4 - Europe, America, China: Contemporary Wars and their Implications for World Orders

Summary

The operative paradigm of the current world order reflected in the UN Charter has proved a troubled one in the post-Cold War era. Differences over principles of sovereignty and military intervention have divided the world, especially the three critical strategic actors addressed in this essay: the United States, China and Europe. I characterize their competing notions of sovereignty as ‘new sovereigntism’, ‘old sovereigntism’ and ‘transnationalism’, respectively. These three views, while clearly colliding with each other, are also in many respects mutually constitutive. In the shrinking world addressed in the Introduction and various chapters of this book, the challenge for international relations scholars and international lawyers is to find common cause in very differently constructed worlds, while preserving sufficient levels of local autonomy. Recently, the collision of these world views has been more in evidence than the accommodation. These three views have collided in the UN Security Council, and the UN has become the venue for attempted resolution of this conflict. A late-2004 UN report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, discusses at length the condition of the international regime on the use of force and makes policy suggestions for improvement (see UN 2004). The UN Secretary-General (UNSG) adopted these policy suggestions and recommended action in his March 21 2005 Report to the UN General Assembly (see UN 2005). The question of international intervention offers a fruitful and focused venue for comparing the world views of these three key strategic actors, and for evaluating avenues to mutual accommodation in ways consistent with underlying values of mutual respect, embodied in a deeper cosmopolitan project.