world where our own security is to be diminished and put at risk.
I have painted a rather bleak picture. That is not to deny or belittle the good news of the Gaza ceasefire, but it is to relativise it. I hope the Minister, in replying, will find it in herself to offer us some reassurance on how the Government will point the way ahead.
In addition, we have had two further problems: one, of course, is the resentment caused by immigration, and the other is the resentment caused by the strong sense in many parts of the United States that a number of their closest allies, who benefited considerably from trading with America, have freeloaded in defence. I am afraid that we, like other Europeans, stand guilty under that head.
Trump has been elected in large part to put all this right, from the point of view of his supporters. We do not know what exactly he will do, nor how he will prioritise among the incompatibilities of a number of his objectives, but we do know that we have arrived at a point where the leader of the country that was the principal founder of the international rules-based order is going to approach this problem on the basis of transactional, unilateral negotiations without regard to the rule books or to the views of multilateral institutions that might shackle or inhibit American power. This is a novel and very worrying situation, and one where the Government will need great wisdom and support if they are to carry the British ship of state through these turbulent waters.