Who Gets to Build the Next World Order?

The gravest violations against civilians in war go unpunished while the United Nations Security Council remains deadlocked. Foreign assistance is rescinded while developing countries devote more to interest payments on their debt than to healthcare and education. Sovereignty has been shattered after the United States kidnapped the former Venezuelan president and then, with Israel, embarked on a war against Iran while in the middle of nonproliferation negotiations.

The norms and institutions that once bound our multilateral world order are unraveling. Undoubtedly, this order was long an imperiled aspiration. An order built on collective action and organized around international laws has struggled against the double standards of great powers, who have stripped multilateralism’s institutions of their influence, shaped the rules to their advantage, and follow them only when it suits.

The model of multilateralism that is now in crisis was tied to a unipolar moment. It had much to admire, most importantly its insistence on our shared humanity, but it was a model imbued with a neoliberal hue—premised on minimal states and scornful of national sovereignty, attuned to the demands of austerity and footloose capital but deaf to collective calls for the common good. Most recently, this model of multilateralism has failed to stand up to Washington’s might-makes-right approach to foreign policy, or to adapt to the rise of emergent powers and their agendas.

Yet a different model of multilateralism may be emerging as new constellations of states, civil society, and social movements come together around demands for shared prosperity and sovereignty. We see it in the pushback against an international order based on force: standing ovations for speeches at Davos that call out the coercion of great powers; worldwide mobilizations against the genocide in Gaza; and movements clamoring for an end to extractive relations and the rebalancing of power to the Global South.

This is a multilateralism built on the foundation of strong states, often by states that have fought fiercely for their self-determination and that now insist international cooperation be grounded in national and regional priorities rather than the interests of the powerful. In the face of militarism, it is a multilateralism of diplomacy, contingent not on business deals but on mutual respect and restraint. It is a more equitable and inclusive multilateralism championed by new coalitions of middle powers and countries of the Global South, exercising their leadership in regional security, international financial reform, and rights protection, and advancing local models of peace, public safety, and reconstruction shaped by communities.

Our work on democracy worldwide has repeatedly shown that an open society is impossible if it cannot ensure shared prosperity. The same holds for the order between states. A multilateralism premised on minimal states has left governments with little room to respond to people’s needs; when states are able to deliver at home, they have more of a voice abroad. We seek to shift multilateral systems from instruments of fiscal discipline and constraints on public policy to enablers of industrial and climate transition, ensuring that development finance serves rather than undermines economic transformation. Amid the scramble for subsoil riches that will power green energy futures across Africa, we are supporting countries to set the terms for their own critical minerals and unlock revenues from them.

Local priorities are now influencing the global agenda. As foreign assistance wanes, a succession of Global South countries leading the G20 has centered people’s concrete demands: debt burdens, global inequality, and climate urgency. This has led to landmark shifts: the United Nations’ Tax Convention, efforts in Brazil and France to tax the super-rich, and the creation of an International Panel on Inequality. As the United States sets up this year’s G20 to fail by excluding South Africa and stripping out topics like debt, inequality, and climate, our partners are ensuring the priorities that matter to people do not fall off the agenda, while looking ahead to the 2028 G20 in South Korea, where AI governance and digital sovereignty will be at the top.

Rights protection follows a similar path. We are seeing Gambia and South Africa bring genocide cases to the International Court of Justice against Myanmar and Israel. New coalitions of Global South countries, such as the Hague Group, are refusing to accept a lawless world by holding powerful states to account. As the Trump administration seeks to systematically destroy—brick by brick—the International Criminal Court, we are challenging the constitutionality of the sanctions against its judges, prosecutors, and the human rights organizations that cooperate with them.

Yet the unraveling of the rules-based world order has meant that the international human rights system and traditional human rights advocacy approaches have become far less useful. Approaches closer to the ground are instead rising in influence. Our work supports regional protection systems such as Latin America and the Caribbean’s Escazú Agreement—the first treaty anywhere to include provisions protecting environmental defenders—as well as efforts toward a similar binding agreement in Africa. As states increasingly invoke public safety to justify heavy-handed security measures, with these tactics and narratives traveling transnationally, our partners are highlighting rights-respecting models of public safety that put people at the center.

The United Nations is not irrelevant, but diplomacy also needs different defenders when the Security Council cannot act. Consider who is now at the table. With Washington unable to contain the consequences of its escalation against Iran, negotiations have been mediated by Oman, Qatar, and Pakistan, with regional alliances increasingly exercising sovereignty over their own security. On the ground, our approach to peace and post-conflict recovery is rooted in the agency of those most affected—centering voices of women and youth, supporting regionally led mediation, promoting economies that restore and repair, and pursuing justice for victims.

Open Society’s aspiration is a multilateralism grounded in sovereignty and rooted in rights, restraint, dignity, and diplomacy—one that, like the countries it rests on, responds to people’s needs. Yet aspirations will not make it inevitable. A more equitable and inclusive multilateralism needs to be built, and we have never shied away from the intractable. We are deeply engaged with our partners on building a multilateral future that reflects our open society values and the realities of a global order in which power is shifting in different and, hopefully, more democratic directions. It is a future that must answer the needs of our shared humanity and the planet—and empower the states that will bring those aspirations to life.